John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox) had some down time between shooting scenes on the last day of production for the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise, so he came to the offices of STARTREK.COM and gave us this candid and funny interview. In the interview John talks about Star Trek conventions, his book club and the uncertain future of Enterprise (on that day it was not clear whether the series was going to be renewed for a fourth season.) As always John was irreverent and hilarious and as usual we had to cut out some of the funniest bits so as not to offend. Be that as it may, what remains is entertaining and enlightening and we hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed recording it.

(On that day John also recorded the gag video that some of you might have seen on April 1st here on STARTREK.COM. For those of you who missed it we have included an "alternate take" at the end of part two.)

Transcript of the Interview with John Billingsley for STARTREK.COM

Q: What do you think about the third season?
The individual episodes stand out. I think [the writers] were very wise to recognize that this third year needed to be a little more action-packed and a little sexier. Of course, I knew as soon as that became the direction, there was going to be less for me to do. Why I'm not the go to stud-muffin on the show, I do not know, but nonetheless I am not. This has been actually the easiest year for me. I've had a lot of episodes in a row in [when I came in to] wave my scanner around, diagnosis the illness and then spilt. [Then I] go home and read good novels until the paycheck arrives. [It has] certainly been my cushiest year. Individual episodes of course stand out. This season, it was fun to get to run around the ship naked.

Q: How does season three reflect current events?
I think it was probably wise of the producers not [to] underscore the parallels between the storyline they created this year and our current political events. I think there are certainly some resonances and those resonances have been interesting. The Palestinian/Israeli issue was touched upon. How much one surrenders one's sense of personal ethics under the gun [came into question]. Certainly, you saw Captain Archer toy with torching people [and] killing innocent bystanders. If they had gone out on a farther limb and made some of those storylines even more central it might have overly politicized the show.  I think it was wise of them to recognize there was a parallel and not push it too hard. That doesn't necessarily say that it's my taste. My own inclination would be to say, "Yeah, let's run with it.? But there is a certain sensitivity to the network, to the audience [and] to what people are looking for in Star Trek. I think the show has always been going back to its original version; one, to deal in metaphor and [two,] not to make the analogies too overt. The possible exception [being] a two-face Frank Gorshin, which was perhaps, was somewhat more heavy handed.

Q: What has been your favorite episode so far?
My favorite episode, probably of all of them that we've done in three years, is actually still "Dear Doctor.? [It] is the one that revealed most to me about who this guy is, what his sensibility is. It's funny as it became more action adventure oriented. I certainly understand that they didn't really have much of an opportunity to explore the three dimensionality of the subsidiary characters. I felt this year has been more about trying to bring Connor, T'Pol and the Captain into more provocative situations and there hasn't been quite as much for the rest of us to do. Which has been fine, the checks don't bounce.  But it [has] been less packed for me as an actor.

Q: Are you worried about whether the show will be renewed?
I mean, I don't know. Everybody has a different attitude towards it. My own sense of it [being] I'm an actor. The very essence of what we do is embrace unpredictability. The anomaly is that I actually had a job for three years. I mean that's the weirdest thing in the world. The idea that I don't know whether I have a job tomorrow is simply a reversion to the mean. That's been my life. So it's potentially a transformative day. I don't know if we're going to come back and I'll miss everybody very much. But in a way it sort of feels like a return home. Back to the days when you never knew what was going to happen next. Back to the days [that] whenever the phone rang you'd have a small heart attack. "Oh my God it's a job, oh please be a job,? and it'd never be a job. It'd be a creditor or some angry girl, "You never call me.? Fortunately, it's not that anymore.

Q: What was unusual about the last day of shooting?
Normally, if we don't get to a scene it gets slopped over. Another week will pass [and] we do it as a second unit scene. Meaning, that a whole different group of folks come in and we have two crews working simultaneously. It's done as a pick-up scene. Because this is the last day, there's no sort of "catch all? place. Everything has to be done today. So, we're shooting almost ten pages. Normally, we shoot anywhere between five and a half [to] seven and a quarter. It is probably going to be an eighteen- maybe even twenty-hour day. I'll have about ten to twelve hours off between scene one and scene two. This is not so bad because I can take my lenses out put my glasses back on. It takes about forty-five minutes for my eyes to readjust (because the prescriptions are different). I'll read all day and work on scripts. Normally (because I have to keep my lenses in if I'm here all day and I'm shooting scenes throughout the day) there are real limitations on what I can do. I can read a magazine article for about ten minutes and then my eyes begin to hurt. [This] is a drag because what I've always loved about being on set is you can just read a book. I'll watch a movie and see if I can catch some of the girls in a state of undress, you know that kind of thing. Surprisingly, [that] doesn't happen very often. Linda, I think, actually knows I'm coming and undresses specifically for me. But, that takes all the sport out of it so I don't try that so much anymore.

Q: Do you have any conventions coming up?
I do have a convention coming up in Tulsa, in June. That should be fun. I've never been to Tulsa. What do you do in Tulsa? I don't know what you do in Tulsa. I don't think I have anything else on the horizon. I actually love to do the conventions. I love to meet everybody. [They have all] been a total sweetheart [and I'm] serious, no kidding aside. Of all the things I like about being on the show, the thing I like the most is getting to go do the conventions and meeting the fans. The fans are great. I've had nothing but fun with them. And people go on and on about [the silliness of] STARTREK fans. Generally speaking, they seem like a big party crowd to me. Who wouldn't like to get dressed up and go drink beer all night? [It all] makes perfect sense to me. There was a convention is San Francisco. My wife gave me a bit of a hard time about this. These two sort of nubile adolescents jumped up in the audience. Dominic and I were onstage together and [they] said they would like to come up and say hi to Dominic. Dominic said, "sure, come on up.? They jumped up onstage and said their names were Strawberry and Licorish. They proceeded to lick him from head to toe while I just stood there. I'm like, "What am I, chopped liver??  After the convention was over, I was walking down the street. Bonnie [his wife] was walking towards me (she had decided to go shopping). These two girls came bouncing down the street, jumped on me and proceeded to lick me from head to toe. There's Bonnie standing with her arms akimbo, "And who are these girls??

"Strawberry and Licorish this is Bonnie. And they were ... we were just like, they were trying to lick me. Oh, these wacky Star Trek fans.?

For a while I was banned from going to conventions after that. But eventually Bonnie rescinded that ban and now I'm back again.

Q: Have you received any strange gifts at conventions?
I was presented in Australia ... and I won't make fun of this because my wife actually quite loved this. I was presented with one of the largest teddy bears I have ever seen. It was pink, the giant pink teddy bear. My wife insisted that we were going to take it home with us; that was not open to discussion. So, if the people who gave me that teddy bear, are watching [and] are in any way upset, believe me that teddy bear has a good home. It may not be because of me, but it has a good home. Bonnie actually carried that teddy bear with her on the plane. We had apparently a lot of turbulence and Bonnie felt that by talking to the teddy bear it got her through. So now this teddy bear has totemic qualities and it consequently has to live in our house, on a shelf where everybody can see it. That was kind of a bummer.
No one ever throws their underpants on stage. That's probably [what you really want] to know. That's never happened to me. Or at least [I] never [got] a pair I thought was particularly attractive and wanted to pick up.

Q: How do they apply your make-up?
The first thing they do is shave me, because I, invariably in the morning, don't shave very properly. Then they'll glue on the forehead piece, the ear pieces and the chin piece. That takes about forty minutes. Then they'll make sure that it's secured, which is a variety of different applications. That's another twenty minutes. Then they'll actually spray paint and hand paint [on] all these [pointing to forehead, ear, and chin] pieces. Then they'll do my hands and they'll put the striations on. That's about an hour and twenty minutes total. Then I go to hair [to] have this little hair piece glued on. Then I go back to make-up [and] they put [on the] eyelashes and eyebrows. Then they sort of stipple the whole thing with colors [I'm not sure if you can see all the speckles on me]. That's the last thing that's done. Then I'm powdered, puffed and set free.

Q: What are you doing on hiatus?
My wife and I, Bonita Friedericy, are going off to Bethel, Maine [to] do a movie called "12 Dogs for Christmas." [It] is about a small orphan child in a small town during the Depression, who attempts to rescind a law [which] stipulates that "no dogs are allowed in this town.? I play the evil dogcatcher and my wife plays my girlfriend, who is the strumpet hairdresser. She's not really a strumpet, I just like to say strumpet. She's got a heart of gold underneath her crusty exterior. She's initially the villainess but she comes to her senses and gives me a good thrashing. I, needless to say, meet a horrible end. It has elements of "The Great Race," that classic Jack Lemmon movie. This will be my chance to be sort of a mustache twirler. We get back from that [and] Bonnie does another movie. Then we both go into rehearsals for a couple of one-person plays that we're doing at a theater company in Los Angeles called the Zephyr. I'm doing a piece called "Bitter Bierce," which is about the life of Ambrose Bierce. Bonnie is doing a play called "Miss Margarita's Way" about a fascistic elementary school teacher. They're both very political pieces. [They're both] very dark [and] very satiric. So, come one come all. [It's running from] mid-July through the end of August.

Q: What can you tell us about the last episode?
[You have to watch the video for the answer to this one. Suffice it to say, it's a visual joke. Our apologies to those who cannot watch the video.]