Opinions about Trip and T'Pol

[Middleman]

Perhaps TPTB feared that exploring this Vulcan/Human coupling might somehow devalue Sarek & Amanda, who knows.

This was the point I was trying to make, thank you.

But the popularity of this particular TV couple, considering all the bad writing, is by itself something of a phenomenon.

Well, I know that I liked it! All joking aside, it had to be something special in order to over come the bad writing.

I'll answer your post of this morning later tonight when I get home.

 

[Nimthim]

TPTB were probably more interested in avoiding another round of screaming about ENT violating 'canon'. In actuality, Spock was never designated as the first Vulcan/Human hybrid and Sarek and Amanda were not designated as the first Vulcan/Human couple. I believe I read recently on the Star Trek XI forum a quote from Roddenberry's backstory notes that the Vulcan Science Institute had developed techniques to insure safe delivery of hybrid infants and Amanda had been in their care during her pregnancy. Hardly the background expected if Spock were the first such child.
In any case, beginning the journey from the prejudice and misinformation on both sides that we see in ENT to the acceptance of a Vulcan ambassador with a human wife in the TOS era would be a reasonable direction to take the relationship of Trip and T'Pol once the writers had established it. It is less than 80 years from Terra Prime to Spock's birth and it is likely that T'Pol would still be alive, perhaps Trip also.
I, too, have read the relaunch novels, and it will be interesting to see how they continue to develop the bond. There has been little onscreen detail about Vulcan matebonds, so I guess they could use any manifestation that isn't totally off the wall.

 

[pookha]

In any case, beginning the journey from the prejudice and misinformation on both sides that we see in ENT to the acceptance of a Vulcan ambassador with a human wife in the TOS era would be a reasonable direction to take the relationship of Trip and T'Pol once the writers had established it. .

see this is how i saw it.
there had to have been others before sarek and amanda for a high ranking vulcan official to have a non vulcan wife.
someone would have had to pave the way.

 

[Nimthim]

One other interesting connection here is that T'Pau mind-melded with T'Pol to repair her Panar syndrome and would have almost surely have been privy to details of T'Pol's relationship with Trip. A hundred years later she officiates at Spock's aborted wedding, which all accept as indicating she has some personal connection to Spock or his family and hints at her caring about Spock a great deal. And she is very tolerant of Spock declaring Kirk and McCoy as his friends - quite rare - almost blasphemous - in the ENT time.
So with T'Pau's connection to the ENT crew and later to Spock, one can speculate how she came to accept Vulcan/Human marriages and hybrid children. Surak's katra in a human combined with her knowledge of Trip and T'Pol, maybe???

 

[pookha]

perhaps..
one can also put forth a theory her initial harsh reaction to bones and jim being there was a test.
because in the end she complimented spock on his choice of companions and gave kirk an alibi for being at vulcan.
i have also wondered if tpau really wasnt fooled by bones trick. she didnt request any of the vulcans to examine jim.
just let bones take him back to the ship right away.

 

[Penguin]

T-Pau may have been the one who enabled Trip and T-Pol to marry if there had been later seasons.

That would give a connection to Spock's parents marriage.

I guess we can only extrapolate on what might have been in later seasons if they had occured.

I certanly believe that the Trip/T-Pol relationship might have been brought up every six or seven episodes if only briefly and somewhere in possibly the sixth or seventh season a marriage of Trip/T-Pol to signify Vulcan and Earth creating the federation.

Plausible.

 

[My2tailwaggers]

I know I mentioned this over on the Trip thread.. but Connor said at a charity dinner that he went to the writers to break up T'Pol and Trip. He said Trip was a "regular" guy.. and would no way put up with T'Pol getting married.. and that whole 7 year sex thing! He said there is no way that a normal guy would have stood by for that.
That aside.. I am really glad in the books taking place "after" the series has ended that they are together. I liked them as a couple.

 

[Penguin]

Tailwaggers.

Trip really didn't put up with T-Pol getting married he had little choice in his mind. anyway, she got a divorce later on.

As for the seven year Sex thing the Pon Farr was only for males. Trip being Human it would not have had any effect on him nor on T-Pol as she would not respond because Trip did not enter Pon Farr.

A regular guy might not put up with some of those things but then Trip was not a regular guy.

I still wonder what would have hapened if there had been seven or eight seasons.

If manny coto had been in sole charge and Berman and Bragga had been taken out of the series.

Perhaps Trip and t-Pol would have been broke up but it seems to me that keeping them as a couple would have been the way to go.

IMHO

 

[Mach5]

The fact that Vulcans cure their blood fever with sex doesn't mean that they only have sex once every seven years. They can indulge whenever they want, AFAIK.
Otherwise, Amanda Grayson would have had to be crazy to marry Sarek.

 

[Middleman]

The fact that Vulcans cure their blood fever with sex doesn't mean that they only have sex once every seven years. They can indulge whenever they want, AFAIK.
Otherwise, Amanda Grayson would have had to be crazy to marry Sarek.

That's not necessaraily true Mach5. Example: If sarek was married to my wife, once every seven years wouldn't bother her at all!

 

[SFRabid]

I know I mentioned this over on the Trip thread.. but Connor said at a charity dinner that he went to the writers to break up T'Pol and Trip. He said Trip was a "regular" guy.. and would no way put up with T'Pol getting married.. and that whole 7 year sex thing! He said there is no way that a normal guy would have stood by for that.
That aside.. I am really glad in the books taking place "after" the series has ended that they are together. I liked them as a couple.

When I saw the quote what he was relating it to was Trip sitting around for an entire season heartsick over T'Pol and not doing anything. He said that a real guy would be out chasing "tail". (Not the actual word he used.)

 

[Penguin]

Middleman, you must be married to my wife's sister.

Re a regular guy would be out chasing Tail.

Some egular guys would be sitting around heartsick if that guy really cared deeply about the female.

Course not all eregular guy's are handsome and telented as Connor is so chasing tail might be a waste of time for them.

Think Trip was protrayed right. A man deeply in llove with a female who he believed he has lost forever and not knowing how to cope with that loss.

It is said that a man never forgets two females in his life:

His first piece and the first female he really truely loved.

In Trips case T-Pol was probably the first female he really Truely loved.

 

[JustKate]

The fact that Vulcans cure their blood fever with sex doesn't mean that they only have sex once every seven years. They can indulge whenever they want, AFAIK.
Otherwise, Amanda Grayson would have had to be crazy to marry Sarek.

That's not necessaraily true Mach5. Example: If sarek was married to my wife, once every seven years wouldn't bother her at all!

Nowhere, as far as I know, does it say that a Vulcan only has sex once every seven years. Once every seven years they are driven to have sex, but that doesn't mean that only those Vulcans undergoing pon farr have sex. I didn't watch ENT much, but when this came up on the General Trek thread, an ENT fan said T'Pol wasn't in pon farr when she seduced Trip. So...what more proof do you need? Besides, Spock must have done something to make that Romulan commander so lovey-dovey!

 

[Lady Conqueror]

^You don't even have to look at Enterprise - while it's not explicitly stated it seems pretty clear that T'Pring & Stonn have been involved and neither looks like they are in the throes of Pon Farr.

On to Trip & T'Pol:

I liked this relationship up until season 4, after Home I totally fell off the TnT bandwagon. Home itself was great and very heartbreaking for both Trip and T'Pol, but then T'Pol seemed to just start treating Trip very badly and stringing him along. He gives her some space, she tells him off for avoiding her, so he tries to talk to her and she tells him to leave her alone and give her some space and so on for almost the entire season.

It really made me start to dislike T'Pol and think that Trip should just boot her out the nearest airlock and move on.

 

[Mach5]

^You don't even have to look at Enterprise - while it's not explicitly stated it seems pretty clear that T'Pring & Stonn have been involved and neither looks like they are in the throes of Pon Farr.

On to Trip & T'Pol:

I liked this relationship up until season 4, after Home I totally fell off the TnT bandwagon. Home itself was great and very heartbreaking for both Trip and T'Pol, but then T'Pol seemed to just start treating Trip very badly and stringing him along. He gives her some space, she tells him off for avoiding her, so he tries to talk to her and she tells him to leave her alone and give her some space and so on for almost the entire season.

So Trip takes the logical step by jumping ship ("The Aenar" / "Affliction"), for which he gets crap from Polly (again), then she begs him to come back, which he does, though not because of her but because NX-01 was "where he was meant to be." So she basically throws herself at him ("Bound") for which he rewards her by being a distrustful jerk ("Demons")...

Yeah, whatta way to write a romance, some top class storytelling there....

BTW, instead of opening a whole new thread, I'll just ask this question here. What kind of TnT development would you guys have liked to see, after the events in "Home?"
Because there's like this general consensus here that after "Home" everything went south.

 

[SFRabid]

... I liked this relationship up until season 4, after Home I totally fell off the TnT bandwagon. Home itself was great and very heartbreaking for both Trip and T'Pol, but then T'Pol seemed to just start treating Trip very badly and stringing him along. He gives her some space, she tells him off for avoiding her, so he tries to talk to her and she tells him to leave her alone and give her some space and so on for almost the entire season.

It really made me start to dislike T'Pol and think that Trip should just boot her out the nearest airlock and move on.

Sounds just like the way a lot of women threat their men.

 

[SFRabid]

What I notice is that the writing seems to leave a lot open for following seasons. It is like a plan was laid out for seven seasons. I don't know that I would change anything.

 

[JiNX-01]

I liked this relationship up until season 4, after Home I totally fell off the TnT bandwagon. Home itself was great and very heartbreaking for both Trip and T'Pol, but then T'Pol seemed to just start treating Trip very badly and stringing him along. He gives her some space, she tells him off for avoiding her, so he tries to talk to her and she tells him to leave her alone and give her some space and so on for almost the entire season.

It really made me start to dislike T'Pol and think that Trip should just boot her out the nearest airlock and move on.

I think that whole stupid handling of TnT could have been fixed pretty easily if writers had Trip corner T'Pol at some point midway through S4 and demand an explanation for her behavior. He refuses to take no for an answer and she breaks down -- finally -- and tells him about the trellium.

 

[Penguin]

Don't believe that the Trellium was to blame for all of her behavior towards Trip.

It probably made some of it worse but not all of her behavior was due to the Drug.

Looking at it from the perscpective of lousy writing and lousy writers the whole thing was ham handed.

Starting with that damned Morning after scene in Harbinger right up to bound where t-Pol says that she wants Triop Back viewers didn't know where in hell the relationship was going or if it was even going anywhere at all.

There was once a saying "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

I believe that there were too many people pulling in different directins on this issue so no one prevailed and the relationship went into the toilet.

What would I have liked to seen the reelationship develope into if the series had seven or eight seasons?

A continuing relationship turning into a very careful, discrete, very intimate Love affair and perhaps in the last season a Marriage a Son and an uncertain future but one to be met togehter.

 

[JiNX-01]

Don't believe that the Trellium was to blame for all of her behavior towards Trip.

It probably made some of it worse but not all of her behavior was due to the Drug.

Well, I always thought the writers were idiots not to make use the trellium issue by exposing T'Pol's reckless behavior not just to Trip but to Archer. Having her come clean about it would have been an interesting advance in the character's development.
Having the whole thing just vanish was stupid.

Looking at it from the perscpective of lousy writing and lousy writers the whole thing was ham handed.

Starting with that damned Morning after scene in Harbinger right up to bound where t-Pol says that she wants Triop Back viewers didn't know where in hell the relationship was going or if it was even going anywhere at all.

I was appalled by the Morning After scene in Harbinger. I've seen some posters attribute her "sexperiment" remark as evidence that what happened the night before scared her. I don't buy it.

There was once a saying "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

I believe that there were too many people pulling in different directins on this issue so no one prevailed and the relationship went into the toilet.

I think the real problem was that TIIC don't know the difference between sexual tension and adolescent angst. Guess which one we got.

What would I have liked to seen the reelationship develope into if the series had seven or eight seasons?

A continuing relationship turning into a very careful, discrete, very intimate Love affair and perhaps in the last season a Marriage a Son and an uncertain future but one to be met togehter.

I don't think I'd want to wait until the last season. I'd prefer to see a marriage toward the end of season 5; then one night toward the end of season 7 T'Pol wakes up one morning with a wild case of pon faar ...