2001: A New Space Odyssey

Image credit: The Enterprise: UPN

All About

Enterprise

Get the latest photos, news, and more

It's actually funny... on purpose. Did you hear the one about the rabbi, the Tribble, and the Klingon? No, you didn't. That's because ''Trek'' has traditionally boasted about as many yuks as the Weather Channel. ''We're trying to make the show funnier out of the gate,'' says Braga. ''The way we approached humor in the past, we would occasionally do the funny episode. But there was always kind of a visceral feeling that the show was not inherently humorous. It was very serious, a somewhat brooding kind of thing. We wanted to create a show that would have organic humor every single week, humor that didn't feel forced.'' To that end, keep an eye on Trip, a sarcastic dude from the Florida Keys who's a gifted engineer but a high-level fish-out-of-water when it comes to interspecies relations. ''I don't think I would have been cast on 'Voyager,''' notes Trinneer. ''I was talking to somebody at the beginning of this series and they said, 'How's it going?' And I said, 'I think the tone's a little different, because if it's not, I'm going to suck.''' Chuckles Berman: ''My favorite line -- the shuttle craft lands, and as the dog runs out of the craft into the woods, Trip looks up and goes, 'Where no dog has gone before.' And the dog is running right for a tree.'' Granted, it's not quite ''Seinfeld'' -- nor should it try to be -- but, c'mon, if you can't laugh at deep-space dog wee-wee, what can you laugh at?

This is an excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's Oct. 19, 2001, cover story. To read this story in its entirety, see EW's issue No. 621.