Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, Episode 9 - "Fissure Quest"
19 years after Star Trek: Enterprise ended, Jolene Blalock is back as T'Pol in Star Trek: Lower Decks, and she is perfect. In its final season on Paramount+, Star Trek: Lower Decks set the USS Cerritos on a mission to close rifts leading to alternate Star Trek timelines. However, Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 9 centers on a different starship, the Defiant Class Anaximander led by Captain William Boimler (Jack Quaid), which Section 31 charged with a mission to stop a rogue vessel that's threatening Star Trek's multiverse.
Jolene Blalock portrayed Subcommander T'Pol in all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise. Clad in skintight catsuits, Blalock cut a striking figure as T'Pol, who Enterprise retconned as the first Vulcan Science Officer on a Starfleet vessel. T'Pol's cool logic and experience were an invaluable contrast to the emotional Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer), with whom T'Pol would have a relationship. Jolene Blalock's performance as T'Pol honored Leonard Nimoy's pioneering work as Spock, but nearly 2 decades after Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled, it seemed unlikely Jolene would return to Star Trek.
Jolene Blalock's Perfect Star Trek: Lower Decks Comeback As T'Pol Explained
Enterprise's Vulcan Hero Is Just Like Fans Remember Her
Star Trek: Lower Decks' comeback for Jolene Blalock as T'Pol could not have been more ideal. Jolene (who is credited without a surname) slid right back into the role of T'Pol as if 19 years hadn't passed. Jolene's cadences and vocal performance as T'Pol were perfect, and the Vulcan sounded exactly like she did on Star Trek: Enterprise. Star Trek: Lower Decks' animated T'Pol downplayed the Vulcan's signature sex appeal, but this is also logical since, in her alt reality, T'Pol is about 60 years older than the Vulcan heroine on Star Trek: Enterprise.
Even coming from another universe, T'Pol is recognizably the same highly intelligent and perceptive Vulcan, who has learned patience and understanding towards humans after decades of T'Pol being married to Trip Tucker. T'Pol also developed an understated sense of humor, and she has hilarious lines in Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Perhaps Jolene may be even persuaded to play T'Pol again.
Heartwarmingly, T'Pol also values her (one-sided) friendship with Curzon Dax (Fred Tatasciore). The Vulcan even makes a great sacrifice by downloading the Dax symbiont's memories via mind meld when Curson is seriously injured. It's safe to say, this is one of the best presentations of T'Pol ever seen in Star Trek. Perhaps Jolene may be even persuaded to play T'Pol again.
T'Pol's Return In Star Trek: Lower Decks Makes Perfect Sense
Fans Hoped Jolene Blalock Would Play T'Pol On Strange New Worlds
Jolene Blalock returning as T'Pol in Star Trek: Lower Decks is an unexpected and welcome shocker, but it's logical. In the years since Star Trek: Enterprise's series finale, Jolene left her acting career, married, and started a family. Blalock made an appearance on Star Trek Day 2021 that ignited fans' hopes she would reprise T'Pol, but no live-action Star Trek on Paramount+ series managed to secure Jolene's comeback as the Vulcan. Voicing T'Pol in a Star Trek animated series makes perfect sense for Jolene, since it required a simpler session in a voice recording booth.
Hopefully, Star Trek: Lower Decks' series finale will find a way for T'Pol to meet T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz).
When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds launched as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, many fans did the math and determined that T'Pol could still be alive in the mid-23rd century. However, Jolene Blalock would have to portray an elderly T'Pol if she ever guest stars on Strange New Worlds. Thanks to the multiverse, Jolene Blalock was able to reprise T'Pol as close to her Star Trek: Enterprise incarnation as possible, and her animated Vulcan arguably stole the show in Star Trek: Lower Decks' penultimate episode.
