By Steve Krutzler / 14:22, 7 June 2004 / Enterprise

STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE actor Dominic Keating speaks this morning in a new interview with BBC Cult about his role as 'Malcolm Reed' and the future of his show, which airs its season finale "Zero Hour" in the United Kingdom for the first time this evening.

"It's a good finale - my girlfriend said she saw it in America a week and a half ago, and said it was absolutely terrific," Keating says. "I think it rounds off the season really cleverly, with a lot of action and adventure and suspense, and a lovely twist at the end that just makes you scratch your head and wonder at what you've just seen."

Keating says he and the rest of the cast grew nervous during this previous season, wondering whether STAR TREK was going to be abruptly cancelled.

"There was a time about five, six months ago when we were all on set with one another, and we were looking around at one another going, 'Damn, this might be it, on our watch'," he says. "So there was a period of time when I was rather worried. I signed for seven years, and they kept telling me it was going to be for seven years and it looked like it was going to be three and that was it. I was getting my head around the fact that I wasn't going to have all that secure work for the next three years, and the house I'd bought, and thinking, "Ooh, I wonder if I can afford that mortgage", so it was quite a relief when we did get the pick-up."

The actor says that the relationship between UPN's new management (since the merger with CBS) and Paramount Television has degraded, leaving ENTERPRISE in something of a quagmire. The BBC asked him whether he thinks the show will fulfill its original seven-year hopes.

"I would say no, unfortunately," Keating responds. "There's two arguments here. One is that Paramount has made a lot of money out of the show for the last seventeen years, and the back lot at Paramount is basically run on the back of STAR TREK. So without it there's a big hole there, a massive hole... The new management has been put in place at UPN to try and eke out a new demographic and bolster up failing audiences, and we don't fit into what they imagine. But in the same bracket we happen to be their number one drama. So it's a double-edged sword. As much as they'd love to get rid of us, they can't."

The actor further likens ENTERPRISE to a "poor cousin that came to dinner at the moment" when describing the show's current relationship with UPN brass. Keating also becomes the latest to suggest that ENTERPRISE co-creator and executive producer Brannon Braga may take a less involved role in the show's fourth season, with Manny Coto perhaps taking over as show runner.

"He's done it for about fifteen years and I think he's tired," Keating says. "It bodes quite well. [Manny Coto]'s got a good eye for it, and he's certainly a good writer, and with Brannon overseeing the whole thing, I think we could come up with something quite interesting."

For the complete interview, check out this page.

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