[ST:Ent][Tech] Overview of 1.17:"Fusion" SERIES: "Enterprise" EPISODE: "Fusion" PROD#: ENT017 EP#: 1.17 RATING: PG AIRDATE: wed-27-feb-2002-20:00 EPDATE: [...] OFFICIAL: startrek.com/library/episodes_ent_detail.asp?ID=122914 FROM: Phillip Thorne, thorne@underbase.org POST-TO: rec.arts.startrek.tech, rec.arts.sf.tv REVIEW#: 11.0 FORMAT#: 3.31 URL: underbase.org/dept/trek/ent117_fusion.txt This technical overview format is intended to be easy-to-scan, unambiguous, and precise, and a foundation for (in later revisions, a summary of) further freeform discussion. It distinguishes between what is said/claimed by characters, from what is actually shown. Whenever possible, it uses spellings from the closed captioning (which may not be entirely consistent, or match those on the official website). Corrections to typos, phrasing, etc. are welcome, but please, only if you include a specific citation -- the idea is to avoid *half-remembered* lines and *unrealized inferences*. The NOTES are listed in seen-on-screen order, and ANALYSIS summarizes topics. Abbreviations used: (m/f/?) name belongs to male/female/unclear, (os) on viewer screen, (?) quote is uncertain, (sp?) spelling is unclear, (vo) voiceover. This overview is (c)2002 Phillip Thorne, thorne@underbase.org. If you wish to reuse large hunks of text, or use this as a major source, please notify me and include a citation. **This episode caught me unawares, so I've only seen the second half, and that with a chunk missing.** PLOT SPOILERS BELOW! I. TERMS TRICKY [None] TECHNOLOGY [...] CULTURE Mind-meld, jazz music, Bayshore Elementary School, Panama City, Florida. CHARACTERS Kov, Tolaris. MENTIONS Kov's father, Melissa Lyles. III. NOTES TEASER ACT I ACT II ACT III * vs: T'pol, Tolaris. She relates how, one night, she left the San Francisco Vulcan compound and found a jazz club, and felt emotion. * Engineering: Archer, Tucker, 2 extras. Archer asks Tucker to convince Kov to call his father. * FX. Docked ships pass overhead through nebula. * T'pol's quarters: T'pol, Tolaris. He offers to use a "mind-meld" to rediscover those emotions; or "a more traditional form of guided meditation" which won't be as effective. T'pol's not familiar with the term; he explains it was "abandoned centuries ago" but they'd "discovered it can help us access our emotions." He puts his left hand to her face, and begins the incantation: "My mind to your mind. Your thoughts to my thoughts. Our minds our merging. Our minds are becoming one." Telepathic-voice echo SFX. * Flashback: T'pol. She remembers the night street, steam vents, the hood she's wearing to conceal her ears. Jazz music. * Flashback, club: T'pol, Tolaris. He urges her to allow herself to again feel emotions. She gets up from the table, but he grabs her, tells her anxiety is just another emotion. * T'pol's quarters. She breaks out of the trance, pushes him away, asks him to leave, gets angry. He points out that her emotions are breaking the surface: embrace them! He leaves, and she collapses on the floor. Crawls to her desk, presses a button on the keyboard, calls Sick Bay. ACT IV * Engineering: Kov, Tucker, 3 extras. Tucker tries to convince Kov to contact his father, but the Vulcan keeps changing the subject to the engine repairs. (A test firing shows the port thruster is still off by 12%.) Tucker asks if Vulcans dance. "Only when it's part of some tedious ceremony," Kov grimaces. Tucker relates his first dance: >20 years earlier, Bayshore Elementary, Panama City, Florida. For weeks he'd practiced the two-step with his brother, so he could ask Melissa Lyles to dance; but once there, he never worked up the courage. "Regret is one of the strongest emotions," he tells Kov. * Ready Room: Archer, Tolaris. Archer asks about repairs, survey; Tolaris compliments the Ent crew. He gets up to leave; they have another "twenty million cubic kilometers to chart". Archer tells him T'pol is in Sick Bay, confronts him with her story; doctor said she could've suffered neurological damage. Tolaris wants to see her, and when Archer refuses, he gets angry; picks Archer up, presses him against the ceiling, then throws him across the desk into the wall. Archer grabs a phase-pistol from under the desk. "You planned this," realizes Tolaris. * FX. Docked ships pass overhead through nebula. * Corridor to docking port: Tucker, Kov, 2 extras. Kov finally made the call to his father, and learned that surgeons had implanted a "vaso-stimulator" that might extend his life for a few years. * FX. Ships undock, vs retracts tube, departs. * T'pol's quarters, 20 minutes later: T'Pol, Archer. T'pol is meditating on the deck when Archer chimes to enter. Now that they're gone, she's feeling better. Yes, she does this every night. "I think I finally understand why," says Archer, and turns to leave. She speaks up: do you dream? Is it enjoyable? He answers yes; sometimes even in color. "I envy you," she says. V. CONNECTIONS 1: Vulcan ships (Suurok-class): ENT118-"Breaking the Ice", ENT114-"Shadows of P'Jem". VI. ANALYSIS 1. vs. Looks rather like a chubby "Sith Infiltrator" from "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". Instead of a complete warp-ring, has two ~90° ring segments, each of which flows smoothly into the hull. The aft edge of each segment has 6 blue-glowing clusters. Atop the aft hull is a dorsal bulge, surrounded-forward by a C-shaped ridge. There's a matching ventral bulge, which might have a red-glowing feature on it. The starboard docking shaft extends from the "equator", forward of the warp-fin. 2. Tolaris says they have "twenty million cubic kilometers" remaining to chart. That's a cube only 250 kilometers on a side. However, Trek nebulae are remarkably dense, and that volume could contain lots of detail. VII. NITS [...] VIII. NEXT WEEK Repeats.