Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- Tuvix

Welcome friends and lovers (Voyager lovers, that is) and come read my latest review, this one of the Star Trek Voyager's episode, "Tuvix." This review is full of spoilers and absolutely, positively intended only for Voyager fans, and maybe the occasional botanist, but that may be pushing it. The rest of you should really go elsewhere for a good time.

How about CreatAbiliTOYS! - The Museum of Advertising?

No? Okay then...

INITIAL VIEWER RESPONSE
I see Neelix is annoying as ever...Oh, dear!...That's a pretty funky transporter accident. Too bad Barkley isn't here to enjoy it. For the rest of his life he could worry about turning into Troiley, or maybe Barker...What a truly difficult dilemma...Poor Janeway!..Wait, you didn't answer all my questions here.

PLOT
Neelix and Tuvok are up to their usual fun together as they collect plant specimens on some planet. In fact, Neelix and Tuvok are having such difficulty getting along that Neelix claims Tuvok is acting more Tuvokian than usual, and Tuvok responds, "I am what I am." Neelix responds to that by singing a Vulcan funeral dirge -- the most cheerful Vulcan song he could find: "Oh starless night of boundless black..."

Kim and Hogan fix up a little trouble they're having with the transporters and beam up Neelix and Tuvok...kind of. Things go badly wrong, and in the end they get a man who's half Neelix and half Tuvok (including a mix-and-match uniform). Kim doesn't get this at first and pulls a phaser, calling intruder alert. But Mr. Half 'n Half says, "I think the logical thing is to go to Sickbay."

While Neelix/Tuvok stares at Kes a bit and verbally assures Janeway that he knows who everyone is, the Doctor reports that somehow Neelix and Tuvok and the orchids they were holding have all fused in the transporter. Janeway wonders if maybe the orchids did it.

They're Starfleet officers...weird is part of the job.

Well, Janeway sends an away team to study those orchids and busies Kim with studying the transporters, while Doc and an extremely uncomfortable Kes turn to studying Mr. Half 'n Half. He feels really quite well, and remembers what Tuvok and Neelix would remember. His sentences seem to reflect both personalities. He doesn't feel like two people in one body though, but like a single consciousness made up of disparate parts. Kes asks him for a name, and he settles on "Tuvix" [Hence the title!]. This makes for a difficult moment, particularly as he uses his up-down sing-song voice to call her "sweeting."

After 24 hours of testing, Tuvix talks to Janeway and agrees, with an irritated Doctor's okay, to let him resume his duties so far as to attend an afternoon briefing. Kim and Torres say there's nothing wrong with the transporter. Paris and Chakotay say the scans they've done have revealed nothing. Kes says the flowers aren't unusual so far. Tuvix says "Sex."

"I beg your pardon?" says Janeway.

Tuvix explains that he thinks the flowers may have caused this problem through their reproductive technique of symbiogenesis. Some such lifeforms have been known to meld on a molecular level. The transporter would have broken down Neelix and Tuvok's form to a molecular level, so if the flowers had that property, they might have combined Neelix and Tuvok. Paris will go down in the morning and check out those flowers some more.

Kes runs into Tuvix and he invites her for dinner. He'll make some crepes. But when they get to the galley, Hogan and others have created total chaos there. Tuvix kicks them all out and takes over.

Kes and Tuvix are cleaning up afterwards, and Kes notes that Tuvix is more organized that Neelix, and uses a bit less spice with his cooking. It's a nice moment, until Tuvix makes a move on Kes and she retreats quickly.

The next day at tactical, Janeway and Chakotay learn that Tuvix has quickly fixed a difficulty they were having by following a hunch.

Down on the planet, Paris hands Torres a flower, and she's so overcome by this that she throws it at him. Sensing that this is the moment he's been waiting for, he recites the only poetry he knows, "Here I sit all broken-hearted" and she throws more stuff at him until they finally rip each other's uniforms off and --

All right. All right. They gather the flowers and beam them up. But my version would get better ratings.

Anyway, the Doctor tries a hundred times to separate the flowers which are fused by the transporter, and a hundred times he winds up with dead flowers. He'll keep working, but he warns Tuvix they he may have to get used to being Tuvix.

Kes begins to mourn Neelix.

Kes sits with Ocampan prayer tapers (candles to the rest of us) in her quarters. Tuvix comes in and Kes tells him she feels she's lost both a comforter and a guide. Tuvix tells her that she has him, which might comfort Kes more if he weren't so obviously looking for more than a spiritual relationship.

What about T'pel? she asks with some cause. Tuvix says he feels devoted to Tuvok's wife as well as to her, and kisses her cheek.

An extremely disturbed Kes calls on Janeway, who's in her bathrobe and reading some old letters from Tuvok. Though some might find his writing style dry and emotionless, she enjoys its conciseness and directness. She also talks about her fondness for Neelix. Kes says that Tuvix loves her, but she doesn't love him. She loves Neelix. What should she do? What does Janeway do to deal with having lost Mark? Janeway says she struggles with it every day, sometimes feeling full of hope and sometimes...not. She's sure, however, that Kes will find her own way to deal with it in time. They hug.

Two weeks go by, and Tuvix makes a good tactical officer as he settles into the ship's routine. He keeps away from Kes, becomes a valuable advisor to Janeway, and proves himself an excellent cook.

Kim's playing on his clarinet again when the Doctor interrupts him and asks if a transporter would be able to recognize the 24th Century equivalent of a radioactive isotope. In other words, would it be able to beam out parts of an organism without other parts if the parts were marked?

Well, Kim figures this is Tuvix talk and goes to Sickbay.

Tuvix beats Chakotay again at pool and Kes comes in to talk. She says she misses Neelix...Tuvix...one of them, and they agree to be friends, and maybe build on that...when the Doctor calls!

The Doctor has worked out his radioactive isotope idea to the point where he has made it possible to mark off the different Neelix and Tuvok DNA, which can then be separated by the transporter. This worked just fine on a pair of flowers, and they're all set to go.

But...

"I don't want to die," says Tuvix.

Janeway talks to Chakotay in her ready room. When did Tuvix become an individual instead of a transporter accident?

And Tuvix pleads his case well with her. This is his life now, and his decision to make. Janeway asks, what about Tuvok and Neelix? They'd like to be alive too, and they have families and friends who miss them. Tuvix responds that this would be an execution, and he's done nothing to warrant it. Janeway replies that leaving him the way he is would be two executions. Tuvix says he thinks of Neelix and Tuvok as his parents, and he has the will to live of two men [which is impressive, but not as much so as David Letterman, who, you may recall, has the strength of ten men].

Anyway, hath not a Tuvix hands? Hath not a Tuvix eyes?

While Janeway's thinking things through, Tuvix finds Kes and pleads his case with her, but Kes goes to Janeway and says instead that she wants Neelix back.

The next day, Tuvix takes his extremely uncomfortable place at tactical. Janeway comes on the bridge and asks to speak to him alone, but Tuvix wants her to speak in public. Janeway calls security and Tuvix calls on everyone to save him. He runs from security, and tells everyone that they're going to have to live with having done this to him, then he forgives them and walks with security to Sickbay.

Where the Doctor won't do the procedure because he's taken an oath to do no harm. Fine, says Janeway, looking like she's about to throw up, she'll do it. She injects Tuvix with the serum, then uses the transporter to separate out Neelix and Tuvok. Tuvok greets her and Kes runs into Neelix' arms, and Janeway walks into the corridor, looking like she feels closely related to a really big sack of garbage.