Captain X said:
The only thing out of line for Trip was for him to sit there and take Archer's hypocritical rant like a bitch
Ouch. Not feelin' a whole lotta Trip love today. (Or Archer love. But I never see much of that, LOL.)
When I watched that scene, Trip looked shocked, devastated, terribly remorseful. But that's just me.
Pensive said:
I do agree it's hypocritical of Archer to bust Trip's balls
I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "hypocritical"...there was ultimately no interference (i.e., curing of the disease) in
Dear Doctor (even though it was against Archer's principles), and Archer told Trip he should not have interfered with the Vissian culture in
Cogenitor. (As I recall, he told Trip in an earlier scene that he didn't know what he would have done had he been in the same position.)
Sidebar:
The Breach looked to me to be addressing a different issue entirely--not non-interference, but prejudice. Phlox never expressed a personal desire not to treat the Antaran. When Archer tried to order him, Phlox shut him down, citing Denobulan ethics. He worked to earn the Antaran's trust...because Archer asked at first, perhaps, but later because he was reminded of the breach with his own son over the matter. In the end, no one was forced to do or submit to anything unwillingly.
Back to
Cogenitor: Sure, Archer's viewpoint appeared to have changed over that year and a half from automatically wanting to jump in and take action, to weighing the issue of doing what he thought was right vs. interfering with other species, as he put it. But I would expect his viewpoint to move more toward a "prime directive" stance over time.
I think the point being made was that Trip was still prone to being impulsive and not considering the consequences of his actions. It could be argued that his behavior was out of character for late Season 2...but that would seem to be a writer problem, not an Archer problem.
Another thing to consider: the reason for the cogenitor gender's subjugation. There might have been a valid reason in the Vissians' past for it, of which we were not made aware. Maybe they staged a revolt and tried to seize control of the government, holding the race's future children hostage if they didn't get what they demanded. And the revolt was put down, and the cogenitors were punished by having their rights taken away. Or something like that. Maybe outworlders are never told such things. Who knows? It's their culture, not human, and it makes sense to them, even if we think it's an outrageous, immoral way to run things. Humans--nobody--can judge what they don't fully understand.
I don't want our T/T haven to devolve into just another argument thread-- there are plenty of those already. I enjoyed the episodes and characters in question, and I saw things differently than some other folks. 'Nuff said.
