When I was little I had a phobia about clowns. I loved the circus, but when those creeps showed up I'd bury my face in my mother's arms. I didn't quite have the same reaction to this ep, but it came close. On my bottom 10 list, that's for sure. Seems to me the writers shot their wad with the Investigations arc; there followed a period of unprecedented (and fortunately, not repeated) lull.
MY god what am I, the VOY forum bitch. Well if so, I'm a thrall (that's a TOS word, oh lol, oh lol) of my own making. All the way home tonight I was thinking that I had some obligation for the evening, something I said I would do.. and goddamn it this is apparently it. :: presses play ::
Well. That was not quite as horridly horrible as I remembered. Michael McKean really shines as The Clown, excellent acting. The big plus in this ep is that Janeway manages to accomplish in 2 minutes of blather what no one else could do in years. Of course she is not really in there so fear loses its power once it no longer has a REAL person, but still nice that it is Janeway who does the banishing. However.. CLOWN: What will become of us? Of me? JANEWAY: Like all fear, you eventually vanish. CLOWN: I'm afraid. JANEWAY: I know. CLOWN: Drat. That's the end of the episode. I feel like I'm watching some dumbass high school production. Anyway, we all know what comes next.. TUVIX. I'm going to rewatch it. To prepare.
The only episode not on amazon prime is tuvix. I ordered the DVDs from the library, and hopefully they will come in soon!
Tuvix My discs finally came into the library!! Also, I am watching this on my new TV, and it is such a difference. I went from a 16-year-old 32 inch box TV to a 42 inch flat screen. I guess I didn’t realize how atrocious the color was on my old TV… WOW! Love the opening. I have had hints that this was a great episode! The title was well-done. I like the mixture of Neelix and Tuvok! Good costume and makeup design! What a fun combination out of all the characters. Does anyone wish there was a different mixture? I like the combo of the most emotional character and the least emotional character. However, from the opener I was expecting a humorous episode, not a dramatic one! GRRRRR my dumb library disc is skipping through part of the beginning…. While in the medical bay, Tuvix was scanned, but what scan in the Star Trek world takes 20 minutes? Normally, it seems like the Doc scans and heals everyone quickly. I did enjoy the Doc’s rant about how Tuvix had Tuvok’s intellectual superiority and Neelix’s quirks. It was a good scene when Tuvix went into the mess hall and saw the mad scramble for dinner, which led him to kick everyone out, “on the authority of head chef or head of security; take your pick”! It is kind of weird to hear a highly logical, yet emotional character. In many ways, their personalities are the typical polar opposites, however, the merging acts as a balancing of the yin and yang. It was very strange, but in an enjoyable way! When Kes went to Janeway to seek advice about Tuvix we get to see Janeway with her hair partially down. I think she looks great that way! Janeway also had a very touching scene when she talks about Mark; it was well-acted (not too sappy, yet distressed). After Tuvix had been on the ship for a few weeks Kes goes to see him, and tells him that she would like to be his friend...with a hint of something more. At the same instance the Doc calls Tuvix to the med station because he found a way to fix their dilemma. However, Tuvix tells the Doc that he is afraid to die, and he articulates that his death would be an execution if Janeway forces him to die. He argues with Janeway and tells her that that he has the will of two men to live. Tuvix asks Kes to speak to Janeway on his behalf. When Kes goes to Janeway she tells her that she cannot. She breaks down in tears and tells Janeway that Tuvix does not deserve to die, but that she wants Neelix back. The rest of the crew begins to side-step Tuvix on the bridge, not knowing what status he has of authority until the captain makes her judgment. There is a heart-wrenching moment on the bridge when Janeway orders him to be “healed”. He pleads to everyone on the bridge and screams that they will all regret this at some point but that he ultimately forgives them for his murder. No one (other than the doctor) stands by him or his rights. While you can assume it’s because he was not willing to sacrifice himself for Neelix and Tuvok, it also seems to have the mob pressure element. It’s difficult to stand up in a crowd, especially when under the pressure of a structured hierarchy. This is quite the moral dilemma. Would you kill a being to save the lives of two others? I bet Janeway is going to feel like shit for the next few days; what a dilemma. Not to nit-pick over her hypocrisy, but she condemned a being begging for his right to live in order to regain her 2 crew members, but she granted Q asylum when she could have gotten home safely AND guaranteed him a supervised release from his prison in the continuum. If these events had happened in a reverse order, would the decision in Tuvix have changed her judgment for Q? I was quite surprised that this episode was so gloomy and had so many moral issues tied into it. After the opener, I was expecting something funny…I went from being excited about this episode to kind of sad, but I guess that type of emotional swing in a single episode only goes to show that it was a great one. Least favorite part: I am sad that Tuvix dies. He was a very likeable character, and his death was depressing. I think this was a well-written, produced, and excellently portrayed episode, but ultimately it might be too sad to be in my favorites. I think I will have to mull on it for a day or two to really decide. Most favorite part: The make-up/costume design for Tuvix was great. I also enjoyed the pick of characters to mix.
This is the episode that named Ayala who was in 113 episodes out of 170. This is just a small scale rerun of what happened in Deadlock, where Janeway and Janeway were both willing to sacrifice themselves to save the other identical crew ship to their own... Although by the numbers, the Janeway who survived that encounter was the one careless enough to lose Kim and Naomi, which means that she had less right not to be Vidiian-litter than her doppelgänger. Of course the superior Janeway who looked after her crew right with more reserve and care tipped the balance out of her utilitarian favour when she gave the bumbling accident prone Janeway her Kim and her Naomi because clumsy-clogs needed (golf term) a handicap.
Janeway had no right to kill him against his will in this one. Tuvix was exactly right that it was an execution. It's the moral equivalent of killing Chakotay against his will and harvesting his organs to save the lives Kim and Paris who would otherwise die. Really it's worse, given Janeway doesn't even truely respect his life and sentience or is just clearly blinded by her favoritism towards Tuvok and Neelix. She even criticizes him for having Kes speak on his behalf? Yes begging not to be murdered by all means available is clearly a deplorable act. Does that make Tuvix a coward for not sacrificing himself? Sure, it does. Is cowardice a capital crime? I don't think so. Who can really say with any amount of conviction that they'd sacrifice their life no question asked to save two others? You don't really know until you're in that situation I'd imagine. Yeah, Janeway's hypocrisy in this one is self-evident. Especially given some of her future actions too. But for one in the past, as not to spoil things for you and because there are so many, doesn't this episode just seem funny when you compare it to Janeway's condescending attitude towards the Viidians in Phage? How she sternly lectures them for stealing Neelix's lungs, and that she's so much better than them for not killing that guy to save Neelix's life? Hypocrite. Tuvix was a likeable character and the episode was beautifully done. But seriously, there's just no getting around the fact that Janeway murdered him. She can preach all about how it was to save two lives, but that's an excuse and doesn't make it right. She played favorites and played god and had no moral problem doing so. Even the freaking EMH refused to do it because it violated his ethical programing.
It's odd that Janeway didn't just turn off or abridge his ethical subroutines so that that light bulb with his lofty delusions of grandeur didn't retain such a piss poor excuse to be such a wussy.
She did not murder him, the way stabbing him to death would be murder. If Tuvix can claim that Neelix and Tuvok are alive in him then Neelix and Tuvok can claim once they have been parsed into their separate existences Tuvix is alive in them.
I thought it a tragic amalgamation of two people against their will that was fixed by the wonders of science. How do you know Neelix and Tuvok weren't inside screaming silent screams to get out?
A nice colorful metaphor, but it doesn't change the facts. Regardless of how Tuvix came into being, he was alive, he was conscious and he was sentient. Janeway is captain, she's not god. She has no right to decide who lives and dies. Tuvix had as much right to be alive as anyone else on that ship. Janeway didn't respect that right and decided she'd rather have her friends back. She performed the procedure personally, so yeah.. she stuck that proverbial knife in him.