Blalock Unhappy With Vulcan Development

In a recent interview, Jolene Blalock expressed dismay at the characterization of T'Pol and of Vulcans in general on Star Trek: Enterprise.

"I personally believe that T'Pol should have more of her Vulcan culture," she told Cinefantastique (via TrekWeb). "I think that T'Pol could be okay with being Vulcan, she shouldn't have to want to be Vulcan. In the dialogue...why is it that when we're trying to teach each other something, all of our analogies involve Earth lore? Don't our cultures have their own lore that might make for good messages?"

T'Pol's obsession with exploring humanity is particularly troubling to Blalock because she believes it runs counter to the values of the original series, of which she was a fan. "I don't believe she should be so desperate to be like everyone else, because the original Star Trek, which I grew up with, had a very simple message that I took from it, and that is that not everyone is like me, and I'm not perfect, and nobody's perfect, and that's okay. That really helped me," she said.

Though she thinks Enterprise's concepts "are amazing", Blalock had words of criticism for the dialogue and found inconsistency in the development of Vulcan themes. In 'Shadows of P'Jem', they made this huge story about how Vulcans were undermining Starfleet and had some kind of agenda, but they never went to readdress it," she noted. "Then there's this episode in which T'Pol gets sick, terminally ill, and they never readdress it. There's the characteristic where Vulcans don't eat food with their hands, and yet they'll write scenes where T'Pol is eating popcorn at a movie or Trip will bring T'Pol a peach. It's just so strange to me."

The full interview is in the newest issue of Cinefantastique. These excerpts are posted at TrekWeb.

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