10 Best Individual Performances In Star Trek
4. A Vulcan's Comfort
Star Trek: Enterprise: Terra Prime (S4EP21)
Frequent followers of TrekCulture will know that where possible, we’ll shower Jolene Blalock with praise for her portrayal of T’Pol. The challenges that she faced both on and off-screen ought to justify that alone, yet there are still those individual moments that rise above the rest.
The development of her character, particularly in the third and fourth seasons, allowed Blalock to infuse more emotion into T’Pol, not too dissimilar to the journey that Spock went on. As the audience had come to understand her, and her feelings (yes, feelings) for Trip, the story of Demons and Terra Prime truly hit hard.
Elisabeth is their cloned child, created without their knowledge, and is being used as a bargaining tool by Human extremists. One could almost ignore the rest of the episodes, despite their strength, and look to the final moments between T’Pol and Trip on board Enterprise.
Elisabeth was cloned without an understanding of the differences between Human and Vulcan physiologies, and this leads to her death. While both parents had only known of her existence for a short time, they are devastated. Of course, the audience is expecting Trip to show his emotions, but it is T’Pol’s struggle to keep her composure with him, taking his hand and gripping it hard, that stands out most.
Sometimes, it isn’t the big speeches, or even the quiet whispers, that make us feel something so raw. This simple gesture would have been unimaginable between T’Pol and anyone else for the first couple of seasons. Here, there is a dreadful, yet at the same time heartwarming, feeling that passes over the audience. The scene is the very definition of bittersweet, and Blalock turns in the last, great performance of Star Trek: Enterprise.