#where neelix and tuvok fuse because of a transporter accident

[gaykarstaagforever]

VOY, "Tuvix" (Spoilers)

I'm taking a one-post break from the three other Trek series I'm currently watching to talk about this, because I've been watching old Steve Shives videos and he did one about this and I was curious to see how "right" he was.

I remember watching this like 30 years ago. That tells me it must have done something right, because I don't remember much else about Voyager besides the characters and how the last episode was very mid.

(I don't know if Voyager is good, because I haven't watched much of it. I like the characters and the ship and the premise, but I haven't watched enough to really know. All I know is that I didn't care for it back in 1996, when I was 14 and infected with the kind of Macarena Fever that made Batman Forever still seem like a good movie. I don't agree with myself from 5 years ago about anything now, so my pre-Matrix memories basically belong to someone else, so consider this me going in blind.)

A recap of this is easy, because there isn't much to it. Tuvok and Neelix go down to an alien planet to gather flowers to eat (yes, seriously), and when they beam back up to the ship, they get fused together as a new guy. Everyone gets mad and irritated about it despite the new guy being a nice guy. Harry and the Doctor figure out how to un-combine Tuvok and Neelix, and Janeway decides to do that despite the new guy's objection that it will murder him. Which it does, because Janeway forces him to do it. So Neelix and Tuvok are back, and we're moving on.

Steve Shives was right. This isn't a bad episode, but it is pretty inexplicably weird.

I had it in my head that this was intended as some kind of abortion metaphor. But I don't know where I got that, because it goes off on too many idiosyncratic plot tangents for that. Then I thought it might be a trans metaphor. But I don't think 1996 American TV was sophisticated enough to know that was a thing. And either way, it really doesn't work as that, either. So...maybe this isn't a metaphor for anything? Maybe it's just about those times when two of your friends get fused together and you have to figure out how to deal with that? You know, that common problem we all deal with at some point? Yes? No? ...Anyone?

I mean, fine, a transporter accident can just be a transporter accident. That's not inherently wrong. But I'm also wondering why they bothered with any of this, if there wasn't any greater point. They hired an actor and gave him unique alien makeup and a custom outfit, and it was all so he could not do anything notable for 40 minutes, then be killed.

Why? Why did they do this?

Was there more to this orginally? Farscape did that thing that time where they "twined" Crichton, and it turned into this entire full-season arc where the twins became different people and you got to know and love them both, only for the show to then (spoilers) melt the organs of one of them. And it was this brutally sad, emotionally-draining thing that totally messed up the audience and all the other characters for a good long while. It was wonderful. Was that maybe the original plan here, but it got rejected so they just tried to cram it all into one episode?

Because it doesn't work. Tuvix is a cool guy, but we don't get time to know him, and neither do any of the characters. They don't seem to care when Janeway callously orders his death, and she doesn't even hesitate about it! It's very unpleasant and I don't understand what I'm supposed to be getting out of this.

I get that from her perspective, it's just the Trolley Problem, one dies so that two may live. And she has that heartfelt conversation with Kes about how it's sad to have to admit that you can lose the people you love, so maybe Janeway figures killing Tuvix will give Kes the chance to have Neelix back, and that's worth a lot. And, fine, okay. But this also comes across like it would be the flashback in an episode where Janeway is on trial for this, and we finally see what she did, and we admit she really screwed up.

Except that's not what this is. She just has Tuvix killed, pauses for a moment to reflect on the fact that she just murdered a guy, and that's the end.

That's very weird, for a Star Trek episode.

They could have made Tuvix a deranged lunatic or something, like the brain-hybridization is causing Tuvok and Neelix to fight inside his head, and he has to be destroyed before he gets worse. But they didn't do that. He's very specifically a really nice guy, who seems to me at this point way less obnoxious than Neelix and way more fun than Tuvok. Like, this might kind of be an upgrade for both of them, and the show...?

Okay, that was mean. I don't "know" Tuvok and Neelix well enough to say that. And Voyager fans no doubt love Tuvok and Neelix and would have wanted both of them back.

But then, again, why do this in the first place, if you're not going to exploit the emotional pay-off of making it a multiple-episode thing? They just made a new guy who did nothing wrong, made everyone inexplicably dislike him, then killed him as he begged for mercy. That's goddamn weird.

They even get annoyed when he names himself Tuvix! Like, ew, it's talking now, ugh, get it away from me!

Kes kind of likes him until she just doesn't, the Doctor at least refuses to kill him, and Chakotay has one line where he says "I mean he's okay, I guess." But otherwise, there is a WHOLE SCENE where no one cares that Janeway is going to kill him. And he's as shocked by that as I am.

...Why??? Why did they do this??

Maybe this resonates more if you're invested in these characters like I'm not, at this point. Tell me if that's the case. And maybe it kind of STILL IS a trans metaphor, unintentionally? Like, sometimes people don't accept the "new" you and only want the "old" you, no matter what you do? And then they kill you with light beams by sucking all the alien sex-pollen out of you...?

I admit, the metaphor falls apart pretty quickly.

I like Tuvix. They should have either done the whole season thing with him, or made it so that Janeway could bring Tuvok and Neelix back AND keep Tuvix around, so that there would be this weird thing where Tuvok and Neelix suddenly have an adult "son" they have to deal with. And he gets all emotional about them and it totally creeps them both out, but they also feel responsible for him so they have to engage with him. But he also has both of their memories and is the same age, so it's even odder.

...That sounds more like a DS9 idea that that show would have done really well. Voyager was not so bold, apparently, except that time Janeway and Paris...well. You remember. But they didn't really do anything with that, either. For shame.

Too bad.

...We got to see Janeway in a bathrobe, at least. And there is a little part of my brain that is still 14 and REALLY into this 41 yo captain lady and her authoritative, throaty voice, apparently.

My 14 yo self says thanks for that, Kate.

RIP Tuvix, the poor bastard. He never had a chance.

...I was going to end with "And in tribute, here is a touching song from 1996," and it was just going to be the stupid Macarena. But then I found this one from Celine Dion from the same year, and I listened to it while thinking about Tuvix, and it's way more fitting, and I actually got sad. And that is WAY stupider and funnier to me, so, here (it was the theme song from some 1996 Robert Redford movie I didn't see, because it wasn't Batman Forever):

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s2 ep24: Tuvix

Yet another epsiode I dreaded having to watch- what is this, the twelfth time this season? This season's batting average isn't great, to say the least. This particular episode is one I especially dislike because a lot of the fandom discourse around it is pretty obnoxious. But even before I was aware of the fandom, I didn't care for this one.

It starts out with Neelix being jerky to Tuvok on an away mission- Neelix, for some reason, can't stand that Tuvok thinks or feels differently from him, so he makes it his business to badger Tuvok into behaving how he wants him to. I know this intro was meant to set them up as being so opposite to make them being mixed up into one person cute or funny, but honestly it just makes me dislike Neelix. Tuvok wasn't being mean or rude, but Neelix would not listen to Tuvok's stated desire to focus on the mission and not talk about his feelings. Neelix never respects Tuvok's culture or personal boundaries, and it's not cute or funny, and it makes it really hard to sympathize with him. And it goes on this way for the whole series. The way Neelix treats Kes is bad enough, but he treats Tuvok badly too, so at this point I can't just wave it away as occasional bad writing- it's a consistent character trait that Neelix treats the people he loves or wants most with complete disrespect. And it does taint whatever nice moments they give his character elsewhere, for me. But Neelix isn't in this one for long, because there's a transporter accident! Whoops, Neelix and Tuvok are fused into one person! And, though it seems impossible, he's even more annoying than Neelix himself!

For starters, Tuvix looks like a creepy evil elf creature with those red contacts. Secondly, I'm scratching my head and laughing over how someone thought that if you molecularly mix clothing with an abstract print and a solid color, you get a floral print, lol. Sorry, but prints on fabric do not occur at a molecular level. It’s a cute design choice, but more suited to a magic spell than a transporter accident.

And then we get to Tuvix himself, who is so arrogant, selfish, and obnoxious that Neelix was actually preferable. And the way he went after Kes was so skeevy! Her boyfriend basically died yesterday, and Tuvix is like 'who cares, let me just pick up where Neelix left off!' even though she's clearly distressed, and he's a stranger to her. And when he’s like ‘sure I love my wife T'Pel, but I still wanna date you!' it was like eww!!! Gag!!! Tuvok would NEVER do that, EVER. Nobody who is even half Tuvok would do that, and honestly, even though Neelix can be an asshole sometimes, even he wouldn’t be THAT insensitive. Ew. And when she asked him to leave, though she's clearly uncomfortable, he's still standing there trying to convince her! And then he has the gall to go in for a kiss! Eww! I was grateful it was only a cheek kiss, but still, what a creeper!!!

The only thing I liked in this episode was Janeway and Kes having their little mother-daughter heart to heart chat, and finding out Janeway was reading Tuvok's old letters because she missed him. Brb sobbing!!

Also, does no one in Starfleet know how to cook?? Really?? All those grown ass adults couldn't handle cooking for themselves without Neelix there?? And they call millenials helpless! (Though apparently Tom and Harry knew how to cook, because they were sitting at a table already eating while everyone else was flailing around- they may be Voyager's pretty boy squad, but at least they have some life skills to fall back on lol)

I know people love to slam Janeway for ordering Tuvix to separate back into Tuvok and Neelix, but she made the best decision she could from every standpoint, given that in universe, it was a no win situation, and from a Doylist standpoint, she had no other option but to choose Tuvok and Neelix.

In universe, she had to think of her crew and their mission, and Tuvok and Neelix were more useful separately than as Tuvix. Starfleet captains order officers to their death all the time in the name of their mission. It's part of the job, and Tuvix, being half Tuvok, would have understood that. I honestly don't think Tuvix would have lacked the selflessness to choose to save Tuvok and Neelix at the expense of his own life, since neither of them would have protested sacrificing themselves to save others.

Secondly, Tuvix did have to use their bodies and minds to survive- who's to say his right to live was greater than theirs?

Thirdly, Tuvok was her best friend- who the hell isn't going to do whatever they can to get their best friend back? Tuvix himself seemed cool with killing Tuvok and Neelix to stay alive. He insisted they lived on in him, in a way, so their deaths were no big deal. If it's truly no big deal to kill them, like he says, why is it a big deal for him? Why should he have a problem living on, in a way, in them? Him making a fuss that they're killing him to bring Tuvok and Neelix back is in itself a tacit acknowledgement that he's killing them to survive- and he expects that all these people are gonna let him kill two of their friends to keep him there?? Please. If it had been Kirk having to kill some unholy combination of Spock and Chekov to get Spock back, he would have, no hesitation, and no one would blame him, or call him a murderer for separating 'Spockov' back into two people. He's a man, so people accept that men in leadership positions have to make tough choices, and can't always be nice, far more than they do for women. It's crappy to give your main character a no-win scenario that will make them look mean or callous no matter what they choose, but it's worse when it's the first female lead, who will get less leeway from viewers just by virtue of being a woman.

But fourthly, and most importantly, whatever one might consider the morally correct choice to have been, keeping Tuvix would have been a terrible story choice. I mean, Tuvix was annoying and a jerk??? Literally who would want this guy around forever??? He has all of the two characters bad qualities, and none of the good ones that make them interesting, so that honestly would have sucked to be stuck with him for how many goddamn seasons, sorry. What do the people who criticize Janeway for her decision want- should they have actually fired two actors, and written their characters out for good?? No thank you! I don’t like Tuvix, so too bad! Welcome back Tuvok and Neelix, because I like them better!! It's a show!! It’s all fiction!!! I want to spend time with the characters who are my friends on the little space ship on the tv screen, so Tuvix gets to die!! Honestly they couldn't kill him fast enough!! Sorry not sorry!!!

And at the end, the focus was on Janeway and how she had to steel herself to do this thing she found difficult and distateful, and there was no pay off of Tuvok and Neelix saying 'thanks, you made the right decision!' to soften how awful what she had to do was. We don't even know if Tuvok or Neelix remember being Tuvix, for all that! Both of them seem pretty unfazed by having been another person, 'dying' and coming back as themselves- but like, they shared a mind! Do they understand each other better now? Couldn't this have been a gateway to the both of them agreeing to have a more respectful and less adversarial relationship from now on? It should have, but it was totally glossed over and never brought up again! Why even bother to do this episode if it ended up having no effect on anyone, except to make the fandom whine about how mean Janeway is??

Tl;dr: An attempt at raising an ethical conundrum that ultimately failed, because the writers painted themselves into a corner- they created a character that had to die no matter what, so every point they tried to make was moot from the start.