While Connor Trinneer looks back fondly on his time as Charles “Trip” Tucker on Star Trek: Enterprise, but getting the job was a difficult point in his career.

Trinneer was a guest on The Alpha Quadrant Podcast where he spoke with fellow Star Trek franchise alumni Aron Eisenberg and Garrett Wang. Trinneer recalled the casting process for Enterprise being miserable and involving multiple callbacks and poor communication with paramount.

“I had never been through the ringer like it was for [Enterprise],” Trinneer says. “And the scope of audition process was really varied for our show. Apparently, they just tapped Dominic [Keating], knowing they wanted to play that guy. I think Jolene [Blalock] walked in and they went “Yeah, you. You’re in.” And [John] Billingsley was easy and I don’t remember Anthony [Montgomery’s] situation, but when I told my story, they were like ‘Holy cow!’ Brutal. Brutal”

Trinneer played Trip for four seasons before Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled. Many fans would argue that the series was canceled just as it was finally reaching its potential. Trinneer blames poor scheduling by the network and the loss of one of the show’s biggest behind-the-scenes advocates for Enterprise’s untimely demise.

“The problem was that for the nights that we were on, usually, your Major League Baseball team was also on UPN locally,” Trinneer said. “So, we would get preempted by whatever local sports were happening. There were also entire regions – it didn’t even play in St. Louis, Scott [Bakula’s] hometown. So, you had these pockets of where it wasn’t even on.

“And then [Paramount Television Chairman] Kerry McCluggage got fired, our real fan, really quick. And then the new regime came in and it was probably as early as the second season when we were like ‘Huh?’ I don’t think we got any lesser ratings than anyone else but Next Generation. I think we all kind of sat in that same area.”

The cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise marked the end of an era for Star Trek. After 18 continuous years on the air, beginning with Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, no new episode of Star Trek television were being produced. On top of that, the poor reception for Star Trek: Nemesis seemed to kill the Star Trek film series as well.

No new officially canon Star Trek stories were made for several years, up until Paramount rebooted the film franchise in JJ Abrams' Star Trek in 2009. Star Trek wouldn’t return to television until the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017.

[H/T] Trek Movie