Yes, indeed, it's been a while since we had a singing Vulcan on Trek, and Spock is a tough act to follow, what with being in that little toga and all. So here's my spoiler-laden review of Star Trek Voyager's episode, "Innocence." We also get some cute kids and some weirdo alien biology, so this may be just the thing to cure those I-miss-Mr.-Pointy-Ears blues. If you like kids but only care about Vulcans when they're telling Kirk he's their best friend, then you'll probably want to head elsewhere else.
How about Mapped Up?
No? Hey! that's okay. (or "Hey, that's okay" when the feeling's not as strong)
INITIAL VIEWER RESPONSE
OK, kids, it's time for a Tuvok episode...but "Meld" this ain't...It's a kinder, gentler Tuvok...Hmmm, and a more boring Tuvok too...good ending.
PLOT
On yet another planet that looks like a soundstage with some plants scattered around, Tuvok drags a fatally wounded Ensign Bennet out of their crashed shuttle, signaling in vain for Voyager. Bennet has a broken back, Tuvok explains to the dying man, and he will be missed, most especially by a certain Ensign McCormik. Bennet looks a little cheered by the news, then...oh, pick your death euphemism. It's actually a sad moment.
Tuvok turns from putting a stasis field around Bennet and finds himself looking at a scared little girl named Tressa. She notes that Tuvok doesn't look like the people she's used to. Tuvok responds that he thought the moon was uninhabited. She explains that her parents are dead and her shuttle crashed on the planet.
While they are talking, two other children and crash survivors, Corin and Elani, appear, and Tuvok promises to take care of them until they are rescued. They rush him for a group hug and he looks a little like he did when Neelix tried the same thing.
What's that you say? Neelix couldn't rush Tuvok for a group hug all by himself? Then you don't know Neelix.
On Voyager, we find that Janeway has sent out Tuvok's shuttle and others to scout the needed Mineral of the Week, polytheranide, on the Drayan moons. The Drayan are a very shy, isolationist people, and Janeway is a little anxious at this first contact meeting she's got planned. Somehow she's got to work past "How do you do" to "Trade us for some polytheranide." Chakotay gives her some story as a pep talk and they into the transporter room.
Three shrouded aliens, led by a sweet-faced Prelate Alicia, beam in and trade greetings with Chakotay. Then there's a nice tour of the ship, during which the aliens reveal a bit of anti-technological philosophy.
On the moon, Tuvok talks with Tressa, trying to balance understanding with tough love, Vulcan style. He explains that he needs to repair his shuttle, and she talks about how the "attendants" were protecting her.
The children are very frightened of a creature they call the Morak, who lives in a nearby cave and is supposed to come out at night and take people away. Tuvok dismisses this talk of the bogey man, but the children say that the other children who were with them earlier were taken by Morak, and Tuvok starts to look worried.
Janeway shows Alicia and company around the Sickbay, and the Doctor does his best to be hospitable. Things seem to be going pretty well, but then Alicia gets a call and she leaves immediately, honoring her people's custom of isolationism. Voyager is very nice and all that, but now they should all just piss off.
After the aliens have left, Janeway tries to be pragmatic. "We'll have to find our polytheranide somewhere else."
Tuvok and the children find the place where they slept the night before. He thinks the other children may have wandered off. They know it was the Morak. Tuvok gives them a little Vulcan discipline training by getting them to envision this monster in their heads and then separate themselves from that image and its resultant emotions.
This attempt at instilling Vulcan manners isn't working all that well, however, as Tuvok tries to repair his shuttle and the kids run around, touching everything and generally getting on his nerves. Corin asks about his ears and Elani gets treated to a "sit still" lesson in meditation. He mentions that he has four children of his own back home and they ask him what they're like.
"Well-behaved," he says, and he feels incomplete without them.
They hear a ship approaching, and the shuttle's sensors pick up signs of people nearby, but the children are all terrified and say that these people want to kill them. In fact, the children were brought here to die. Help us, Tuvok!
We see the aliens searching the empty shuttle as Tuvok uses the tricorder to hide himself and the kids as they hunker down in the grass. When the coast is clear, the children explain that this is the site of the final ritual, the releasing of what to Tuvok sounds like the "katra" and to the rest of us sounds like the "soul." Tuvok again promises to keep the children safe until he understands how to help them and they again treat him to a group hug. He doesn't seem to mind so much this time.
Torres reports that she's found the polytheranide vein, but no sign of Tuvok or Bennet. The follow the shuttle's ion trail to the moon, but it proves very hard to scan the surface through more of that turbulence in the atmosphere that always shows up when the writers want it to be hard to scan the surface. The Drayans get on the com and announce that they are really unhappy with Voyager's violation of their sacred grounds. Janeway tries to make nice, but Prelate Alicia is one pissy gal. They have found the shuttle and a dead pilot, but no Tuvok.
Torres works on getting those transporters working.
The Drayan search party has evidently moved on, for Tuvok and the children have returned to it. Corin is really scared now, but Tuvok is running scans and keeping watch for both the people and any sign of that Morak. Tuvok tries to get the kids to sleep, but they keep popping back up, needing his comfort, and the Vulcan returns them to their bed and checks the fire. To comfort them further, he sings them some of the 348 verses of "Taylor's Journey," and they drift off to sleep.
In the morning, Tuvok's shuttle work is disturbed again when Tressa calls out that the other children have disappeared. He doesn't understand how this could have happened while he was keeping watch, but Corin and Elani have indeed gone.
Torres shows Janeway the signs she's picked up of the shuttle and two lifeforms.
Tressa insists that it was the Morak who took her friends, and Tuvok decides to investigate the cave. Telling Tressa to be brave, he gives her a phaser and seals her up safe inside the shuttle. He scans the cave and enters, and finds the clothing of several children. He returns to an extremely relieved Tressa and they hug. Tuvok suggests now that Tressa help him with repairs.
The Drayans are intensifying their searching while Tuvok manages to contact Voyager and tells Janeway what little he knows about Tressa' circumstances before his signal is cut off.
Janeway contacts Alicia, who says that the moon is a haven and she is to keep away from it. Paris -- of course -- says he can fly a shuttle down to the surface safely and Janeway -- of course -- overrides Chakotay's objections, and down to the moon they go.
Tuvok is ready to take off in the shuttle with Tressa, though repairs aren't really complete. Paris and Janeway's shuttle nears him, but so do the Drayans. Tuvok lifts off. Alicia contacts him and says he can't take Tressa, but Tuvok says she can't have her either. The Drayans fire and force Tuvok to land. Paris and Janeway follow them down.
Tuvok stands protectively with an extremely frightened Tressa on the moon's surface. Alicia and her group tell Tuvok he can't interfere with this final rite, before Paris and Janeway show up to offer their help to Tuvok.
FINALLY Alicia explains that Tressa is not a little girl, but an old woman of 96 years who's about to die of natural causes. Turns out these Drayans think that we all age backwards! Turns out that Drayans get sort of senile in their age/youth, until they reach a stage of pure innocence [Hence the title!] and need to come here to allow their energy to return to the cave, which is the origin of this race's life. Everyone gets very understanding. Janeway apologizes for her interference, and Tuvok is allowed to stay with Tressa (a great honor in this society) until it is time for her to enter the cave. Everyone leaves the two of them alone.
CHARACTER
To show us that Janeway was nice and soft inside under her hard captain exterior, the writers showed her in her nightgown. Tuvok gets a whole episode to reveal that he's...well, not really a softie, but not as harsh as we may have suspected.
But did we really think Tuvok wasn't creamy Vulcan nugget under that hard candy shell?
Still, while it's not a surprise, it is a pleasure to watch Tuvok show some patience and understanding with the children, and to sing to them. I wonder if he realizes how much better things could be with Neelix if he'd apply some of his people skills on the Talaxian. Or perhaps that's the real issue: he doesn't want the responsibility of dealing with Neelix. The duty he feels towards these children is quite intense and genuine. Being a father-figure to Neelix would probably be a full-time job.
His connection with Tressa, his admiration of her bravery when she stays alone in the shuttle, and his recognition that her fears over the Morak have some foundation, work very well. And he seems genuinely comforting to her, making her plea to have him with her during the final ritual seem quite sincere.
But the most fun I'm having with this good-but-less-than-enthralling episode is comparing Tuvok the father-figure to Chakotay the father-figure. Chakotay's approach to the Kazon kid in "Initiations" was much more politically correct and culturally enlightened than Tuvok's approach to Tressa. Chakotay tried to understand Kar's life and needs, but only made things worse for Kar the more he tried to help. His little let's-pretend-I'm-dead scheme was finally nixed as Kar took matters back into his own hands by killing his mentor.
Tuvok, on the other hand, has little patience for the kids' stories about the Morak or the attendants. He imposes Vulcan ideals of behavior on them in a most un-Prime Directive fashion. And this turns out to be precisely what the kids need! Corin and Elani are comforted by his song until their time for the cave came, and Tressa does him the honor of consciously selecting him to stay with her as she prepares for the great cave in the sky, or wherever you go once your clothes fall to the ground.
There's not so much a lesson to be learned here in comparing these two men's foster-parental styles, as there is an insight into the crew's choices. Chakotay offers everyone both cultural exchange and cultural curiosity and respect, but this can sometimes provide too little for others to react to. He's confused more than one guest star with his cultural idealism. He's on a quest of his own, after all, for knowledge and understanding of why things work the way they do, and sometimes, when you're in a real bind, that sort of shared uncertainty isn't very helpful.
Tuvok, on the other hand, has it all worked out. Vulcan logic is the ideal, even if no one but Vulcans have figured that out. He isn't going to be all that interested in learning your ways, but he'll certainly tell you what he genuinely feels is best, and in the right circumstances that can be a lot more comforting than meeting your animal guide.
Anyway, with Janeway as the mother, Chakotay and Tuvok offer two different types of father substitute, and it should be interesting to see what use the crew makes of their choices.
It's fun to see the Doctor working on his people skills. I think, all things considered, he's coming along nicely.
THOUGHT
The throw-away lines about Bennet and McCormick remind us that there aren't any anonymous faces (i.e. "red shirts") on this ship anymore. I wish the writers would keep that in mind when they keep killing off these ensigns, however.
SPECTACLE
I wish the cave looked a bit more impressive. For the origin of life it reminds me a lot of a hole in the side of a hill.
DICTION
Good lines in this one include:
"What are [your children] like?" "Well-behaved." -- The moppets and Tuvok.
SONG
Great music from real musicians is always a pleasure, especially when one of them is a Vulcan.
And now for the baggage...
STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) LOVE
Small glimpses into Vulcan culture are fun. Can't you just see them sitting around getting through all 348 verses of "Taylon's Journey" without a single flub?
STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) HATE
Loose ends. Do they get the polytheranide or not?
Well, that's it for me!
Star Trek Voyager Reviews.
Or go ahead to Star Trek Voyager Reviews -- The Thaw.
Or return to ST Voyager Reviews - Deadlock.