Episode Review - Fusion
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
As the Enterprise heads towards the Arachnid Nebula, a civilian Vulcan ship hails the crew. However, when the ship’s captain, Tavin, asks for repairs to his vessel, it becomes clear to Archer that this group of Vulcans are a little unusual since they do not seem as emotionless as normal. Whilst Trip and the Vulcan engineer Kov work together to repair the Vulcan ship’s systems, Archer and T’Pol host Tavin and one of his crewmembers, Tolaris for dinner. The two are continually surprised by how pleasant and open their guests are, but Tavin is soon on hand to explain that his crew are seen as “V’tosh ka’tur”(“Vulcans without logic.”) He says that his crewmates are on a pilgrimage in order to find a balance between emotion and logic.

After dinner, whilst Archer is relieved to have bumped into some Vulcans that aren’t as restrictive as those that held back the humans’ development of warp drive, he tries to ascertain why T’Pol is avoiding them. She says that she is sceptical of Tavin’s pilgrimage, saying that trying to restore emotions within a Vulcan’s psych is quite dangerous. Archer disagrees with her, and suggests that she should spend more time with them before she decides her opinion of them. That night, T’Pol meets up with Tolaris in the mess hall, where she discovers that he actually holds great intelligence, and offers arguments for his experimentations with emotion.

The next day they find themselves working together in the Vulcan ship’s astrometrics lab, studying the nebula. Tolaris further explains his ideas of emotion, and suggests that T’Pol forgo the usual ritual of meditating before sleep for the sake of a scientific experiment. He says that her dreams will be much more interesting, therefore at night she does not meditate. She soon finds that Tolaris was right, and finds that her dreams are extremely provocative – in fact she finds herself in bed with Solaris. Extremely disturbed, T’Pol takes a visit to Phlox who gives her an injection. He advises her not to actually give up on Solaris’ techniques, but she must ease her way into such a routine gently.

Meanwhile, Archer receives a transmission from Admiral Forrest, telling him that Kov’s father is dying and wishes to be at peace with his son before he dies. Archer tries to approach Kov about the matter in hand, but it is quite clear that Kov holds only negative feelings about his father’s attitude towards him. However, Archer notices that Trip has been able to form a bond with the chirpy Vulcan since he started to help repairing the Vulcan ship, and therefore asks him to try and persuade Kov into reconsidering his uptight position over his father. Trip’s first attempt is not received well – Kov appreciates his help, but insists that his father and him had parted ways years ago, insisting their relationship is not retrievable.

As the two work together, Tolaris is able to convince T’Pol to let him guide her through her emotional wakening. Later in her quarters, Tolaris explains that he will be using an ancient technique known as a mind meld so that their thoughts and memories can be shared. As soon as Tolaris places his hands on her katra points, T’Pol begins to re-experience her disturbing dream from the night before. Her emotions continue to grow until they spiral into discomfort for her. When she asks to break the meld, Tolaris becomes extremely angry. T’Pol tries to break the meld and finds that she has to tear herself away from Tolaris to get him to stop. The sudden separation results in the two meld participants stunned from mental trauma. T’Pol tries to control her feelings over this mental violation, and asks Tolaris to leave.

The next day, Archer confronts Tolaris about his assault on T’Pol. Tolaris shrugs the idea of assault off, claiming that T’Pol simply panicked during the meld. However, Archer’s persistence with the matter leads to Tolaris soon losing his temper. As soon as he has thrown Archer across the room though, it becomes quite clear that he is a highly dangerous man, and therefore Archer strongly suggests that the Vulcans move on from the Enterprise. However, the strong negativity does not overpower the Enterprise’s contact with the unusual Vulcans – Kov says that will finally contact his dying father, much due to the continued persistence of Trip. Their communiqué restores a little more stability within the volatile family, hopefully allowing a future satisfying conclusion. With the Vulcans now off the Enterprise, Archer visits T’Pol who is still recovering from the trauma of the event. She has returned to her tradition of meditating before sleep, and feels that before long she will recover. However, the event has assured one interesting facet about the sub-commander – she confesses that she actually envies humans’ ability to dream.

Summary
Actually, on paper, this episode doesn’t sound half bad – a ‘rebellious’ group of Vulcans, showing that a balance of logic and emotion (á la Spock?) is possible and practical, along with some development for T’Pol showing that she perhaps isn’t the quintessential Vulcan and is able to embrace new ideas (perhaps explaining her often-odd ‘more human’ moments throughout this season), both mixed together with a ‘family angst’ story that would make even a Vulcan allow a drop of emotion. All this, and a ‘first’ mention of a Vulcan mind meld – an ancient technique, apparently. So why then was it that when all of this merged to become ‘Fusion’ that I was relived the hour was over? I was actually quite bored!

One thing Brannon Braga has continually mentioned throughout the evolution of Enterprise is that the producers intend to explore the prequel concept within the Vulcan society as well as with Earth, Starfleet and so on. The idea itself is quite fascinating; to coin a term, and it has led to several aspects of 22nd century Vulcan culture being revealed that, to say the least, have been interesting (if a little hard to swallow – 35 years worth of memories of Spock, Tuvok and co. just don’t vanish like that, and sometimes these retro-Vulcans are a little un-Vulcan-like.) We can already see that the Vulcans were quite arrogant and assumed a superior, more controlling role over humans, leading to a sometimes-bitter relationship between the two.

Of course, you know all that though. You’ve been watching. Well, here is an episode that tries to expand even more upon the theme of 22nd century Vulcans, but the I think the problem is that the new characteristics are stretching an already stretched envelope. One thing that bugged the hell out of me was that we learnt that the Vulcan mind meld was an ancient technique that these emotional Vulcans resurrected. How then did the technique become such widely used within 100 years (and amongst ‘normal’ Vulcans for that matter?) It was a little hard to swallow, considering that Spock, Sarek and Tuvok especially like to use mind melds willy-nilly (as if it were a technique that has always been used.)

The actual group of emotional Vulcans didn’t do much to help our changing perception of Vulcans – with 22nd century Vulcans already acting all but emotionally, to have a group of emotional Vulcans just seems to be rubbing our faces in the prequel concept really. As mentioned, perhaps this odd group (though I liked Kov’s quirkiness – more later) was a small tribute to the ongoing battle Spock always fought between his traditional Vulcan/logical upbringing with his human side. However, now that I’ve had time to mull over the episode, I wondered how such a balance couldn’t become much more widespread throughout Vulcan. It just seems odd that they’d neglect the possibility of having the best of both worlds. Then again, they just be worried they’d turn out like the Romulans – maybe there’s a story arc in this… OK, that’s stretching it, I’ll admit.

Anyway, allow me to continue illustrating my gripes with the episode. I mentioned a possible explanation for T’Pol’s occasional un-Vulcan-like facets this season (perhaps she’s an undercover Romulan?) Whilst that explanation could just about be bought, there are a couple of things again that bugged me – how she was so willing to drop her routine of meditation, and how she could have such an emotionally-packed dream after missing just one session of meditation. Still, at least it provides further explanation as to why every other scene with a Vulcan in it seems to have them meditating. I’m surprised that they can keep themselves wrapped up for seven years! A small aside – I will not criticise Jolene Blalock – I believe that she acts her part very well and I believe that she had a good episode – even if I didn’t like it.

So, onto some more minor things – I mentioned Kov and his subplot (and why does Trip always manage to get into every story?) I said I liked his quirkiness, which I did, he was a fun emotional Vulcan (unlike Tolaris who I just didn’t like from the start – which I suppose was good perception considering what happened). However, and I’ll be as subtle as a brick through a window saying this, his plot was highly melodramatic. To me it seemed to resemble a story from a teen soap of some sort. It also just seemed to be thrown in for the hell of padding out an episode. If the theme had been explored fully and perhaps made into an episode itself, it would have been more interesting. However, the subtlety of the B-plot ensured that I didn’t feel anything for the character’s plight, which was a huge shame considering I liked the guy.

So what else can I say? Other than more confusing sides to Vulcans than we need to know about, the story just didn’t seem to be going anywhere. So as well as coming up with things that bugged me, it also managed to bore me – perhaps it’s personal? Well, after last week’s great ‘Shuttlepod One’ I suppose that whatever follows it would seem half as good (unless it were ‘Dear Doctor.’ Ahem.) Overall I have to say that whilst there were many good ideas within the episode, I just don’t think I have the brain capacity to accept them. The episode was boring; the characteristics were confusing. In fact, sadly, it was distinctly average, which is a shame for what has been a good season for Enterprise so far.

Final Opinion
An overdose on Vulcans that isn’t even remotely interesting.

4.5/10