"Stigma" Opinions

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2003-02-06 12:53am

What did people think of tonights Ent ep?

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-02-06 12:56am

The closest I got to it was hearing the promos on a San Diego radio station. I wasn't terribly impressed; sounded like the same old tired cliches...

How was it?

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2003-02-06 01:02am

Personally, I thought it was really good. I liked the fact that they dealt with the issue, without seeming to resort to the "cure-of-the-week" or somesuch device.

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2003-02-06 01:09am

Best episode of Enterprise, ever. Seriously, if they could crank out episodes of that quality, Enterprise might actually gain some respect.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2003-02-06 02:09am

Alex Moon wrote:What did people think of tonights Ent ep?

I'm SOOO sick of shit like this. If they wanted to do an AIDS story, why not DO one?

So now we are to believe that mindmelds are deviant behavior according to 22nd century Vulcans? What about Fal Tor Pan (sp?) What about the ANCIENT RITUAL of marriage, where T'Pau asked for Spock's thoughts?

What fucking bullshit. These cocksuckers want to erase TOS lock, stock, and barrel.

Next week, they'll run across an alien who is ostracized by his peers because he can't terraform a planet, until Dr. Phlox develops a little blue pill.....

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-02-06 11:27am

Lord Poe wrote:
Alex Moon wrote:What did people think of tonights Ent ep?
I'm SOOO sick of shit like this. If they wanted to do an AIDS story, why not DO one?

So now we are to believe that mindmelds are deviant behavior according to 22nd century Vulcans? What about Fal Tor Pan (sp?) What about the ANCIENT RITUAL of marriage, where T'Pau asked for Spock's thoughts?

What fucking bullshit. These cocksuckers want to erase TOS lock, stock, and barrel.

Next week, they'll run across an alien who is ostracized by his peers because he can't terraform a planet, until Dr. Phlox develops a little blue pill.....

I sort of agree. I only saw the last part of the episode and although I think it was well done this style of allegorical preachy bs should have been an episode of TNG if it was really going to have some impact. I also don't like how they've made the majority of the Vulcans even more bigoted than they already were (on Enterprise). I liked T'Pol's stance on the issue but I really get the "nails on the chalkboard" feeling with this style of show especially since it was hyped as an aids alegory and it had the after schools special announcement on how to find more information about HIV at the end.

You are definately right that it has been a mistake for them to make Mind-Melding to be something taboo and sort of new to Vulcan. The time frame of TOS is not that far down the timeline and it makes no sense for a species that lives as long as Vulcans do to so drastically change their opinions about mind-melding to the extent that we see in TOS and the early films.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-02-09 03:34am

Alex Moon wrote:What did people think of tonights Ent ep?

Pathetic AIDS inspired episode......Left to walk Fritz instead of watching the end......

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-02-09 03:46am

MKSheppard wrote:
Alex Moon wrote:What did people think of tonights Ent ep?
Pathetic AIDS inspired episode......Left to walk Fritz instead of watching the end......

Look out PETA might come by and claim having Enterprise on in the presence of a dog is animal cruelty, and for once they'd be right!

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-02-09 04:15am

Was that more of this "mind melds are taboo in the 22nd century" nonsense? I just watched STIII tonight and Sarek told Kirk mind-melds are part of the Vulcan last rites...how the fuck does it go from a taboo thing that T'Pol didn't even know about to a part of every Vulcan's dying moments in less than a single Vulcan lifetime? Piss on Enterprise.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-02-09 04:30am

It's the two-headed Berman Braga monster gleefully displaying its contempt for ST fans, the continuity, Gene Roddenberry, Theodore Sturgeon, D.C. Fontana, Nicholas Meyer, and Leonard Nimoy. I've no doubt Berman Braga means to erase TOS altogether, but all they're doing is erasing the audience for their endless parade of crap. By this point, every fan with more than two braincells to rub together has discounted Boobyprise as having anything to do with Star Trek at all.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2003-02-09 05:08am

What really pisses me off is the biggotted Vulcans. I mean the Vulcans are and have always been rationalists, unemotional people who embrace logic as a quideline in life and now were are supposed to accept that they are biggots?
Biggotry is based pretty much solely on irrational emotions, namely fear, I've never heard any rational justification or excuse for biggotry that wasn't total and utter bullshit and now we have the best know rationalists in sci-fi acting like biggots. It is almost as B&B wish to send a message that biggotry is justifiable through logic or then they are just too stupid to realize what they have done.

Also there is the thing with the HIV/AIDS connection in the episode.
The disease is common in a certain sub-culture of the Vulcan society, this is an obvious reflection of modern homosexuals and HIV/AIDS. It is specifically stated in the episode that the disease can be contracted only and only through mindmelds. Which really fucks things up and actuly succeeds in perpetuating one of the dumbest myths about gays and HIV, in short "HIV is a gay disease". That is also one of the most common justifications I have ever heard for the ostracization of gays and it is patently false, you can contract HIV through other means then "gay sex", ie. "straight sex", not to mention unclean needles and drug addicts, but I quess the B&B haven't yet heard of this minor fact and to make matters even worse they even gave the disease to T'Pol in what was basically a rape.

Sorry about the rant, but I've been a Trekkie since I was 7yo and enough is enough.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2003-02-09 05:53am

The disease is transmittable only by mind melds? I give up. That's it! No more watching B & B's fucked up version of Star Trek. This is too stupid.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » 2003-02-09 10:34am

After watching this episode, I think I have finally found something that both sucks and blows. Freakin pathetic!!!

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2003-02-09 10:42am

Well, actualy it was as an episode fairly enjoyable, but when you begin to think about the biggoted Vulcans and the weirdo disease it really starts to piss me off.
Phlox's wife, her fling-that-never-was with Tucker and Phlox's reaction was well done. Vast cultural separation between species in a matter quite voletile in modern society (adultery) and B&B didn't make it clear that the human way was better or superior in anyway, actualy quite opposite.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2003-02-09 11:46am

Sir Sirius wrote:What really pisses me off is the biggotted Vulcans. I mean the Vulcans are and have always been rationalists, unemotional people who embrace logic as a quideline in life and now were are supposed to accept that they are biggots?

Well, they may be, actually. In "Day Of THe Dove", Spock was influenced enough by that fireball alien to let his true feelings fly about humans. He said their emotional outbursts and illogic are a constant irritant.

And we find out in "Journey to Babel" that Spock was teased mercilessly as a child by other Vulcan children because he was half-Vulcan.

Also there is the thing with the HIV/AIDS connection in the episode.
The disease is common in a certain sub-culture of the Vulcan society, this is an obvious reflection of modern homosexuals and HIV/AIDS. It is specifically stated in the episode that the disease can be contracted only and only through mindmelds. Which really fucks things up and actuly succeeds in perpetuating one of the dumbest myths about gays and HIV, in short "HIV is a gay disease".

One wonders where B&B envision these gay Vulcans putting their hands during the mind meld....

Burak Gazan · Post by **Burak Gazan** » 2003-02-09 04:35pm

Remember when the Vulcans believed once upon a time in IDIC?

Infinite Diversity Infinite Combinations

Beavis and Buttface must have missed that one -- oh wait, I forgot, they know so much more about writing than the originators of the series.....

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-02-09 04:57pm

You people actually watch Enterprise? For God's sake, why? I gave up when, on 'Maruaders', it became apparent that anything relating to intelligence, common sense, and decent tactics had long since deserted the 22nd century.

greenmm · Post by **greenmm** » 2003-03-04 11:53am

Tsyroc wrote:
Lord Poe wrote:
Alex Moon wrote:What did people think of tonights Ent ep?
I'm SOOO sick of shit like this. If they wanted to do an AIDS story, why not DO one?

So now we are to believe that mindmelds are deviant behavior according to 22nd century Vulcans? What about Fal Tor Pan (sp?) What about the ANCIENT RITUAL of marriage, where T'Pau asked for Spock's thoughts?

What fucking bullshit. These cocksuckers want to erase TOS lock, stock, and barrel.

Next week, they'll run across an alien who is ostracized by his peers because he can't terraform a planet, until Dr. Phlox develops a little blue pill.....
I sort of agree. I only saw the last part of the episode and although I think it was well done this style of allegorical preachy bs should have been an episode of TNG if it was really going to have some impact. I also don't like how they've made the majority of the Vulcans even more bigoted than they already were (on Enterprise). I liked T'Pol's stance on the issue but I really get the "nails on the chalkboard" feeling with this style of show especially since it was hyped as an aids alegory and it had the after schools special announcement on how to find more information about HIV at the end.

You are definately right that it has been a mistake for them to make Mind-Melding to be something taboo and sort of new to Vulcan. The time frame of TOS is not that far down the timeline and it makes no sense for a species that lives as long as Vulcans do to so drastically change their opinions about mind-melding to the extent that we see in TOS and the early films.

I'll agree with that as well. Considering how all Vulcans were supposed to be telepathic to a degree, and how they would even form marriage melds with non-Vulcan spouses, the idea that only a small minority of Vulcans would even be capable of initiating melds, and that the group in question was viewed as "aberrant" by the mainstream members of Vulcan society, goes against all canon material about Vulcans.

The "bigoted Vulcans" I feel actually fits in very well, although the portrayel of the "bigotry" is perhaps a little more overt than I would have expected. Remember, Spock made semi-snide comments during TOS (IIRC, he suggested to the navigator in the episode where they saw Romulans for the first time that he have brain surgery to correct his tendancy towards emotional outbursts) about human failings and their illogic all the time, plus the numerous times he and McCoy would verbally spar. Nor was even Sarek immune, as he originally opposed Spock's entrance into Starfleet Academy.

It's a shame the ST novels aren't even close to canon, as Diane Duane's excellent Spock's World showed how eminently logical Vulcans could fail to apply their own IDIC tenants.

On that timing note... notice that in the next episode, Andorians and Vulcans signed an accord "100 years ago", an accord known as the "Accord of 2097"? That puts Enterprise Season 2 in the year 2197, IIRC less than 100 years from TWoK. Considering the longevity of Vulcans (200-year old Vulcan roughly = 80-year old Human), and their longer adolescence (IIRC, they're not sexually mature until well into their 20's or 30's), we're talking about 1 or 2 generations, 3 at best, between T'Pol and Spock. Considering how ancient the Vulcan culture is, and how little it's supposedly changed, seeing that kind of massive change in such a short time period, not only culturally but also genetically, is ridiculous in the extreme.

Possibly off this particular subject, but along the same vein... is it just me, or are these Vulcans in Enterprise not only much quicker to visibly lose their temper and show annoyance at the illogical actions of other species around them, but also much more militant? I mean, really: this is the species whose first Starfleet starship, the USS Intrepid, was an unarmed version of the 1701-nil. Yet they've had "great experience" at sending troops in to rescue hostages, and have engaged in actual battle as well as spying on the Andorians? These aren't my father's Vulcans... and I'm not so sure they're my Vulcans either...

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2003-03-04 03:45pm

If Mr. Berman or Braga some how end up here, I want the to hear my words:

QUIT MAKING THIS SHIT YOU CALL TREK. G.R. WOULD KILL YOU BOTH IF HE WERE STILL ALIVE. QUIT DIRVING ALL OF THE REAL FANS MADDDD!

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2003-03-15 11:53am

Boring, preachy, and pisses all over continuity. 'nuff said

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2003-03-15 01:09pm

Didn't it also say that only certain special vulcans could mind meld as well? So that makes practically every Vulcan in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY one of these special vulcans. One word: bullshit!

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-03-15 03:38pm

2000AD wrote:Didn't it also say that only certain special vulcans could mind meld as well? So that makes practically every Vulcan in TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY one of these special vulcans. One word: bullshit!

Yeah the review at firsttvdrama.com metnions that.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-03-15 07:47pm

Kurgan wrote:Boring, preachy, and pisses all over continuity. 'nuff said

Thread dead. Dead okay. Let dead thread rest.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-15 09:48pm

Sir Sirius wrote:What really pisses me off is the biggotted Vulcans. I mean the Vulcans are and have always been rationalists, unemotional people who embrace logic as a quideline in life and now were are supposed to accept that they are biggots?

Some people think that rationalists ARE close-minded and bigoted people. Most fundies feel that way, and so do most "new-age spiritualists", a group which has considerable representation in Hollyweird (see Scientology).

Biggotry is based pretty much solely on irrational emotions, namely fear, I've never heard any rational justification or excuse for biggotry that wasn't total and utter bullshit and now we have the best know rationalists in sci-fi acting like biggots.

Of course, since people in Hollywood tend to subscribe to the notion that logic is a BAD thing. Remember, Star Trek is not being written by sci-fi authors any more. It's being written by soap-opera authors.

Mind you, it's not as if Vulcans have actually been demonstrated to be logical. But of course, that just falls in line with the longstanding policy of not having any fucking idea what it means to be logical. Like the wet-behind-the-ears trolls that we so often get, these people probably think that a reserved air of artificial dignity makes a person logical.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2003-03-16 04:53am

I've always thought of the Vulcans as being a mixture of rationalist and new age spiritualists myself (if such a mixture is possible).

Their obsession with "self help" style meditation, rituals, and various other non-rational beliefs in their (non-theistic) religion seems to fit into this.

Perhaps you're right and the writers are trying to make jabs at rationalists that they see as closed-minded.

Perhaps an illusion to the ancient Greeks might help. They strove for truth, but they also had a lot of weird, mystical beliefs (by our so-called modern standards) to go with it.

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