unchienne said:
Oh I love that scene. I love how he starts laughing and then gets dead serious when he confronts her about her personally wanting him back. I also love that her look to his reaction seems to be a little-girl pout. Like a child that's just been confronted.
Yeah, that's a good way to describe it. I didn't put this one in before, but this is the look she gets right after Trip interrrupts her speech about how his presence would be beneficial to ENT operations.
Anyone else notice how aggressive she is during the kissing scenes. She was gentle with Sim, gentle during the second kiss in Harbinger...right before it went to commercial...but all the other times it's like a blitz attack. I wonder if this was a deliberate part on Jolene to portray how T'Pol's affections almost always come after heated internal debate and struggle and/or inexperience.
Possibly. I thought that some of it also might have to do with her sense of "urgency" about the situation as well. The kisses which seemed most aggressive (e.g., in Harbinger and Bound) came in situations where it seemed T'Pol felt that Trip might be moving away from her, so maybe that factored into the aggressiveness.
I did wonder about this particular dynamic, though. Despite all the dissembling and denials, it was typically T'Pol who initiated the physical contact between them even though by nature Trip was supposed to be the more expressive and emotional. Of course the kisses usually came in emotionally charged situations, so maybe that explains part of it. But I also wondered if the writers were trying to emphasize certain aspects of Trip's character -- like his gentlemanly side or perhaps even some insecurities on his part. Despite the charm, expressiveness, etc., usually associated with Trip, he actually seemed rather surprised (and even stunned) when women pursued him.
One thing that always bothered me was Jolene's comments how she couldn't see how a serene person like T'Pol would get with a catfish eating honky-tonk guy...but I think it's been taken out of context too much. Because she then states that maybe there's something in opposites attracting.
Well, I think she could’ve been a bit more tactful about her comments, especially in deference to CT, who had been trying to move Trip away from that stereotype -- but that seems to be the approach she took in certain interviews, very outspoken and blunt. On the positive side, she did go on to say that maybe there was something to the “opposites attract” aspect, but I think that sometimes gets overlooked.
Basically, JB didn’t seem to want T’Pol to be romantically paired with the male leads. She also seemed to want T’Pol to be a more traditional Vulcan, almost an “observer” type, whereas certain writers envisioned (and wrote her) as one who had a predilection for emotion and various internal conflicts. It’s interesting watching JB and Braga talk about their respective views of T’Pol on the DVDs.
Anyway, IIRC, I think Jolene made the “honky tonk” comments at the end of S3, after what must’ve been a tough season from her perspective. A number of the things done in S3 seemed to go against what she wanted for T’Pol (pairing her up, moving her further away from a traditional Vulcan, scantily clad scenes, etc.), so I think she was probably pretty frustrated at the end.
The tone of her comments changed significantly, though, when Manny Coto took over in S4. She talked about how the gap between the actors and writers closed, praised the writing, and started to make more favorable comments about the T/T relationship. In the
Coast to Coast interview she did around the time Demons/Terra Prime was filming, she seemed fairly positive (considering the cancellation) and seemed to think something would still come of the T/T relationship. After TATV was unveiled, though, her tone seemed to change again, and she made some rather scathing comments about the episode in various interviews. Re: T/T, basically what she said at the end was that there were a lot of feelings which didn’t go anywhere, so it got monotonous...and also that the writers needed to make it a relationship or not, but they couldn’t walk that line forever.
I haven't gotten the dvds yet: postponed it this month in order to buy a couple of Enterprise scripts. Do B and B mention when they decided to make these two a couple?
Not exactly. During the “Broken Bow” commentary, Braga comments on the onscreen chemistry between CT and JB and how sometimes you don’t know about these things until you see the actors onscreen. And during one of their scenes, he says something about it being a forerunner to their future relationship, but that could've been stated more from hindsight.
The writers did seem to throw them together quite a bit and gave them some focus early on in episodes like Broken Bow, Strange New World, and Breaking the Ice, and I remember thinking at the time that they might be laying the foundation for some type of romance. But it’s never been clear to me whether they planned a romance from the start, and I tend to think not since they seemed to be testing other possibilities, especially in S2. One of the first "official" mentions of a possible T/T pairing may've been some of the comments made at the TCA summer press tour prior to S3
article summary . B&B were on the ENT panel along with Scott B., Jolene B. and Connor T.
And while I've read Jolene's opinion on the matter...what was Connor's on the fact that they decided to make them an on-screen couple?
I remember maybe a couple of somewhat critical comments CT made about the storyline in S3, but for the most part I think he was diplomatic and seemed open to the pairing. Re: “Harbinger,” he talked about how he and Jolene discussed their scenes before filming and how they tried to find the truth for their characters and justify their actions (especially JB as a Vulcan). At the end of the season, he basically said that if the T/T relationship continued in S4, he hoped the writers would make it evolve. In the end, I think he had some frustrations with how elements of the storyline were handled in S4 as well, but some of that seems to have come out more in subsequent convention appearances than it did during the series run.
pookha said:
just how much time did trip and tpol spend together.
at least three sessions of np a week possibly lasting more then a hour from sometime in september to late december.
and this was in a very intimate cozy setting with candle light where they were becoming increasingly comfortable touching each other.
Yeah, I think the first session in "The Xindi" would've taken place sometime in August (basis timeline estimates), and he missed a few sessions after that ("Extinction"), so as you said it was likely September when they started a regular schedule lasting into late December. That's around 32-48 sessions over four months, assuming 2-3 every week -- of course they probably missed a few here and there, but that's still a lot of n-p.
Cooooool. 
Fun stuff.
