"The Abomination"

[Aquarius]

So I got Season Four for Christmas. Just finished watching "The Abomination" about two minutes ago...

WHAT THE F&*% IS THIS CRUNKED-UP, COBBLED-TOGETHER BULLS#@*%???!!!

*breathes*

I'm back now...

So when it's over, I'm like "WTF was this even ABOUT??" Somebody had to be smoking something.

The one touch I liked, though it was sad: the way Trip was grinning at Archer as he was being slid into the chamber. THAT was very Trip.

The rest of it...well, I can say that I've seen it now, and that'll probably be the one episode I'll only have seen once even by the day I die. So disappointing on so many levels.

Yeah, I know. The rest of you experienced your outrage years ago. Some of you are still holding a grudge, but it's not a fresh wound. Still, I didn't want to sit here and be outraged and alone, so I chose to make the rest of you suffer with me.

All part of my dastardly plan. muwahahahahahahahhahahahahah...!!!

[Pitseleh]

You began the year by watching the thing that came out of TPTB's butt? Wow...

Well, now you know why we hate it so. I still don't know WTF that piece of garbage was about. I watched it with my dad and my best friend, and all of us were shocked. By the time it was over, my dad threw his pillow at the TV, and started screaming: "That can't be true, you bunch of retarded morons!" His reaction seems pretty funny now, but we were all so angry at the time.

The family policy is to ignore the thing, since according to the original Trek fan in the family, holoprograms DO NOT count. According to him, TnT went off to make pointy-eared babies on Vulcan.

[Aquarius]

You began the year by watching the thing that came out of TPTB's butt? Wow...

Well, it wasn't supposed to be that way, lol! If it counts for anything, I was actually watching "Terra Prime" at midnight.

I just....wow. Like, from what orifice did they pull out the notion that everybody confides in chef??? I've seen most of the episodes now (save for a few of Season Three), and the finale is the first time I'm hearing of this? Real credible there.

For a finale, I expected a much more exciting plot--a much more relevant plot--and more of a sense of closure. Very disappointing.

Yeah, maybe not an ideal way to ring in the New Year, but in a way it's a good thing, because "Body and Katra" literally picks up the moment where "Terra Prime" leaves off, and now all I want to do is write, write, write because that episode was so wrong, wrong, wrong!!

[Asso]

"The Abomination"?
What's it?
Oh no matter.
I'm too busy, now.
I'm too much intent on observing the bated expressions of Trip and T'Pol's childs while their father is narrating them the adventures which occurred to him and to his wife after Terra Prime, in the meantime that - sitting cosily on a comfortable settee in the nice Vulcan home of my hosts - I'm sipping a fragrant cup of camomile tea, delightfully prepared for me by their mother.

[Aquarius]

I watched all the bonus material this morning. It's really sad that there was more of a sense of closure in that than there was in the episode itself.

I'll be starting over at Season One soon, while intermittently skipping ahead to things as I need them for "research."

I think Pitseleh was right. Here it is the first day of the year and I'm sad, I have a headache, and it has NOTHING to do with a hangover!!

[Alelou]

Well, to look on the bright side ... there have been many wonderful fanfics written primarily to fix that finale. If it had ended with a resolution we could stand, Triaxian Silk might not exist today. Parting Trip and T'Pol in that miserable way has left all of us with work that is good to do!

[Asso]

Alelou, I admire the way you look at the things.

[Aquarius]

Well, to look on the bright side ... there have been many wonderful fanfics written primarily to fix that finale. If it had ended with a resolution we could stand, Triaxian Silk might not exist today. Parting Trip and T'Pol in that miserable way has left all of us with work that is good to do!

Yeah, I know. I get it, because I'm the same way.

Still...that episode was just so incongruous to the rest of the show, I feel. And when you compare it to the finales of its predecessors, it's just like...Huh?

[Pitseleh]

While I hate to give any, small as it may be, "good" attribute to the thing, Alelou is right. Since that piece of trash offers nothing we could call closure or even belivable continuity to the show, we were forced to make our own ENT history and conclusions. More fanfic!

I feel for you, Aquarius. I remember how I felt after I first watched that stupidity.

[Aquarius]

You know, the funny thing is, I've been here for months reading what people have said about it, and while on the one hand I didn't doubt you all because certain elements everyone described so were so wrong, there's still that part of you that wants to reserve judgment until you see for yourself--that voice that says "Oh, come on, it can't be THAT bad..."

...and it really was THAT bad.

[justTripn]

There is a long list of people who saw that episode and began writing fanfic. Strangely enouph, I wasn't IMMEDIATELY outraged. But the next day and the day after and the day after that, I couldn't let it go. You can ask the women I drive home from work with. I was like, "I can't BELIEVE they killed the main character. WHY did they kill the main character? How long were Trip and T'Pol together? What does this mean for the books? What does this mean for the movies? Lets see Trip died 10 years after Terra Prime? No, I think it was only 6 years! So maybe they were together 6 years? No Trip implies they had been apart a LONG time? CAN'T BELIEVE THEY KILLED TRIP!"

Anyway, this was my circular thought process for a straight week and I IMMEDIATELY sat down and started writing a finale fix, despite having no idea what I would do with it. I wasn't involved with the Internet at all at that time. Then after finishing, I googled "Trip and T'Pol" or something and found that, coincidentally, there was a finale fix challenge at HoT. I wasn't alone. However, I didn't get the memo that *the_abomination* had been thrown out of the canon, so my story wasn't quite a fix, just an improvement. I can't write out the title here because some program will change it to *the abomination*?" But it was "Original Title of the Final Episode, question mark."

More importantly, Rigil Kent also started writing because of the finale. There were others. Now I can't remember who.

[Alelou]

I was just so glad I'd been forewarned by reading about it online. If I'd had to suffer through that in real time ... ugh.

And I know I'm a moderate on the subject. Because I still like that shuttle craft scene everyone hates.

[JadziaKathryn]

I remember sitting there thinking, "That's the shuttle that could only do warp 2, and it caught up with them? And what's with the Riker and Troi thing? How come nobody's grieving for Trip? Shran is a criminal? What the heck is this?"

[Asso]

Renewing sorrow is sorrow itself, but it's consoling to know that people feel the same you feel.
And it's amazing to know that whoever sees "THAT THING" becomes agape and dumb, with
horrified abhorrence!

[Aquarius]

And I know I'm a moderate on the subject. Because I still like that shuttle craft scene everyone hates.

It was a good scene in that it displayed the chemistry between Trip and T'Pol that we love so much, but the concept sucked (for me) because there was NO explanation as to why they didn't make it as a couple, and things seemed to be on a hopeful uptrend six years before. Yeah, Trip said something like "I'm sick of this bond" in "Terra Prime," but even someone who'd been completely lobotomized could see that he was just frustrated and having a hard time adjusting, given the sudden revelation that he has a daughter with a woman he loves, but has a difficult relationship with. He had a lot to reconcile in a short time, and T'Pol was the nearest target. You hurt the ones you love and all that.

It's like Trip grinning at Archer before he dies--it is such an honest manifestation of the character, but becomes extremely unpalatable in the context of the rest of the show.

I'm glad this has motivated so many people to write. i also feel very lucky that I was motivated to write TnT before seeing this.