Romulans have to have the galaxy’s worst barbers

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Federal-Opening-2742@reddit

Let's not forget that Sela is half-Human/half-Romulan - that doesn't explain the horrid 'hair style' - nor does it explain why the deeply paranoid xenophobic Romulan empire would allow some 'half-breed' any opportunity to have a career in military affairs or intelligence. They wouldn't. It is more likely they would have killed her as a child. (Maybe she could have lived if her Romulan side family hid her identity and squirreled her away in some remote mountain complex) - everything about Sela was nonsense. Bad hair is just the tip of the ice berg. Bad writing. Bad directing. (Sorry Denise) - Bad acting. BAD BAD BAD.

The disappointing part is they got Leonard Nimoy to graciously revive Spock and join the TNG gang for another outing with the iconic character - and they handed him a bag of shit script. (Nimoy may have liked a few parts of it ... but the best writing was from an entirely different episode when Picard takes on Sarak's 'katra' (or whatever it is called) .... we do get the moving mind meld moment when Picard shares Sarak's thoughts with Spock.

I digress. Sela was just a plain terrible (dare I use the word) 'Nemesis' up against Nimoy's Spock. She was a total dud character with a stupid backstory inconsistent with Romulan canon/history and everything we've ever known about them. The plot was thinner than the paper it was printed on.

The best part of the two-part episode is the side story of Data getting to command a ship and dealing with his mouthy subordinate.

It isn't like Nimoy needed a gig or was running short on cash. He usually always made good choices for 'Spock' in general. He wanted to do TNG to support them - and they hand him this junk? A total fail. Bad plot. Bad weak stupid haircut villain. haha .. f**k that stupid two-part insult to fans and Mr. Nimoy alike.

It is remarkable considering how everything was essentially so horrible we can still with all honesty place Sela's astoundingly ridiculous unflattering blonde Moe of the Three Stooges look haircut among the top five mistakes in a two part episode with at least 50 other mistakes. argggh .... irritating enough to write garbled run-on sentences .... !

I love Denise. She will always be part of the Star Trek family - but 'Sela' ? Sheesh ! Several agents should have been fired for this catastrophe.

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sorcerersviolet@reddit

The concept of Spock's being involved in reunification was at least interesting; it was the execution that was the problem. One of the sequel novels to it (non-canon, I know, but still) finally had the line "I thought I had to teach Romulans to be Vulcans, but it turns out that Romulans and Vulcans have a great deal to teach each other." That sort of thing should have come up in the episode itself.

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Federal-Opening-2742@reddit

I like that thought - sounds very 'Spock' to me ... very cool.

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Recent_Page8229@reddit

Klingons do

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dalek65@reddit

I always thought that Romulan military uniforms looked like curtains.

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PferdBerfl@reddit

The Kazons have entered the chat.

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UrguthaForka@reddit

Sorry this isn't a response directly to your post, but indirectly to Redemption pt. 2.

I can't get over how weak that plot was. A Romulan pretends to be Spock's friend for decades, all in an attempt to trick him and get some surprise Romulan troops to land on Vulcan so they'll be "hard to get out."

That is the lamest long-term gambit strategy I have ever heard of.

It's probably because of their haircuts though, to be honest.

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ComesInAnOldBox@reddit

It's not far off from how infiltration and destabilization operations work in the real world, though. The Koreans have been doing it to each other for decades. China and Russia, too.

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moktira@reddit

That's Unification isn't it?

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UrguthaForka@reddit

Oh damn... you're right!

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Perpetual_Decline@reddit

It was all about using Spock and his public calls for reunification to create enough ambiguity that their presence on Vulcan wouldn't invite an immediate response from Starfleet.

An out-and-out military campaign would be too risky, and getting enough troops on the ground would take too long. By only sending a token force (but still enough to take the capital and hold it) and doing so with the apparent support of Ambassador Spock, they gain a military presence in the core of Federation territory.

Russia did it with Crimea. A military force without any identifying insignia created enough ambiguity and confusion that by the time anyone confirmed it was a full-on Russian invasion, it was too late to do anything about it.

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Lostinthestarscape@reddit

Little Green(blooded) Men

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dobrowolsk@reddit

Indeed. If getting a few troops to Vulcan would be enough to conquer it, they could have done so at any point in time. They could take a few cloaked D'Deridex, fly the long way around into Federation / Vulcan space and beam them down. Nothing in the plot of Unification says only now is a point in time where this would work.

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ComesInAnOldBox@reddit

I never did like what TNG did to the Romulans. Originally Vulcans but split off and embraced their inner passions and emotions, and we know from plenty of on-screen canon that Vulcan emotions and passions are generally stronger than humans. They were never fully explored in TOS, and the potential to do something wonderful with them was untapped.

And what TNG gave us essentially was fascist Vulcans (with skull ridges, for some damn reason, even though in TOS it was established that even sensor scans can hardly tell Vulcans and Romulans apart).

Sure, a dictatorial, fascist regime made sense as a villain, but fascist dictatorships don't equal everyone having the same haircut, everything being fucking gray (or green), and everyone walking around with shoulder pads big enough to land a shuttlecraft on.

They easily could have a fascist dictatorship (even one with massive military funding) and still have beauty, color, art, and creativity. The first ship of theirs we ever saw had a giant eagle painted on the hull, for Cochrane's sake.

We could have gotten space Romans, but instead we got saddled with. . .that.

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