Meld
Stardate: Unknown
Original Airdate: February 5, 1996
By Christina Luckings
The Story
In Sandrine’s, Harry has just beaten Tom in a game of
pool, when his friend suggests making it interesting by betting
a couple of replicator rations on the next frame. Ricky, Tom’s
holographic girlfriend, warns Harry that he is being hustled,
but he is so sure that he won the game fair and square that he
ups the bet to a week’s worth of rations instead. This
is too much for Tom, who has to tell Harry never to play with
even his best friend when he says ‘let’s make it
interesting’. Instead he suggests an ‘honest’ game
of chance – a ship’s sweepstake on the radiogenic
particle count at 1200 hours the next day. One replicator ration
per entry. Get it right and the pot is yours, less a handling
fee for the bank of course. Plenty of people are interested in
this, and Harry gets a PADD to start recording names and numbers.
Hogan tells Torres that they’ve narrowed down the problem
with the warp drive to conduit 141. Meanwhile, in the mess hall,
Neelix greets Tuvok with ‘Happy Kal Rekk’, only to
be told that Kal Rekk is not for two weeks, and is a day of atonement.
Neelix knows this, he has been researching Vulcan holidays as
part of his morale officer duties. He has an ambition to make
Tuvok smile and then mentions Rumairie. This a pagan festival
which has not been observed for a millennium, but Neelix feels
that if people want to cover themselves in grease and chase each
other, it wouldn’t hurt morale. Tuvok does not hear this,
as he has been summoned to engineering by Torres where he views
the grizzly partial remains of a crewmember in conduit 141.
The EMH tells Tuvok that if the circuit had not failed, there
would be no remains of Crewman Darwin to have been found. This
was no accident, however, as he had been killed by a blow on
the head with a heavy object In the Captain’s ready room,
Tuvok gives Janeway his findings so far, while she looks at Darwin’s
Starfleet record. Then Torres bursts in with the crew roster
for the previous night and tells Chakotay that Lon Suder was
the only one on duty in engineering. This bothers the first officer.
He has never been comfortable with Suder, who seemed just a little
too good at killing Cardassians, and occasionally got carried
away with bloodlust. Tuvok comments that none of this was in
the initial crew evaluations. Chakotay replies that he doesn’t
include bad feelings in reports, and Suder did his job, both
then in the Maquis and now on Voyager. Nevertheless, Tuvok has
his prime suspect.
Suder reports to the Security Chief’s Office for a preliminary
interview. The previous evening he had been running a fuel consumption
analysis for Lt. Torres. He saw Darwin and acknowledged his presence,
but they did not speak. Tuvok asks him directly if he killed
Darwin, and Suder denies it. Being a Maquis does not make him
a killer. Tuvok assures him that all engineering crew will be
interviewed; perhaps all the ship’s crew, not just the
former Maquis contingent. The time of Darwin’s death has
been set by the EMH at 2214 and the computer shows that Suder’s
console was logged off at 2209. Despite this, Suder calmly denies
having any motive for killing Darwin, and Tuvok dismisses him.
The EMH calls from the medical lab to tell Tuvok that he has
found something which might help the investigation.
The DNA of another person has been found in Darwin’s head
wound, and matched to Suder. Confronted by this forensic evidence,
Suder confesses that he used a two kilo coil spanner to kill
Darwin as he sat at the impulse system control panel, because
he didn’t like the way he looked at him. Then he put his
body in the conduit to dispose of it, and hid the spanner on
deck seven. The crime is solved, but Tuvok is still unsatisfied.
The EMH confirms the spanner as the murder weapon. Tuvok has
a Vulcan need to find a logical motive, but Suder is not psychotic.
His aggressive tendencies are similar to those of other Maquis
crewmembers and not worth mentioning. The EMH tries to persuade
the Vulcan that just a look can provoke violence in someone who
cannot always control their aggression. However, Tuvok’s
logic cannot accept it, and he pursues the matter further. In
the brig, he interviews Suder but gets no further forward. There
is no remorse, in fact Suder tells him that unlike most Betazoids,
he cannot sense his own emotions, let alone those of others.
As to his punishment, that will be up to the Captain, but if
he were her, Suder would have himself executed. Tuvok leaves,
but before he gets to the turbolift he returns to the brig to
offer Suder something that might help both of them – a
mind meld. Tuvok would gain insight into Suder’s motives
for killing Crewman Darwin, while Suder might gain some of Tuvok’s
ability to control his violent nature. Despite thinking that
this is a bad idea, Suder agrees. Tuvok orders Ayala to release
the forcefield.
At Sandrine’s, and the computer announces that the radiogenic
particle density was 1873 per cubic metre. No one has won the
16 replicator ration prize, but Tom, as organiser, has two extra
to buy dinner with. He leaves with Harry, planning a meal of
roast beef and all the trimmings.
Tuvok informs Captain Janeway of his actions in the brig, and,
while pacing up and down, admits that Suder was telling the truth
as he knew it. This is a violent man with no current release
for his violent impulses. Janeway asks for his recommendations
on what to do with him. They can’t realistically keep him
in the brig for 75 years under guard, or leave him on some planet
that they pass along the way. Tuvok informs her that Suder is
prepared to die, but Janeway totally rejects such a course of
action. She would prefer to rehabilitate him, and orders that
Suder’s quarters be converted into a confinement area where
he can be held without a constant guard. Tuvok objects, but that
is her decision. Then she asks how he is since the meld. He admits
to being disconcerted, but that he is taking steps to deal with
any residual effects, while Suder appears calm and in control
of himself. She tells her friend to take care of himself.
In the mess hall, Tuvok is reading a PADD when Neelix comes
over, intent on making Tuvok smile. Despite several requests
to go away, the Talaxian persists, until Tuvok grabs him by the
throat and throttles him to death. He then ends the holodeck
programme and leaves.
The next round of Paris’ radiogenic sweepstake also has
no winner, as Chakotay arrives in Sandrine’s to inform
Tom that he has put a stop to his little bit of fun. He confiscates
the pot and says that the Captain will be disappointed after
all the faith she has put in him. Paris is on report, but Tom
doesn’t seem to care, and makes a barbed remark about someone
having to do the tough job of writing reports, before returning
to the pool table.
Tuvok visits Suder in the brig to discuss the way forward. Holodeck
violence does not give the same release, and neuro-synaptic therapy
has been tried and failed. Suder believes that repeated mind
melds will give him the control that he needs, just as he is
experiencing at the moment, then goes on to sympathise with how
Tuvok must currently be feeling. The attractiveness of violence
must be disturbing to him, despite 100 years of having studied
it. Living on the edge, not knowing when the impulse will strike.
How ironic, muses Suder, that the only person to understand what
it is to be him is the logical Vulcan security chief. Then he
goes on to liken a mind meld to an act of violence, before Tuvok
leaves. He goes to his quarters, puts up a security field, deletes
his security codes and has the computer inform the Captain that
he is no longer fit for duty.
Janeway arrives with a security guard to view a trashed room,
and a very unwell Vulcan who had counted 94 ways to kill someone
while unarmed before she arrived. Tuvok recommends that they
sedate him before transporting him to sickbay. The EMH examines
Tuvok in the surgical bay, safely behind a force field. He pronounces
that the problem was most likely cased by an incompatibility
between Vulcan and Betazoid brains. It seems that mind meld problems
are fairly common, and that there is a standard course of treatment
which will help restore Tuvok’s normal mental controls.
With Janeway as an observer, Kes and the EMH begin the first
of a series of three minute treatments. They take away Tuvok’s
emotional controls and then wake him. The Vulcan relishes the
feelings of power he is experiencing, but when the EMH refuses
to allow him to stay that way, Tuvok threatens to delete his
programme with a few well-chosen words. Then he turns on Janeway,
criticising her lenient attitude towards violent offenders, calling
her and all humans weak and disgusting. He offers to be Suder’s
executioner himself with a glint of anticipation in his eyes.
There are 30 seconds of the treatment left to go when Tuvok turns
his attention to Kes, trying to persuade her to release the forcefield,
but his telepathic abilities have also been disabled at her request
and he cannot reach her. The treatment cycle ends and he collapses
unconscious on the floor. However, as a precaution, they sedate
him again before lowering the force field and putting him back
on the bio-bed.
That night, Tuvok awakens, rips the neural devices from his
temples and uses a power coupling as a tool to disable the force
field. He goes to the brig, knocks out the guard and releases
Suder from his cell in order to execute him. Suder, however,
challenges his motives - justice or revenge - and promises that
this logical use of violence will not make his demons go away.
After this, he cannot return to his previous life. Tuvok grabs
his head and begins a meld anyway, but cannot make the connection
and collapses on the floor. Suder taps Tuvok’s comm. badge
and tells Chakotay on the bridge that Tuvok needs help, then
cradles the helpless Vulcan while he waits for someone to arrive.
‘Captain’s log, supplemental. Ensign Suder has been
incarcerated in secured quarters where he will likely spend the
rest of our journey home. Lt. Tuvok remains under observation
in sickbay.’
The EMH believes that Tuvok’s inability to kill Suder
means that he is on his way back to being normal. Tuvok takes
the opportunity to apologise to Captain Janeway for his recent
behaviour, and assures her of his respect and friendship. She
accepts this, then gives him an order – no more mind melds
without her permission.
Review:
Here it is folks, the obligatory Vulcan loses his marbles episode.
Tuvok as a character has been pretty awful so far, but then he
is our first full-Vulcan regular in Trek. (Remember, Spock was
half-human.) He is sneering, unsociable, possibly with a severe
chip on his shoulder because Chakotay got the first officer job
instead of himself. He chides Kes during their mental powers
lessons for giggling, not making allowances for the fact that
she is not Vulcan. Now he gets his come-uppance, and suffers
the indignity of being a public spectacle with his emotions on
display for all to see. However, where Spock got to have a laugh
and swing upside down from a branch, Tuvok gets to be a violent
evil person. Somehow you can believe that he always had it in
him. After all, he is a security officer cum police detective,
dealing with the seedy side of life. This could be a classic
example of poacher turned gamekeeper.
Tim Russ handles the job well. He keeps all that potential anger
and viciousness bubbling away just below the surface throughout,
visibly menacing without becoming out and out action. This Tuvok
is not someone to meet in a dark alley.
But the star of the show is Brad Dourif as Suder, who has a
neat line in calm, polite, scary characters. The black contacts
he wears as a Betazoid just make it even worse. Forget dark alleys,
here is a character you really do not want to meet in a crowded
square at noon. He carries the scenes with Tuvok wonderfully,
and you quickly believe in him as a complete person. He is now
in solitary confinement in his quarters. Will we hear of him
again? I do hope so.
However, whatever are they doing with Paris? After Threshold
and his journey to proper person, he has degenerated into petty
bookmaker and general thorn in the side of the first officer.
It feels terribly wrong. Almost as wrong as the awful pseudo-medicine
the EMH and Kes are forced to perform remotely in order to sort
out Tuvok’s mental aberration. If it hadn’t been
for these, the story would have scored a lot higher.
Grade: 6/10
Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran as Chakotay
Roxanne Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim
Guest Cast:
Simon Billig as Hogan
Brad Dourif as Ensign Lon Suder
Creative Staff:
Director: Cliff Bole
Teleplay By: Michael Piller
Story By: Michael Sussman
