Stop bullying T'Pol!

[Tallis Rhul]

It makes me sad. I'm 9 episodes into season 2 and they just bully her all the time! She clearly knows best, has more experience of the galaxy at large than any of them, and yet they basically just laugh at her.

Fortunately she's Vulcan and doesn't give a crap, but... it is a bit much.

Thoughts?

 

[ChristopherPike]

Space-wise, humankind are in their rebellious teenager stage. Tell us not to do something and we'll just go ahead do it anyway.

 

[Mach5]

Wait till S3. By then, they will have fully accepted her as one of them.

 

[SFRabid]

When I saw the title of the thread I thought you were talking to the fans, ..., or anti-fans of the show.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I actually agree with this. Seeing how Archer and Tucker treated T'Pol in the early episodes did nothing to sell me on those characters.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

They literally laugh at her! If she had been Ambassador Soval then she would have stormed off in a "not a huff because Vulcans don't have huffs" as he so often does.

Then she sticks up for them.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't be posting any of this if I didn't honestly think that her character steals season 1 and is beginning to steal season 2 as well. I can see Archer warming to her, Mach5, but Trip's still a way off

 

[JiNX-01]

Actually, the problem I had with the way Archer treated T'Pol is that he was the one who asked her to stay aboard as his science officer (doubling as first officer). Once he did that, it was pretty idiotic of him to ignore her counsel and give her crap every time a Vulcan ship turned up on their sensors.

It would have made more sense if, at the end of the Broken Bow mission, the Vulcans had persuaded SFC to assign T'Pol to the NX-01 for the long term in light of her contribution to the success of the mission. At least then, seeing Archer copping attitude and giving her crap would have made sense dramatically.

(As you've seen, Trip became friends with T'Pol in "Breaking the Ice.")

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Hehe, true enough, but he still laughs at her as hard as the rest of them. That mean old hickgineer.

Yeah, I completely agree with your point about Archer, he basically rode roughshod over every piece of advice she gave him in exactly the way ChristopherPike described. And why is it her fault that the Vulcans mollycoddled the humans (and more)? She got a roasting every time the word Vulcan was even mentioned!

 

[JiNX-01]

Hehe, true enough, but he still laughs at her as hard as the rest of them. That mean old hickgineer.

I don't recall Trip "laughing" at her once they became friends. He teases her on occasion, but she clearly doesn't take it as malicious or mean-spirited.

Yeah, I completely agree with your point about Archer, he basically rode roughshod over every piece of advice she gave him in exactly the way ChristopherPike described. And why is it her fault that the Vulcans mollycoddled the humans (and more)? She got a roasting every time the word Vulcan was even mentioned!

Actually, the relationship between Archer and the Vulcans is going to be improving a bit in the episodes ahead ... watch for it.

 

[Treknut]

Yeah the early treatment of T'Pol was quite off putting.

Archer's recklessness in Strange New World almost gets all the landing party killed after he ignores T'Pols suggestion to do a full scan before landing - all because thats what Vulcans would do, you know, be cautious when landing on a new world.

Even in Season 3 he still doesn't trust her completely. Hatchery comes to mind. He confines T'Pol to her quarters after she questions his orders, when he's affected by the Insectiod chemical, but when Trip and Phlox do the same thing he just sends them off after a verbal dressing down.

 

[pookha]

they really should have put first flight early season one.

Spoiler: first flight

in first flight they give a reason why jon and trip would be so personally angry with the vulcan. the vulcans were trying to shut down the warp five program despite trip telling them that he and others wwere working on a solution. one that the vulcans knew would work.

as for they and tpol really tpol gave back as good as she got.
and as the first season goes on you can see the respect that both trip and jon have for her grow.
they even threw her an anniversary party in early season 2.

but yeah after first flight it is easy to see why they were not always trusting of vulcan advice.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

I can understand why they weren't trusting of Vulcan advice, but aren't they being a little racist? (Or whatever the alien word for that is... brain...tired...) Xenophobic maybe. Anyways, she clearly has many of the same interests as they do. After all, if the ship blows up and she's on it then she shares their fate!

I watched Singularity last night... Archer does seem to be warming to her. At last!

 

[gblews]

It makes me sad. I'm 9 episodes into season 2 and they just bully her all the time! She clearly knows best, has more experience of the galaxy at large than any of them, and yet they basically just laugh at her.

One of the things I enjoyed about Ent, especially in season 1, was the way Trip related to T'Pol.

In season 1, I thought T'Pol came across as pompous, condescending, arrogant, kind of obnoxious, and quite vulnerable. Only the last one kept me from completely hating the character rather than just finding her annoying. I ended up really liking her.

I enjoyed the way Trip related to her (even though I didn't really care for that character either in season 1). He treated her like he would treat any of the other crewmembers which is all T'Pol was to him. In Trip's mind, T'Pol was no less worthy of ridicule as any other person on the ship, including himself. This led to some really funny moments between the two.

I think that you may be taking T'Pol as seriously as she seemed to take herself in that first season.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Maybe so... and maybe I'll lighten up along the ride as she seems to be ^^

 

[SFRabid]

Hmmm. Clearly the captain should have always taken T'Pol's advice, and when questioned all he should have said to the crew is "Because T'Pol said so."

 

[jkayd]

I actually agree with this. Seeing how Archer and Tucker treated T'Pol in the early episodes did nothing to sell me on those characters.

The way Archer disrespected T'Pol in front of the crew drove me crazy. Not only was his attitude unprofessional, but he put the crew in danger over and over again because he allowed his ridiculous bias against vulcans to effect his ability to command.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

I think that's probably what got me all riled up in the first place, the fact that it was on the bridge and not normally in the ready room where he kinda went off on one.

Hmmm. Clearly the captain should have always taken T'Pol's advice, and when questioned all he should have said to the crew is "Because T'Pol said so."

Yes, clearly he should.

 

[SFRabid]

I actually agree with this. Seeing how Archer and Tucker treated T'Pol in the early episodes did nothing to sell me on those characters.

The way Archer disrespected T'Pol in front of the crew drove me crazy. Not only was his attitude unprofessional, but he put the crew in danger over and over again because he allowed his ridiculous bias against vulcans to effect his ability to command.

Not quite ridiculous. He did blame Vulcans for holding the program back, preventing his father from seeing his engine design put to use, and treating humans like children. The way he acted was much like teenagers getting rebellious as they strive for independence. I assume this was intentional by the writers.

I thought it was resolved rather quickly. They learned to respect T'Pol and T'Pol learned that humans are not the idiots that the Vulcan council portrays them to be. We could just as well be talking about Vulcan prejudice towards human.

 

[bluedana]

I think the whole "being mean to T'Pol" thing is overstated. There are really few examples of anyone, even Archer, disrespecting her. Not taking her advice, yes. Arguing with her, yes. Trip defies her orders to her face, on the bridge. Hoshi swears at her (I think) in Vulcan, on the bridge. Archer typically gets in her face when the Vulcans do something and he looks to her as if to say, Explain this. She gives as well as she takes, and it never crosses the line the way, say, TOS did with Spock. That was some mean-spirited writing there sometimes.

T'Pol brought a perspective that worked for Vulcans, not so much for humans, and just because she said so, didn't make it right.

 

[cylkoth]

I actually agree with this. Seeing how Archer and Tucker treated T'Pol in the early episodes did nothing to sell me on those characters.

The way Archer disrespected T'Pol in front of the crew drove me crazy. Not only was his attitude unprofessional, but he put the crew in danger over and over again because he allowed his ridiculous bias against vulcans to effect his ability to command.

It amazing to me how The Andorian Incident still, after all this time, can make my temperature rise. Archer rails on Vulcans constantly.
Archer:They're not like us!
They held us back!
They're meanies!
Oh look, a Vulcan monastery! I want to take a look around.

T'Pol: The monks are sequestered and are in intensive meditation...Guests aren't allowed....

Archer; But I'm Archer...from the planet Earth! I'm entitled to look around and disturb meditating Vulcans if I want!

T'Pol, Sigh, alright, stop whining..Just don't speak or touch anything.

Archer proceeds to touch everything and speak to the Vulcan whose meditation he's interrupted.

He then turns over scans of the listening outpost to the Andorians who've just whopped on him for nearly the entire hour, casually ignoring every mention of how violent and dangerous they have been, just because they don't like Vulcans either. And worse, he makes T'Pol hand the scanner over to them, instead of doing it himself.

The Vulcan High Command should've filed charges against him with the (Earth) World Court, and had his butt arrested, brought up on charges for violating the security of a sovereign planet, treason against an ally, tampering and whatever else they could think of.