T'Pol and Mind Melds

[putaro]

One thing that annoyed me about the trellium plot was that it just came out of the blue. Supposedly she'd been doing this for months but we didn't see her sneaking off every now and then, or anything else that made you suddenly go "Duh! So that's what's been going on" when she goes looking for it. Maybe they did and it was too subtle for me, but my bet is they just thought it up when they were writing that episode.

[WarpGirl]

I used to subscribe to Star Trek Magazine and I read an interview with Bragga and Sussman that said it was planned to be a bombshell surprise! Nobody was supposed to suspect it. What a great idea!

[putaro]

That's probably why nobody had ever seen Masaro either until he popped up in Terra Prime. I wonder if any of those guys have ever taken a writing class or literature appreciation or high school English where complicated ideas like plot and foreshadowing were explained. Oy!

[WarpGirl]

Okay for the record people I didn't say it this time!

[putaro]

You know, I've been watching friggin' Hawaii Five-O (what can I say, I like the scenery. And Grace Park in a bikini every other episode) and even they managed to drop a bunch of little nuggets throughout the season that came together in the finale.

It's one thing to write poorly by carelessness, but to do it by design...

[WarpGirl]

Oh all I can say is if you want to drop a bombshell right, watch the last 3 episodes of Bones season 5, or season 1 of The West Wing. It isn't that hard!

Anyway back to the topic... One thing I wish so much that they had done was to have T'Pol really have it out with Syrran during The Forge, I actually liked that episode (when I ignore Super!Archer) anyway... They had the beginnings of a good debate, and since T'Pol wouldn't confess to being assualted in Stigma, she really could have used it to great effect in that episode. And it could have shown the beginning of her getting some closure. Wasted oppertunity # 10,000 and something!

[Silverbullet]

Bragga and Sussman's bombshell. As far as I am concerned those two wre responsible for much of the crap that T'Pol ws put through. Sussman kept writing epidsodes where it looked as if TnT might finally start commmuniicating or getting together only at the end of the episode shoot it down. Course he was the Avid AinT peson on the series so it is no surprise.

Why are they bragging aout the reason there was no cohesion for T'Pol. Hiding behind an excuse that they wanted to drop a bombshell. Bigger, better bombshell would have been to have Archer step out of a hatch in to open space.

I am with Putaro on this. It is poor writing, plotting, deconstructing a main character. When they could think of nothing else, shove it into T'Pol

Bleah

SB

[WarpGirl]

So what do you think Syrran/Surak's katra would have said to T'Pol if she had told him of her assault

[Silverbullet]

All of it? the events leading up to the assault? Might say you asked for it. T'Pol was naive and let Tolaris lead her on. she alloweed him to put dreams in her head of the jazz club and the two of them in bed. She willingly allowed him sto start and when she realized what he was doing fought him. Bit late. She did managed to finally fight him off but not before the damage was done. I know that is blaming the person who was raped for the rape. But at times it is unwariness that lets a rapists get his quarry where he wants her.

T'Pol should have listened to her instincts instead of Archer who had his head up his butt, as usual.

SB

[WarpGirl]

SB Just because she listened to Archer DOES NOT make it her fault! And I think you hate Vulcans. What did Syrran do or say that was so horrible!

[Silverbullet]

Because against her better judgement she listened to Archer when he said he would like it if she made the effort to mingle with them more. so she did and Tolaris got his opening. without Archers stupid interference she would have steered clear of them as she knew in her heart they were dangerous and told Archer that.

SB

[WarpGirl]

SB I'm sorry, but I don't think this is a good path to go down.

[putaro]

Kind of a hard call for me. The Vulcans depicted in Enterprise are generally moralistic prigs, completely lacking in ethics (the doctors in Stigma, V'Las) and using "logic" to justify almost any kind of behavior. Encouraging someone to look beyond that strait-laced culture would be pretty normal. Don't forget Trip encouraged her to blow off her marriage not to long before as well.

Archer, especially as he was written in Seasons 1 and 2, though, is an idiot and listening to his (the writers') advice is not a good idea.

The V'Tosh Katur in general were not bad people. If T'Pol had been hanging out in Engineering with Kov things would have been fine. But, instead of hanging out with the fat engineer, she chose to hang out with the smooth talker.

I think T'Pol was naive to let Tolaris do a mind meld with her (he even warns her it will be very intimate - and this to a woman who won't tell Trip her age because it is "intimate") but that doesn't make it her fault when he fails to respect her boundaries.

[WarpGirl]

And people wonder why I have "issues" with the show, I cared for most of the characters not the show itself. The thing about Tolaris is that evil though he was, he did tell her the truth... Surak taught, "Mastery of emotion" not as almost every Vulcan on ENT (except V'Lar) would say, denial of emotion.

Which is why I get really annoyed when people insist that Vulcans have no experience with emotion, and they're supposed to deny, deny, deny, not so!!!!

They're supposed too: control, control, control...

How can you control something you deny having? I've said it before and I'll say it again, when your average Vulcan (Sarek, Spock, or Tuvok) says "I do not experience," or "I am incapable of..." such-and-such emotion. What they are saying is that...

They don't experience emotions the same way a human does.

They're aliens okay. That means its perfectly fine if they don't laugh like we do, or smile, or cry, or shout I love you in public. THAT'S GOOD!

Here's my favorite quote from Tuvok on the subject...

Do not fear your negative thoughts. They are part of you. They are a part of every living being. To pretend it does not exist is to create an opportunity for it to escape."

This also applies to emotion, because it's emotion that determines whether a thought is positive or negitive. That was a great episode.

What really cooks my grits though is that ENT completely gave Vulcans a bad rap. Because of what they did, some fans see them in an entirely cock-eyed way.

[putaro]

I have a theory on Vulcans that's based on the best science I can find with Google. To some extent, emotions are based on our brain chemistry. I see Vulcans as having the ability to self-regulate their brain chemistry. This allows them to NOT experience emotions in many cases. You could take this as kind of a gating process where they can control when those chemicals are released and their meditation process would be a time when they can slowly release them while maintaining equilibrium.

This would mean that the techniques that we Humans use to keep control when we are being emotional (like, counting to ten when upset, etc.) are things that Vulcans have no experience with. Their methods for being in control of their emotions are totally different.

And, Vulcans do use different vocabulary and they do just flat out LIE when they talk about emotions because culturally they're not allowed to have them. It's like someone saying they never fart or sweat.

T'Pol, now, between the pa'nar and the trellium, has lost a lot of that control over her neurochemistry. She's in a position where she needs to learn those methods that Humans use to control their emotions. And I think that's an interesting path for her to be following.