Star Trek Actor Narrowly Avoided Getting Fired For Drunken Crimes

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 9 seconds ago

Enterprise was the last show from the Golden Age of Star Trek, and it was very different than the series that had come before. This new show wasn’t afraid to be weird and wild, which is why it had both a smoking hot Vulcan lady in a catsuit and an ongoing excuse to have the actors strip down to their undies and massage each other (seriously, every D-Con chamber scene looks like a vintage Cinemax skin flick). Its characters were also much rougher around the edges, which is why characters like Trip Tucker get to be believably flawed compared to more polished characters like Commander Riker or Captain Picard.

In Enterprise, Trip gets into some crazy hijinks, including getting tied up and stripped down while chasing tail on an alien sex planet. As it turns out, though, some of the character’s onscreen misadventures may have taken inspiration from the actor’s own drunken hijinks. While filming the very first episode of Enterprise, Trip Tucker actor Connor Trinneer crashed a Paramount party, abused the open bar, and stole four entire bottles of alcohol from the bar. The next day, he worried about losing his job when he got what every drinker dreads: a surprise phone call from his big boss!

The Sexiest, Sweatiest Star Trek Series

On Enterprise, Connor Trinneer plays Trip Tucker, the friendly chief of engineering. With his southern drawl and amiable demeanor, Trip is one of the warmest members of the entire crew. But he was still rough around the edges, often clashing with the Vulcan T’Pol as part of their compelling “will they, won’t they” dynamic. He also loves to party, which sometimes gets him in trouble. On one occasion, he gets pregnant after hooking up with an exotic alien. On another occasion, he and Reed were so horny on the planet Risa that they followed two alien women into a club’s basement; the “ladies” shapeshift into men, tying up and robbing the Starfleet officers.

Trinneer was always good at bringing his character’s exploits to life. One possible reason for this is that the actor has had a few of his own drunken misadventures over the years. The most notorious of these happened when he was filming “Broken Bow,” the very first episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. The night before some important scenes were scheduled for filming, Trinneer discovered a party on the Paramount lot. The party had nothing to do with Trek; instead, it was a party held to appeal to would-be foreign advertisers. Regardless of who the party was for, though, Trinneer attended and discovered that it had the one thing every boozehound loves to find: free alcohol!

Away Team, Party Of One

On the special features for the Season 1 Enterprise Blu-rays, Connor Trinneer revealed that not only did he crash this particular party, but he also took major advantage of the free hooch. Once he got drunk enough, he decided to keep the party going in the most brazen way. That is, he snuck behind the bar and stole four entire liquor bottles, bringing them all home with him! It really was theft, too: not only was he not an invited guest, but nobody was authorized to walk away with the alcohol behind the bar. But he wasn’t too worried at the time. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

The next day, the worst did happen: Trinneer got a phone call from Rick Berman. Now, Berman wasn’t just any bigwig. He was the executive producer overseeing the entire franchise and, effectively, the man in charge of all things Star Trek. For the actor, this was like getting a phone call from his boss’s boss’s boss. Like many of us would in his place, Trinneer assumed he was in trouble and thought that he was about to get fired. Understandably, he was full of regret because, as far as he knew, he was about to lose a life-changing acting gig because of a drunken workplace crime.

That Face When Your Boss Calls

As it turns out, though, Rick Berman knew absolutely nothing about Connor Trinneer’s hijinks from the night before. The executive producer was simply calling the actor with news about his Enterprise character. The character’s real name was Charles Tucker, but he was originally going to go by the nickname “Spike.” When Berman called Trinneer, he just wanted him to know that the producers had decided that the character’s nickname was going to be “Trip” instead.

Relief flooded through Trinneer when he discovered the reason for Berman’s call. He had gotten away with it! Not only did he crash a party and get wasted for free, but he came home with plenty of extra alcohol. Considering that he kept his cool and kept his job, he even had a reason to pour himself a glass and celebrate. Of course, you could say that Rick Berman got his own revenge: years later, he killed off Trinneer’s character for no real reason, a decision that the Enterprise fandom still mourns to this day.