• The episode title calls back to the VOY season two episode, “Tuvix”, in which Neelix and Tuvok are combined into a single being by due to the unique properties of an alien orchid and the transporter.
• This episode was written by series creator Mike McMahan.
• Boimler [Jack Quaid] has holodeck waste removal duty, a task Mariner [Tawny Newsome] was assigned in “Moist Vessel” as part of a plan to get her to transfer off the USS Cerritos.
• It’s the USS Voyager! From Star Trek!
• The VOY theme plays as we see the ship, and again later when the ship is landed on Earth.
• Voyager has been transformed into a museum piece. We see the ship displayed at the fleet museum in “The Bounty” some 20 years later. Exhibits on the ship commemorating the Voyager crew’s adventures include:
• The Borg regeneration alcoves in Cargo Bay 2. One of the Cargo Bay 2s, anyway. - Established in “Scorpion, Part II”
• The galley converted from what would have been the captain’s private dining hall, including authentic Talaxian foodstuffs.
• The bridge.
• The ”Neelix cheese”. - From “Learning Curve”
• Janeway and Tom Paris’ hyper-evolved salamander forms after travelling at Warp 10. - Seen in “Threshold”
• The large battle in the title sequence has been updated again. In addition to Borg Cubes, Romulan Warbirds (season one), Klingon Birds-of-Prey, Pakled Clumpships (season two), and Crystalline Entity (season three), there is now a Breen Interceptor, and the Whale Probe introduced in “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”.
• We can hear the Whale Probe’s call before the Cerritos warps away.
• Cap’n Freeman records the stardate as 58724.3 in her log.
• Tendi [Noël Wells] is moving a containment unit holding the orchid introduced in “Tuvix” when the lid pops off and a petal floats through the ventilation system into the transporter room.
• Billups tells Doctor T’Ana about the pet dragon he had growing up. Billups was established as coming from the Hysperian colony settled by “Ren faire type” people in “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”
• Billups and Doctor T’Ana are combined into a single being calling himself T’Illups. Much like Tuvix, the yoke of T’Illups’ uniform has a floral pattern.
• Throughout the episode, more characters get Tuvixed:
• Cap’n Freeman and Doctor Migleemo - Captain Doctor Frigleeman
• Shaxs and Barnes - Shabarnes
• Bartender Honus and Transporter Chief Lundy - Chondus
• Matt the whale and Steve Stevens - Swhale Swhalens
• Nurse Westlake and Jennifer - We don’t actually see the combined form
• ”She knows Janeway straight up murdered Tuvix, right?” This is an accurate description of the conclusion of that episode.
• Mariner accidently opens a panel on the Voyager bridge, releasing one of the Tak Takian macroviruses introduced in “Macrocosm”.
• “Uh, you know, Chakotay served here.” Technically true up until about season five of VOY, at which point the only characters aboard the ship were Seven of Nine, the Doctor, and sometimes Captain Janeway.
• ”Dude, this is nothing compared to, you know, that Pike thing we aren’t supposed to talk about.” Mariner is referring to the events of “Those Old Scientists”.
• ”How many…physical memories do you have from before?” Shaxs and Doctor T’Ana have an intimate relationship, implied at least as far back as "Mugato, Gumato".
• One of the macroviruses impacts a panel, causing it to create holograms of Doctor Chaotica from “Night”, the Clown from “The Thaw”, and Michael Sullivan from “Fairhaven”.
• While Chaotica and Sullivan were holodeck characters created by Tom Paris, the Clown was a manifestation of the fears of five aliens neurally linked together in stasis. Mariner does point out that the Clown wasn’t a holodeck program.
• Martin Rayner, Michael McKean, and Fintan McKeown are not credited for the episode, so it would seem that none of them are reprising their roles.
• Beljo Tweekle installed holo-emitters throughout the ship. In “The Killing Game” the Hirogen did the same, for the purposes of their wargame simulations with the Voyager crew.
• One of the marcoviruses has Harry Kim’s clarinet. It was established in “Caretaker” that Kim played the instrument, though he gave it up in favour of the saxophone by season six’s “Ashes to Ashes”.
• A Borg nanite attempts to assimilate to macrovirus, becoming a macronanite.
• “Computer, delete this guy! Come on, computer!” In “Fairhaven” Janeway uttered her famous line, “Delete the wife,” regarding Sullivan’s spouse.
• “I miss my wife.” Apparently at some point Sullivan’s memories of his wife were restored to him, or he remarried.
• Boimler is concerned that if he’s promoted, it will negatively impact his relationship with Mariner, just as it did when he accepted the promotion to the USS Titan and left without telling any of his friends, or answering Mariner’s messages, in “No Small Parts”.
• Mariner was sent to Starbase 80 in “Trusted Sources”.
• T’Lyn is able to combine all the Tuvixed beings into one creature, which is then described by Tendi as a “Non-sentient blob of meat,” handily circumventing the ethical dilemma presented by “Tuvix”.
• Boimler claims to be the son of Captain Proton, the character whom Tom Paris played in these simulations, and Doctor Chaotica’s mortal enemy. First seen in “Night”.
• Rutherford [Eugene Cordero] gums up Voyager with the brill cheese as it did on it’s own in “Learning Curve”.
• Boimler, T’Lyn, Tendi, and Mariner all get promoted to lieutenant junior grade. Mariner was briefly a full lieutenant in “Moist Vessel”, and Boimler was lieutenant junior grade while serving aboard the Titan in “No Small Parts”, “Strange Energies” and “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”.
• ”My main objective here is to prove to the High Council that I should be reinstated to the Vulcan fleet.” T’Lyn was believes her provisional assignment to Starfleet is an unwarranted punishment, as per “wej Duj”.
• It’s the IKS Che’Ta’! From Star Trek! Specifically from “wej Duj”
• The Mysterious Threat destroys the Che’Ta’, but even though we see a close up of the wreckage, including a spear and bloodwine barrel, but no bodies.
I think we have to take intention into account though. Did T'Lyn know, or at least suspect, that by transporting all the Tuvixed beings that she would be combining them into a single lifeform? We don't see her react when the transport completes, but she does hesitate before saying she might be able to "split them into their individual components." I got the impression that her intent was only to transport the various Tuvixi into the brig, not amalgamate them into an abomination in the eyes of both science and the Prophets.
It's like the transporter accident in TMP that killed commander Sonak and another officer. No one was at fault, but they still died. If Rand figured out a way to restore Sonak to life afterwards, and the only thing would have been impacted was his inside remains, you wouldn't say it was unethical to do because Rand was the one operating the transporter when the accident occured.
Fair point. It's been a few days since I saw the episode, so didn't recall the nuances.
I did think it was a bit of a shame that one of Trek's most powerful ethical quandaries got so easily and blithely technobabbled away, but such is the nature of comedy. And VOY did pretty much the same thing to the Borg, so turnabout is fair play I suppose.
And speaking of inside remains as a result of transporter accidents, will you do these canon connections posts for the Very Short Treks, (even if they themselves have been declared non-canonical)?
Personally, I've never really thought of it as being that much of a quandary. Janeway's decision wasn't much different from what the Vidiians do; she condemned one innocent being to death so his body could be used to save two others. We recognize it's wrong when the Vidiians are jumping starships to harvest lungs and kidneys, but suddenly we need to have a debate when Janeway is molecularly disentangling Tuvix?
Also, I do think it would have been more interesting to proceed with Tuvix from a storytelling point of view. Obviously that doesn't work great when you have actors contracted for multiple seasons, but VOY is way too eager to hit the reset button.
The only thing I think could have actually made the Tuvix story something worth debating is if we ever learned what Tuvok and Neelix's perspectives were after the fact. But we don't. They never speak of it again. Probably because Janeway threatened to murder anyone on the ship who brings it up.
I think that after the season of LDS is done, while we're waiting Disco season five, I'll try and do some Non-Canon Connections. I already did the LDS comic mini-series back before the switch to Lemmy. So I'll probably do all the VST episodes in a single post though so far there seem to be much to work with there. I also started working on one for the PRO video game a while back and I'm about halfway done that. I just got distracted by other games.
I was okay with Tuvix being split back apart eventually, but if VOY had fully committed to the serialised nature of its premise I would have loved to have seen Tuvix hang around for, say, 5-10 episodes first. They could still have had Neelix and Tuvok appear in the odd flashback or as holo constructs or something to justify their inclusion in the opening credits. Or, to be even more daring, not have them appear at all and removed Ethan Philips and Tim Russ from the credits for a while, although I don't think this sort of credit manipulation was permitted in the mid-90s. It would have made the impact of killing Tuvix even greater.
And that's what makes her the highly effective officer that she is. :-D
Looking forward to that.