Opinions about Trip and T'Pol
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Have you seen "Juno"? It's about a pregnant teenager who arranges to have the baby adopted by a woman who dearly wants a child. There's a scene where the adoptive mother puts her hands to the teen's swollen belly and feels the baby kick. The woman bonds with her baby at that moment, as surely as any mother can bond with her child. Without seeing him, or touching him, or even carrying him inside her.
Sure, it's a screenplay. But Enterprise was a series of screenplays, too. The task of the writer is to make the situation credible to the viewer. T'Pol's utter certainty regarding her child, plus her "I'm Vulcan" (and all that implies), sold Trip that T'Pol was right...and sold me that she had a connection with her child.
As gblews mentioned...
In "The Aenar," a scene early on in the conference room has Archer, T'Pol, Trip, Shran et al discussing the drone ship and how it is operated. T'Pol suggests that they can build their own telepresence unit to interfere with the drone ship.
Later in sickbay, the telepresence unit has been built, but not tested.
The clear inference is that T'Pol is telepathic.
And there's the most obvious evidence: "Affliction," in which T'Pol mind-melds with Hoshi. I'm not aware of non-telepaths who mind-meld.
A Night in Sickbay has to be one of the worst episodes in the history of Star Trek; I don't know what the hell they were thinking of when they wrote it. That whole idea that Archer's "anger toward T'Pol had a component of sexual tension to it" was a crock of crap concept IMO. Here is the secene you were talking about and your right, T'Pol made it clear.
Everyone knows that!
Oh, I don't think it's as clear as all that. I think it was intentionally left ambiguous as to what she meant.
Penguin is correct in that T'Pol isn't telepathic in the usual sense we use it: she can't generally read minds. The mind meld is a special limited kind of telepathy, and she has just enough to make the gadget work in The Aenar. I suspect she wouldn't have been able to have a conversation with the captive Aenar guy the way Jhamel did, because she isn't that type of telepath. Jhamel had to make an effort not to read minds. Vulcans (even the mind melding at the drop of a hat Vulcans of later years) weren't portrayed as being that kind of telepath.
It may have been as simple as putting a name to what she felt subconsciously or viscerally. As in, Our baby is out there - ah, that's what I've been feeling.
Penguin is correct in that T'Pol isn't telepathic in the usual sense we use it: she can't generally read minds. The mind meld is a special limited kind of telepathy, and she has just enough to make the gadget work in The Aenar. I suspect she wouldn't have been able to have a conversation with the captive Aenar guy the way Jhamel did, because she isn't that type of telepath. Jhamel had to make an effort not to read minds. Vulcans (even the mind melding at the drop of a hat Vulcans of later years) weren't portrayed as being that kind of telepath.
But I think what you point out above shows only that T'Pol is not as powerful a telepath as the Aenar. But being able to mind meld (a form of mind reading) and T'Pol's ability to use the Telpresence Unit proves that T'Pol is certainly telepathic.
And don't discount T'Pol's strength as a telepath. As pookah points out, she was able to reach out across space through the bond to touch Trip's mind. Thats some pretty good telepathin.
Speaking of the mind meld at the drop of a hat future Vulcans, I think there was a TOS episode where Spock reaches out with his mind to compel some enemy dude to do Spock's will. Shows that Vulcans were quite capable telepaths, even though the 22nd century versions didn't all know it.
I think that in that scene i T-Pol's White room was not a case of T-Pol reaching out to trip's mind. She expressed surprise that he was there in her mind. Rather I believe that it was the Bond it's self that connected thier minds. The bond may have made Trip a latent telepath in regards to t-Pol.
Okay, I stand corrected T-Pol had telepathic abilities..How powerful they were I have no idea.
Trouble is that the writers seemed to use that when they wanted to and made it as strong as they wanted to in the interest of the Episode. As they did with so many other aspects of some of the characters.
Okay, I stand corrected T-Pol had telepathic abilities..How powerful they were I have no idea.
Trouble is that the writers seemed to use that when they wanted to and made it as strong as they wanted to in the interest of the Episode. As they did with so many other aspects of some of the characters.
My take on the whole white room thing is this: because the bond had formed between them, and they were separated, that both of their minds were subconsciously seeking each other out. Pretty close to what you are saying, I think.
The writing of Trip & T'Pol's romance was pretty bad, I think we can all agree on that. It was the on screen chemistry that the two actors had that made it work.
Sorry, I'm not sure if this is directed at Penguin.
I betcha not everyone would agree with both those statements. I mean, I would agree with the former (the writing), but not the latter (the on-screen chemistry). I never thought there was any chemistry between Connor and Jolene.
From the interviews from Jolene, it seemed she was not super crazy about Trip's character. And she rarely talked about Connor in interviews during filming (when Enterprise was on the air). (I think she answers questions from Trip fans now a lot though.) Before I get hate mail, I don't expect the entire cast to be totally in love with each other. I think it's natural to form groupings like in the work place -- people seek out friendships. For example Connor and Dominick got along very well; from the interviews it seems Scott, Jolene and John all got along pretty well (from what little they interacted); Scott and Connor liked each other okay; etc.
Then again, we weren't on the set. I'm sure we'll never know exactly how much they hung out with each other outside the recordings of Ent. I'm sure not much. I betcha memorizing their lines, working with the director and working with other cast members to figure out the beat of a scene took a lot of time.
On telepathy, alas, we'll never know. I thought the weakest part of the Andorian arc was Aenar where T'Pol apparently was being hurt by the telepathy helmet and then the matter seemed neatly closed without resolution. I suspect the writers hadn't fleshed it out.
On telepathy, I thought Vulcans were telepathic typically when touching fingers to a part of the body (easy!) -- the mind, the fingers, etc. Although, Spock in TOS did notice when a ship full of Vulcans perished because their minds cried out without any physical connection.
Agreed.
Regardless of what Jolene thought of Trip, I thought the two had GREAT chemistry!
Commodre64. Both Jolene and connor said in interviews that they got together and discussed their scenes in length to get them right.
I agree with those who say there was great chemistry between the characters of Tnt and Jolene and Connor on screen.
The writers of Maru thanked Jolene and connor for bringing the characters of Trip and T-Pol to life.
That is part of the chemistry. Jolene and Connor did bring Trip and T-Pol to life. That made me like the characters.
I agree with those who say there was great chemistry between the characters of Tnt and Jolene and Connor on screen.
The writers of Maru thanked Jolene and connor for bringing the characters of Trip and T-Pol to life.
That is part of the chemistry. Jolene and Connor did bring Trip and T-Pol to life. That made me like the characters.
Isn't this getting just a tad ridiculous?
* "I saw great chemistry!"
** "I didn't see any chemistry..."
*** "Oh, that chemistry was awesome!"
**** "Nah, they were so like oil and water to me..."
For God's sake, we all see what we want to see, and don't see what we don't want to see.
Mike Sussman once said he saw great chemistry between Archer and T'Pol. I personally saw none. But what the hell is this mythical *chemistry* anyway?
I guess it's that little something that cannot be precisely defined, but manifests itself through body language, vocal inflections, interaction in general. It's when two people share *something* between them that they don't share with anyone else.
And it's not necessarily sexual. For example, I saw more chemistry between O'Brien and Bashir then I ever saw between O'Brien and his wife Keiko. I mean, Keiko and Miles seemed genuinely fond of each other, they were cute, almost perfect together, but Miles and Julian had that little something that made them more interesting together than individually.
Same goes for T'Pol and Trip. They were both interesting as individuals, but they were even more interesting as a couple (not necessarily a romantic couple). And to me, this began with their very first on screen interaction in "Broken Bow." There was instant *friction.*
There was also some nice friction between Archer and T'Pol in their introductory scene too (actually, that was IMO by far the best Archer moment in the series, I totally loved him for his "Shut yo Vulcan mouth, pointy!" attitude).
But when it comes to the kind of friction that suggests potential for *mating* and stuff, there was tones of it between TnT, and none I can think of between A&T.
Just check out this screencap...
(and resist captioning it if you can
)
Show me an A&T equivalent and I just might change my perspective.
I personally got the impression that Connor and Jolene didn't like each other at all, and IIRC, he recently said that he didn't speak to her in years or something. At the same time, Jolene often spoke of Bakula, and gave the impression that she truly admired him. Ah, well, go figure.
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Exactly, her thoughts on the Trip character revealed her personal taste in men; Jolene admitted she was a surfer/druggie chick who hung out with the burnouts in San Diego during her teen years- not the the high school cheerleader/prom queen who went for the football jock. She dated Edward Furlong for God's sake!
Connor played college football before turning to acting, so I'm guessing he was a good enough player in high school to get an atheletic scholarship- the jock who was on the top tier of the high school social strata- the type of guy Jolene doesn't go for. Although Trip's popularity and athletic rep in his youth was not revealed, I think it was very similar to Connor, therefore, Jolene the person would not be crazy about Trip. She also made a comment about Trip being a "honky tonk" guy- a one-dimensional redneck that a native SoCal girl like herself wouldn't give the time of day.
Whether or not Connor and Jolene were friends off the set, hated each other, or were indifferent is irrelevant, they had great chemistry on screen and I'll repeat- would love to see them act together again! Speaking of which, it would've been great in SG-1 or SG Atlantis if Jolene's "Ishta" met Connor's "Michael."
i think jolene was very vocal about Trip, not about connor. it's her artistic point of view. even if i don't share it, it's not totally wrong.
concerning connor and jolene : connor said that she was the first whom he announced that he was going to be a daddy, because she was worried about his behavior.
in an other hand, she was very critical about the show which makes her famous. i think if we have to search problems between the actors, we could look between jolene and linda. i read an interview (don't remember where) where linda said a lot of nice things about the others and when she talked about jolene, she said :"uhmm.... complex".
concerning connor and jolene : connor said that she was the first whom he announced that he was going to be a daddy, because she was worried about his behavior.
in an other hand, she was very critical about the show which makes her famous. i think if we have to search problems between the actors, we could look between jolene and linda. i read an interview (don't remember where) where linda said a lot of nice things about the others and when she talked about jolene, she said :"uhmm.... complex".
It was directed at Penguin.
Other than we agree that the writing of Trip & T'Pol's relationship was poor, I doubt that you and I are ever going to agree on much else regarding Star Trek's most star crossed lovers. Let's just "agree to disagree".
Thank you for saying that! It is just human nature to see what you want to see and disregard the rest.
In fact, some of us would rather take our eyes out with a spoon rather than seeing something we don't want to see!
BTW: Nice screen cap.
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I read that, too. It was over the last scene in Terra Prime where he was really busted up - drawing on his personal life to do an effective scene. That sure was effective - his performance was very moving!
Actors & Actresses don't have to be crazy about each other to have great screen chemistry, though. In Gone With the Wind Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh couldn't stand each other - she said he had terrible stinky breath, but it worked didn't it? THen you have couples in real life who do movies together and they have NO CHEMISTRY - weird (think J Lo & Affleck for one)
Trip & T'Pols chemistry is one of the things that drew me into the series, I wasn't looking for that, or wanting to find it. So I guess I don't need to gouge my eyes out with a spoon
I have to say the same happened to me. I watched Enterprise without knowing anything about it, I had left Star Trek behind for a very long time. From the first scene Trip & T'Pol had, I knew they had to get together, there was no escape. And I cared to find out how their story would unfold. So, whether they liked each other or not, Jolene and Connor did their job extremely well.
Joncreed: I do agree with your points. These Connor/Jolene comments are often miss-quoted and almost always taken out of context. Here is what they actually said, in context, so you can judge for yourselves what you think they meant.
What I get from these comments is that both Connor and Jolene feel that the success of Trip & T'Pol's relationship depends on how it is written. That should be no surprise to anyone here. Regardless of how Connor and Jolene personally felt, the two of them did make it work! If they weren't so effective together, then there wouldn't be "legions of Trip and T'Pol fans out there." If they weren't so effective, then CBS/Paramount would not have put Trip & T'Pol's relationship at the center of the two re-launch books and one short story in the Myriad Universe book series. Over coming the bad writing and captivating the fans is a testament to Connor & Jolene's acting abilities and their ability to work together.
Thanks, Middleman for clearing that all up!
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