1x17 Fusion

[7.1/10] Hoo boy, I don’t know what to do with them. I love the premise. The idea of meeting friendlier Vulcans, who aim for a more relaxed view of the balance between logic and emotion, who are pleased to meet our heroes, and genuinely interested, even excited about human culture rather than disdainful of it, is a nice change of place. The B-story involving Kov, the curious Vulcan, and his complicated relationship with his dad, is small stakes but a winner. And the A-story has all sorts of interesting material to mine from T’Pol’s anxieties over her time with humans weakening her resolve toward traditional Vulcan principles.

But man, I do not know if most shows, let alone a rough-around-the-edges one like Enterprise, are capable of tackling a story whose climax is rape in the span of forty-four minutes. One of the great things about science fiction is it allows us to explore difficult or complex things through the distance of fiction and metaphor, so I’m not averse on principle to having a mind-meld be the stand-in for a more physical violation. The problem is that Enterprise’s execution of that idea is troubling, to say the least.

Let’s start with the biggest issue: that violation, or its aftermath, isn’t really about T’Pol. Now I don’t want to jump the gun here -- maybe the next episode is all about her recovering from this trauma and they don’t want to shortchange her story of coming back from it. But the tag scene with her asking Archer about his dreams suggests that this will never really be addressed at length again, which is uncomfortable to say the least.

Because it makes it feel like this whole thing was an excuse to have Archer to do some white knighting. Aside from the weird jealous boyfriend vibes that the show acknowledges in dialogue, the fact that the result of all of this is Archer being the one to stand up to T’Pol’s attacker makes her story feel (1.) inadequately resolved and (2.) merely a pretense for Archer to come to her defense. I’m not saying that Star Trek can never delve into issues or metaphors for sexual assault, but this was not the way to do it.

Separate and apart from the aftermath, there was an exploitative, almost after school special quality to a lot of the scenes, particularly the one with the mind meld. I’m not opposed to shows taking things to uncomfortable places, but this felt less like disturbing realism and more “woah, look how serious we’re being right now.” It doesn't help that this whole thing feels like a minor repeat of a Voyage episode from just a few years earlier where a similar situation happened with Kes. There’s a lot of interesting material to be wrung from a “liberated” Vulcan trying to insinuate his view of the world into T’Pol’s life, with deleterious results, but the predatory, almost date rape-esque approach to it can’t help but feel wrong-headed.

Thankfully, the material with Kov and the other Vulcan visitors is much better. There’s something both adorable and telling about him thinking football is a fight to the death or that humans stay in bed for half the day. And there’s something equally funny and awkward about Trip (discreetly) asking him about Vulcan sexual relations. There’s a sense of cultural exchange going on, and the funhouse mirrored lens through which we view other societies that Star Trek historically does well. Vulcans who actually want to know about human culture, who think it’s interesting and exotic and maybe even valuable, is something different, and that makes it a neat shift for the audience as well.

But I like how it isn’t just comical conversations and small, if enjoyable bits about how humans and Vulcans view one another and resolve those misconceptions. It’s also about a personal choice. Kov gets word that his estranged father is dying, and has to decide whether to respond to his dad’s request that they talk. There’s some strong stuff there. I like how Kov is appreciative of the effort, and how the diplomacy angle of it complicates Archer’s role in welcoming these Vulcans to his ship, but how Kov feels like he and his father said their goodbyes a long time ago.

And yet, Trip really brings this one home with his adorable little story about his gun-shy middle school dance. The lesson -- about how part of embracing emotion is having to deal with regret, and it’s better to avoid it on the front end -- is a good one. And I like that in the end, Kov’s fascination with human culture moves beyond a tourist’s superficial curiosity and starts to take the less fun, more serious elements of human-esque emotion to heart.

That’s the best part of this episode, the idea of Vulcans actually learning from humans and taking the wild ride of opening themselves up to emotions. Their stoic, logic-based leanings are so ingrained in Star Trek that it always engrosses me when we meet some Vulcans who feel otherwise, whether it’s these rebels or Sybok in Star Trek V.

It’s what I initially liked about T’Pol’s part of this episode. The sense that she is both harshly averse and skeptical of opening herself up to such emotional resonance at the risk of losing control of Vulcans’ primal instincts, and also stealthily intrigued by the idea is a strong motivation for the character. The initial dream sequence, while itself a little too cheaply steamy, uses the 1940s noir vibe to create a different feel than we normally get on the series, even going lightly Lynchian with it, which is the sort of stylistic left turn I almost always appreciate. Hell, even though Tolaris feels predatory and wrong early on, there’s a sense of Tracy/Hepburn chemistry to go along with that setting that adds a certain energy to the proceedings.

The catch is that there are ways to show a character luring T’Pol in with the promise of more firmly present but still controlled emotional responses, who actually proves to be manipulative and destructive, without trying to turn it into a botched rape metaphor or make Archer her knight in shining armor. “Fusion” plays with some very interesting ideas, most notably whether there’s another way for Vulcans to be, and particularly, whether there’s another path for T’Pol as she slowly but surely adopts certain human things. But it tries to go to a very real place, doesn't know how to pull it off, and nearly sinks the whole episode in the process.