So, Why Are You A TnT 'shipper?

[Asso]

Do you think intentions were good, but the outcome bad?
Like authors would want to say: pay attention, please, all of you! This is a manifest nonsense. Nothing else can be done by us. Now the ball is in your hands.
Mhh...

[Asso]

Do you think intentions were good, but the outcome bad?
Like authors would want to say: pay attention, please, all of you! This is a manifest nonsense. Nothing else can be done by us. Now the ball is in your hands.
Mhh...

[Bookworm]

Do you think intentions were good, but the outcome bad?
Like authors would want to say: pay attention, please, all of you! This is a manifest nonsense. Nothing else can be done by us. Now the ball is in your hands.
Mhh...

Interesting. I have to think about this.

As to how I became a TnT shipper and why I'm not really sure. I didn't start out as a shipper and I guess it progressed as gradually as their relationship. First I became a bit interested and started to like the characthers, but it wasn't until the third season when I started to notice that I might be rooting for them as a couple and then when I saw episode "Home" and was really sad for them I knew I was hopelessly a TnT shipper. Reading all the great fanfiction has lot's of influence why I still remain interested about these two.

[Lys]

Do you think intentions were good, but the outcome bad?
Like authors would want to say: pay attention, please, all of you! This is a manifest nonsense. Nothing else can be done by us. Now the ball is in your hands.
Mhh...

As I haven't seen and will probably never watch 'the abomination', I can't judge the intentions of the episodes. However, I pity the poor souls who weren't warned and had to suffer through it after watching Terra Prime.

The only positive outcome I can see is that it prompted an Infinitely Diverse and Infinitely Creative number of finale fixes in fics.

[Asso]

Yes, you are right.
And another thought occurs to me: if intentions were good, why they divided Trip and T'Pol? A hint of angst? ENOUGH!

[Alelou]

You know, Asso, I wasn't really thinking of it as their way of saying, okay fans, the ball is in your court, but you could look at it that way. I thought it was just a way of leaving their options open while waving goobye to the franchise as a whole because those people spent years and years on all those Star Treks and they were fans themselves. I think they probably honestly thought of the MU episodes as their homage to TOS and the finale as their homage to TNG and the whole enchilada.

I can't quite forgive them for suggesting that Trip and T'Pol had given up six years earlier either, even though I love the chemistry in that scene on the shuttle pod. And yes, I'm extremely glad I didn't have to suffer through that episode without prior warning.

But seriously, the way the thing is framed, I think we have practically been given official Paramount permission to NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING IN IT other than that Archer gave a big speech. If nothing else that was extremely fanfic-friendly of them.

[enterprikayak]

It was nice of them.

Because whether someone was a TnT shipper, an Ain'T shipper, a TPhlox shipper.........no shipper at all.........

why-oh-why a show would put one episode on at 8pm that finishes this whole relationship arc with two people, and then at 9pm on the very same night, mind you, they both say, "huh, wow, yeah, remember how we never got together?"

Um, sorry, didn't you two see the last episode? Cause we did. And now we're just confused. I mean, is Porthos suddenly Malcolm's dog? Is the captain black? Is Hoshi Swedish? Is Phlox enmeshed in a homosexual relationship with Travis Mayweather? Did Captain Hernandez get busted down to Ensign J.G. for smoking pot on the job and crashing her ship? Is Riker the Chef? (oh, wait, scratch that last one)

But seriously? Just one thing changes randomly? None of the other things? (Except for Chef!Riker)

It's like the people who wrote the last episode lived far, far away in a land of their own making, and decided to write a completely unrelated show about another group of people entirely. And then they drank a lot of vodka and then they wrote the script.

And then they forced the regular Enterprise actors to film said unrelated script on their normal, Enterprise sets.

That's my theory. It's pretty well thought out and I'm sticking to it.

[HopefulRomantic]

...And then they drank a lot of vodka and then they wrote the script.

Or... Barclay drank a lot of vodka, and then he wrote the holodeck program. Same result: program doesn't make a lick of sense, unless you're three sheets to the wind. Maybe.

[Asso]

Alelou, I understand what you want to mean, and - somewhat - I agree with you.
But, i'm sorry, I share EK (and HopefulRomantic) thoughts.
And, excuse me, allow me to finish with one among my favourite sentences (CofeeCat, I hope you are hearing): the mother of the idiots is always pregnant!

[Alelou]

Or... Barclay drank a lot of vodka, and then he wrote the holodeck program. Same result: program doesn't make a lick of sense, unless you're three sheets to the wind. Maybe.

Which is kind of my point!

I'm not trying to convert people to liking that finale, because it DID suck royally for Enterprise fans. I'm saying I think it intentionally left a huge open door to resurrecting our heroes someday -- all of them. Not that it's likely, but with ST you never know.

I have to admit, also, that I don't find the end of Terra Prime nearly as heartwarming as most shippers seem to. TnT just aren't as connected as I'd expected after Bound -- there's too much tension and suspicion. Yes, T'Pol and Trip end up hand in hand. But to me it feels like T'Pol is just being compassionate, and Trip looks to me like he's crying not just about the baby but about the two of them. You can still HOPE they'll work it out somehow, and the episode closing on that image does suggest that it might happen, but it still looks like a real uphill struggle.

Which is not all bad either. These two struggle beautifully with each other.

[Lys]

I have to admit, also, that I don't find the end of Terra Prime nearly as heartwarming as most shippers seem to. TnT just aren't as connected as I'd expected after Bound -- there's too much tension and suspicion. Yes, T'Pol and Trip end up hand in hand. But to me it feels like T'Pol is just being compassionate, and Trip looks to me like he's crying not just about the baby but about the two of them. You can still HOPE they'll work it out somehow, and the episode closing on that image does suggest that it might happen, but it still looks like a real uphill struggle.

Which is not all bad either. These two struggle beautifully with each other.

When you know how much a struggle it was for T'Pol to accept and learn to live with emotions she can't suppress anymore -- her genie out of the bottle as said Phlox -- you can't expect them to be fully connected right after Bound when Trip has to cope with this new and so alien thing that the bond is to him. It's his turn to accept and learn to live with something he never expected.The bond is Trip's genie out of the bottle, even if he never asked for it.
I consider the final scene of Terra Prime as being a step in the right direction for both of them, a moment where they can express their grief in their own ways, and understand each other enough to go past the classical cultural misunderstanding of the unemotional Vulcan versus the too emotional Human. I take it as a beautiful coda to the scene in The Forgotten when Trip finally cries over his sister.
"I envy you Vulcans." "You're the ones to be envied." They know exactly what the other is feeling, even if their connection isn't complete.

[HopefulRomantic]

Alelou, Lys, I really enjoyed both of these posts. Very thoughtful and thought-provoking.

"I envy you Vulcans."
"You're the ones to be envied."

These are two of my favorite lines from my favorite T/T scene from the series. There is so much more conveyed beyond the words.

[justTripn]

Shedding light on "Terra Prime" and "*the_abomination*":

You've probalby gleaned this already, but in case not, Jedikatie bought an early script of Terra Prime, not the final version, in which Trip basically proposes to T'Pol, that they try again to have a child. That was obviously changed before filming. So the intentions of the writers of Terra Prime definately to unite the couple. They went for a slightly angstier version--Suppose "a human and a Vulcan" want to have a baby, instead of "if we want to have another baby" which was great, if only *the_abomination* had followed up on the implication that they were definately a couple now.

There was one great acting moment in *the_abomination*: As Trip winks and goes into the imaging chamber, or whatever and everyone is telling him it's all right, as soon as he's out of site, Archer and Phlox exchange a look of horror. They know it's over.

Whoops, of course there were two great acting moments in *the_abomination*: the final scene. Shedding light on this from the conferences. Connor the actor was literally crying about the baby. At the last conference he said that after the scene he just couldn't pull it together because the previous day he found out his wife was pregnant, so he was very sentimental about babies at that moment. So after the scene he went off by himslef to pull himself together, but he couldn't stop crying to the point that Jolene was concerned and asked what was wrong and he told her.

He also said that when he first heard that Trip would die in the final episode, his immediate reaction was to be terribly flattered. And Bragga did say he killed Trip because Trip was his favorite character. If Bragga and Berman had pulled it off a little better--given us a story that was sadder and more coherent with the rest of the series--we might not be complaining. Of course we would probably have forgotten entirely about it. I know I would. Since my "finalie fix" got me started in this fandom.

[Asso]

Alelou, your thoughts are very deep, like those of Lys.
And, for the most part, they (yours and of Lys) are like mine.
In fact It is a long time since I'm thinking about a story which whirls in my mind.
After the Bond's discovery, Trip and T'Pol should have been together joyously.
But, in Terra Prime, it sounds something don't work well.
Why?
Well…
You must think that Trip, as T’Pol, hides a lot of things under the surface.
I think that for him time to play have passed, by now.
Now he wants something else than "an amusing and pleasurable love affair".
And T’Pol? She too, wants she that?
You should consider how much time (and how much efforts) were necessary, in order that she admitted, finally and openly, that she was attracted by Trip; that she was wanting him back.
How much efforts for that kiss in Bound!
And now, when, more or less, their “Love Affair” is a matter of fact…
Now is it possible, for her, for him, for them, to go BEYOND?
Eh… You know… T'Pol is STUBBORN! (and, as you say, Lys) it’s difficult for her to live with these damn emotions…
But… but now a new fact!
A daughter; hers and of Trip; also if this daughter is a clone; and that happens not for nothing!
And this daughter dies!
I think T'Pol's behaviour is not compassionate.
I think finally she is UNDERSTANDING!

[Alelou]

You've probalby gleaned this already, but in case not, Jedikatie bought an early script of Terra Prime, not the final version, in which Trip basically proposes to T'Pol, that they try again to have a child. That was obviously changed before filming.

No, I hadn't gleaned that. Can I read this version of that scene somewhere, she asks hopefully? (What did T'Pol say???)

I used to have an early ST The Voyage Home shooting script in which Saavik was pregnant with Spock's kid, unbeknownst to him -- it was very minor to the story, but I always thought that version would have been pretty neat in terms of opening up whole new story lines.

I agree that we might have handled a dead Trip a lot better if his death had been part of a much better story. The whole thing really was just very ... off.

I'm fascinated to hear why Connor cried so convincingly. Did he ever say why he decided to wink in his death scene, or whether it was the direction he got? I think he's an incredibly talented actor, and that decision just seemed weird.