Star Trek: Enterprise's Connor Trinneer Gave Conflicting Responses To His Thoughts On Trip's Shocking Death
The "Star Trek: Enterprise" series finale, entitled "These Are the Voyages," is almost universally hated by fans. In the episode, which is framed as Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" watching the events unfold on the holodeck, the Enterprise NX-01 is on its way to a historic summit in which the United Federation of Planets is to be officially founded. However, the crew's frenemy Shran shows up, and Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and company divert from their mission to do Shran a favor. But when kidnappers board the Enterprise, Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker (Connor Trinneer) sacrifices himself to save Archer in one of the least-perilous situations the crew has ever gotten themselves into.
"These Are the Voyages ..." has made a lot of all-time worst "Star Trek" episodes lists, including Fandom's, and it topped the fan-created rundown at C-Net. Fans continue to discuss how terrible the episode was to this day, as evidenced by a 2022 thread in the r/startrek subreddit in which u/Pippoken said, "I can't see the point of getting Trip killed off in such a rushed way during a very low-stake side mission." Other fans generally agreed, with u/Shep1982 saying Trip's death "pissed me off possibly more than anything else 'Star Trek' ever did."
Trinneer seemed to disagree with fans in a 2020 interview but said something entirely different in the early aughts.
Connor Trinneer claims he's always liked Trip's death, but that's not really true
In a 2020 interview with TrekMovie, Connor Trinneer was asked if he agrees with fan criticisms of the "Star Trek: Enterprise" finale and the actor insisted he was happy with Trip's death. "Personally, I liked the way I was able to conclude Trip with his untimely demise," Trinneer said. "As an actor that was satisfying to me. I have always felt that way." So it would seem that he disagrees with the many fans who were disappointed with how Trip died, or at least he disagreed with them in 2020.
But Trinneer's claim about feeling satisfied with the finale doesn't hold up. According to a 2005 TrekToday article, the actor had some choice words about the finale during DragonCon Q&A, noting that he and the cast were disappointed in the decision to kill Trip. His chief complaint centered on the cameo appearances by Frakes and Marina Sirtis from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," which led him to feel like someone else got to end "Enterprise" for them. Trinneer said he was so distraught over the finale that he didn't attend the series' wrap party — and neither did most of the show's cast. Speaking about Trip's death in the finale, Trinneer said, "I've gotten out of much worse scrapes than that."
It's certainly true. There are many situations far more dangerous than the one Trip sacrificed himself for, and he had every reason to believe he would survive that particular predicament. Killing him off seems to have just been unnecessary.