[Kira]

I'm with evay, at least mostly. While I don't entirely agree with Blalock's open criticism (the phrase "biting the hand that feeds you" comes to mind), dismissing all of her views in one fell swoop as being Bermaga bashing? To that, I say: Pot. Kettle. Black.

Originally Posted by Zeke

And here you are calling them bad writers for "forgetting" T'Pol doesn't eat with her hands (which couldn't possibly have been a subtle indication that she was growing more human)

Like evay, I'm not inclined to give the writers the benefit of the doubt. It does seem like something that could easily slip past their notice. Kudos if it was a subtle character moment, but I don't think that's necessarily a solid assumption. It would have been stupidly easy to make it a character thing if that had been their intent. Observe.

(1) Have someone offer her popcorn; she hesitates, but then accepts. The hesitation there is a subtle yet vital clue that she's making a concession to human custom.
(2) Have Trip bring her a peach, along with utensils so she can eat it. (Or, cut up and with a fork.) She declines the utensils and eats it with her hands. The fact that Trip remembers and she declines shows, again, that she is changing her customs.

And to do justice to Blalock, since we're playing ACTUAL QUOTE TIME...

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."

I don't think she's being unnecessarily nasty here; she's expressing a valid point of view that I'm sure a lot of fans share. I also appreciate that, being a TOS fan, she doesn't agree with what they've done to the Vulcans on Enterprise... again, a viewpoint that many, many fans can appreciate. From the sounds of it, she tried to object to some of the hand-eating scenes and was shot down without justifying why... that may not be the case, but if it is I'm more inclined to attribute it to lazy writers than not.

Originally Posted by Zeke

"We don't bleed here, and nobody dies. Give me a break!" I suppose not watching TV includes not watching Season 3, where, you know, people bled and died.

Again, I've got to side with Blalock on this one, because that's a complaint I've had while watching Season 3. I know they did kill off some redshirts (almost always offscreen), and some characters we had gotten to know (like the MACO whose name escapes me), but I never got the sense as I always did from Voyager that they had suffered casualties and it was weighing on the crew -- maybe Kate Mulgrew was just better at conveying it than Scott Bakula, or maybe it was because most of the casualties were heard and not seen. Enterprise did a good job in a few select instances (such as when the female engineer under Trip's command bit the dust and he had to deal with it) but I never got the general sense of danger and loss. When they returned to Earth (for real, ignoring the ill-conceived Nazi-Temporal-Cold-War-Reset-Button season opener) and Archer began talking about the crew they'd lost, my reaction was "Huh?".

Blalock definitely has a point about overuse of T&A (see: Trip and T'Pol sleeping together out of the blue; "Shadows of P'Jem"; every decon scene ever made). It's not always the case, particularly this season, but we've all had that thought at one time or another. Again, this is something that appears to be on the mend (see: fantastic episodes like "Home", "Twilight", "E2") but her complaint at being used mostly for sex appeal is a genuine one.

...Which brings me to one of the most valid criticisms that Blalock could have put forward, yet doesn't appear to have done so: what possible excuse can the writers still fathom (other than at the whim of UPN execs on crack who think that catsuit=ratings) for NOT GIVING T'POL A UNIFORM? It was stupid before but she wasn't really part of the crew, so I could let it slide. But now, she has a commission. She's accepted the crew and her role on Enterprise. She's resigned from the Vulcan High Council. So why the @*$&# is she still in that catsuit? It drives me insane because it's such a stupidly obvious ploy for ratings, not to mention interferes with the T'Pol-is-becoming-more-human vibe they're trying to send out. Hopefully they'll eventually figure out that she looks better in uniform (see: "Twilight"; Seven of Nine; Deanna Troi) and that it would be more in character for her as a full-fledged member of the crew.