Scott Bakula Joins New TNT Drama

Scott Bakula has joined the cast of the new TNT drama Men of a Certain Age, which will be his first time as a TV series regular since the cancellation of Star Trek Enterprise in 2005. Bakula will play Terry, a handsome, intelligent but struggling-to-make-it actor, opposite Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street).

Men of a Certain Age was created by Ray Romano along with fellow Everybody Loves Raymond writer/producer Mike Royce. Both are executive producers and they co-wrote the pilot. The original press release for the show (at Romano’s official site) describes the show:

MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE follows three guys who have been best friends since college. Now in their 40s, they’re finding that life is indeed, as John Lennon once said, “what happens when you’re making other plans.” The show focuses on Joe (Romano), a friendly, 40-something, slightly neurotic, divorced father of two who had dreams of being a professional golfer but instead owns and runs a party store. He has two best friends: Owen [Braugher], an overstressed African-American husband and father who is a car salesman at his dad’s dealership, and Terry [Bakula], an offbeat handsome, intelligent and still struggling-to-make it actor.

Since Enterprise Bakula has kept busy with stage work as well as guest spots on TV, and he just wrapped up shooting opposite Matt Damon on the thriller The Informant, due out in March of 2009. His recent TV guest work includes an episode of Boston Legal and a recurring character on The Adventures of Old Christine. The actor has dozens of TV credits going back to the eighties, Men of A Certain Age will be his fifth time as a series regular, the others being Eisenhower & Lutz (1988), Quantum Leap (1989-1993), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1996), and of course, Enterprise (2001-2005).

[THR]

42 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

I have liked everything Bakula has done, with Enterprise being the only miscasting step he’s made.

Rock on Cap’n Archer….

I enjoy Bakula’s acting and am glad he continues to find steady work…I caught him in an off-Broadway show recently in San Diego….Sam can sing and dance too, even without Ziggy’s help!

I think I can believe him playing a “struggling-to-make-it actor” .
I could never quite believe him as having the “right stuff” to command a starship.
Shatner, Stewart, and even Brooks and Mulgrew all were Captains. They conveyed a leadership quality that I believe would have a crew following into the vast unknown of space. Bakula is a nice guy and all, but I don’t feel a strong quality of leadership from him…

Anyway, I hope the show is good. Gotta like Ray Romano…

I honestly loved the first season of Enterprise.

Bakula showed the awe of being the first Captain of the ship. But then his character took on the aura of just hating his job and not really enjoying the experience.

That’s what really turned me off to the show.

Good luck.

Ray Romano? In a drama? Nah.

Do you know why Archer wasn’t perceived as a stronger character? BC he didn’t fit Roddenberry’s mold. All strong leaders have to have a K or K sound in their name (Look it up in The Making of Star Trek!): KirK, PiCard, RiKer, SisKo, Katherine.

Bakula is great! I doubted he would be a good captain, but he added a lot of depth to Archer. I don’t understand the naysayers, but their opinions don’t matter to me.

it will be good to see him back on tv in a recurring role i just wished it counld have been quantum leap and i for one like him in enterprise he was one of the people that kept me watching i never liked the ideal of the programe as i felt star trek shound keep moving forward hopefully this will be another good programe for him

5. MaCKenzie Calhoun. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

I, for one, am glad to see Scott Bakula back as a series regular. Enterprise was cancelled too early and its good to see the Enterprise cast moving on. Now if they can get back together for maybe a straight-to-DVD movie or cameos in ST:XI…

Bakula is a great actor for television. He’s got an inherent likability that you’re comfotable tuning in to see once a week. Bakula was not the problem with Jonathan Archer. The problem with Jonathan Archer was the writing, especially in the first season. He just wasn’t written as a strong character and that unfortunately set the character’s tone for the rest of the series. When they tried to man him up later in the series, it wasn’t believable – much like when Picard started wearing tank tops with big rifles slung over his shoulder and careening around in dune buggies in the movies. In an alternate universe with better and less hacky writing, Scott Bakula was a kick-ass Star Trek captain.

I really wish he’d consider getting into a new Quantum Leap series. Sort of like “Quantum Leap: The Next Generation”.

Hey, it worked wonders for Trek back in 1986 :P

I would really like to see a new Quantum Leap in some form too! Sci-Fi was working on one a few years back, but it never materialized :(

Bakula showed a level of leadership that takes the ego out of the Captaincy. I enjoyed every role he laid his craft to and suspect he will stand out even more in this upcoming series.

The site’s down now for maintenance but I look forward to seeing him at the 20th Anniversary of OUANTUM LEAP next March in LA. He and Dean Stockwell will be in attendance and Scott’s going up against his agent in a “who knows more about QL” sort of trivia contest. Should be hilarious.

http://www.leapback2009.com

I disagree with Harry Ballz (#1). Enterprise was Not a “Misstep for Scott Bakula. His acting ability was greatly apparent in the series. I look forward to seeing him at the Star Trek Convention this August in Las Vegas.

Enterprise was cancelled too early.

I like Scott’s work. He had good moments on Enterprise — lots of them. But, somebody tell me how frikkin Olivier’s ghost could have gotten the job done in episodes like “A Night in Sickbay”? What emotional depth do you plum to react to Phlox sheering his hooves or how do you convincingly drool over T’Pol’s t’plasticware?

I love him in Quantum Leap.

#14

Hey, whatever floats your starship!

Good luck to scott in his new series..can’t bear enterprise….except for:

In a mirror darkly and first flight!

The man is a great actor, no doubt about that. Many times the strength of emotion he conveyed in various QL episodes would reduce me to tears.
Really miss that show and have always felt cheated with the final episode.

Be great to see it back again.

Anyway, good luck to Scott with his new show.

To #5

All the captains all have some sort of prominent “J” in their name….

James T. Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Kathryn Janeway, Jonathan Archer.

It’s not the “K”, it’s the “J”.

It’s great to see Scott Bakula getting a chance at a new series. I saw him in DC performing Shenandoah in 2006 and he was terrific. I think his role in the Informant will be really significant for his career – it’s his first movie with an A-list director and co-star (Steve Soderbergh and Matt Damon).

Anyway, I always thought Scott’s role as Captain Archer was underappreciated. He really made the best of what were sometimes poor scripts and his interaction with the other actors (and dog) did alot to humanize the show. I’ve been watching TNG on Sci-Fi recently, and it really occurs ot me that there was something to be said for a show that focused on the wonder and newness of exploration. TNG seems almost sterile by comparison.

Congrats to Scott Bakula and good luck!

I am one of the many die-hard Trek fans who immediately turned my back on ENT because it wasn’t what *I* expected it to be. Shame on me. Watching ENT on SciFi was great. I realized what a mistake I made and am saddened that there weren’t more seasons. Bakula did a fine job; I could identify with his version of a starship captain better than any other.
I prefer a Kirk or Picard, but I could personally identify with Archer.

I am also SO happy to be able to watch TNG again on SciFi. Some episodes I haven’t seen in so long it’s almost like seeing them again for the first time. I don’t understand the TNG haters. Patrick Stewart’s Picard makes the show what it is. TNG is thoughtful, realistic, and just good science fiction. It doesn’t hurt that the effects were/are good and that there’s some action in there too!

Best of luck to Scott Bakula. I wish I could see him as Archer one last time . . .

To #22

No its not.. its the space between their first and last name .. ya thats what brings them all together

… anyways i feel its about time for a new series… with a hot andorian female as the captain. I mean who wouldn’t tune in to see that?? lol

I’ve loved Bakula in everything he has done, from cameos to Jonathan Archer and of course, probably his definitive role, Sam Beckett.

I am one of the vocal fans who thought ENTERPRISE was not given its due, and a large part of what I liked about the series was because of Bakula’s presence.

He is one of those actors who takes risks and is a well-rounded performer. He does drama equally as deft as comedy (on Murphy Brown, for example) and musicals (Man of La Mancha).

Too bad UPN/paramount screwed up, ENTERPRISE could have been truly great if they had only let Manny Coto continue to work his magic on the series.

Ah well… no use crying over spilled over spilt Seylat’s milk.

Love this guy! He made a great starship captain. Glad to see he’s still around. A very underrated actor. Best of luck to him.

Sounds a lot like BBC’s “Manchild.”

I agree that Enterprise was not given its due. The show was really strong that last season.

And regardless of how you feel about the program, you can’t deny that Scott Bakula was great.

Looking forward to his new show!

Love TOS… ENT was good…DS9 was decent….TNG was ok…VOY stinks.

Bacula and company brought the “frontier” feeling back to space exploration in the Star Trek Universe.

IMO, it was poor exposure (UPN) and Voyager-induced Star Trek burnout which contributed most to ENT’s early cancellation. It also didn’t help that many conventional Star Trek spinoff fans couldn’t get past things that were so different…like that theme song and some of the more modern cinematography. I think alot of fans went out of their way to find faults in it.

Once I got to see it (on dvd— after it was cancelled), I enjoyed it alot…and still do.

I, also, can’t wait for the Quantum Leap convention next March in LA. It’s been a lot of years since that show went off the air, but it remains so memorable. Seeing Scott Bakula in a QL trivia contest will be a true highlight!

Enterprise was doomed from the beginning, because its premise itself set an impossible task. Backstory is incredibly tricky, and it’s best left to novels and fans’ imaginations.

For one thing, it’s almost impossible to remain consistent with what comes after. Either you muck about with the future too much or not enough. For instance, if humans already knew so much about Vulcan culture, how come so much of it came as a surprise to Spock’s friends? And if you go the other way, you run the risk of introducing worlds and concepts that create loose threads for the future. You end up wondering, how come Kirk, Picard, and the others never had to deal with the repercussions of some of the things that happened?

Also, we know that there were huge, enormous, almost unfathomable changes between our time and Kirk’s. Set anything in the interval betweeen, and you have to walk a very fine line to not come too close to either.

It was a thankless job they set themselves, and they were lucky they pulled it off as long as they did.

I’m a big fan of Bakula’s (as well as of Andre Braugher’) and loved both of his iconic incarnations (Sam Beckett and Jonathan Archer), so I really hope this project does well. Being on TNT should help — cable channels aren’t as stifled as networks, but TNT doesn’t rely so much on the shock value and profanity as HBO and Showtime in its original programming.

“Offbeat, handsome,intelligent…” All true. I think it’s funny that nobody seems to want to believe that Bakula’s actually in his 50’s.

I adore Scott Bakula since he did Quantum Leap. I never was a huge Star Trek Fan, but I love Scotts work on the show and all the movies and other shows he did in his career. I met him 4 times in person (what meant for me travelling a long way from Germany to the USA), saw him live on stage performing musicals (NO STRINGS und recently DANCING IN THE DARK; a special event for the Ford Theater in Washington D.C. and doing a play called THE QUALITY OF LIFE) and having nice talks with him after the events he did. He is a great actor and a really nice guy in person and I hope that show will be a huge success.

didn’t Brad Whitford do a short-lived series of this sort as well (as Anthony Stewart Head)?

Here’s hoping the show does well, everybody still loves Raymond (more than that Frasier guy – his show got cancelled didn’t it) and my “high-brow TV” loving friends adore Braugher.

I really like the premise as much as I’ve heard of it, and seeing Scott play an actor – I’ve done that before, and enjoyed it (plus, it doesn’t require that he have “serious hair” – actors are bohemian, after all ;-) )

disclaimer – I didn’t read all the comments (just the one on ASH), I’m supposed to be studying (blush)

saw Scott in the musical “Shenandoah” at Ford’s Theatre a few years back, and he was amazing…and the man can sing a tune with the best of ’em as well, which was more impressive than his acting.

I love ENT. I have to admit that the casting of Scott B. made me groan at first, but he won me over. Now, I can’t imagine anyone else in the Archer role.

Unlike most others on this site, I don’t rate the various Trek incarnations against each other. I rate the seasons. The top four:
TOS season 1 / TNG season 6 / DS9 season 6 / ENT season 4.

Those four stand head and shoulders above the rest, IMHO. After that, the debate rages on.

I understand that Bakula really rallied the cast of Enterprise to give their best during the last season. Everyone knew that the show was doomed, but Bakula always gave his best and encouraged the other actors to do the same. He was a true leader on and off the screen.

Enterprise was good show on the wrong network.

Enterprise was a show at the wrong time. The world isn’t as open and tolerant as is had been during TNG times. Too bad.

I loved Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer, especially in season 1 and I wish him success in this new show

It’s Always surprised me those who hated or strongly disliked Bakula as the captain in Enterprise. Considering the series went thru basically 3 major format changes and the man was expected to roll with some pretty large character changes being sent from above (the writers) I think he did an excellent job. It’s quite obvious from the man’s previous work that he’s not a bad actor, to say the least. I’ve always thought what he’s done was quality (well, there was a certain camp factor to a lot of quantum leap, but that was the whole point, in a way)

I guess it’s hard for me to separate out how terrible VOY was from Kate Mulgrew as a Captain, but Bakula certainly showed a depth of personality to the character of Archer that would’ve been difficult for the best of actors, given the circumstances. No one is going to be Shatner, no one is going to be Stewart. Brooks was fine, but to imply that Bakula’s Archer was less well-player than Sisko is kinda funny. #37 – strongly agree.

Can’t wait to see him with Andre Braugher – another actor that I consider extremely strong, back from the days of Homicide: Life on the Street, and then in future episodic TV roles playing alongside Bakula. Romano, hmmmm… don’t know about that yet based on the character description.

happy bday scott from your bigest fan abbey

biggest ?

The biggest problem with Enterprise came when they spent a year chasing whatever that alien race was instead of taking an episodic approach. As for the characters, Archer devolved into a humorless crab and then they started the spectacularly stupid “massage treatments” between the female Vulcan and the male engineer. And the Vulcan character was insane; I still can’t believe they sexed her up like that. That would have been ridiculous for a human, let alone a Vulcan.