TnT's Bond - How does it work?

[Kotik]

I agree, and I didn't hate Home... at the beginning. But afterward...

Home was one of the Episodes where I imagine this producer meeting :

Berman: "So, what do we do after the Nazi-Episode. After the whole series of Airlock-Archer and space fights, we need something calm, like that family junk we had after 'Best of both worlds' in TNG."

Braga: "Well, we could do just that. Let's send T'Pol to Vulcan."

Berman: "What about Trip? The Xindi wrecked his home. We could have him go insane."

Assistant: "People like him. I think we drove enougth viewers away already."

Berman: "Do we care? Besides, people liked Miles O'Brien and we got away with the 'o brien must suffer' episodes. *B&B laugh* Oh boy, each series we had one episode where we tortured the shit out of him and people just came back for more. What a bunch o' morons"

Assistant: "I thought, after all the dacing around each other, maybe *um* we could have her invite him to go with her."

Berman (after a minute of thinking): "I've got an idea. We give 'em some nice fluff and then we bend 'em over and give it to them from behind."

Assistant: "Pardon?"

Berman: "We show a few minutes of nice romance and then her Betrothed shows up and marries her away. Brilliant. We can back out of showing a relationship and have Trip suffer." *mad-rofl*

Assistant: "Well, do you realize that many people watch, because they want to see a relationship?"

Braga: "Do we care? Hell, we showed her ass, some decon chamber groping, even almost some tit."

Assistant: "The ratings will drop, I'm afraid."

B&B: "Do we care? *laugh* Wait till you hear what we've planned for the finale."

[Asso]

[Aquarius]

O!M!G! Too funny! Too true!!!

[honeybee]

Hilarious, Kotik. Really.

I loved much of Home, but to this day it makes no sense that T'Pol or T'Les or even Koss didn't figure out that the bond existed between Trip & T'Pol and thus the wedding was stopped. I mean none of these people are supposed to be stupid, right? I actually get the idea that she might marry Koss, because her cultural traditions demand it - but the with the bond in place it just makes no sense.

[Kotik]

Hilarious, Kotik. Really.

I loved much of Home, but to this day it makes no sense that T'Pol or T'Les or even Koss didn't figure out that the bond existed between Trip & T'Pol and thus the wedding was stopped. I mean none of these people are supposed to be stupid, right? I actually get the idea that she might marry Koss, because her cultural traditions demand it - but the with the bond in place it just makes no sense.

That's what makes this short-time marriage so utterly contrived. I think TPTB just used it to buy themselves 5 more episodes in which they didn't need to come up with ideas for a relationship or the need to invent far-fetched stupidity to create contrived angst. They didn't want to show a working human/vulcan romance. That would have taken away from their poster childs sarek, amanda and spock

[Distracted]

Anybody think of the possibility that when the writers wrote Home it hadn't occurred to them that there was a bond? That maybe somebody just came up with it while writing season four?

Junior Assistant Writer: Umm... hey guys? I was just doing some research on Vulcan mating habits... (at this point the senior writers look at him like they've never seen a nerd before) and, ummm... don't you think we should address the mating bond issue?

Berman: What are you talking about?

Junior Assistant Writer: Well, you know, you had them have sex to increase the ratings, right? And then wrote them out of a relationship because people want to see ships blow up in SciFi, not relationships. I get that. But what about continuity? Canon says Vulcans bond permanently when they mate.

Braga: (Looks interested) Hey! Maybe we could do something with that. String 'em along, you know? Might be fun!

[honeybee]

I agree Distracted.

There is reference in Home and even in other episodes of some kind of telepathic bond between Vulcan mates - but as to the nature of it and how intense it is (White Space, et al.) - I think the writers invented all that for Bound. Thereby, making T'Pol and to a lesser extent Trip looking both a little dense for not knowing it was there. Heck, I think Koss should have immediately recognized it and begged off.

So yes, there was reference to a bond possibly existing between them (or more accurately I think T'Les thinks that Trip is at least preventing T'Pol from bonding with Koss), but I seriously doubt the writers had any clue as to what that entailed or whether it was there or not.

Yes, the end of Home might have been very interesting if Koss had recognized the bond between Trip & T'Pol and rejected her. Then, the consequences could have been dealt with behind the scenes. It also could have added an extra layer to the Vulcan arc - coloring the way T'Pau and other Vulcans looked at T'Pol.

One of the reasons I liked the relationship in Season 3 is that it was subtle, mostly taking place behind the scenes. That could have continued through Season 4.

[Asso]

Anybody think of the possibility that when the writers wrote Home it hadn't occurred to them that there was a bond? That maybe somebody just came up with it while writing season four?

Junior Assistant Writer: Umm... hey guys? I was just doing some research on Vulcan mating habits... (at this point the senior writers look at him like they've never seen a nerd before) and, ummm... don't you think we should address the mating bond issue?

Berman: What are you talking about?

Junior Assistant Writer: Well, you know, you had them have sex to increase the ratings, right? And then wrote them out of a relationship because people want to see ships blow up in SciFi, not relationships. I get that. But what about continuity? Canon says Vulcans bond permanently when they mate.

Braga: (Looks interested) Hey! Maybe we could do something with that. String 'em along, you know? Might be fun!

Mhhh... it seems to me a little too smart. Almost planned.

[Aikiweezie]

Hilarious, Kotik. Really.

I loved much of Home, but to this day it makes no sense that T'Pol or T'Les or even Koss didn't figure out that the bond existed between Trip & T'Pol and thus the wedding was stopped. I mean none of these people are supposed to be stupid, right? I actually get the idea that she might marry Koss, because her cultural traditions demand it - but the with the bond in place it just makes no sense.

That's what makes this short-time marriage so utterly contrived. I think TPTB just used it to buy themselves 5 more episodes in which they didn't need to come up with ideas for a relationship or the need to invent far-fetched stupidity to create contrived angst. They didn't want to show a working human/vulcan romance. That would have taken away from their poster childs sarek, amanda and spock

I read sonewhere that Connor Trineer asked the writers to break Trip and T'Pol up - for a while at least - because the one-sided thing didn't seem real enough to him.

What I could never understand is how T'Pol's PaNar's didn't come to play in all the marriage thing. Once Koss and/or his family would have found out about that it would be yet another source of shame and humiliation for her. She must have known that and married him anyway because she felt she was being blackmaild. I don't think the marriage story was contrived or ill thought out in total, though.

[Escriba]

Hilarious, kotik and Distracted.

But technically speaking B&B had almost nothing to do with season 4, except *the_abomination*. So blame Manny Coto

[WarpGirl]

OMG I missed all of that! Dang router will give me a coronary yet. Now I will not judge Home until I see it, but I have to say I understand why Jeri Taylor left the B's I think they must have slipped into early senility somehow. The last seasons of VOY were more bad than good (although some was still amazing) and the tried to "shake things up" with ENT so much I think the people they hired just wanted to ditch 40 years and make scrambled eggs. And let me tell you scrambled eggs are decevingly simple, but so easy to make inedible. I think that's what happened to 95% of ENT as a WHOLE. Not just TnT.

Also I hate to say it, but out of everything I've read on transcripts, interviews, and convention reports... I get a sickening feeling that the only people that actually really liked the fact that they were apart of ST and by extension "Trekkies(ers)" were Scott Bakula, Anthony Montogomery, Dominic Keating, and John Billingsly. Every interview I've ever read with JB and CT they seem to deliberately keep their distance. JB does it with harsh (though deserved) criticism. And CT seems so politically correct he sounds like a publicity spin doctor at times. Frankly it's annoying. Plenty of other Trek actors had issues with TPTB they made those problems work for them. And they certainly seemed to have more fun. But then the crew on the show didn't gel as cohesively to me as the other Treks, where everyone became like families. Maybe I've missed something.

[Alelou]

Jeri was Brannon's boss; I'm pretty sure she simply left because she was tired of Trek herself and wanted to retire up north with her husband.

[WarpGirl]

Well I'm sure that there were some days she might have felt out numbered with all of that testosterone. But hey, anybody can get sick of working at anything. All I know is that trek's quality was better with her there.

[Aquarius]

What I could never understand is how T'Pol's PaNar's didn't come to play in all the marriage thing. Once Koss and/or his family would have found out about that it would be yet another source of shame and humiliation for her. She must have known that and married him anyway because she felt she was being blackmaild. I don't think the marriage story was contrived or ill thought out in total, though.

I thought it did kind of come into play, though, when she's making all the excuses to Koss why she can't marry. She says "I've been ill"--it's a bit ambiguous if she's meaning the addiction, or the Pa'nar syndrome, or possibly both.

And I agree with you on the point that once she finally decided to go through with it, she probably figured he'd get whatever he deserved once he discovered these things.

[WarpGirl]

IDK Aquarius from what I've read (transcript of the episode) I didn't get the sense she was angry with Koss specifically, more the situation itself. I could be wrong, I just have to SEE it. Maybe it will be on Friday, they're not showing the episodes in any order, but thus far they have been showing episodes in seasons 3-4. So I've seen a few I missed.