Synopsis

During the mid-22nd century, a century before Captain Kirk's five-year mission, Jonathan Archer captains the United Earth ship Enterprise during the early years of Starfleet, leading up to the Earth-Romulan War and the formation of the Federation.

Braga said that they knew they were right for those roles "right off the bat." Keating had previously auditioned for a role on Voyager two years prior, but Berman wanted to keep him for a future main role, saying that when he auditioned for Reed the actor "nailed it," although there were discussions about the accent he should be using, with Keating suggesting one from the north of England which the producers mistook for Scottish.

In the end, they chose to go with Keating's natural voice.

Park was not required to audition, but instead was hired on the basis of her performance in a scene she appeared in The WB series Popular alongside Anthony Montgomery – despite that the character was intended to be older until Park was cast.

He had been sought for the part by the executive producers, and although Bakula wanted to do the show, he "wanted to feel that [he] was making a good deal and that everyone was going to work together to make this a good experience." He had signed up for a pilot for CBS called Late Bloomers before agreeing to appear on Enterprise.

One of the reasons he agreed to join the cast of Enterprise was that he had previously worked with Kerry McCluggage, one of the co-founders of UPN, on Quantum Leap.

His main issue at the time was to find a "beautiful woman who can act and doesn't want to go right into feature films." Blalock was excited about the casting as she had been a lifelong Star Trek fan, with her favourite character being Spock.