Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series) Gravity (1999) User Reviews

Fine exploration of hidden emotions

[mgruebel · 7/10 · 11 November 2015]

In this, one of the finer "Voyager" episodes, we learn more about the relationship of Vulcans with their emotions.

Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor fall into a subspace pocket containing a single solar system. Their shuttle is marooned on a rock, populated mostly by unpleasant additional victims of the pocket and the woman Noss who has survived 14 seasons in her crashed ship. She falls in love with Tuvok, who rebukes her emotions. Through flashbacks we learn how he fell in unrequited love once as a young man, suffering all the pain, but learned to cope under the logical tutelage of a Vulcan Master.

It is touching to see how she suffers the same as Tuvok did, in a mirror image of sorts. Yet through his past experience, he understands much more how she must feel than Paris gives him credit for.

In the end, Voyager enables them to escape in a side story involving a stand-off with aliens of the same race as many of the marooned, who are about to close the pocket for good to avoid further loss of ships. In a poignant final scene, Tuvok helps Noss understand that he understands, and why he cannot respond to her affection.

Definitely one of the better episodes of the series, with strong character development, akin to the episode 5.11 about the doctor coming to terms with having to make impossible decisions, but better.

Stuck on a desert world

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 4 March 2010]

This episode opens with a young and emotional Tuvok meeting with a Vulcan master who tells him he must learn to control his emotions; something he does not wish to do. After the opening credits we find ourselves on a standard "California desert" planet where we see a woman, who we later learn is called Noss, hunting large spider-like creatures; suddenly there is a flash as something hurtles through the atmosphere, when she looks to see what it is we find it was a Star Fleet runabout. She goes to it and while looking around inside is interrupted by Tom Paris. When she talks he can not understand her, either the translator is broken or can't translate her language. She takes his equipment bag but soon after leaving is attacked by two aliens, luckily Tuvok rescues her. The learn that the planet they are on is inside a gravity well which they can not escape from. When The Doctor is reactivated he manages to understand what she is saying and as the weeks pass they grow to be friends and accept they might not be able to leave. Half way through the episode action switches to Voyager where we see that only a short time has passed since the shuttle went missing. When looking for the shuttle Voyager almost gets trapped itself and is met by a alien ship which plans to seal the rift once and for all, an action which will crush everything inside. Voyager only has a few hours to figure out how to get a message through the rift and get the crew back. Tom, Tuvok and Noss have to survive alien attacks for some time before they can be rescued.

This was a pretty good episode guest starring Lori Petty, she did well in the role of Noss, having some touching scenes where she developed feelings for Tuvok which he could not reciprocate. Regular cast member Tim Russ put in a fine performance as the stoical Vulcan Tuvok.

Married man.

[thevacinstaller · 6/10 · 23 January 2023]

An interesting if sparse dive into the mindset of Tuvok's script adherence to logic. I was honestly left wanting a bit more ---- more tension from Tuvok perhaps an emotional relapse? Lots of potential there and I guess if I was left wanting more it could be considered a success of sorts.

There is some character development with Tom and Tuvok based on being stranded for months together ---- Tom see's through Tuvok's Vulcan stoic ways and can see the conflict within him and confronts him on that.

I didn't get hit with emotional impact in this episode despite the potential being there. I wanted more build up and exploration of the relationship between Tuvok and the alien girl. This is one of those show don't tell moments for me.

A good Tuvok episode

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 23 September 2023]

Tuvok and Paris crash the shuttle and lose contact with Voyager.

This is a decent character episode centred around Tuvok and a guest character played by Lori Petty. The emotional repression of Vulcans is a familiar theme, but this one uses a simple romantic arc to give it some life.

Certain aspects of the writing are a bit uneven. The visual storytelling starts off excellent in the early scenes, particularly when there is a communication barrier between certain characters. However, conveying certain feelings between them unfortunately has to come through dialogue in an observation by a third character.

I think Petty is perfectly cast, as she has enough of an edgy persona to pass as a non-human character. Also she is brilliant at channeling uncontrolled passion and emotion into a performance. She is a great foil for Tim Russ.

The final scene in the transporter room is a very strong finish to the story and for me the highlight of the episode.

Tank Girl falls in love with Tuvok

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 28 September 2013]

In this episode with a premise very similar to Blink of the Eye (6th Season), Lori Petty is an Alien Chick stranded on a planet inside of a gravitational "Sinkhole".

While hours pass on Voyager, days and months pass on the surface of this Tank-Girl inspired Landscape.

This episode is unusual for it's "A B and C" stories. We have the story of Tuvok, The Doctor, Tom Paris and "Noss" surviving on a barren rock heap, the story of Voyager trying to figure out how to get them out while under an imposed time limit, and the story of Young Tuvok going through his first "Kolinahr", and learning how to live with but not lose or be controlled by his emotions. And we see here, as usual "Emotions Run Deep" in a Vulcan Soul- But are absolutely not absent.

It is not that Tuvok is not affected by Noss' (Petty) affections, but to act on them would betray not only himself but her as well.

The Voyager "Multi-Spatial Probe" is finally put to some good use here, and allows a solution for this conundrum.

In any Trek episode it is not the Technobabble solution to a dilemma that is important, but the heart of the story, which here focuses on Tuvok.

And the final scene between Tuvok and Noss is a brilliant and satisfying ending to this story. He could not just let her leave empty handed.

Let Tim Russ Act!

[grotsky_af · 6/10 · 13 November 2020]

I don't love that there's a big, emotional Tuvok episode where Tuvok is played by someone else. Like, I get it, it's flashback, but we've done that with Tuvok before (in the episode called... uh... "Flashback"). And Tim Russ is a great actor! Give him something meaty to do! Anyways, aside from that it's not the worst of Voyager, but it's far from the best. The plot is interesting on paper, but boring in execution. Also it's a waste of the fabulous Lori Petty.

this episode deserve 9 stars!

[Rasalgheti_2000 · 9/10 · 22 January 2012]

This episode certainly has all the elements that made Star Trek, the most successful science fiction franchise in the history of entertainment. Let's see: it explains in a truly masterful way , the effects, according to general relativity theory of Einstein, that occur near a singularity, so we do not need to have a doctorate in theoretical physics to understand the relativity (slower time for the distant observer to the observer near disproportionate increase in mass and energy to any object that wants to overcome the gravitational field of a singularity, etc) But the central story. as always, is not just about a physical phenomenon but on the exploration of the human soul, or in this case, Vulcan, we learn that the Vulcans had choose, as teenagers, if they wish to embrace the path of logic or not. It is not wrong to have emotions, as long as you are the one that dominates them and not them to you. great story, highly recommended

Stranded

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 6 September 2018]

Tuvok, the Doctor, and Tom crash their shuttle on spare planet where other species have been stranded as well. It is survival of the fittest at this point. On this is a formidable woman who is trying to stay alive. She begins by scrounging equipment out of the shuttle but is eventually caught and becomes a friend to the Voyager people. The problem is a sort of same old, same old. No communication is possible because of surface storms and radiation. In the meantime, she becomes enamored with Tuvok who can't return the favor. This leads to a bit of heartbreak. But this is a nicely done human (Vulcan) story and leaves us feeling positive.

Voyager crew members trapped in gravity well

[the-hfo · 10/10 · 27 March 2007]

Voyager crew members Tuvok and Paris are returning from an away mission. While en route these Starfleet officers and their shuttle craft is caught in a mysterious vortex in deep space. The two and their spacecraft are drawn forcefully into the astronomical phenomenon that has suddenly appeared. An ally, in Chattanooga, Tennessee native Lori Petty, Robin Williams' kooky Cadillac Man girlfriend, offers stoic Tuvok a chance to revisit his early Vulcan training. Always suspicious Captain Janeway searches diligently for the missing spacecraft. But, the discovery of the phenomenon does not necessarily mean the rescue of the crew.

Forced romance without any chemistry

[tomsly-40015 · 2/10 · 7 January 2024]

I don't like this episode. Tom tries way too hard to talk Tuvok into loving a woman he doesn't 't want to love. Tom acts like a jerk and obviously he cannot think of anything else than women, feelings and love. And he still neither understands Tuvok and Vulcans in general, nor does he respect Tuvok's wishes and the fact that he is a married man and doesn't want to interact romantically with other women.

The first speech Tom makes, after they were just stranded for a short while, was pathetic. He wants Tuvok not only to abandon all hope of being saved but basically forces him to fall in love with that woman finally and build himself a new life with her. Tom is such a dick in this episode.

And this woman? First, she wears some leather clothes on a deserted and hot planet. And second, she speaks and acts like a child. She throws herself at Tuvok and also forces him to love her! Imagine this episode would have been made in 2024 and it would have been reversed: A stranded male just offensively kisses a woman and begs her to return his feelings and love her. This would have caused an outcry, a man forcing his feelings onto a woman and pushing her into returning them. Toxic masculinity. Really, really bad.

I felt zero chemistry between Tuvok and Noss. Nada. It all boils down to this woman being lonely on a planet for years. And the second best man she sees stirs up feelings in her and she can't help herself but jump right onto him although she must have realized by that time already, that Tuvok has no feelings at all and thus no feelings for her. I didn't feel any sympathy for this woman or compassion that Tuvok rejected her.

The only redeeming factor of this episode is the backstory of Tuvok and how he learned to suppress his emotions. The rest is utter garbage and if I were Tuvok, I would refuse to ever go on away missions with Tom again to avoid being stuck in another lecture about Vulcans and emotions. I'd rather pick Neelix and listen to his stories about the importance of leola roots in Talaxian cuisine than to Tom's lessons about love.

Good, but I don't think it really needed all the flashback scenes

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 26 February 2015]

The shuttle with Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor crashes due to some odd anomaly in space. They cannot get out and find that this barren planet is full of the crews from other ships that have also gotten stuck there. They make friends with a woman named Noss (Lori Petty) who helps them learn to adapt to life there. In the meantime, Voyager naturally searches for them but things are confounded since time is greatly accelerated within the anomaly. During the time on the planet, Noss inexplicably falls in love with Tuvok but Tuvok is Tuvok!

I thought that this was a decent episode but all the flashbacks about Tuvok as a teen on Vulcan seemed more of a distraction than to help understand the story. Tuvok EASILY could have just explained all the flashbacks in a paragraph to Paris. Average.

Meh

[zombiemockingbird · 4/10 · 23 May 2023]

I guess I must be part Vulcan, because this episode didn't stir any emotion in me whatsoever. I dislike the episodes where they try so hard to create emotional responses. I just don't get sentimental about sci-fi or find romance necessary or interesting. There was no chemistry between Tuvok and Noss, maybe because Noss looked and sounded like she was 12 years old. Contrary to popular opinion, I dislike Lori Petty and don't think she's a very good actress. The flashbacks were tiresome and didn't really add much to the continuity of the story. Overall, it was just long, drawn-out and boring......

The DNA of TOS Present

[kristufts-56872 · 4/10 · 25 April 2024]

As with every Trek series since the original series, this episode uses elements from TOS, in this particular case TOS S3/E23 All Our Yesterdays (Vulcan has emotional walls broken down by an alien female), TOS S3/E11 Wink Of An Eye (time displacement) and the near obligatory reference to IDIC (infinite diversity in infinite combinations) from TOS S3/E5 Is There No Truth In Beauty, New elements are thrown in, of course (Tuvok flashbacks as backstory support, updated sci fi tech babble etc.) and Tuvok does not begin regress to the Vulcan barbarism and violent tendencies of his Vulcan ancestors as Spock did in the original. Overall, a decent but not a standout episode of Voyager.