In the sixth episode of the sixth season of Voyager, my heart shall never repair itself after this. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
Trigger Warning: For discussion of ableism, PTSD, and rehabilitation.Â
Oh lord, y’all. I was not ready for this episode to hit me as hard as it did. It’s an absolute achievement in terms of Neelix, Tuvok, and the relationship between them. By nature of how I’m watching it, though, it’s also deeply flawed. As great as this episode is, it’s failed by the episode nature of Voyager, something that wouldn’t even be as glaring as it is if Deep Space Nine had not addressed trauma, PTSD, and disability in a much more convincing and realistic manner.
It’s unfortunate because there’s so much here that is genuinely surprising and fulfilling, so I don’t want to ignore that either. In lesser hands, “Riddles” might have ignored Tuvok’s rehabilitation entirely, focusing instead on the mystery of the Ba’Neth. (What a terrible name, for the record; I kept thinking the show said “Bat’Leth”!) Now, the mystery of a xenophobic race that cloaks itself so efficiently that they’re a cultural myth to another race is a fantastic story, and I probably would have at least been entertained by this episode had it only addressed that. However, Tuvok’s story is what makes “Riddles,” directed by Roxann Dawson (!!!!) so utterly enthralling. In short: I simply did not expect this show to address his rehabilitation so fully, and that is what I found captivating. After he’s seriously injured by the Ba’Neth’s weapon, his emotional control is lost; his memory is gone; his cognitive skills are different; his interests are changed. Everything about Tuvok feels different, and Tim Russ’s performance sells this completely to us. (Honestly, Russ has killed it this season, and it’s astounding to me that he’s gotten so much great material to work with. NEVER LET IT END.)
This episode essentially asks us a difficult question: who is Tuvok once he’s stripped of logic? Is he still Vulcan? Is he still the same person? Through his injury, we see the challenge of his rehabilitation from his perspective and the perspective of those around him. And the question becomes more complex with every scene! Indeed, part of the conflict comes from the fact that Tuvok’s friends and colleagues can only view him through the lens of his past self. He’s the logical, unemotional Vulcan, and once the logic is gone and the emotion is worn on his sleeve, Tuvok feels different to everyone else. But is that fair? Is it fair to hold someone to that standard? For what it’s worth, Neelix is incredibly kind and considerate of Tuvok during this entire ordeal, but even he admits in the episode that he held Tuvok back by trying to make him conform to the past. In the context of disability, that’s especially insidious, and it creeps into Tuvok’s thinking as well. He is told of what he used to be, what he used to be able to do, how he used to think and react. He reads up on himself in the Starfleet database. He gets a detailed portrait of someone that, even to him, feels like a distant person!
It’s not until Neelix adjusts Tuvok’s therapy that he begins to thrive, and it’s through this that we are given a new portrait of Tuvok. ONE THAT BROKE MY HEART INTO A MILLION PIECES. Here’s the thing: I don’t see these as different people. Without the ability to suppress his emotion, Tuvok simply states what he always felt. That includes his feelings on Neelix as a friend. On his desire to have fun. On the value of having fun. Nothing demonstrates that better than the conversation that Tuvok has with Neelix about the cure to his condition. In that moment, Tuvok has never felt more vulnerable. (Though it’s not the first time he’s been vulnerable, of course.) It’s in this that the flaw in this episode is fully exposed: this should not have been resolved in a single episode. It undermines much of what “Riddles” does. And I understand that the writers are constricted by the way Voyager works! It’s not as highly serialized as it could have been, so that magical, last-second cure always hung over the story. That doesn’t make the sting of it hurt any less. Tuvok was forced into a situation where it became ideal for him to become the “old” version of himself, which is frustrating! Why spend so much time showing us that he had to stop comparing the past with the present if you’re just going to force the character back into the past? It felt cheap, especially after the journey Neelix and Tuvok went on over the course of the episode. And all that’s left is one wry joke or appreciation for a pun? It’s like a tiny crumb of potential, which is a shame. Without that ending, this is one of the best episodes of the show, an emotional and realistic journey that we don’t see much of in speculative fiction. Unfortunately, it’s not all it could be.
The video for “Riddles” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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