User Reviews

Tuvok mind melds with a Betazoid who killed another crew member.

This is a strong psychological episode with great character moments.

The story is a good character study of the Betazoid Suder and Tuvok's experiences trying to understand his motivation for killing people. It contains good themes about the individual desire for violent behaviour and it's connection to capital punishment.

Brad Douriff, Tim Russ and Katie Mulgrew are all excellent, particularly Douriff who is very creepy with Betazoid eyes and in his performance.

There is some good cinematography that makes various scenes dark and shadowy to great effect.

This episode takes place completely aboard Voyager--usually a sign that it's a crappy show. However, this one is actually excellent. The show begins with the body of a murdered crew member being discovered. Crewman Suder is soon identified as the killer and this Betazoid soon admits he did it and it seems that he murdered because he enjoyed killing. As Tuvak is in charge of the case, he's completely perplexed as this sort of antisocial thinking is completely un-Vulcan. So, he attempts to use a mind meld to help Suder to become more normal as well as understand him. Unfortunately, this also turns Tuvak into an antisocial personality with a strong desire to kill--Neelix in particular (which is VERY understanding). What's to become of these two crazed crew members?

Brad Dourif stars as Suder and this is VERY interesting, as he played a murderer on "Babylon 5" as well--one who is captured and who is punished in a most unusual and interesting manner. Either way, this is a fascinating episode of "Star Trek: Voyager" and worth seeing.

When I was 10 to 12 years old, before I had read Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius, Leonard Nimoy and Mark Lenard's characterization of Vulcans immediately struck and internal chord. Like my father, they were men of reason, intelligence and dignity. You could disagree with them, but you always had to admire them.

As I grew older, I found that I was a natural Stoic. Vulcan aspirations coincided with my natural inclinations. This is one of the reasons that I found the the portrayal of Vulcans in Star Trek: Enterprise so distasteful.

The portrayal of Klingons as sort of battle loving vikings, but with a code of honor in TNG was fun, but it was at the expense of what resonating with me in TOS, reason and dignity.

So, now, Star Trek: Voyager is the last Star Trek series that I have watched. As it has the creative team for Deep Space 9, occasionally, it approaches high quality TV. Although the best of DS9 is unsurpassed for quality.

So, that brings me to this episode. It could have been mostly a single setting play. It is a bit predictable, the theme being the thin line between our animal nature and our civilized selves and the nature of capital justice in a civilized society. There is no new ground here.

But, oh, what a job by Tim Russ. He is the first Vulcan since TOS to give me the feeling that the future can contain reason and dignity. He is the first Vulcan to give me that zing of admiration, and watching him kindled the same recognition of self that I saw in the original portrayal of Spock. For that alone, this episode earns infinite stars.

Tim Russ captures what it is to be Vulcan like no actor since TOS.

I'd say that the main Tuvoc storyline is better than a 7/10. But the B story brings the score down to a 7/10 for me. I'm guessing that when I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who grade Meld don't even think or remember Kim and Paris gambling in the pool room holodeck program. It doesn't seem to connect well with the main storyline for this episode. The main storyline is probably worthy of about an 8.5/10 to me if it was on its own. Unfortunately it's not on its own. However I still think it's not a bad episode overall. To me a 7/10 is an average Voyager episode. And that's about what this episode is overall to me.

He did great job acting Suder. Creepy and unsettling, but never over the top. It's nice to meet someone outside the main crew characters and Suder was one of the best!

Also, it's nice to see Tuvok a bit frustrated. And wild. Vulcans are more...interestig when they are not like a piece of wooden statue. A little burst of emotions go a long way.

I'm not a fan of just-on-board episodes, that filler ones, but this one is quite different.

Dark, intense, serious... Oh, don't worry. There is a nice and optimistic Star Trek ending, as it should be.

So, if they need a filler episode, please forget the holodek ones and make something like this.

Wow, I am currently watching Voyager, and this has to be the worst episode so far. The acting of everyone involved is pretty bad. The plot is cringe-worthy. It makes me think of bad B-movies where writers try really hard to get a point across but fail so badly, one feels like bursting out into laughter.

It's supposed to be dramatic and deep, but it's shallow and ridiculous. Dropping a few lines on the topic of violence reminiscent of a discussion one might have at 4am at a bar with people drinking all night. Even though in such a discussion I'd expect a bit more depth.

And then the tech babble and logic part. While it is said that he might not have "any tendencies" in the genes hits on there only being tendencies the fact that the rest of the show depicts both Tuvok and Sudor as obviously fighting with their mental state also completely throws that out the window.

The end on the other hand is at the level of magic recovery due to a prince kissing the princess.

The question of revenge/satification vs lost potential is quickly thrown in and not thematized, neither are mental illness or human nature really gone through. Instead we have ridiculous scenes like the captain giving Tuvok strange over-dramatic looks, Tuvok having destroyed his room, but otherwise being fine other than his face looking a bit different. Despite messing up his room, smashing it into pieces and somehow knocking out a guard off-screen he is to weak to even stand up-right.

There is no area in which this episode is good, even though the premise sounds like it could be interesting.

Suder feels pretty okay. Hard to tell, because there is nothing but forced drama, but I like that he is a not overplayed psychopath/sociopath.

The Marquis topic - Suder being from the Marquis - also feels like a "why not" decision.

There are no twists, whatsoever.

The best scene is towards the end where it appears that Suder is worried that probably the only person understanding him feels bad.

Overall highly disappointing. It feels like no effort was put into this episode by neither the writers nor the actors at large.

This is a very interesting exposition of the Vulcanian ability to meld.

In TNG "Sarek", we learned that this is much more than a one-way operation, from Spock to Van Gelder or Spock to Horta. When Spock was melding with the Horta, he became the Horta, including that creatures' concern for her children. As he became Simon Van Gelder and his fear of the Neural Neutralizer.

Consequently when Picard was melding with Sarek, of course it had the desired effect of granting Sarek emotional control in the face of his "Bandai Syndrome"... But it also had the undesired effect of distributing personal information from Sarek into Picards brain. Too much information, in fact. But, which had a mutually beneficial effect.

However, when it comes to Suder and Tuvok, I don't think Tuvix' motivation for melding with Suder was honest or valid.

For one thing, Tuvok was seeking the answer to the question, "what motivated Suder to perform a particular heinous act?" A question that does not really have an answer.

I think most human beings and even holograms programmed by human beings understand this without much trouble.

But Vulcananians? Especially Vulcanians who have participated in the Emotion-Purging process of Kohlinahr, will obviously not get it, ever.

Tuvix does not give valid reasons for his desire to participate in this Meld. If all he was searching for was a reason, a motivation. It was a frivolous use of his brain powers.

It is, it was in fact, cheating.

Because by all human definitions, there will never be a reason for that activity given.

And as Sudor is not actually a human being, being a full blooded Betazoid, like Luwaxana, daughter of the fifth house, holder of the sacred chalice of Riix, he would also not have the same kind of reasoning given by a human being. As Betazoids are receptive to much higher doses of emotion than Humans or Vulcanians are.

Suder was the one who tried to discourage Tuvix from this activity. But in the end, the promise of gaining personal control over certain demons appealed to Suder. Even though Suder was concerned that Tuvix would probably not be able to tolerate what he was going to deposit, in return for that personal control.

So it was Suder who made out like a bandit with this deal, he benefitted the most.

Fortunately Tuvox had the wisdom to stick himself behind a force field before bad things started to happen, very bad things.

Tuvox had one other incident in season 4 where he had a brain explosion of violent imagery, on the planet of telepath's that were stealing random violent thoughts from non-telepathic visitors. (The planet where Be'tor was a police woman).

It was fun to watch Tuvok lose all personal control and dignity...

RELEASE THE FORCE FIELD!!

At the very end of the episode, Suder has become a new, different person: he calls the Bridge to tell them what had happened... And he gently picks up Tuvok. That action This was a very different Lon Suder, and by the time "The Basics" 1 & 2 roll out, Suder finally knows what he can do, "for the ship".

A murder has happened on the Voyager. Lt Tuvok together with the doctor can quickly solve the case and present the murderer who also confesses his crime. Everything seems to be fine. But Tuvok is unsatisfied with the motivation of this murderer. He is obviously mentally ill and killed for no deeper reason. But in Tuvok's logic there has to be a clear motivation which goes beyond acting on instinct. He mind melds with him to get a glimpse into his thoughts.

After the mind meld Tuvok changes. Suddenly dark and evil feelings emerge which show us a different side of Tuvok. His suppressed side. His primal instincts. The first time he is in rage, condescending, hateful and wants revenge by executing the murderer.

This episode teaches us that Vulcans, too, are empathic and illogical beings but have learned to suppress this dark and bright sides of themselves. But still those feelings and thoughts are buried deep beneath the surface of logic and self-control. And when they emerge a Vulcan in the end is just like a human: Guided by emotions and instinct.

I didn't particularly like this story, but it was interesting. Lots of psychological stuff, and too much talking as usual. I find it kind of hard to believe that Tuvok's mind could have been contaminated by Suder, but maybe it was because he's Betazoid, and telepathic, it affected Tuvok differently.

What I liked about this episode, was that I discovered that Tim Russ is an excellent actor. I was not familiar with him prior to Voyager, and I always found Tuvok somewhat dull and monotonous, and thought maybe Russ was a bad actor. After seeing him acting as the "mind-altered" Tuvok, I was very impressed. I can now view his regular Tuvok in a different light. Brad Dourif also did an excellent job of portraying the psychotic Suder. Overall, what "Meld" lacked in story, was more than made up for by the excellent acting abilities of Tim Russ and Brad Dourif.