T'Pol and Mind Melds

[Rigil Kent]

Thus my opinion that the writers just didn't care. They weren't consistent. But then, that was the case for other characters as well. T'Pol went from needing a mental wipe to deal with doing her job as a spy to blithely blowing off a violent mental rape, while Hoshi went from scared little weenie to poker-dealing martial arts expert over the course of a few episodes. They just wrote what they felt like writing and to heck with character continuity.

Unfortunately, that's the name of the game with television. I actually gave up entirely on NCIS last season because of this very thing. I saw a quote somewhere - I think it was thecursor's sig block at HoT - that said "Television is a medium because anything well done is rare."

This also explains why I can literally count on one hand the number of shows I watch (let's see, Top Gear, Game of Thrones (in hiatus, cable), Justified (in hiatus, cable) ... and that's it.)

[WarpGirl]

Oh but there are very good scripted shows. Burn Notice is fantastic, so was The West Wing, I admit I found SGU a waste of time, but SG-1 was amazing considering it was 10 seasons! It never really crashed and burned, it faded a little but it didn't get terrible. I think it's really a poor excuse to just blame it on TV writing. I mean think about it we all know there are excellent shows out there (even if we have different tastes) so it isn't impossible. But the people running the deal have to care about what they're doing. Are there injustices due to network politics? Sure. Firefly, and Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicals are prime examples. But if ENT was truly a victim of mere Network Politics I'm not sure it would have lasted past season 2.

[Rigil Kent]

Interestingly enough, our opinions are pretty divergent here...

Burn Notice is fantastic

Used to be. Not as good as it once was, IMO. I tuned out of it about a season and a half ago.

so was The West Wing

Didn't begin to agree with the leftist politics of the show so I wasn't interested in watching it. Thus, I have no opinion on the show's quality.

I admit I found SGU a waste of time

On one hand, I'll freely admit that it was stupid and predictable, but I liked bits of it. Honestly, it did a better job of holding my attention than all of SGA or most of SG1.

SG-1 was amazing considering it was 10 seasons! It never really crashed and burned, it faded a little but it didn't get terrible.

I could not possibly disagree with you more. As big a fan of Ben Browder as I am, I loathed his character and eventually tuned out entirely. Even before he came in, the show had lost me as a regular viewer.

I think it's really a poor excuse to just blame it on TV writing.

Read the quote again, please. I'm not denying that there isn't good shows; I'm simply pointing out that good shows are frankly rare.

But if ENT was truly a victim of mere Network Politics I'm not sure it would have lasted past season 2.

Honestly, if it didn't have Star Trek in its name, I actually doubt it would have lasted that long. Put a show as wildly inconsistent as ENT was in its first season (and I say that as a fan) on any channel today, and you'll be lucky to see it get to episode 6. ENT had the benefit of basically being one of the flagship shows for a struggling channel (UPN) and the Star Trek brand keeping it alive. Just like SGU had the Stargate brand keeping it alive about a season longer than it should have. ENT also came on at a time when television was changing - before, Trek shows were allowed to struggle for a few seasons (as every modern Trek show did - TNG, DS9 and VOY all kind of suck in seasons 1 & 2), but things have changed. Now, if you don't get the audience immediately, you're gone. Sometimes within three or four episodes.

The thing I actually find most interesting is that, for all intents and purposes, ENT is considered a failure. (Bear with me here.) Yet nuBattlestar Galactica (which I liked very much for the first two seasons, but loathed the latter two, which is the exact reverse of ENT) is considered a sterling success. The funny thing is, at its lowest point (in season 2, I believe, right after ANIS), ENT had higher ratings than BSG ever got. The sole difference is expectations - UPN had different expectations for ratings than Sci-Fi did ...

[WarpGirl]

I don't consider ENT a failure as a TV show, I consider it a failure as a Trek. Big difference. While TOS might have technically lasted only 3 seasons, but 6 movies (not counting Generations) and lots of cameos throughout the decades and it place in pop culture is the ultimate testimate of true lasting success. Probably more people know about Captain Kirk and Spock then they do Obi-Wan and Vader, simply because TOS was first. Also in the 60's 3 seasons was forever. Compared to TNG, DS9, and VOY it's a failure simply because it failed to last a full 7 seasons. All the Treks had wild fluctuation in the ratings during their runs. ENT took a nose dive and never came back.

So no, I don't think as a TV show it can justifably be considered a failure. But it underscores what a terrible injustice losing Firefly and T:SCC is. As for T.W.W. I'm completely anti politics doesn't matter which side, but it was brilliant writing. It's worst season, was better than anybody else's best, if only for the brilliance of how it used words and language.

[Cogito]

So no, I don't think as a TV show it can justifably be considered a failure.

I think you're talking at cross-purposes. From the point of view of the network execs, success or failure means whether the show has achieved the commercial goals that were set for it - whether it has drawn in the viewers and the associated advertising revenue. And I suspect that things like budget and the effect on the station's public image play a big part in that, not just the number of viewers. Just because BSG was considered a success and Ent had more viewers than BSG, doesn't mean that Ent was a success from the point of view of the execs.

[WarpGirl]

Rigil and I seem to debate about everything. It's not a bad thing, but truly I don't know why. I'm nervous by nature, heck I get nervous around my 15 year old cousin. So maybe I get nervous when I talk to the poor man and it turns into a debate. Ug! I am irreversibly screwed up socially.

Anyway back to T'Pol and the effects of her mind meld... The more I think about it the more I wish they hadn't done the pa'nar. It turned out to be completely useless. And it really didn't have to be. All they had to do was insert it in teeny tiny ways. Not every episode, and certainly don't focus on it all the time, but little things could have been done... (Not all in one episode)

1. Have T'Pol blow off lunch in the Captain's mess for an appointment with Phlox.

2. When she goes to get a cup of tea, her hand shakes. It's a neurological problem tremmors are common for most issues.

3. Show that at times she has trouble meditating.

See, little tiny things. A line here, a gesture there. I know I keep harping on it, but there's no use in giving a main character especially *the* female lead a chronic illness and do nothing with it.

[Silverbullet]

Cogito, in some cases. the number of viewers a show can deliver to advertisers spells success or failure. Execs and Bean Counters dwell on that.

I think that one problem with Ent was it was on a starvation budget. TPTB cut a lot of corners on some things and blew the budget on others. I remember reading that the woman who played corporal cole was an expensive Israeli acctress. I am certain that an American actress who could have done the part as well and for much less cost should have been hired.
things like that can break a show. IMHO just one of the things that doomed ENT. However, had there been more viewers it may have lasted longer.

SB

[WarpGirl]

Whoa! Let's not go there okay. First of all, this is not the thread for it. Second, Patrick Stewert and Marina Sirtis were British, so international actors and actresses did not hurt ENT okay! Back to T'Pol and Mind-Melds. That's the topic.

[Silverbullet]

WG, I did not say that foreign actors hurt ENT. I said that a less expensive actress but just as good could have been hired.

I was speaking of Costs.

Come to that look at the number of Producers that are on ENT. Executive Producers, co exutive producers, supervising producers. Prodcers, associate producers. all of then would have their oar in there somewhere. If you ever see an old series from the late 50's early 60's you will see one producer and perhaps one associate producer but no more than that. All of those producers will cost and probably could hash things up.

SB

[WarpGirl]

I repeat this is not the topic to discuss in this thread.

[Brandyjane]

Good topic! They definitely should have done more with the aftermath of the forced mind meld and with the pa'nar syndrome. Of course, I don't think they'd even thought of the pa'nar until "Stigma."

The whole mind meld thing was handled weirdly from the beginning. Obviously mind melds were not completely unheard of, even in T'Pol's time. How could an educated woman not even know of their existence, even if she was taught that they were anathema? Even more, T'Pol is both a former member of the Ministry of Security and a scientist. If anyone should know about them, she should. I decided that the fullara thing that erased her memories of killing someone was probably a type of mind meld, that it was a traumatic experience in and of itself, and that T'Pol must have suppressed all knowledge of mind melds just to put the whole fullara experience out of her mind.

I think there was a missed opportunity in "Shockwave" for them to revisit the mind rape/pa'nar. Silik violates her mind with drugs, and she seemed really out of it in the aftermath of the interrogation - for a few minutes. Then she just gets over it and is perfectly fine. While I can believe that she may be able to use her Vulcan mental disciplines to suppress Tolaris's mind rape, it seems to me that she would have been in a vulnerable state after the drugs Silik administered, and she could have had a flashback or something after that. We don't know exactly how Silik's drugs worked - she could have been experiencing hallucinations about Tolaris during the whole interrogation. It would have also made sense for Phlox to check her to make sure the drugs hadn't affected her pa'nar, if they had thought of that disease by that point in the show.

One of the weirdest things to me is that they never explained how the trellium addiction might have affected the pa'nar. First, I think it was just stupid to give her both a fatal disease and a drug addiction. One would have provided plenty of shock value and angst, unless they decided to connect the two somehow. They could have explained that the pa'nar made her experiment with the trellium, or the trellium actually helped with the worst of the pa'nar, even as it did it's own damage. Something.

[WarpGirl]

One of the weirdest things to me is that they never explained how the trellium addiction might have affected the pa'nar. First, I think it was just stupid to give her both a fatal disease and a drug addiction. One would have provided plenty of shock value and angst, unless they decided to connect the two somehow. They could have explained that the pa'nar made her experiment with the trellium, or the trellium actually helped with the worst of the pa'nar, even as it did it's own damage. Something.

Hence why I tied the pa'nar and the TD together. The whole thing was a complete mess. I know a lot of people liked the TD but the way it was handled was rediculous. It would have been simple to tie the two together, but nobody bothered. I think you'll love my next chapter of May We... Brandyjane.

[Cogito]

I know a lot of people liked the TD

Really? That surprises me. It struck me as yet another cheap shot, using a character who should have been the toughest and most experienced person on the ship and showing again and again how ineffectual and weak she was.

[WarpGirl]

Dude all you have to do is look at some old threads that got very heated.

[Cogito]

Dude all you have to do is look at some old threads that got very heated.

You're telling me that the subject has already come up before? What a small world we live in.