Whose the best Vulcan?

[Ronald Held]

Do you not like Sarek when he's on TV?

No I include him on his only TV episode.

 

[tomalak301]

For me, the problem with Tuvok was that I felt it was Tim Russ acting like a Vulcan rather than the way Nimoy and Lenard just seemed to be Vulcan, though I also saw the first two when I was very young and had years to take in their performances, versus less of an impression from Tuvok.

I would think acting a Vulcan is incredibly hard to do though. You have to be stoic all the time and there were times Nimoy let his "humanity" show. It's why I appreciated episodes where they allowed Russ to show emotion (Meld and Riddles come to mind) because it was quite a difference from the typical Vulcan approach.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Soval was awesome. True, he went a bit native, but that made him a finer Ambassador.

 

[DonIago]

I would think acting a Vulcan is incredibly hard to do though. You have to be stoic all the time and there were times Nimoy let his "humanity" show. It's why I appreciated episodes where they allowed Russ to show emotion (Meld and Riddles come to mind) because it was quite a difference from the typical Vulcan approach.

I feel TPTB emotionally compromised Tuvok a bit more often than I would have preferred...granted they had to work with the character for seven seasons rather than three seasons and six films.

I'm not saying it's not hard to portray a Vulcan; I'm saying that Nimoy and Lenard seemed to do it more naturally than Russ or many others. That's not a slam against them.

 

[E-DUB]

OG Sarek. Such a good Vulcan, he was a Romulan in his spare time. (And a Klingon, too.)

 

[Vger23]

Spock by a lot

So the question really is “favorite Vulcan besides Spock,” correct?

Easily Tuvok

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Tuvok. All the way. Nimoy plays Spock with the half-human struggle in mind and that's a beautiful, nuanced thing, but Tuvok is pure Vulcan Stoicism distilled. At turns smart, dependable, strong and never without a sense of underlying dry wit.

 

[Oddish]

Like all too many characters on VOY, Tuvok was a static character. The difference is, with him it made sense: he was over 100 years old and already well defined by marriage, fatherhood, and his time in Starfleet. If Voyager had allowed its characters to evolve, Tuvok could have been the immutable one. Sometimes, the best way to see how much a character changes is to put them next to a character who doesn't.

 

[maneth]

Tuvok, definitely.

Spock is my favorite TOS character, but he's only half-Vulcan, and his struggles to accept both sides of his character pretty much define his personality for me.

 

[FredH]

After Spock, I think the Vulcan with the most story potential — which was utterly wasted when the franchise set her to the side — was Saavik. (That’s a separate topic from her portrayal, of course. Kirstie Alley was fine, Robin Curtis was okay.)