VOY · SEASON 55×13

Gravity

NOMADIC PICK · HIDDEN GEMTuvok's most quietly emotional story.
FIRST SHOWN (US)
3 February 1999
ON
UPN
STARDATE
52438.9
DIRECTED BY
Terry Windell
PRODUCTION NO.
205

WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Nick Sagan & Bryan Fuller; story by Jimmy Diggs and Bryan Fuller & Nick Sagan

IN BRIEF

SPOILER-FREE

Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor crash on a planet caught in a gravitational sinkhole where time runs faster, and a lonely alien survivor is drawn to the one man who will not show his feelings.

SYNOPSIS

SPOILERS
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSISHIDE SYNOPSIS

A shuttle carrying Tuvok, Tom Paris and the Doctor is pulled into a subspace sinkhole and crashes on a desert planet where time passes far faster than outside. They meet Noss, an alien who has been stranded there for years and who knows how to survive among the other castaways. As weeks pass for the away team, only hours go by on Voyager. Noss falls for Tuvok, and he struggles with feelings he has spent his life learning to master, a struggle echoed in flashbacks to his youth on Vulcan, when a Vulcan Master taught him to control his emotions. Voyager finds the sinkhole, but an alien species intends to collapse it, putting the stranded party at risk. Using a relay probe, Janeway's crew get a message through, and the castaways are beamed out just before the anomaly closes. Before they part, Tuvok and Noss share a silent mind-meld.

DID YOU KNOW?

  1. 01Terry Windell's first Star Trek episode as director. He went on to direct many more Voyager episodes.
  2. 02Joseph Ruskin, the Vulcan master, had played Galt in the original series' “The Gamesters of Triskelion”.
  3. 03The closing mind-meld between Tuvok and Noss was suggested by Tim Russ.
SOURCES WE CHECKED