Star Trek: Lower Decks Reveals an Alternate Future for T'Pol and Trip

Summary

Alternate universe T’Pol and Trip enjoyed a lifelong marriage.
T’Pol’s marriage made her an emotion expert, a twist from her earlier portrayal in
Star Trek: Enterprise
.
Jolene Blalock makes a surprising return to play a new version of T’Pol in
Star Trek: Lower Decks
.

Star Trek has given fans plenty of tragic romances over the years. James T. Kirk And Edith Keeler, Jadzia Dax and Worf, Kira Nerys and Vedek Bareil, Michael Burnham and Ash Tyler, and, of course, Subcommander T’Pol and Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker. In the Prime Universe, their relationship was marred by one tragedy after another, but in this week’s episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, fans get to see what could have been.

Trip and T’Pol’s unlikely romance followed a classic “enemies to lovers” arc throughout Star Trek: Enterprise’s four seasons, with the pair finally getting together in the last season. But just a year after they admitted their feelings for each other, Trip and T’Pol found out their DNA was stolen and used to create a Vulcan/Human baby. When their baby tragically died days after her birth, T’Pol and Trip couldn’t manage the grief, and they broke up. Six years later, in the final episode of the series, T’Pol and Trip reconnected for a moment, but before they could explore what might have happened, the mission turned deadly. Trip sacrificed himself to save Captain Jonathan Archer and the crew.

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Though Trip and T’Pol’s romance ended tragically in the Prime Universe, Star Trek fans know that there are countless more Trips and T’Pols in the infinite multiverses. In the penultimate episode of Lower Decks, “Fissure Quest,” William Boimler captains a crew of familiar characters from different multiverses, and his first officer is none other than an alternate T’Pol. As fans get to know this other T’Pol, they quickly discover that her relationship with Trip went much differently.

A Happy Ending

When Captain William Boimler, whose death was faked so he could join Section 31, introduces his crew of ragtag multiverse alternates, he reveals that T’Pol is an “expert on human emotions after being married to Trip Tucker for decades.” Later in the episode, T’Pol tells Curzon Dax, who hasn’t yet passed on the Dax symbiont in his universe, “I was married to a human for 63 years. I know sarcasm when I hear it.”

So, in her universe, she and Trip didn’t just get their happy ending, they stayed together for, presumably, the rest of Trip’s life! T’Pol’s use of the past tense in her conversation with Dax indicates that they aren’t married anymore, but assuming alternate Trip was in his 20s when they met, like he was when they met in the Prime Universe, their marriage probably didn’t end in divorce, but from his death after a long and happy life.

The fact that her marriage to Trip made T’Pol an expert on emotions is a hilarious twist on her character. In Enterprise, T’Pol was notoriously bad at recognizing human emotions or managing her own emotions. But six decades of marriage can change a lot!

The Return of Jolene Blalock

T’Pol’s return to the franchise, of course, means that actress Jolene Blalock has returned to the Trekverse! Of all the legacy Star Trek actors, Blalock seemed like one of the least likely to return to the franchise.

In interviews for The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, both Blalock and Enterprise showrunner Brannon Braga were candid about the issues Blalock had with the way her character was written. She wanted T’Pol to be more Vulcan and less of a source of awkward sexual tension. According to Braga, she also wasn’t a fan of the T’Pol/Trip romance, which makes the alternate T’Pol’s storyline even more of a twist. Considering all her issues with the show, it seemed unlikely Blalock would be willing to revive T’Pol.

On top of that, she’s essentially retired from acting. Before this appearance, she hadn’t been in any movies or television shows since 2017.

Blalock’s return was a wonderful surprise, especially because her role in Lower Decks gave her the opportunity to play a different kind of T’Pol. In just one, half-hour episode, Blalock got to show more of T’Pol’s depth and nuance than she did in most of her run on Enterprise.

The episode also brought back several other fan-favorite Star Trek characters, including Elim Garak, Julian Bashir, Harry Kim, and Lily Sloan.

The final episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks arrives on Paramount+ next week on Thursday, December 19th.