As a huge fan of both Sulu and George Takei this episode was a real treat. Sure he only appears as a mindmeld memory character, but it is still awesome to see him in action. Takei honestly has a way better captain voice than Shatner at this point and I would love to see him make an appearance as an admiral or something in some future Trek content. The episode itself is a little silly, the idea of a virus that stores itself as a memory and is susceptible to some kind of dangerous sounding radiation that also is used to break a mindmeld is just silly. It is also kinda dumb that Janeway doesn't know about Tuvok's previous service in Starfleet. It isn't like you can keep that sort of thing secret. And really I doubt they would let someone in who previously got through the academy only to resign their commission like it was nothing.
We open with Neelix trying to talk Tuvok into drinking some gross juice he made since apparently the, "Neelix is a bad cook but still in charge of all food," gag isn't done yet. On the bridge they have found a gaseous anomaly that has some sort of magic energy source in it which they plan to gather with the Bussard collectors. Presumably as a reaction to Neelix's food Tuvok becomes ill on the bridge and makes his way to sickbay. While walking there he has a flashback of himself as a boy trying to hold onto a girl who is dangling from a cliff and suddenly he lets go and she falls. He tells the doctor about it but also that he has no other memory of something like that happening to him. They put a monitor on Tuvok and start scanning the gas cloud to see if it is causing the flashback. Tuvok returns to the bridge but is still confused and thinks they are fighting Klingons. He goes back to sickbay and the Doctor figures out that he is having a mental crisis that could be deadly if he doesn't work through it with a mindmeld, a job usually reserved for family but Tuvok picks Janeway.
They begin the mindmeld instead of finding themselves on the cliff with the girl they are on the Excelsior with Captain Sulu fighting Klingons. A man is dying on the bridge and Tuvok is confused about why they aren't on the cliff. He mentions that it was caused by an incident three days earlier and suddenly he is making tea for Sulu which is of course the tea he spills with Praxis was destroyed. Tuvok questions Sulu violating orders and going to help Kirk but is put in his place and they go anyway. To hide from the Klingons they fly through a nebula that looks just like the one that triggered the flashback and suddenly he is having the flashback again. The mindmeld breaks and Tuvok rests while they look into the nebula lead but nothing comes up. They try the mindmeld again and for some reason the flashback seems to be triggered by the man dying on the bridge. While they are melded the Doctor detects that the memory isn't from Tuvok or Janeway and somehow it is a virus that he can kill with thoron radiation. The memory starts to break down and Sulu recognizes Janeway forcing her and Tuvok to flee and steal a uniform from Commander Rand. The Doctor destroys the memory virus thing and Tuvok is back to his normal vulcan self.
Review: Getting to see Sulu and Rand one last time was awesome which is definitely going to help the score of this episode. The premise is pretty silly, but not unreasonable by Trek standards. I still don't get how Tuvok was supposed to have hidden his previous service even if Sulu did delete the record of the mission in the nebula, but whatever.
7 out of 10
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