While Star Trek: Enterprise certainly has its share of detractors, many fans enjoy it as a prequel to the original Star Trek series, where Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) heads up a crew that travels in Enterprise NX-01, the first Starfleet vessel to achieve warp 5, nearly 100 years before the NCC-1701 takes flight.
Over a 4-year run, the show featured some great guest stars who gave life to some memorable antagonists, so let’s take a look at a few that left a definite impact on the series and the franchise itself.
1. Dean Stockwell as Grat in “Detained”
In the episode “Detained” (S01E18), Hollywood veteran Dean Stockwell plays Colonel Grat, the head of a Suliban internment camp who imprisons Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and the ship’s navigator, Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery). Grat and his people are at war with the Suliban, and Grat sees himself as a man who is trying to save lives by putting any Suliban in the camps, as it protects them.
GenX viewers were probably elated to see Stockwell and Bakula together on their TV screens again, as their chemistry in Quantum Leap (1989-1994) is what made that series so special. Stockwell played Grat with a sneaking kind of animosity that makes people in positions of power so frightening once they reveal themselves to be xenophobic, greedy, or bigoted.
2. Jeffery Combs as Thy’lek Shran
Perhaps this writer is biased because their favorite movie is Reanimator, but most can’t deny Jeffery Combs’ contributions to Star Trek. On Enterprise, his role as Andorian Imperial Guard commander, Thy’lek Shran, is one viewers still talk about today.
While Shran wasn’t a villain in the classic sense, his initial xenophobia and mistrust of anyone who wasn’t Andorian made life difficult for Captain Archer. Combs’ portrayal of Shran, a mixture of bitterness, honor, intelligence, and changeability, had the writers bring him back repeatedly. His chemistry with Scott Bakula is also a delight to watch (or maybe Bakula just ups everyone’s acting game, but again, call me biased!)
3. Brian Thompson as Valdore
The Romulans have always provided the Star Trek franchise with some of its most compelling storylines. From enemies to uncertain allies and brief, uneasy times of shared goals, they are richly layered, and few played that as well as Brian Thompson with his portrayal of Romulan Admiral Valdore.
Thompson played Valdore in 3 episodes of Enterprise: “Babel One” (S04E12), “United” (S04E13), and “The Aenar” (S04E14). Valdore’s arc as a former decorated soldier who was expelled from the Romulan senate because he openly opposed the ongoing conquest of other worlds and instead tried to destabilize positive relations between species with the use of the telepathic Android race, the Aenar, and drone ships, which the Enterprise crew and then the Aenar ultimately destroyed.
Thompson plays Valdore with a mix of Romulan-level confidence, intelligence, and deviousness. This, along with an added layer of impressive strategic ability, makes his 3-episode arc one of the most compelling of the series.
Any Star Trek series needs a solid cast to give it stability and longevity, as it cannot survive on guest stars alone, but these 3 actors sure made their Enterprise episodes pop!