Story By: Jimmy Diggs, Bryan Fuller & Nick Sagan
Directed By: Terry Windell
Rating: *** (out of 5)
The away-team arrives on a planet that manages to set itself up as the perfect reset button episode. The planet is trapped inside a subspace <tech> that is on a different time plane than the rest of the universe. While Tuvok and Paris are actually on the planet for two normal days it felt like months on the planet.
The planet is inhabited by spider-like creatures which the aliens trapped on the planet must eat, short of eating themselves! There are a whole bunch of aliens of the same race that have been trapped on the surface and one alien woman who meets up with Tuvok, Paris and the Doc. This women, Noss, takes them all to her crashed ship.
From there Noss falls in love with Tuvok. One problem here is that there seems to be no emotional reason why Noss would fall for Tuvok. Why Tuvok? Why not Paris? It might only be the loneliness she has suffered, but we never find out a definite answer. But that�s not a major bad-point in �Gravity� because we can easily make that part up, to an extent.
Naturally Tuvok isn�t interested because he has a mate and it�s illogical for him to mate when he isn�t undergoing pon-farr. OK, that�s fair. But its Paris who believes that Tuvok shouldn�t shrug Noss off like he has and therefore Tuvok�s emotions start to play games with him!
�Gravity� also flashes back to a younger Tuvok on Vulcan were he actually fell in love with a women and decided to ignore his Vulcan heritage. In these flashbacks we see this young Tuvok being trained by a high priest who helps Tuvok find his logic.
What I�d like to know is what is this trying to say about Tuvok? Ok, so Tuvok as a youngster didn�t want to be traditional Vulcan. So what? The situations of his past and this present really don�t go together. Unless Tuvok actually had feelings for Noss which we are led to believe isn�t true. It�s only because of the young-Tuvok scenes that the scenes with Noss and Tuvok don�t mean anything. The story is pretty good but those flashbacks are just thrown in there for no good reason and makes a mess of the drama between Noss and Tuvok.
One issue �Gravity� does deal with effectively, although without conclusion, is how Vulcan�s believe everyone should be like Vulcans. Having emotion should be something Vulcan�s believe everyone should be able to control. But this issue isn�t really about Tuvok and Noss specifically.
So without the Tuvok story helping issues much, all we are left with is a rather contrived action scene at the end. The aliens, whom there is a number down on the surface, want to close the gateway to this trapped Solar System to prevent any further loses. Ok, fine, but they just so happen to want to close it at the time Voyager is there, they just so happen to want to close it quicker than originally planned, and they somehow aren�t interested in learning what Voyager has learned. Meanwhile on the surface, the aliens just so happen to attack as Voyager is ready to beam everyone out! In my opinion
�Gravity� should have focused more on Tuvok�s story. It was an interesting story and if so much time wasn�t wasted with the �epic climax� than this could�ve been very good. The flashbacks could�ve held more meaning and this would�ve been more successful at creating a Tuvok story.
What �Gravity� did have was some very nice scenes even though some of those don�t mean much. Most of the scenes inside Noss�s ship were effectively executed, the scene with Tuvok meditating at sunrise held a fantastic atmosphere and that conversation with Paris was kind of the last scene focusing on Tuvok�s problem properly which was also effective.
All in all, an episode that has a bunch of ideas flying around that when combined amount to good fluff on its own and pathetic fluff when combined. It�s like Corn Flakes with Milo on top, each are great when they are not mixed together!