ENT - Fusion

[Yukaphile]

Linkara brings up a good point, though I will posit I still regret every failed potential romance I ever had, lol.

[clearspira]

Personally I have never bought the idea that ENT ruined the Vulcans personality wise as imo Spock and the other Vulcans are very much like Worf and the other Klingons. One is the ideal of how their race should be due to being an outsider, the other is the reality of corruption and self serving interest. Did we not have Spock bullied for being half human as early as The Animated Series? Did we not have Serek lament how human Spock is just after his birth in Star Trek V? Did we not have the Vulcan who murdered people for smiling in DS9? Did we not have the baseball Vulcans from the same show?
The Vulcans have always been xenophobic, racist dicks.

[Yukaphile]

I will counter your claims. I'd daresay even a logical species would have its share of bullies, and I doubt the original intent was nothing like what JJ Abrams gave us. Remember this is coming secondhand from Spock's mother during TOS, which, well... she was the hysterical woman. Yes, we all know that's a horrible accusation, but TOS was awful when it comes to characterizing their female characters, or trying to move them outside misogynistic gendered stereotypes. And yes, Sarek commented "so human," but... that was coming from The Final Frontier! One of the biggest bombs of Star Trek's film history that was panned by critics and... even assuming that's so... one could argue Sarek might be disappointed his child was crying. Who knows? Maybe Vulcan babies don't cry once they're born - at least prior to all the new stuff. Perhaps Vulcan telepathy shields them from the pain and shock of birth and the harshness of coming into be. So that could be one explanation. And that Vulcan... that Vulcan was a deranged killer! You really wanna lump all Vulcans in that camp - like lumping me into the same class as WWII criminals? We also know the intent, that it was meant to show off the horrors of war, so he killed people who were smiling for God knows what reason.

The only case you could legitimately make would be Solok from "Take Me Out to the Holosuite," and he was... yeah. Not gonna defend him. I get the impression Vulcans do have an elitist fringe, but it doesn't represent all Vulcans, now more than all conservatives represent all liberals, because all we've seen on screen is a tiny fraction - at least prior to Enterprise. It's just Enterprise exaggerated it and made the whole species seem that way.

[FaxModem1]

Personally I have never bought the idea that ENT ruined the Vulcans personality wise as imo Spock and the other Vulcans are very much like Worf and the other Klingons. One is the ideal of how their race should be due to being an outsider, the other is the reality of corruption and self serving interest. Did we not have Spock bullied for being half human as early as The Animated Series? Did we not have Serek lament how human Spock is just after his birth in Star Trek V? Did we not have the Vulcan who murdered people for smiling in DS9? Did we not have the baseball Vulcans from the same show?
The Vulcans have always been xenophobic, racist dicks.

I would disagree with you, in that there are clearly good elements of Vulcans. Tuvok loathed Neelix, but he and Tom Paris had an odd kinship and respect for each other. Vorik and his twin brother both got along well with their fellow crewmates. Dr. Selar was intended as a romantic interest for Worf before they decided that having the actress as a Klingon-human hybrid worked better. T'pol, though haughty, showed genuine warmth and concern. Soval, though outwardly rude and gruff, was in fact a human advocate the whole time.

We have to remember that we're dealing with a race of telepaths. Remember, they mean more than they say:

PERRIN: My husband has taken an interest in your career. He finds it to be satisfactory.
PICARD: My word! High praise from a Vulcan.
PERRIN: Some people who expect an emotional response often find Vulcans quite cold when they are merely being
PICARD: Logical.
PERRIN: Exactly.

Note that it might seem like an insult, but it's actually a compliment. There are always layers to what they say. It's why they seem flustered with humans, as we don't seem to get the nuance with which they are communicating. We are unnecessarily verbose in their eyes, and way too open with how we feel on every topic. It's akin to asking a stranger on the street if they enjoy BDSM. There's nothing wrong with liking it or disliking it, but they would consider it none of your business.

That's how Vulcans feel about most topics, and it's why they come off as rude.

[Rocketboy1313]

His big regret that has haunted him for 20 years is from not asking a girl to dance before he hit double digits in age. Now there's plenty of dumb things that I regret from my Elementary school days... but the big moment that they chose to contrast with a guy not being able to make amends with his father before he dies was... a grade school crush? Come on, now. It's just... dumb.

I imagine it never actually happened and is an apocryphal story to play on the stereotypes of humans being overly emotional.

[Admiral X]

Hell, there are still dumb things I did as a kid that I kick myself over, why should Trip be any different? Yeah, there's the whole issue with the writers for the show not exactly being stellar, but one could argue that there could be aspects of Trip's life which would cause him to focus on this particular happening as a regret he keeps revisiting. I mean, maybe his entire love-life has basically been him having a crush on someone and being too afraid to say anything about it, so he tends to focus on the first one because he thinks if only he'd had the guts to back then, he'd have had the confidence to do it later when he'd gotten older. Or something.

[Fianna]

So Kav's father doesn't agree with his son embracing emotion, and chastises him for bringing shame on their family. Their family that rejects emotions, and thus shouldn't feel shame.

That's the problem with any character who claims to not have emotions, or at least to not act based on emotions: if that were true, they wouldn't be doing any of the stuff that they do, because they'd have no motivation for doing it.

[Meushell]

Personally I have never bought the idea that ENT ruined the Vulcans personality wise as imo Spock and the other Vulcans are very much like Worf and the other Klingons. One is the ideal of how their race should be due to being an outsider, the other is the reality of corruption and self serving interest. Did we not have Spock bullied for being half human as early as The Animated Series? Did we not have Serek lament how human Spock is just after his birth in Star Trek V? Did we not have the Vulcan who murdered people for smiling in DS9? Did we not have the baseball Vulcans from the same show?
The Vulcans have always been xenophobic, racist dicks.

In defense of the DS9 Vulcans...

With the baseball Vulcans, only the captain was seen as specist. The rest just probably wanted to play baseball. Some of them seem to be interacting with the DS9 crew after the game just fine.

With the murdering Vulcan, he was insane.

Otherwise, I do agree with you.

[AlucardNoir]

Oh, don't be silly Chuck, Nemesis ruined Vulcan races far beyond anything Ent could have ever... and I just realized this episode aired before Nemesis... It's getting really hard defending ST:ENT, even STD has been getting better as of late... or at least that's what the reviews on the internet say. I gave up on it after the first season.


Also, I have to disagree with Linkara. The fact that Tucker compared something as trivial as a crush he had when he was in elementary school with the potential death of an estranged father makes the point about regret ever more poignant. If something as insignificant as an elementary school crush staid with Tucker for 20 years, what effect would the death of a parent have?

[clearspira]

How old are you at elementary school in the US out of interest? School is different here in Britain, we have primary schools which are 5-11 yrs and secondary schools which are 11-16. I ask because I do not recall being much interested in girls at Primary school - very much still in the girls are icky stage.