Tuvok, Tom Paris, and the Doctor crash land on a planet, and there befriend an alien, Noss, who helps them survive the many hazards of this world. But Noss is developing feelings for Tuvok that he cannot reciprocate. Meanwhile, Voyager discovers that a rescue will be quite difficult: the crash site is inside a space anomaly where time is moving at a much faster rate. The survivors could be trapped for months.
Lori Petty had made a big enough splash in science-fiction fandom with the movie Tank Girl that her appearance as Noss in this episode was a casting coup, as her "Special Guest Star" credit indicates. The episode certainly needed a heavy hitter in this demanding role -- you spend time with Noss alone before Tuvok and Tom Paris arrive, she speaks only in alien gibberish for a time, she then must speak like someone who has learned English only recently, and she then must believably fall in love with Tuvok. I am not in any way denigrating Lori Petty's efforts here when I say that this is a lot of material to pack into 40-some minutes of television.
And the thing is, the episode still isn't done packing! Tuvok has a Lost-like running series of flashbacks that relate to his current situation: we see a teenage version of him who, spurned by a girl he loved, is now rebelling against the idea that he should repress his emotions. I do like the resonance this adds to the episode, though I wish they could have justified a "closer to adult" version of Tuvok in the flashbacks that might still have been played by Tim Russ. His subtle work here (reacting to Noss kissing Tuvok, for example) is quite good, and so I wish I he could have had an opportunity to work with more "showy" material.
Russ reportedly contributed to this episode in other ways, though. The final scene, in which Tuvok mindmelds with Noss to share his true feelings with her, was apparently Russ' suggestion -- a much more Vulcan-brand choice than a hug or wistful goodbye. Since Tuvok episodes are rare, I'm happy to get this one that uses his character well. (And it uses Tom Paris as a reasonably good foil for Tuvok too.)
Yet I wish even more run time could have been devoted to Tuvok's inner conflict, rather than other outside conflicts. This episode really doesn't seem to know when enough jeopardy is "enough." Voyager crewmembers are trapped in a desolate wasteland where survival is struggle to hunt large spiders for food. But there are also alien marauders on the planet for even higher stakes. Voyager is struggling to rescue their people from this anomaly before it collapses. But also there are aliens trying to destroy the anomaly even sooner (despite the fact that it's about to collapse on its own anyway). And then they decide to do so even earlier than the deadline they originally gave. The "raising the stakes" of this episode is also "moving the goalposts" in a way I find transparent and false -- and if that's a mixed metaphor, that matches the way I feel generally about how all this content gels together.
Other observations:
- The writers don't want to lose the Delta Flyer, of course. But that means to put Tom Paris here, they have to wedge in dialogue that lamely explains why they didn't take it on this mission.
- There's extensive shooting on location, in an appropriately remote-looking place. The outcropping where Tuvok sits to meditate is a particularly excellent spot.
- After the writers rather rudely commented on Robert Duncan McNeill's weight gain in the previous season, it's worth noting that by this point, he'd certainly lost it again.
- Poor Ethan Phillips spends a day getting in and out of makeup to deliver two lines as Neelix.
As I've said, this episode feels overstuffed -- and it isn't like you could trim much without affecting the plot. (You need months to pass for the relationship between Noss and Tuvok to develop.) Still, it feels like the sci-fi of the time dilation is crowding out the emotion of the main story, and vice versa. I give "Gravity" a B-.
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