Trinneer On The T'Pol/Trip Relationship

See Also: 'Civilization' Episode Guide

Commander 'Trip' Tucker and T'Pol may have smeared decontamination gel over each other in 'Broken Bow,' but according to Connor Trinneer there are no plans for a romantic undercurrent between the two characters.

"It's so early right now," he told Gregory L. Norris and Laura A. Van Vleet at Trek Galaxy. "At this point, Charlie and T'Pol are at opposite sides of the coin. [...] I hesitate to say this, but Charlie's reaction to the Vulcans now might almost be bigotry. He has a lot of rhetoric that goes along the lines of 'well, the Vulcans did this...'. It's really kind of an interesting relationship and it's a lot of fun with T'Pol, because there's a lot of fire there. She pisses me off. And I piss her off a lot, too."

The actor relished the chance to play a character who likes to stir things up. "One of the great aspects of this character is that he's such a smart ass, and had he not been a good friend of the Captain prior to going on this, he wouldn't have nearly as much rope as he does to hang himself with," Trinneer said, laughing. "And he uses it, believe me! He gets the Captain's foot in his mouth a lot. But with T'Pol and him both being high-ranking officers on the ship, it's a process of getting to know each other."

As for the decontamination scene itself, Trinneer gave his interpretation of the situation."He's pissed at her at that point," he said. "It's kind of an interesting dichotomy in terms of how the scene works. There's a physicality that seems like it's erotic, where in reality of the situation, it's anything but. So you've got an interesting thing going on there."

But working with a highly-strung Vulcan was nothing compared to Porthos, Captain Archer's dog. "The dog showed up in a number of the first episodes, but hasn't been on for a while," Trinneer said. "We talk about the dog a lot. He's great. There's the old adage that you never act with children or animals, because they steal the scene. He's smart, fresh and precocious."

At the time of the interview, the cast were shooting the episode 'Civilization.' "We wind up discovering a planet called a Minshara-Class planet that can sustain life," Trinneer explained. "It's similar to Earth, so we have an atmosphere that we don't have to wear our EV suits on. We go down there to find out what's going on with the natives. We also learn that there's a Starfleet code that states that unless the natives have a certain level of technology, we shouldn't contact them, because it might upset their natural development. We go down there and discover that they're pre-Colonial. They really don't have any technology beyond what you'd have in the late 19th Century - clipper ships, that sort of stuff. But then we discover that somebody down there has technology that is equal to ours, and we check that out."

The full interview, in which Trinneer also talked about his reaction to the recent terrorist attacks in the United States, can be found here at TrekGalaxy.

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