The Enterprise hosts a group of Vulcans who, unlike T’Pol and the other Vulcan High Command, are eager to embrace and experience their own emotions. When one of their rank tempts her to adapt their more free-spirited approach to life, T’Pol finds herself faced with a confusing and intriguing dilemma.
Another good episode (what is this — three weeks of episodes I’ve actually really liked in a row? “Dear Doctor“, “Shuttlepod One” and now “Fusion” — if they’re not careful, they might actually have a good Trek show on the air again!), though I’ve got some issues with the events.
Finally…after 16 episodes of interesting but non-typical behavior (as far as we know) from the Vulcans shown on Enterprise, we finally get a show exploring a bit more about Vulcan culture…albeit in an unusual fashion. Good stuff, and Jolene Blalock (T’Pol) is turning out to be a lot better than I initially thought she would.
It seems to me that either the writers are working with how she’s portraying her character, or there’s been some planning for her character that hadn’t been revealed yet. One of the constant complaints that I read over on the TrekBBS is how non-Vulcan she is — obviously emotional at times (just not overtly emotional). Many of the complaints just boil down to how she’s ‘not Spock,’ which I just think is kind of silly (see this post on the HTF for more of my thoughts on that). This time, we got to explore not just a little of why she is how she is, through some visiting Vulcans that were experimenting with embracing their emotions, rather than rejecting them. One of the visiting Vulcans started pressuring T’Pol into exploring her emotional side, remarking that her emotions weren’t nearly as buried as most Vulcans are, possibly as a result of spending as much time as she has among humans. While she eventually decides that this approach is not for her, it was a very interesting look into just why logic has become the creed of Vulcan life.
I was, however, somewhat disturbed by how T’Pol was treated by both the visiting Vulcan (none-too-subtle pressure leading up to what could easily be considered mental assault or rape) and by Archer, with his constant remarks that she should be more accepting of these emotional Vulcans’ way of life. If he’d been merely advocating acceptance of a different viewpoint, that would have been one thing, but it came across as more pressure for her to try to explore her emotional side. For all the preaching of acceptance, Archer certainly didn’t seem to willing to let T’Pol be how she prefers to be, which got to bug me a bit. Thankfully, by the end of the show, he seemed to have backed off from that stance a bit, even remarking that he thought he understood a bit more of why she chose to stay with the more traditional Vulcan way of life.
I did think it was interesting that at the time of Enterprise, the Vulcan Mind Meld is so little used that the procedure has to be explained to T’Pol. Since we saw at least two TOS-era Vulcans use the Mind Meld that I can think off off the top of my head (Spock and his father Sarek), the impression was that it was a fairly well-known procedure at the time. Now I’m a little curious if Spock’s family’s use of this technique was more unconventional than we’d been led to believe, or if a more common acceptance of the technique had become standard by Kirk’s day.
Anyway, another strong episode in the can for Enterprise.