the delphic expanse

I can't believe we have no Carbon Creek thread! We rewatched it last night, and I loved the little homages to Trek history - including references to City on the Edge of Forever in the clothing. Also, the Desilu connection and Mestral's love of I Love Lucy.

It's one of those episodes where it does leave you curious in the best way as to what happened to Mestral. It's a shame there was never a further exploration of that - such as a human being discovered with Vulcan genes. But I suppose the mystery is good too!

You know, when I think of my favorite episodes, it never seems to spring to mind - yet I always enjoy it. It's got lovely period detail and good guest stars and JB does a great job creating a different character in T'Mir. It's a low key episode to be sure, but a good one.

Yes! I love Carbon Creek. I just watched it again last week, in fact. Though I do find the stranded Vulcans interesting, my favorite part of the episode is the friendly interaction between Trip, Jon, and T'Pol. So much has changed over the course of their first year together. Their first dinner back in "Broken Bow" was decidedly more awkward. Jon was trying a little to hard to be the good host; Trip was already teasing her, but she didn't get his humor yet; and T'Pol clearly thought the two men were just "impulsive carnivores." One year later and she's comfortably teasing them back and even drinking a little wine.

I always loved the dinner scenes, and I wish we'd gotten even more of them. Trip says that he and Jon were always telling her stories during dinner. What I wouldn't give to hear some of those stories! Someone should do some missing scenes showing dinner in the captain's mess where we hear some of those stories.

One of the things I liked about this episode is that we find out that, despite the united front Vulcans most often presented to humans, they did have disagreements amongst themselves.

Another of the homages: T'Pol "inventing" Velcro. That's kind of like Scotty in one of the movies where he comes up with transparent aluminum.

Yes, that is a great thing. All three Vulcans are portrayed as distinct characters with their own POV, and it's very sweet when "Moe" continues to fix the old lady's appliances when he no longer has to.

Also, although Mestral is the most sympathetic from the beginning, T'Mir is not a villain and she comes around as well.

How the hell have we gone so long without a Carbon Creek thread???

I'm not ashamed to say one of my favorite things about this episode is Jolene's hair and makeup as T'Mir. The hair seems less harsh, and they did her makeup a little differently. She always looks beautiful, but she had a little different glow to her as her great-great grandmother.

Also, the lightening in the location shoots looked really good on her, and the rest of the cast.
And I love that the costumes are a homage to City on the Edge of Forever!