Jammersreviews

Warning: This review contains significant spoilers. If you haven't seen the
episode yet, beware.


In brief: Intriguing isolated moments that float lost without the context of
a coherent story. Perhaps that's the point?

Plot description: T'Pol finds herself exploring dangerous recesses of her
mind when a group of Vulcans who embrace their emotions visits the
Enterprise.

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Enterprise: "Fusion"

Airdate: 2/27/2002 (USA)
Teleplay by Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong
Story by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Directed by Rob Hedden

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
Rating out of 4: **1/2

Trip: "Do Vulcans dance?"
Kov: "Only when it's part of some tedious ceremony."
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Hmmm. I just don't know about "Fusion." There are some moments that are well
directed and even have currents of convincing psychology buried in the
writing and images. These are moments without the benefit of coherence. This
episode is fragmented and lost. It intrigued me. It did not satisfy me.
Maybe that's the point. Or maybe the writers were out to lunch. I can't say.

The Vulcans are complicated folks. That's a good thing. This episode muddles
them beyond an ability to reach a satisfactory conclusion. That isn't a good
thing. In Star Trek, the Vulcans have always been creatures of logic who
attempt to suppress their emotions. "Fusion," however, takes the concept of
emotional control to a level that apparently requires a psychology degree in
order to grasp. I was left with a strange sense that the Vulcans, somewhere
along the line, have either been made too complicated or too bound by the
writers' increasing library of weird rules.

In "Fusion," emotions are like the forbidden fruit. The notion arises when
the Enterprise comes in contact with a ship of unconventional Vulcans who do
not fully suppress their emotions but instead try to integrate them into
their lives, searching for the right balance. This is frowned upon by
mainstream Vulcan society. T'Pol considers such outcasts' philosophies as
too dangerous, with too high a failure rate. Vulcans suppress all their
emotions as a matter of necessary discipline; the episode sees it as an
all-or-nothing situation where those Vulcans who would try to find a middle
ground are destined to become ticking time bombs who could completely lose
control.

One of the Vulcans, Tolaris (Enrique Murciano), takes an interest in T'Pol
and tries to convince her to experiment with their methodology. She
initially resists but finds herself intrigued. Eventually she decides to
trust him and opens herself to new experiences.

The concept is interesting, but the results are puzzling. For T'Pol, it
seems she was profoundly moved by an experience back on Earth when she left
the Vulcan consulate to explore San Francisco while disguised, eventually
ending up at a jazz club. The music she heard intrigued and now haunts her.
As she experiments with Tolaris' methods, freeing herself from her daily
meditation routine, she finds her dreams taking her back to that night on
Earth. I liked Rob Hedden's direction over T'Pol's dream sequence, which is
confused and chaotic and atmospheric; cinema always provides a good medium
for conveying dreams and nightmares. And as I said at the beginning, there
seems to be a nervous psychology beneath these images that feels convincing.

But the episode can't make sense of them. T'Pol's encounter with jazz music
in San Francisco was apparently a profound emotional experience, but we
never find out how or why; the thread is more concept than content. This is
reinforced by the mind-meld scene between T'Pol and Tolaris later in the
episode, which takes us back to that moment in San Francisco and leaves us
stranded there with no answers. Perhaps we, like T'Pol, have no answers to
find. Perhaps she herself was stranded there, and is too disturbed to go
back. Perhaps that's psychobabble giving the writers too much credit for
sketchy ideas. (Why would music -- even unfamiliar music -- move her so
profoundly? It's not like music is a foreign concept to Vulcans.)

About the mind-meld scene. T'Pol is not familiar with mind-melds, because
the writers have decided they don't exist in mainstream Vulcan society at
this point in time. Tolaris says they have been "abandoned." What does this
mean, and why will it return within the next century? I have no idea. The
historical record of the mind-meld is only superficially explored here.

As a matter of technique, the mind-meld scene works. It comes across as
intensely emotional and intimate -- and also potentially invasive and
dangerous. The acting sells the scene. Indeed, Jolene Blalock's performance
in "Fusion" might be her best to date. T'Pol ventures into dark areas where
her mind would rather not go, where her disciplines generally forbid her to
go. The episode's message, I think, if there is one, is that T'Pol faces a
daily struggle of rigid discipline to keep her emotions in check. It's as if
every Vulcan has inner demons that run so deep they must be contained and
never uncorked. I'm not so sure this tracks with what we already know.

The main plot plays in contrast with a B-story where Trip is paired with
another of the Vulcans, Kov (John Harrington Bland). Kov seems more stable,
more human, without the inner demons Tolaris (or, for that matter, T'Pol)
seems to have. Trip and Kov have an amicable experience over the course of
the Vulcans' visit, including humorous moments where Trip corrects some
Vulcan misconceptions about human behavior ("They're not trying to kill the
quarterback"). Is Kov the exception, or is Tolaris?

There are flashes of insight here, and yet ... it's all so strangely
unsatisfying. The question of whether Tolaris is a dangerous man who took
the mind-meld too far is a good one. Archer confronts Tolaris in a scene
that doesn't make good sense: I don't understand why Archer would
intentionally confront and provoke Tolaris the way he does (getting thrown
across the room in the process). Does Archer really need to see first-hand
how a Vulcan can lose control? This is dramatic fireworks for the sake of
fireworks. It doesn't exist in the real world. And after Tolaris' violent
outburst, there are apparently no repercussions or conclusions to be drawn.
The whole idea just sort of goes away.

"Fusion" is not successful. It's too messy and inconclusive, its psychology
too bizarre and inexplicable. But it has moments of success. It generates
some interest. The question comes down to this: (A) Is the story half-baked,
or (B) do its unanswered questions make it more interesting rather than
less?

I'm going to have to go with (A).

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Copyright 2002 Jamahl Epsicokhan. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this article is prohibited.

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