I had the chance to speak with Dominic Keating back before Dragon Con about his role on Star Trek: Enterprise, particularly Season 2, which is out on Blu-ray now.
Keating played Malcolm Reed across four seasons of Enterprise and was a great part of the show. For a straight man, his character made me laugh a lot. Revisiting the show itself, I am really enjoying it more than I realized. People were far too hard on this piece of Star Trek and the politics in its broadcasting killed something that could have been great.
But, without further ado, here’s my interview with Dominic Keating:
Big Shiny Robot!: What stands out for you looking back at season 2, either behind the scenes or episodes that might have stuck out?
Dominc Keating: I was just talking about Minefield in the top of Season 2. I enjoyed that episode. I hadn’t gotten to work with Scott Bakula much in Season 1, so it was a real treat to spend that time with him. Bar wearing that awful EV Suit, which hadn’t been doctored at all by that point. Scott threw his back out during the shooting of that episode, and it was then that he had his personal trainer come in and rework the ergonomics of that suit. The helmet weighed 17 pounds that was only supported by your head.
The backpack was like 45-50 pounds, just supported by the shoulders that would dig in and wrench your back. You couldn’t do more than 20 minutes in it, but I did a whole episode pretending to be weightless. It was hardcore. Scott put his back out and was limping along for a week and into the next episode before they changed it. Whenever I would read future scripts and I would see it say ‘And they casually stepped out in their EV Suits’, my heart would drop to my stomach. I remember complaining to Scott that I wanted to be put in a well tailored suit and into a legal show.
BSR!: So, you were a fan of the original Star Trek series, and you kept up with Next Gen because of Patrick Stewart?
DK: A little bit. When I came to America in ’94, I ended up living on this odd little collection of deadbeat life and hippies in a commune in Malibu at Cross Creak run by this old hippie named Victor. There was a big satellite dish in the middle of a field where we all lived in these outhouses, and he said if you get a tv, I’ll hook you up. What he failed to mention was that you had to watch what he was walking, and he only watched XXX porn from Canada or Next Gen.
So you would come home and be “OH MY GOD!” before realizing it was Patrick Stewart’s bald head. So I started watching it then, and I had more than a casual interest since it was a British actor leading an American TV show.
BSR!: What’s it like going to conventions? You’re going to Dragon Con, right?
DK: Yes, I am going to Dragon Con, and this will be my second time. I did it once around 4 years ago. I had a hoot. It’s gotten even busier than last time from what I understand. It’s crazy, man!
BSR!: What was the first convention you went to for Enterprise?
DK: It was in Phoenix, Arizona, and I remember being utterly nervous. The whole standing on stage for an hour as yourself had me in knots. I pulled up to the hotel in the middle of summer, and there in the crosswalk outside the convention was this pack of Klingons in their leathers, plastic foreheads and hair down their backs just melting in the desert heat. I slid down in the back of the limo and thought ‘Oh God, there’s my peeps’.
So I’m getting to the moment right before I go on stage, and I tell my handler I had to go to the bathroom. We were in the back of the kitchen — you’re always standing in the back of a smelly kitchen waiting to go on stage — and he said there’s nowhere here; you can only use the bathrooms for the conventions. So we beelined across the convention hall to the bathrooms, and we push open the door and there are two Klingons standing right there, and when they say Malcom Reed walk in, their eyes popped out of their heads like bungie cords. So I nip around the corner to use the restroom, and I can hear them whispering, presumably about me, because it was in sodding Klingon! I finished up and came back and it was like magic, they were gone! And to this day, it’s like, did I imagine that or was it real?
BSR!: Looking back at Enterprise, where do you see that show and Malcom Reed in the legacy of Star Trek?
DK: The further we go from when we were on the air, I’m noticing that more and more people are finding the show through Netflix or on DVD. Each year I go to the conventions, I get more people telling me they didn’t really watch the show when it was on, but they have just watched it all now, and they think it’s the best one. Not to blow the trumpet too hard, but I think people are finally coming around to the fact it was a pretty good show. There were some clunky episodes, but overall, it had a great cast, good chemistry, a great look and I think we cemented out place in the lore of it pretty handsomely. It’s a shame; we had at least two more years in us, and we would have done it if there had been a network for us.
Unfortunately, the politics were deeper than that and UPN was struggling horribly and the rest of history. They were dismantling that and building something new, and there was no place for us on the CW. Very proud of the 98 episodes we did; it was a great ride. My time in Los Angeles is well colored by having had that show, and the experience living here would be very different without it.
BSR!: So almost moreso personally?
DK: Definitely; it was a crowning moment without a doubt. Really happy days. As an actor, you long for the ability to go to work on such a permanent level. And I was old enough to know to pinch myself every day as I drove between the gates of Paramount, “Don’t fuck this up kid; don’t miss a beat of it because this too shall pass” and it has. When I decided to be an actor 30 years ago, back in London, I resigned myself to living in rented homes and driving crappy cars the rest of my life. And you know what? It’s been a whole lot better than that, and I never stop pinching myself in that regard. I never had to do anything else since the day I said I wanted to be an actor. There were some table waiting and bar tending moments up until I got my first gig, but since then, I haven’t’ had to do anything else, and I remind myself of that, humbly.
BSR!: What’s your favorite episode of Enterprise?
DK: Shuttle Pod One at the end of Season 1. It came completely out of left field that we got that, and I think it stood up as a great dramatic show. And the other one which I think was our best episode was Cogenitor, and I thought that was a very interesting subject matter and just good TV. It stands up as a great hour of drama on an episodic show, never mind that it comes from a sci fi background.