It's no secret that "Star Trek: Enterprise" has struggled in the ratings, almost from the start. But a lot of that could have been avoided, at least according to series star Scott Bakula (Capt. Jonathan Archer).

In a recent interview with Ian Spelling, that ran in Star Trek Monthly, Bakula said a lot of the problems can be placed on the doorstep of UPN.

"My feeling was that there were a lot of things that happened in the second year of the series, and they all seemed to happen to us at once," Bakula said. "I'm hoping that's the end of it. We weren't helped out by scheduling issues from our own network. They certainly didn't need to run our final episode opposite the 'American Idol' finale (on Fox), but they chose to."

Although critics have not been kind to the show since its first season, Bakula said the Star Trek magic he thought was there in the beginning is still there now.

"I think that, in my opinion, the show was as good as or better than the first season, when our numbers were terrific," Bakula said. "(The show has) been fairly well talked about, but for whatever reasons, UPN chose to spend their money, the majority of their money -- because they always argue this whenever we bring it up -- on new shows, and they felt that they promoted us sufficiently. The reality is that they only promoted us, for the most part, on their own network that's not being watched by very many people in the first place. I think that you have to be more creative than that. But they chose to do that. They're in charge of their advertising dollars and they chose to spend them in ways that were theirs. It was up to them."

Bakula said he feels that this third season, as the numbers seem to be bobbling a bit on the high side, will continue to be exciting for current fans, and maybe even new viewers looking for something different on television.

"I'm look forward, as all the fans are, to seeing where this expanse is going to take us, what we're going to find in there," he said. "It's kind of like Pandora's Box and it's going to be the wild west times 10."

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