Gravity

 DVD, Voyager S5 (Gravity)

Is this where it began? Can it be traced to this point? Or was it even further back when Vulcans began to be portrayed emotionally? When you look at Trek of today, one of many things about it that's different and rings false is how the most important race other than humans are shown. I've always thought it was the fault of 'Enterprise' that they were depicted wrong ever since that series, and something which I would have put down to a different group of people writing Trek if not for the fact that it was during the Berman-era that this trend began. It's something that's affected how stoic, how superior, how inspiring this race can be even up to the present - I watched the first episode of 'Picard' Season 2 the other week and there was a Vulcan member of a Security team that rushes to the Bridge when the Borg attack, and he looked worried, he wasn't assured, almost panicky (at the time I gave it the benefit of the doubt that it could be a Romulan, but in the same episode we learn Elnor is the first of his kind in Starfleet, so he was clearly a Vulcan!), and it's a change that has permanently altered the race. I'll admit I'm especially critical when it comes to Vulcans because they are my favourite race, which is why I've always considered Tuvok to be the best example for his ability to remain in control no matter what. The first full-Vulcan main character in Trek, and the last to be portrayed unemotionally, because for all that I appreciate Jolene Blalock's efforts as T'Pol, she was fighting against an overwhelming current against traditional Vulcan norms.

Now that I see this episode again it makes me wonder if this surreptitiously set the tone for the direction attitudes to Vulcans would take. I mean just look: we see Tuvok take part in some thumping fighting action when he rushes in to save Noss, and while he does throw in a Neck Pinch at the end, primarily it's brute force, exactly the kind of thing Nimoy developed the style of Vulcan combat to go against, to show how graceful and how engineered to peaceful resistance this logical race truly were. Vulcans are stronger than most races so they don't need to wade in like pugilists or, more appropriately, martial artists, yet that has been the direction ever since, with T'Pol especially demonstrating Vulcan martial arts, bleeding over into the Kelvin films (who can forget alternate Spock's ludicrously over-the-top hand-to-hand combat with 'Khan' in 'Into Darkness' - believe me I wish I could!), and then 'DSC,' with elaborate hand fights when it could just as easily have been ended with a Phaser blast. All that being said, Tuvok coming in as a hero and taking on multiple opponents was great and because they did include the Neck Pinch (or is it the Nerve Pinch, I never remember?), that somehow made it okay for me.

It's not just the fight that brought to mind later Trek, it's also the emotionalism of both young Tuvok in the flashbacks, and his Master, too! Yes, the Master (who's name we never learned), shows a little too much of the emotion he was trying to logic out of his pupil, to the extent that he even smiles at the end. When Spock smiles in 'The Cage,' it was an aberration, something that represented how little was understood of what Vulcans were going to be, and was quickly cleaned up in the following episodes once they tied down who Spock was - it didn't stop current Trek from extrapolating from that one mistake to suggest Spock was a much more emotional young man than we'd ever expected he would be, and while I haven't yet seen 'Strange New Worlds,' the showcase for our current version played by Ethan Peck, 'DSC' Season 2 was enough to demonstrate his less Spock-like demeanour most adequately. From 'Star Trek XI' we see Vulcan children are logical and aloof even from a young age, though Spock is goaded into fighting by intelligently malicious taunts from his fellow pupils, but we didn't really know what young Vulcans were supposed to be like. We see Spock grow into adulthood at an advanced rate in 'Star Trek III,' but that wasn't a fair test case as we know his body is connected to the rapidly ageing and decaying Genesis planet, which can explain anything.

So it was strange to come to this episode and find that at least the young Tuvok was a combative, emotional youth. It seemed to be suggested that he was sent to this Vulcan Master in disgrace for his emotional outbursts after having strong feelings due to a female (a Terrellian, not to be confused with Terellian or Tarellian - sometimes I think the writers are pranking us!), so it could still be the case that most Vulcan children are taught to repress emotion from a young age, but I couldn't help but equate it with the modern take on young Spock and Vulcans in general as having emotions just under the surface that frequently rise, rather than the impression I prefer of deeply buried and controlled feelings, something Tim Russ always did so well on the series. Indeed, I have no complaint against Russ' performance here, he is as stoic as ever in spite of Paris' insistence he needs to loosen up and welcome this young woman who has formed an attraction to him, with open arms. It may be true that the prototype of modern Vulcanity was birthed here, but I'd always observed a shifting in perception of how the famous race were seen - even on 'TOS' Spock was often coming into conflict with human attitudes, most obviously with Dr. McCoy, but other crewmembers too (see 'The Galileo Seven' for excellent examples), and in the films he learnt to accept and use his human side with aplomb and comfort. 'TNG' started using Vulcans sparingly and in 'DS9' they also rarely appeared and usually in atypical roles (terrorist; serial killer; Academy rival), so by the time 'Voyager' brought us the first full Vulcan there was less mystery and more understanding of who they were.

Familiarity breeds contempt, however, and Tuvok's insistence on following the dictates of logic meant he, too, would come into conflict with the human way of doing things, despite showing himself in many ways superior, but this only added more snide sneering at Vulcan ways and gradually the race was seen as something to be laughed at rather than inspired by - this is something I noticed for myself over time, that it was clear Vulcans were in many ways superior and that that went against the Roddenberry idea of humans being the greatest, and a shift away from making them so pure gained traction, or so it seemed to me. T'Pol was especially harangued on 'Enterprise,' but frequently surprised her human colleagues (sawing up the breadstick is something I always think of, when dining with Archer and Trip and they say she should use her hands). The human-ication of Vulcans has long been a thorn for me, and I deliberately don't say humanising because that sounds like they were otherwise dehumanised, but the gradual change to take away their unique qualities and show them as merely different humans who can sometimes control their emotions has been one of the biggest failures of Trek this century. It's why I've always considered Tuvok to be the best example and the last great Vulcan in Trek. He's one of my favourite characters on the series, though he was let down in these latter seasons, not getting enough to do or expanding on the close bond he had with Janeway at the start.

Still, any time they did a Tuvok episode I'm interested, and as I said, he doesn't shame himself despite Paris' comments. I like that we're reminded he's married and has children, that he has emotions but keeps them in check, something our modern world is completely against, where 'unfettered emotion,' as Tuvok called it, is allowed to run rampant under the aegis of Being Yourself, as if the self is something to be welcomed rather than tamped down, but then that's the modern attitude and the lessons the Vulcans taught us have been lost in our overly emotional, melodramatic world today - you only have to look at 'DSC,' and how almost every episode features someone crying, to see how prevalent is this view, whereas the effort of self-control has always been inspiring and impressive in Vulcan depictions. One wonders if the situation had been reversed and Tom had been the one to save Noss, whether he would have used the same arguments that they were unlikely to ever get off that desert planet and so he shouldn't hold himself pure for B'Elanna, but should accept the advances of this alien woman who is there in front of him. I'm not sure they really even look at it from the moral viewpoint of loyalty and purity because even in the 90s casual partnerships weren't considered wrong, so it becomes more about whether Tuvok will maintain his cool distance or succumb to his fiery inner self. It's supposed to be a tragedy, that this stoic man refuses to bow to the wishes of the woman and I suppose we're meant to feel pity for poor Noss, but to be honest I found her a little annoying.

Perhaps one irritation with Noss was how her language isn't translated by the Universal Translator. It may be I wasn't paying close enough attention because Paris was doing something to his Combadge at one point so maybe there was some sci-fi explanation to do with the planet, and of course it is referenced since the Doc acts as interpreter to begin with as the UT is part of his program, which was very handy! Her voice and the language she spoke was distancing, but it was her insistence on kissing Tuvok and not accepting his answer and his way of life that added to her grating personality. There's also an issue of time being a big factor - I loved the idea of the temporal differential where two days passes for Voyager, but two months on the planet, as it's the kind of 'time travel' story that Trek didn't tend to do (like in 'Interstellar' when they go down to a planet, come back and it's been many years that their crewman had been awaiting their return), with 'Blink of An Eye' doing the same thing for the Doctor in the following season, but I don't feel they were able to successfully impress that idea of the time passing for our characters, and that meant Noss' love seemed to come out of nowhere. I understand she was saved by a knight in shining Starfleet uniform, but there needed to be more emphasis on events on the planet. They did succeed in making a dangerous foe in the aliens intent on taking their camp, but I believe the episode would have benefited from being almost entirely focused on Tuvok and Paris' predicament and where Voyager doesn't come through for them until the very last minutes perhaps, which would have allowed for more drama to pass on the planet, more scenes of development and time passing in the way 'Resolutions' did the same thing with Janeway and Chakotay.

I liked the look of the aliens, spiky and sword-like, and they reminded me a little of the Jem'Hadar, though only in looks - we don't learn anything about them, they're just there, which was a mistake as the story loses a dimension because of it. I wonder if that was the same place as where 'DS9' filmed 'Rocks and Shoals' as it had the same desert look with those round, white boulders? It all looked fine, and I even felt the CGI spiders worked well, but where did they get their water? There wasn't enough emphasis on survival and making that into an adventure, as it was too heavily interested in making some kind of doomed love story for Tuvok. At least he, Paris and the Doctor were quite a rare grouping, but I didn't feel we got to learn more about them, other than Tuvok's past. As they were joking about every planet looking the same last episode it's good they did some proper location work this time, but they did cunningly use the familiar cave set for the flashbacks as we see this is where young Tuvok is instructed by his Master, and very well disguised the cave set was! The ingenuity of the production team never fails to impress.

The reuse of the caves was one thing, but something else that copied the previous episode was the trouble being another subspace issue: last time it was the subspace sandbar, this time a subspace sinkhole, a subspace pocket in which this planet exists. Was the idea that entire planets had somehow been sucked in? I didn't get it, and for that matter was an entire star inside it, too, otherwise where did the sunlight come from? It's one of those that doesn't work so much the more you think of it and I definitely thought more highly of this episode on original viewing. As with 'Bride of Chaotica!' this was another I didn't see until years later on DVD, and in 2007 my view of how the Vulcans were used in Trek was a little different: I'd seen the misuse of them in 'Enterprise,' but would have still been hopeful that should Trek return again we'd go back to 'normal,' since there was at least the (admittedly weak, since Vulcans live for two hundred years), precedent that this was the 22nd Century, long before the other Trek series', and I could always go back to the 24th or even 23rd Century to see correct examples, but since then we've had Vulcans in every era portrayed the same: barely unemotional. Now I'm more sensitive to the changes and see it in even parts of Trek I love, like 'Voyager.'

Despite reservations and unease at the attitude towards Tuvok by the writing, by Noss and by Tom, I was relieved he remained true to his wife, and the farewell, a gentle moment in the Transporter Room where he briefly mind melds with Noss before she beams away was an oddly touching end to what had been a mildly irritating plot. The Vulcan Master telling his charge that emotions will consume him, the strength of will of Tuvok, and the fact Russ maintained distance as he always did, helped to assuage any qualms I had with the episode. As noted, it was a little unfinished in some aspects, aliens merely a tool for the narrative to give Voyager someone to fight against (though there was promise of them being a bigger threat on the planet when they mass to attack), and there needed to be less Voyager or a compelling side to it more than merely doing stuff to save their missing crew, but I wonder if this is the kind of story that would have worked better in a film or perhaps a serial, where there was space to allow time to pass and everything wouldn't have been so hurried. I'd also say Noss' story was left unfinished: what was her life before being marooned, where did she beam to from Voyager, and why couldn't she have stayed on the ship? Even for a few episodes it might have added a new dynamic to proceedings as they take her to her homeworld or somewhere, but the series really hated having to deal with loose ends: look at the Borg children that would come next season! Not that I would really want Noss hanging around, but maybe she wouldn't have been as annoying if we'd gotten to know her, but just as she never really got through Tuvok's armour, she remained rather unknown.

'Alter Ego' is the episode that came to mind, a much superior telling of a woman that longed to be close to the distant Tuvok, but that was much the superior story, a cleverer sci-fi twist, and generally more fun. In both cases Tuvok remains an honourable man and husband, but that one, taking place on the ship, had more time to explore the issue and had an even more bittersweet ending than this, which was, admittedly, the best part of it. The guest cast is worthy of note, Joseph Ruskin plays the Vulcan Master and was a veteran of not just TV, but Trek itself, having appeared way back in 'TOS' as the alien, Galt, but also played Grilka's Klingon servant Tumek (Tumek and Tuvok, together at last!), and a Cardassian, both in 'DS9,' a Son'a in 'Insurrection,' and after this Vulcan he had one more role as a Suliban in the 'Enterprise' pilot. Sadly, he won't be one of those few to traverse every generation (like Clint Howard who was in 'TOS,' the Berman-era, and 'DSC,' and perhaps Kirk Thatcher who was the punk in 'Star Trek IV' and voiced one of the animated 'Short Treks'), since he died in 2013, but he was always a strong screen presence, and even though I wasn't entirely comfortable with his Vulcan portrayal here, I love any time an actor from 'TOS' transitioned into a later era as it makes more links to bind Trek together, and I salute you, sir! It's worth noting, too, that Leroy D. Brazile (young Tuvok), went on to be in the penultimate episode of 'DS9' as a young Cardassian who joined Damar's rebellion. And I should also mention Paul S. Eckstein, the alien, Yost, who is so peremptory with Janeway, also appeared in that 'DS9' episode as a Jem'Hadar! He had other roles in 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' too, as well as one role on 'Enterprise,' so it was practically a Trek repertory group this week!

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