tuvix voyager

Cast & crew
User reviews
Episode aired May 6, 1996

Transporter trouble merges Tuvok and Neelix into one, creating Tuvix. Transporter trouble merges Tuvok and Neelix into one, creating Tuvix. Transporter trouble merges Tuvok and Neelix into one, creating Tuvix.

Gene Roddenberry
Rick Berman
Michael Piller
Kate Mulgrew
Robert Beltran
Roxann Dawson
37 User reviews
6 Critic reviews

Jennifer Lien, Ethan Phillips, and Tim Russ in Star Trek: Voyager (1995)

Capt. Kathryn Janeway

Cmdr. Chakotay

Lt. B'Elanna Torres
(as Roxann Biggs-Dawson)

Lt. Tom Paris

Ensign Harry Kim

Science Division Officer
(uncredited)

Transporter Chief
Crewman Fitzpatrick
Ensign Culhane
Kashimuro Nozawa
Michael Piller (showrunner)
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

Trivia Tom Wright was eager to pursue the role of Tuvix when he first heard about it. While he had not previously watched Star Trek: Voyager (1995) , he was acquainted personally with Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips , having often auditioned for the same roles as the former and having appeared in a play with the latter. When he originally read for the role, knowing little about Tuvok and Neelix, Wright instead based his portrayal on his knowledge and experience of Russ and Phillips.
Goofs Though he is the more senior officer, Lieutenant Hogan addresses Ensign Kim as 'Sir'. This is because whilst Hogan IS senior in rank, Kim is a Bridge Officer and part of the command crew. In this instance, Hogan is addressing Kim's seniority by position not by the rank on his collar. This has been long held in terrestrial armies and navies for centuries up into the current times. An Officer In Command (OIC) is deferred to even though their actual held rank may be lesser. It is done to keep the command structure of the vessel intact.

[the Doctor has come up with a solution to separate Neelix and Tuvok]

The Doctor : I assure you, Mr. Tuvix, there's nothing to worry about. We've accounted for every variable.

Tuvix : Except one. I don't want to die.

Connections Referenced in Star Trek Timelines (2016)
Soundtracks Star Trek: Voyager - Main Title (uncredited) Written by Jerry Goldsmith Performed by Jay Chattaway

User reviews 37

Dec 16, 2019
May 6, 1996 (United States)
United States
Official Site
Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
Paramount Television
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 45 minutes
Dolby Digital

More to explore

Tuvix will never die

How an ethical debate and endless memes keep Star Trek’s most infamous one-shot character in the conversation

Illustration featuring Neelix and Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager who merge to become Tuvix

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One day in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Janeway and the crew of the USS Voyager find themselves on a planet so unremarkable we never even learn its name. Lost 70,000 light-years from home, the team is there to retrieve some flowers that might be a “valuable nutritional substitute,” as the captain’s log puts it. Tuvok, the steely Vulcan head of security, and Neelix, the gregarious Talaxian morale officer and chef, go down to take some samples.

But as the familiar whir of the transporter beams the away team back, it’s not Tuvok or Neelix who emerge back onto the pad, but a single life-form. And when we cut back from commercials, just as a phaser-holding Harry Kim barks, “Identify yourself!” we read the episode’s title, and everything becomes clear. It isn’t an intruder. It’s “Tuvix.”

As vice president of franchise planning & Star Trek brand development at ViacomCBS, John Van Citters spends a lot of time talking to creatives and fans about the Trek franchise. And those conversations often turn toward the accidental hybrid who appeared on a single hour of Star Trek: Voyager in 1996. “Tuvix,” he tells me, “is definitely over-indexed for a character that’s only made one appearance.”

When “Tuvix” first aired in the back half of season 2, it was just another hour of television during a period of tremendous franchise activity. Now, decades later, it is a flashpoint for the fandom. There are entire subreddits dedicated to the character and the conundrum faced by Captain Janeway of what to do with her two melded co-workers. Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently joined in on Tuvix fever (though in a rare case of her acting like a typical politician, she dodged the main question). As Star Trek: Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan tells me, “Tuvix is now a big part of the experience of being a Deep Lore Trekkie.”

That’s because Tuvok, Neelix, and those pesky flowers didn’t emerge from the transporter as a doomed, disgusting Brundlefly. They became Tuvix, a functional fusion of both crew members, played with precision and warmth by renowned character actor Tom Wright. Tuvix was healthy, strong, and capable, and a being who very much wanted to live on in his new identity. Janeway’s solution to the Tuvix problem spawned, by internet standards, one of science fiction’s greatest in-jokes.

a Clueless Padme meme with Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager about Tuvix

In 1995, with the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast making the jump to feature films and the station-based Star Trek: Deep Space Nine dipping a toe into the Great Link of serialized storytelling, Voyager was meant as a throwback. Franchise overseer Rick Berman, along with co-creators Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, hoped to get a crew back zooming across space on a starship, and sell a new, highly visible show to the fledgling network UPN. This was a bragging point, but also a detriment, as the new channel wasn’t available in all markets. Early, muted ratings, mixed with some gender-based anxiety, begat an awful lot of post-launch tinkering. Just Google “ Kate Mulgrew hair changes .”

Led by Mulgrew’s Captain Janeway, Voyager took place on the fringes of the known Trek universe with a blended crew of Starfleet personnel and Federation dissidents looking to make their way home. Helping them navigate unknown space was jolly junk trader Neelix, played by Ethan Phillips, who Captain Janeway appoints as morale officer and chef. Also in the crew was a Vulcan named Tuvok, played by Tim Russ. For comparison, the famously stern and calculating Spock was a half-Vulcan. Tuvok was all Vulcan. Serious business.

Trapping frenemies in tight quarters is a classic Trek trope. In The Original Series , Spock and Bones were cornered together in a shuttlecraft facing down savage giants in the episode “The Galileo Seven.” Decades later, Deep Space Nine echoed the relationship with stern police chief Odo and shifty, not-quite-honest Quark, who found themselves wounded, cut off from communication, and climbing a mountain on a freezing Class L planet in “ The Ascent.” Even The Next Generation ’s Captain Picard got stuck in a turbolift with his least favorite people — children — in “Disaster.” For Voyager ’s spin on the trope, Tuvok and Neelix wouldn’t just be stuck in some treacherous location, but the same consciousness.

When Tuvok and Neelix actors Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips emerge from the transporter as actor Tom Wright, even their uniform is stitched together. Early in the episode, the tone is intentionally goofy, according to Kenneth Biller, the writer of the episode, who eventually became the series’ showrunner in its seventh and final season. He admits that the members of the Voyager brain trust were basically making fun of Tuvix as they were breaking the story.

“We were thinking it would be wacky, like Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin in All of Me. [Trek producer] Brannon Braga and I were cracking ourselves up with a sitcom theme song,” Biller says. He sings a bar with the appropriate amount of jazz hands: “It’s Tuvok, it’s Neelix! It’s two guys, in-a-fix! It’s Tuuuuvix!”

Though Biller wrote “Tuvix,” two additional writers, Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman, earned a “story by” credit on the episode. Their involvement was part of a great Star Trek tradition: During Star Trek: The Next Generation , the late showrunner Michael Piller “realized how difficult it was to find enough great, high-concept ideas to fill out a season,” recalls Biller. “A brilliant idea could come from anywhere.” As such, he and Rick Berman did the unheard of, and threw the door wide open to freelance scripts from hardcore fans, even from people without any sort of Hollywood representation.

Naturally, this mostly led to garbage, but occasional gold. Television veterans Jane Espenson ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) and Bryan Fuller ( Hannibal ), as well as sci-fi luminaries Robert Hewitt Wolfe and René Echaverria, all kickstarted their careers through the submission process. But the rare people who got a meeting at all sold an idea, got a check, and were told thanks. The flyby was Price and Gaberman’s specialty.

“They came to pitch for us a bunch of times,” Biller remembers. (Indeed, they have five “story by” credits from throughout the series.) “What’s best is they had the weirdest day job: They wrote for Jeopardy! ”

Price and Gaberman’s idea for “Tuvix’’ was simple, and riffed on previous successes. A transporter malfunction tore Captain Kirk into his “good” and “evil” halves in the season 1 Original Series episode “The Enemy Within,” while The Next Generation character Thomas Riker was an accidental transporter-created clone of Commander William Riker. (“When it’s a ‘transporter episode,’ it is very basic to what makes something Star Trek,” McMahan summarizes. “The transporter causing problems is essentially saying Starfleet is causing problems.”) Since Biller had written the Voyager season 1 episode “Faces,” in which B’Elanna Torres is split into her human and Klingon halves (by non-transporter means), showrunner Michael Piller assigned him to bring Price and Gaberman’s story to life.

“Price and Gaberman got their $7,000 and a story credit, and I took it from there. Originally we called it ‘Symbiogenesis,’” — the evolutionary concept of a new life-form emerging from two or more distinct life-forms” — “but it was Michael Piller who called it ‘Tuvix.’ So that just inspired me to lean fully into the comedy.”

Janeway as Kurt Cobain singing “Come as you are ... unless you’re Tuvix”

The first half of “Tuvix” is good fun, mostly due to Tom Wright, a prolific actor who’s played just about every type of character. “How I get recognized a lot of times depends on ethnic makeup,” Wright says. “White people spot me and ask, ‘ Seinfeld ?’ Black people come up and ask, ‘ Barbershop ?’ But quite a few pick me off as Tuvix.”

Even though he wasn’t well-versed in Voyager , Wright thinks he had an edge during the audition because he knew Russ and Phillips. “They really are two different types of people,” Wright says. “Tim is very reserved, and Ethan has that big personality.” Walking the line between the two sounds like an exacting science. In some scenes, when he had to be attentive to Neelix’s kinda-sorta girlfriend Kes or work in the kitchen, Wright had to “favor the Neelix side, but I would shade in a Tuvok reference, like a glance.”

Robert Picardo, who played The Doctor on Voyager for seven seasons, recalls Wright stepping up to the challenge. “The fans already knew how Neelix and Tuvok behaved,” Picardo says of the tall order. “Neelix is so busy and high-paced, and Tuvok has the emotional range of A to B. How the heck do you combine those two? One character won’t stop moving; the other barely raises an eyebrow. Somehow, he did it.”

Picardo’s praise elucidates part of why the episode is talked about so fervently today. Wright, as Tuvix, emerges as an exemplary replacement both at Tuvok’s tactical station and in Neelix’s galley. He’s forthright and strong in the presence of Captain Janeway, he’s fun hanging out with Tom Paris over billiards, and he connects with Kes on his own terms. “He was a boon to the ship,” Picardo says. “So I remember being surprised when I read the script. I knew, given the nature of television, that everything had to be fixed in 43 minutes. But I was not expecting to read Tuvix saying, ‘I don’t want to die.’”

As the Voyager crew presses on for weeks with Tuvix filling in for both crewmen, The Doctor and Harry Kim (played by Garrett Wang) keep plugging away at a cure. They want their friends back, and eventually, they figure out how to split the hybrid. But Tuvix isn’t particularly keen on being zapped out of existence.

“[Michael Piller] was always looking for the moral angle, the emotional journey, the dilemma,” Biller says. “My original draft ended with them splitting Tuvix, him saying something very Starfleet about sacrifice, and Janeway was off the hook. Michael’s note was, ‘Make him fight for his life.’”

So Biller rewrote the script with the mandate that Tuvix was a new person, an individual. Janeway would decide whether to execute him. She settles on returning Neelix and Tuvok to their original selves, and in the final minutes of the episode, after begging for his future, Tuvix is suddenly gone.

“Much like the episode itself,” Biller says, “the making of the episode had an arc. It began silly [...] then turned into something dark and even profound. I mean, what could Janeway do? What would you do?”

Janeaway and Tuvix parody of Making of a Murderer

Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard writer-producer Kirsten Beyer made her bones as an author of Voyager novels. As the writer of 10 of the 14 post-finale books, she knows more about the inside of Janeway’s head than most. And she’s ready to stand behind the captain.

“If they weren’t lost in the Delta Quadrant, they might have found an option that didn’t include killing a new life-form for the sake of saving two officers,” Beyer says. “Starfleet medical might have been able to help. We would feel better at the end with a third option. But we are denied that precisely because we are alone, far from home, and Captain Janeway is only given a choice between two terrible alternatives.”

Even though Beyer is, wisely, not on Twitter, she is aware of the memes. There was always chatter about “Tuvix,” but the riffs kicked into overdrive in the last five years, according to Ken Reilly, the editor of fan site TrekCore . Most of them are jokes, though many like to tag our beloved Captain Janeway with the epithet “murderer.”

“I notice those who disagree strongly with her choice are quick to add it to a list of failings ascribed to her character, and most often these failings are ones that might be seen as virtues in our male captains,” Beyer observes. “That’s always troubling. But in her shoes, I don’t know that any of them would have made a different choice. Sometimes, that’s what leadership requires.”

Jarrah Hodge, co-host of the Women at Warp podcast , concurs, telling me that this episode is frequently used as a “gotcha” to take Janeway down a peg when compared to the ethical standards found in other captains, like Picard. “I think we see a gendered double standard,” she says, while “questionable decisions from other captains fly under the radar.” She cites the time Picard forced two societies into breeding relationships in the episode “Up the Long Ladder.”

Claire Little, who works at NASA and boasts a remarkable “Live Long and Prosper” tattoo in Vulcan down her arm, adds that the increase in Tuvix-talk has its pros — like seeing a Punk Janeway cosplayer with “FUCK TUVIX” on the back of her vest at a recent convention — but concludes that “the topic is too polarizing.” This wasn’t always the case. Jim Moorhouse, a Trek podcaster and longtime convention attendee whose philanthropic zeal won him an auction to fire the phasers of the NX-01 , recalls that, early on, the episode with the silly name didn’t become an ethical flashpoint. “The narrative when it aired was that people didn’t really like the episode,” he tells me. “And I think that was because of the unsettling performance from Tom Wright, who was just so good.”

TrekCore writer Alex Perry thinks today’s fans get so worked up over the episode because, at the end of the day, there’s no uncomplicated right answer. “She probably did the right thing for Voyager, but she murdered poor Tuvix with her choice.”

Janeway performing a Mortal Kombat fatality on Tuvix

And it is very much her choice. Once Tuvix says he’s not interested in reverting to the Tuvok-Neelix split, Captain Janeway spends some time gazing out at the galaxy from her briefing room, talking things over with her first officer, Chakotay. “If we’d had the ability to separate Tuvok and Neelix the moment Tuvix came aboard, I wouldn’t have hesitated,” Janeway says, later wondering, “At what point did he become an individual and not a transporter accident?”

“It became inherently political,” Biller recalls. “Personally, I do not believe in capital punishment, and we see later [in the season 7 episode “Repentance”] that Janeway does not either. But then there were shades of the pro-life argument. Of course, so many people who are pro-life are also pro-capital punishment, which is a very weird irony, in my opinion.”

After a scene of Tuvix trying to coerce Kes to convince Janeway to spare him, the drama cuts to the bridge, and the darkest moment in the entire Star Trek franchise. Tuvix is at his post, and Janeway orders him to step away, so she can speak to him alone. Tuvix knows his leola root stew is cooked. He looks to his crewmates, the people he was just playing pool with at Sandrine’s, and they all turn their backs. Tom Paris can’t even look him in the eye.

“No!” Tuvix shouts, and finally, most devastatingly, utters some truly chilling words. “Each of you is going to have to live with this, and I’m sorry for that. For you are all good, good people. My colleagues, my friends, I forgive you.”

“Those final scenes couldn’t be done half-assed,” Wright says. “I think for a few takes I tried to finesse it with ‘actor stuff.’ We got it to a place where I knew what I had to do.”

Do no harm. https://t.co/ChMEnRbv3b — Robert Picardo (@RobertPicardo) May 7, 2021

In sickbay, Janeway presents Tuvix to The Doctor, who had discovered a way to dehybridize flowers. But The Doctor will not perform the actual act that will end Tuvix’s life. Though a hologram, he’s been programmed to follow the Hippocratic oath, and, as they say, he can do no harm.

“It was the first time I disobeyed a direct order,” Robert Picardo remembers. “And Janeway takes it in stride. She doesn’t repeat herself, doesn’t accuse me of insubordination, doesn’t deactivate my program.” Though Picardo admits that many specifics of shooting Voyager have blurred a bit these decades later, he remembers “that moment when Janeway marches in. It was so out of the ordinary.”

After Janeway pulls the switch, Tuvok and Neelix return, and seem eerily fine. Janeway storms out of sickbay, with the weight of many worlds on her shoulders. Author Robb Pearlman, whose fandom-saturated, officially licensed work includes the bestselling Fun With Kirk and Spock and Redshirt’s Little Book of Doom , thinks Janeway is actually relieved The Doctor cites his oath. “She doesn’t want to put any of that on anyone from her crew, to make them live with that for the rest of her lives.”

Tuvix and Janeway as the radio star and video

While “Tuvix” concludes with an act many would classify as murder, there are certainly extenuating circumstances. McMahan asks, “Does the good of the many [argument from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ] also mean the good of the two?” The text does not really support the theory that Janeway needs Tuvok and Neelix back to get the ship home. Things are running smoothly with just Tuvix.

“It’s a decision with which I disagree,” Mohamed Noor, a science adviser for the Star Trek franchise, says, “but it wasn’t irrational. I can’t say it is completely immoral.”

Along with his role in the current iterations of Trek, Noor is a professor of biology and dean of natural sciences at Duke University, and his work on fruit flies is weirdly relevant to the symbiogenesis scene in “Tuvix.” Not only do extra-chromosome organisms like Tuvix (called polyploids) exist, but Noor’s experiments with forced interbreeding have actually resulted in inherited behaviors from both parent species. It isn’t too common in mammals, but it does sound very Star Trek.

Though it was on a much larger scale, Noor compares Janeway’s action to Kodos from The Original Series ’ “The Conscience of the King,” in which Governor Kodos, facing a food crisis on the colony of Tarsus IV, divided the colony of 8,000 in half and put 4,000 to death. “He wanted to guarantee the survival of the Tarsus colony by sacrificing ‘the many’,” Noor says, “and Janeway wanted to guarantee the survival of Neelix and Tuvok by sacrificing Tuvix.” Of course, Kodos is remembered as one of the galaxy’s most heinous executioners, while Janeway is the hero who brought Voyager home from the Delta Quadrant.

The proliferation of Tuvix jokes is likely born from years of distance. “I’d forgotten how dark the episode was!” was the refrain from nearly everyone who rewatched it before speaking to me. “Citing it as a comedy episode is like people who choose ‘I Will Always Love You’ as a wedding song,” Pearlman says with a sigh. “They don’t realize it’s about a breakup.”

And Voyager didn’t dwell on the magnitude of Janeway’s decision. Another wish most people had was for there to have been some further reference to Tuvix later in the series. He is never spoken of again. At no point in subsequent seasons was there even an acknowledgment between Tuvok and Neelix that they had once shared the same consciousness. Kirsten Beyer says she “filed that episode away” for when she needed to explore “how Janeway would act when there are no good options ” while writing the many Voyager books, but as far as on-screen consideration, there’s zip. The silence sits in contrast to Picard’s noteworthy mind meld with Sarek, which was referenced in later Next Generation episodes, even though that show was similarly episodic. “It’s like Tuvok and Neelix were friends that hooked up at a bar late one night, then never wanted to acknowledge it again,” says Pearlman.

Tuvix as the younglings in the Star Wars prequels and Janeway as Anakin

Despite a lack of aftershocks, “Tuvix” still brings the goods years later. “The way they designed everything was really smart,” McMahan says. “The audience knows, from the minute we see him on the transporter pad, that this guy is out of here at the end of the episode. No one is going to think Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips have both been killed off the show. But it still works.”

Every “will they survive?” beat in Star Trek automatically had more oomph than on a typical show because of The Next Generation ’s first season. When Tasha Yar, a main character, got whacked by the big blob of tar known as Armus in “Skin of Evil,” it seeded paranoia with fans that anyone could go at any time. (Or maybe that’s just me, a fan who never quite got over that childhood TV trauma from 1988.) Even though I and many other fans — CBS’s John Van Citters tells me the second most joked-about single-appearance character after Tuvix is the interstellar Hefty bag that killed Lt. Yar — knew that the chances of two series regulars vanishing were next to none, disbelief was suspended in subspace.

Janeway? You got some splaining to do. pic.twitter.com/wXPqnvvbiu — Tom Wright (@_Tom_Wright_) April 22, 2021

McMahan says the Lower Decks staff has spent its fair share of time thinking about Tuvix, and that maybe there was a way to save the hybrid crew member. “Manipulate the transporter to create a clone, make a Thomas Riker of Tuvix, but don’t let him ever gain consciousness. You don’t let him become aware. You take that Tuvix and split him in two. Now you’ve got Neelix and Tuvok back, plus Tuvix is still alive. Everyone is happy. Dammit, it’s sci-fi! You can do whatever you want!”

But in the same breath, McMahan lands on a possible real reason we all keep making jokes about the cursed half-Vulcan half-Talaxian, about why “Tuvix” is one of the essential episodes of Star Trek.

“Finding a solution isn’t what this episode is for,” he says. “This episode wants you to feel bad .”

And so we try to work through the pain. Tuvix will never die, so long as we remember him. And so long as we’re bored at work, and texting dumb pictures to our Star Trek friends, we always will.

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Tuvix (episode)

View history

After a transporter malfunction, Tuvok and Neelix are merged into a single being. In the search for a way to restore them to their original forms, a moral dilemma is faced as the new being does not want to be terminated.

1.2 Act One
1.3 Act Two
1.4 Act Three
1.5 Act Four
1.6 Act Five
2 Log entries
3 Memorable quotes
4.1 Title, story, and script
4.2 Cast and characters
4.4 Reception
4.5 Continuity
4.6 Video and DVD releases
5.1 Starring
5.2 Also starring
5.3 Guest Stars
5.4 Co-Star
5.5 Uncredited Co-Stars
5.6 References
5.7 External links

Summary [ ]

After the USS Voyager detects a variety of flower that may prove to be a useful nutritional supplement, the captain sends Lieutenant Tuvok and Neelix to collect plant specimens, including a local breed of orchid, to bring back to the ship. While on the planet , the two have a debate about enjoying nature and Neelix is attempting to have fun, to which Tuvok replies " We are not here to have fun. We are here to collect samples. "

Back on the ship, Captain Kathryn Janeway is informed by Chakotay that there is some trouble with the transporter, specifically a "minor glitch in the molecular imaging scanners ," which B'Elanna Torres says will be fixed by Ensign Kim in "a few minutes."

As they return, a transporter malfunction causes only one pattern to materialize. The organism appears to be similar to both Neelix and Tuvok; wearing clothing that is the color of a Starfleet uniform, but the texture of Neelix's shirt.

Act One [ ]

Upon finding this unidentified lifeform on the transporter pad, Kim calls for security, intruder alert. He asks the intruder to identify himself, and he responds that " I am Lt. Tuvok… and I am Neelix ," appearing most confused. He suggests that they go to sickbay , where The Doctor identifies that it is indeed a merger of Tuvok and Neelix, as well as the orchids collected on the surface of the planet.

Kes , under The Doctor's suggestion, takes the person to the science lab, where he recognizes that Kes is having difficulty with the situation due to her close personal relationship with Neelix and her close tutelage under Tuvok. Kes questions him as part of the procedure, whereupon he tells Kes that he seems to have the memories of both men, but a single consciousness. He then realizes that he will need a name, and after deciding against Neevok, settles on Tuvix . As instinct, Tuvix refers to Kes as "Sweeting", a name Neelix often called her; this is something that clearly brought discomfort to both Tuvix and Kes.

Act Two [ ]

Janeway comes back to sickbay and talks with Tuvix, who is restless and wants to get back to duty. He decides he would rather assume the tactical post than the mess hall. Janeway isn't quite ready, but invites him to the next senior staff briefing. There, the crew discusses the transporter accident that created Mr. Tuvix, but they can not find the reason for the malfunction. Tuvix suggests symbiogenesis , a process where instead of pollination of mating, lifeforms can merge with a second species, using Andorian amoeba as an example. After a bit of convincing themselves it's possible with humanoids, they hypothesize that the orchids that they were transporting from the surface with them was the catalyst for their merging. Using lysosomal enzymes , the plant was able to symbiotically scramble both of them, merging them into one organism. Janeway agrees to send a shuttle down to get more flower samples in the morning.

Possessing both Tuvok's Vulcan logic and Neelix's charming personality and sense of humor, Tuvix easily integrates with the crew and becomes a valuable member. Bestowed with the personalities and qualities of both Tuvok and Neelix, he is not only a capable security officer but also becomes a better chef . However, for many crew members, especially those close to Tuvok and Neelix, the loss of their friends and peers is not as easily accepted. Kes , in particular, is experiencing much grief over the loss of Neelix.

Act Three [ ]

Tuvix gets happily to work the next morning, fixing a proximity detector glitch in the security subroutine which Tuvok had said would take days, much to Janeway's surprise. Tuvix explained that he had a hunch. He's then called down to the transporter room for the first test of their theory. On the planet, Torres and Paris gathers flowers and Kim transports them up. Indeed, the flowers merged together. The crew attempts the same with various plant combinations, and comes up with a variety of exotic and wonderful creations. Nevertheless, all attempts to undo the change are met with catastrophe. The Doctor explains to Janeway and company that the problem is still unsolved, but promises to keep trying. However, he warns Tuvix may be this way for months, even years, and the possibility is there that the condition is irreversible.

This impacts Kes greatly. Later, in her room, she prays for Tuvok and Neelix with Ocampan prayer tapers when Tuvix visits. She expresses a bit of loneliness, but Tuvix says she has him. Tuvix says he still loves Kes just as he does T'Pel . This shocks Kes. She says she doesn't know him, and is uncomfortable with his love given Tuvok's wife. She soon asks him to leave, and Tuvix does so, politely kissing her on the cheek and saying he'll be there for her before he goes.

Act Four [ ]

Kes stops by the captain's quarters to talk about her feelings regarding the situation. The captain points out that the feelings Kes is having about the loss of Neelix are similar to the feelings the entire crew has been having about being stranded in the Delta Quadrant .

Over the next two weeks, the crew starts to adjust to Tuvix who proves himself to be a capable tactician while also turning out to be (according to Janeway's log entry) a better cook than Neelix. He keeps a respectful distance from Kes, while proving to be an able advisor to Janeway just as Tuvok had been. As a result, he is less regarded as an accident but more like a member of the crew.

After much research however, The Doctor finally finds a way to reverse the process by radioactively labeling one half of Tuvix's genome, so the transporter can separate the two individuals. Everyone is very hopeful and excited about the prospects of having Tuvok and Neelix back, except for one person: in all their efforts and joy over being able to bring back the two, the one thing the crew has not taken into account is that Tuvix does not want to die, thus sacrificing his life to bring back the two crew members.

Act Five [ ]

Captain Janeway – who must speak for Tuvok and Neelix who are not there to speak for themselves – now faces a moral dilemma: bring back two crew members who have loved ones waiting for them by sacrificing a man who has become a much liked and trusted friend over the past few weeks, rather than merely a transporter accident. She attempts to convince Tuvix to undergo the procedure, telling him that both Tuvok and Neelix would give up their lives to save another. Despite this, Tuvix is still completely unwilling to undergo it arguing that while Tuvok and Neelix are gone, he is already there and he just wants the right to live.

Later, Tuvix goes to Kes and pleads with her to speak to Captain Janeway in support of allowing him to live. Kes then goes to Captain Janeway and tells her what Tuvix asked of her. Janeway is angry that Tuvix put Kes in the middle of the debate, but Kes considers she was in the middle from the beginning. Despite what Tuvix asked of her, she is unable to support him. Distraught, she knows Tuvix has done nothing wrong but desperately wants Neelix back. She then breaks down in tears, guilt-stricken as Captain Janeway tries to comfort her.

After much soul searching and painful deliberation, she decides that Tuvix has to undergo the procedure. She orders him to report to sickbay but Tuvix refuses, stating that this was nothing more than an execution. He attempts to get someone on the bridge to defend him, but no-one is willing to. He then attempts to make a run for it when Security arrives to escort him. Seeing that he has no choice, he forgives the crew saying he understands what they all feel, agrees to go sickbay, but tells everyone they'll have to live with the consequences.

When arriving in sickbay, The Doctor informs the captain that he cannot perform the procedure. As a physician he has pledged to do no harm and will not perform a procedure that would end Tuvix's life, especially as Tuvix is explicitly refusing to undergo it. Therefore, Janeway is left with the task of having to perform the procedure herself. She is successful: Tuvix is gone and Tuvok and Neelix are both finally restored.

While Kes is overjoyed to have both her partner and mentor back, Janeway simply acknowledges the two and leaves, knowing that she will need to live with the moral consequences of her actions.

Log entries [ ]

Captain's log, USS Voyager, 2372
Chief medical officer's log, USS Voyager

Memorable quotes [ ]

" A name… I can see why The Doctor's finding it so difficult to choose one… why don't you call me… Neevok? Wait… this is better… how about Tuvix! "

" … I've been poked and prodded in organs I didn't even know I had! "

" Do you mind telling me what's going on here, crewman? " " We're making dinner. " " I see. Alright, everybody out! " " On whose authority? " " Chief of security or head chef, take your pick. Out, out, out! "

" We've created a monster. "

" I don't want to die. "

" Sex! " " I beg your pardon? "

" At what point did he become an individual, and not a transporter accident? "

"Each of you is going to have to live with this. And I'm sorry for that. For you are all good, good people. My colleagues. My friends. I forgive you."

Background information [ ]

Title, story, and script [ ].

Working titles that this episode had are "Untitled Tuvok/Neelix", "One", and "Symbiogenesis". [1] In fact, the episode was known by the latter working title throughout the installment's development and production. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 16 )
Despite appreciating the usual output of the freelance writers who contributed the story for this episode, staff writer Kenneth Biller thought this episode's earliest version was too comical. " The guys who wrote the story, Andrew Price and Mark Gaberman , are really smart and have a lot of fun, high-concept ideas, " Biller commented. " Their story leaned a bit too heavily on the slapstick elements, however. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 28, No. 4/5)
Ken Biller then took over responsibility for the episode. " I ended up taking it over and completely rewriting it, " he said. " It was [a] tricky episode, because it could devolve into something farcical. It is another one of those semi-hokey sci-fi premises, sort of the opposite of what I got in ' Faces ' […] We wanted to do something a little more serious and philosophical [than the original plot] and it began to emerge as we talked about it that there was something interesting there once you got past the hokiness of the set up. It started out as a joke. What do you call the guy? Neelok? Tuvix? It almost felt like a '60s sit-com. Brannon [Braga] and I even [came] up with a little theme song. So the trick was to see if we could actually make something compelling out of it. " Thus, the writers experimented with the notion of making Tuvix greater than either Tuvok or Neelix alone and asked themselves what would happen if the Voyager crew found a way to return Tuvix's two constituent parts. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 28, No. 4/5)
Initially, the episode would have ended with Tuvix realizing, through some event or the reaction of the crew, that, for the greater good, he had to submit to the procedure of being split apart. " For a while that was the idea, " recalled Ken Biller, " But then we began to talk about it and consider what if he really wanted to survive and he doesn't want to die and be killed. Michael [Piller] posed that question to me so I give Michael a lot of credit. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 28, No. 4/5)
Ken Biller then aimed to dramatize Janeway's dilemma at the episode's climax as much as he could. He explained, " I hoped to create tension at the end where it would be difficult for anyone watching to know what the right thing to do was […] I wanted to keep asking the audience, just keep poking at the audience. There isn't an answer […] It was an opportunity to show [Janeway] making the really tough decisions which captains are faced with. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 28, No. 4/5)
The episode's final script draft was submitted on 2 February 1996 . [2]
Tuvix actor Tom Wright was unsure if he could discern a moral in the episode's plot. " Not one that I can really pick out immediately […] There isn't any moralizing, " Wright observed. " It's just a story about a character, and you follow that character during the time he is alive. You watch the birth and the life and the death of one character in one episode, and there is no struggle between good and evil. It's purely a no-win situation. " When asked if he thought Tuvix should be spared the separation at the episode's conclusion, Wright stated, " I think it was inevitable that he would be separated. There would be no drama without that separation. So, I completely agree that he should have been separated. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )

Cast and characters [ ]

Neelix actor Ethan Phillips was originally considered for the role of Tuvix. Director Cliff Bole was pleased, however, that this casting idea was ultimately not given the go-ahead. " It was better to just kind of get a little different take on the character, " Bole said. " Ethan is so identifiable. He might have had a problem trying to give Tuvix the elements of Tuvok's character. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15 )
When Tom Wright received a call from his agent about the available role of Tuvix, Wright was immediately eager to take the part. " I felt that it would be unique to create a totally different character, " he said, " that had never been created on Star Trek before. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 58) Wright had never seen Star Trek: Voyager before but knew Ethan Phillips and Tuvok actor Tim Russ personally, having often auditioned for the same roles as Russ and previously acted in a play with Phillips. Required to audition for the character, Wright felt his best course of action would be to play a combination of the personalities and styles of those two Voyager cast members. ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 ) The audition won him the role of this episode's title character. Cliff Bole recalled, " I picked him because I had seen a lot of the work he has done. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15 ) After Wright was cast as Tuvix, the staff of Voyager sent him a few video tapes of past episodes from the series. The actor noted, " From those, I decided which aspects of each character to put into the part. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
While creating such a composite character, Tom Wright was continually unsure exactly how his performance would end up. This was because the role of Tuvix in this particular installment took Wright into unfamiliar territory. He recalled, " Every now and then a character, situation or work experience forces you outside of your strength, and you have to perform in an area that is a little bit unknown. I did a lot of that in 'Tuvix', so I was completely unsure of how it would turn out. I'm very confident of my ability as an actor, but in this particular circumstance I wasn't sure how it would all pay off. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 58)
Another problem that Tom Wright encountered while working on this episode was that he had little or no help from Voyager 's writers and producers. " I wish I could have felt a little more support from the top end, " Wright admitted. " I take it very seriously when someone hands me a character and says, 'Tom, we want you to play this role.' I don't consider that role to be my total universe, subject only to my jurisdiction and discretion. I believe acting is a collaborative form. I think that when people write a role and they create a character, they've got a specific thing in mind, and I like to know what that is. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 58) Wright also remarked, " When you're playing a character like Tuvix, which is very difficult to perform because you're taking two well-known characters and blending them into one, and you're essentially firing arrows in the dark at a very small target, you need support and guidance […] I'm not asking anyone to hold my hand, because I've been acting for [more than 25] years. It was just a cumulative thing. And it was curious to me, because I've worked with everyone from Francis Ford Coppola to John Sayles ; all types of people, and I've seen many different ships in the water. I wasn't quite sure why some things were being done the way they were. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
Another challenge that Tom Wright was presented with was dealing with the episode's technobabble . " If you're not used to that type of language being written and delivered in a very specific manner, it can throw you. It took me a few days to really get it down, " the actor admitted. " I asked Bobby [ Robert Duncan McNeill ], 'How do you do this?' He gave me a few tips and helped me out. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
In summation, Tom Wright described this episode as "a demanding work experience." ( Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 59) However, Wright was prepared to deal with such difficulties. " There were bumps and potholes in my Star Trek experience, " he remarked, " and I think that goes along with any work. " Ultimately, the experience of working on this episode wasn't an entirely negative one for Wright; he noted, " It wasn't like I had a horrible time. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
Despite the difficulties, Tom Wright was aware that he had to make Tuvix a likable character, to accentuate the importance of the character's "death" at the episode's conclusion. " I knew the character's warmth had to be present at all times, " the actor stated, " so that over the course of the show, the rest of the characters would warm up to him. And the reason it becomes so difficult [for Janeway to separate Tuvix at the end] is that they've all grown attached to him. They've all taken a certain amount of delight in this new individual. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
One aspect of this episode that Tom Wright enjoyed was working with Kes actress Jennifer Lien . " Working with Jennifer was one of the greatest things about working on that show, " Wright enthused. " I think she's very talented and I really like how she works as an actress. We also just had a lot of fun. She was really easy to work with and we had just a real good time in those scenes. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 59) Wright also said, " My scenes with Jennifer were my favorites because I really liked her. She was fun to work with, and we had a lot of laughs […] Jennifer has a long emotional history with her character, and I'm just stepping into mine. We're called upon to play fairly romantic and emotionally packed scenes together. And when you step into that territory with someone that you know has never been there before, it can be a trying process. But Jennifer was a 10. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
Jeri Taylor was very pleased with Tom Wright's performance as Tuvix in this episode. " The remarkable thing, " Taylor stated, " is that we found an actor who lets you actually buy this wacky premise because you can believe this actor as Tuvok and you can buy him as Neelix. " ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages )
However, director Cliff Bole believed that Tom Wright, despite being a talented actor, was overly challenged by the role of Tuvix. The director explained, " Tom is a good actor, and […] he prides himself on being Shakespearean . But he got overmatched with the part. Star Trek is not an ad-lib format. They are very strict about their words. Tom does have the ability to do a little winging, and I think he thought he could do that. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15 )
At the end of Star Trek: Voyager 's third season , Ethan Phillips cited this episode as one of several whose scripts excited him because, by reading each one, he discovered something new about his regular character of Neelix (other such episodes being " Investigations ", " Fair Trade " and " Rise "). ( Star Trek Monthly issue 28 , p. 62)
A scene that actor Robert Picardo found notable was the one wherein his character of The Doctor, citing the Hippocratic Oath , refuses to comply with Janeway ordering him to be the person responsible for separating Tuvix into Tuvok and Neelix. Referring to Janeway and The Doctor, the actor commented that the scene was "an interesting moment for both characters." ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 10 )
A certain line of dialogue from this episode that Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew struggled with saying was, " At what point did he become an individual and not a transporter accident? " Mulgrew later referred to this line as "a dandy", commenting that doing lines in the Briefing Room set made saying them all the more difficult. Torres actress Roxann Dawson exclaimed, " Oh, that's the worst. " ( Starlog , issue #231, p. 50)
Cliff Bole was highly pleased with Kate Mulgrew's performance in the episode's penultimate shot. " That last shot I did with Kate, as she's walking into the camera, she told the whole story in her face. She gave a great performance. I only asked for a few things; she brought that look and emotion to work with her. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15 )
Yet another challenge that Tom Wright had to deal with, during this episode's production, was the makeup for Tuvix, although the actor had past experience that helped him endure the prosthetics. " I had these contact lenses in and I couldn't see anything, " Wright laughed. " But it wasn't really that hard. I did Creepshow 2 and Tales From the Crypt , so at least I was familiar with having to work with makeup. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
One of the reasons why Cliff Bole believed that Tom Wright struggled with his role here was due to the arduous preparatory process of applying the makeup before he was ready to be filmed. " That has happened more times than anything I can think of in all the Star Trek shows I've done, " Bole remarked. " I run into it with really competent actors who come in and they read for the part and nail it, and then, Bang!, you paste that stuff on their face. They feel it all day long and they're not used to it, and that subtracts from their performance and their ability to concentrate. By the time you get into the second day, they're beat! That had a lot to do with Tom's case. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15 )

Reception [ ]

Cliff Bole was ultimately happy with the episode's final form. " We didn't have troubles, really, just developments as we went along in the process of getting the show. It was well-accepted and liked by the producers, and I agree. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 15 )
Michael Piller cited this episode (together with the earlier second season installment " Lifesigns ") as an example of "some marvelous material" that showed that, by this point, Ken Biller had become "the poet laureate of Star Trek fourth season," even though this episode was in the second season of the fourth live-action Star Trek series. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 28, No. 4/5, p. 77)
This episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 5.6 million homes, and an 8% share. [3] (X)
Janeway's dilemma at the end of this episode proved to be controversial. Ken Biller commented, " Different people had different points of view about it […] I got a lot of mail about it. People were really moved. It provoked a lot of discussion about what Janeway had to do. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 28, No. 4/5) In fact, according to the unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 120), this episode was by far the most debated installment from Voyager 's first five seasons, especially on the Internet , over Janeway's decision to separate Tuvix back into Tuvok and Neelix.
The makeup that Tom Wright wore for his appearance in this episode limited the amount of feedback he received, regarding the role of Tuvix, simply because people didn't know he had played that part. ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 ) Nevertheless, he was still often recognized for having appeared in this episode. ( Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 59) " It has generated some interest and that's good, " he stated. " I've heard from a few people. Every now and then, I'll trot out that I was Tuvix, and people are pretty excited about it. " Wright was also aware of the episode's popularity and suspected that part of why it was so popular was due to its lack of moralizing. " That might be one of the reasons people tend to like the episode so much, " he supposed. ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 )
Cinefantastique rated this episode 3 out of 4 stars. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 28, No. 4/5, p. 105)
Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 58 scored this episode 4 out of 5 stars, defined as " Trill -powered viewing".
The book Delta Quadrant (p. 120) gives this installment a rating of 8 out of 10.
Following this episode, Tom Wright hoped to play the character of Tuvix again. " I'm sorry to see Tuvix go, " the performer admitted. " Anything can happen in the world of fiction, though. Tuvix could reappear, and if he did, I would be only too glad to step back into that role because it was a fun one. " ( The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine issue 13 ) Wright also related, " I think that in all fairness, if I were to play Tuvix again, it would be a lot easier simply because I'd know what I'd be walking into. " ( Star Trek Monthly issue 20 , p. 59)
While writing the third season Star Trek: Enterprise episode " Similitude ", Manny Coto tried to avoid making that installment too much like this one. ("Similitude" audio commentary , ENT Season 3 DVD )
In her Science of Star Trek series, Becca Caddy praised the episode's moral dilemma, " The mission of Starfleet, or the Enterprise at least, has always been: "to seek out new life", and these stories show us that life can take many forms—hybrid, artificial, rock-like creatures. In determining who or what is truly alive and whether they have agency, we are forced to watch our favorite characters make difficult decisions and live with the consequences. " [4]

Continuity [ ]

In common with many episodes before it, this episode was criticized as being derivative of other episodes in the Star Trek canon, including TOS : " The Enemy Within ". ( Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages )
Ethan Phillips believed that, despite some intimations of a possible romantic relationship between Paris and Kes earlier in the series, this episode proved that any such possibility would not actually happen. Regarding the potentiality of the romance, Phillips declared, " Absolutely not! After 'Tuvix', where she just couldn't live without me, it's obvious Kes loves Neelix, loves him deeply and richly and needs him. " ( Starlog , issue #231, p. 51)
Voyager 's science laboratory is seen for the first time in this episode.
Tuvok 's interest in orchids was introduced in " Tattoo " and revisited in " Alliances ".
Neelix's choice of "cheerful" Vulcan song begins with the lyrics " Oh starless night of boundless black ") The fifth season episode VOY : " Night " later reveals that he in fact suffers from nihiliphobia when actually confronted with nothingness.
Right before the re-separation, Captain Janeway gestures to a biobed and Tuvix sits on it. There is a visible strip of orange tape on the cushion indicating where the actor should sit, which is noticeably absent directly before and after the brief sequence.
The process inadvertently responsible for the title character's creation is revisited in the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode, " Twovix ", where Chief Engineer Andy Billups and Dr. T'Ana experienced the same type of transporter accident and a fused individual, self-named T'Illups , was formed. Captain Carol Freeman researched how Captain Janeway dealt with this situation and attempted to come to a more humane solution to this situation.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 2.10, 7 October 1996
As part of the VOY Season 2 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring [ ]

Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay
Roxann Biggs-Dawson as Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Lieutenant Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Lieutenant Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim

Guest Stars [ ]

Tom Wright as Tuvix
Simon Billig as Hogan

Co-Star [ ]

Bahni Turpin as Swinn

References [ ]

21st century ; ability ; airponics bay ; Andorian amoeba ; annular confinement beam ; axiom ; Ayala ; barium ; biobed ; biochemical analysis ; biochemistry ; biofilter ; bio-spectral analysis ; black ; botanical science ; chrysanthemum ; chloroplast ; Clarinet Sonatas ; clematis ; consciousness ; consummate professional ; cooking ; cytoplasmic protein ; Delta Quadrant ; DNA ; dozen ; egg ; Emergency medical holographic channel ; enzyme ; execution ; field test ; flattery ; flour ; funeral dirge ; garden ; gastrointestinal disorder ; holodeck ; Intrepid class decks ; isotope probe ; Johnson, Mark ; Jupiter Station ; logic ; lysosomal enzyme ; mating ; medical tricorder ; medical transporter ; microcellular organism ; microcellular scan ; Mister Vulcan ; molecular imaging scanner ; monster ; multiple personality disorder ; mushroom ; Neevok ; Numerian Inquisition ; nutritional supplement ; Ocampan prayer taper ; orchid ; organ ; pattern buffer ; pollination ; pool ; protein ; proximity detector ; psychological profile ; radiation ; radioisotope ; security subroutine ; semantics ; single-celled organism ; spatula ; spicy ; surgical targeting scanner ; surgical transporter ; Swinn ; symbiogenesis ; symbiogenetic alien orchid ; symbiogenetic alien orchid homeworld ; symbiogenetic alien orchid homeworld sun ; T'Pel ; Talaxian ; taste bud ; tea ; transporter ; transporter accident ; transporter log ; transporter pad ; Transporter Room 1 ; transporter technology ; Trellan crepe ; turbolift ; Tuvokian ; water ; weather ; variety ; Voyager shuttlecraft ; Vulcan ; X-ray

External links [ ]

"Tuvix" at StarTrek.com
" Tuvix " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
" Tuvix " at Wikipedia
" "Tuvix" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein

The Inventory

25 Years Ago, Star Trek: Voyager Tackled One of Its Most Infamous Transporter Questions

Star Trek ’s world raises a lot of ethical questions —but its transporter technology has always been one that strikes at some of the most existential. Are we the same people if all our molecules are mapped, broken down, and copied into a different location? What happens if that process is disrupted? And what happens if multiple people go onto a transporter pad , but only one entity gets beamed out? That last one was given an answer in “Tuvix,” the season two episode of Star Trek: Voyager that aired 25 years ago today.

Screen Rant

Star trek: voyager's surprising tuvix first casting choice "wouldn't have worked".

The first casting choice for Tuvix, the Tuvok and Neelix transporter fusion, on Star Trek: Voyager would have robbed "Tuvix" of its powerful message.

Tom Wright's portrayal of Tuvix in Star Trek: Voyager's "Tuvix" episode is memorable because he effectively channels both Ethan Phillips and Tim Russ.
Initially, there was a discussion about having Ethan Phillips play Tuvix, but it was ultimately decided that having a third actor, Tom Wright, was a better choice.
Having a new actor play Tuvix made it more believable that Tuvix was a completely new entity and not just a combination of Tuvok and Neelix. It also created a more challenging moral dilemma for Captain Janeway.

The actor that was originally considered to portray the eponymous fusion of Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Neelix (Ethan Phillips) in Star Trek: Voyager season 2, episode 24, "Tuvix", "wouldn't have worked," according to Phillips and Russ. Tuvix, as the transporter amalgamation names himself, is played masterfully by Tom Wright in one of Voyager 's most controversial episodes, in which Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) must decide whether to separate Tuvix into his component parts of security officer Tuvok and affable chef Neelix, or allow Tuvix to continue his accidental existence.

Tom Wright's ability to channel both Ethan Phillips and Tim Russ in equal measure as Tuvix plays a major factor in why the Star Trek: Voyager episode is so memorable, but Tom Wright was not the first actor initially considered for the role of Tuvix . Trek Talks 3 held a panel spotlighting "Tuvix" that helped raise over $109,000 for the Hollywood Food Coalition, featuring Wright, Phillips, and Russ, joined by Voyager co-stars Robert Duncan McNeill and Garrett Wang, and writer Lisa Klink. McNeill points out the possibility of another actor as Tuvix, which is confirmed by Klink and Phillips. Read their quotes below and watch the "Tuvix" panel below, starting at the 6:11:30 timestamp.

Robert Duncan McNeill: I heard that at one time they were talking about Ethan Phillips playing Tuvix. Is that true?

Lisa Klink: I think we were at one point.

Ethan Phillips: They discussed that with me, and I was willing to. Nothing obviously ever came of it, but yeah.

Robert Duncan McNeill: No offense, because I think you would've been phenomenal, but it was so much better to have a third person, to have that filter that Tom gave it.

Ethan Phillips: It would have been completely different. It wouldn't have worked.

Tim Russ: It would not have made any sense. It makes much more sense to have someone neutral to play that role.

Tim Russ points out that, unlike Ethan Phillips, he was not approached for the role of Tuvix, which also would have been a very different show.

A Third Actor To Play Star Trek: Voyager's Tuvix Was The "Wright" Call

A new actor makes tuvix being a new entity more believable..

One of the primary conceits of "Tuvix" as an episode is that Tuvix, the character, is neither Tuvok nor Neelix , but a brand-new entity comprised of both original characters. It's far easier to pull that off if Tuvix is played by a new actor, and not Ethan Phillips or Tim Russ in different makeup. With Tom Wright in the role, the loss of both Tuvok and Neelix is felt more acutely, with a sense that these familiar characters are actually gone. It's also far more devastating to lose Tuvix as a distinct character who can never be seen again, especially after Wright's moving performance of Tuvix pleading for his life.

If Ethan Phillips had played Tuvix, the episode would have read as a transporter accident that caused Tuvok to be absorbed by Neelix, rather than a malfunction that created a completely new character. The decision to restore Neelix to his normal state sans Tuvok's influence would have been a much easier one for Janeway to make, rather than the challenging moral dilemma that asks Janeway to end Tuvix's life to bring back Tuvok and Neelix. Casting Tom Wright as Tuvix was absolutely the correct call , and conveys that "Tuvix" is Star Trek: Voyager 's version of the Kobayashi Maru, a test placing Janeway in a no-win situation.

Star Trek: Voyager is streaming on Paramount+.

Source: TrekTalks 3

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During an away mission on a planet where Lt. Tuvok and Neelix are looking for flower samples to collect, they are transported back to the ship after their mission is completed. Unfortunately, instead of two people beaming back on board Voyager , there is only one appearing in the teleporter room...a strange humanoid combination of both Vulcan and Talaxian. The Doctor discovers that both Tuvok and Neelix have somehow merged together while they were in transport, and the agent of this merging was one of the plant samples that they were bringing back to Voyager with them.

While the Doctor tries to find a way to undo the merging, the new individual formed from the merging who calls himself Tuvix gets used to the dual roles and memories that he possesses of his "parents". Unfortunately, when the Doctor finally finds the way to undo the merging, Tuvix objects against the procedure, equating it to murder of a new life form. But because the crew wanted Tuvok and Neelix back to the way they were before the merging, Captain Janeway acts against what Tuvix wants and initiates the unmerging procedure herself, restoring Tuvok and Neelix to their normal separate selves.

This episode provides examples of:

The Ace : Tuvix is a better cook, tactical officer, crew-mate, pool player, and conversationalist than his precursors. He's so good at everything , it's surprising Janeway didn't use her Captain's prerogative to keep him alive instead.
Ain't Too Proud to Beg : Tuvix resorts to pleading to the bridge crew for his life, but they remain silent.
Anywhere but Their Lips : Tuvix kisses Kes on the cheek, though uncomfortably close to her mouth.
Bittersweet Ending : A particularly infamous one, and easily one of the most brutal decisions Janeway has had to make thus far. Tuvix is solemnly unmerged out of existence and we get Neelix and Tuvok back, but as Janeway walks out of Sick Bay, she's clearly distraught with her actions.
Both Sides Have a Point : When a solution is presented to split Tuvix back into Neelix and Tuvok, Tuvix protests that he's a lifeform all to his own, and Janeway is effectively condemning him for something that was no fault of his own. Janeway concedes that Tuvix is his own being, but Neelix and Tuvok are two, and Tuvix is asking her to sacrifice the both of them for his own sake, which even Tuvix admits could be seen as cowardly. The crew does come to agree with Janeway's decision to split Tuvix, but the Doctor refuses to perform it despite offering no objection. Interestingly enough, when Lower Decks revisited the episode when they had their own "Tuvix" accident, they agreed that Tuvix was outright murdered, but the circumstances of Voyager being stuck in the Delta Quadrant made it necessary to avoid Janeway losing two crew members.
The Chains of Commanding Janeway: We've just been discussing the unfortunate predicament that we're all facing, and I thought it was important to get your perspective before making a decision. Tuvix: Are you suggesting that this is your decision to make? Janeway: I am the Captain of this ship. Tuvix: Begging your pardon, Captain, it's my life. Isn't it my decision? Janeway: Aren't there two other lives to consider here? What about Tuvok and Neelix? Two voices that we can't hear right now. As Captain, I must be their voice.
Did You Think I Can't Feel? : Janeway raises the point of Tuvok and Neelix, and the people who love them, to convince Tuvix to die. Tuvix gives this trope, paraphrasing The Merchant of Venice in the process, saying he regards Tuvok and Neelix as his parents. Tuvix: Look at me, Captain. When I'm happy, I laugh. When I'm sad, I cry. When I stub my toe, I yell out in pain. I'm flesh and blood, and I...have the right to live!
Particularly with his statement that he thinks of Tuvok and Neelix as his parents, the decision whether or not to split Tuvix could be seen as a metaphor for abortion.
At the same time, it's the Trolley Problem, in space. In the classic thought experiment, a malfunctioning trolley is heading for two (or more) people who are tied to the tracks, who will certainly die if the trolley hits them. It can be diverted to a secondary track by pulling a lever, but there is one person tied to that track, who will likewise die if struck by the trolley. Assuming it's not possible either to stop the trolley or to untie any of the people, do you pull the lever, and directly cause the death of one person, or do nothing, and allow two to die? In the episode, Neelix and Tuvok are the two people tied to the main track, while Tuvix is the one on the secondary track. Janeway decides to pull the lever.
It also ties into depictions of capital punishment. In-Universe , Tuvix compares Janeway's decision to separate him to an execution, while noting he hasn't committed any crimes to deserve it. When he refuses, she calls Security, who first struggle with him before escorting him to Sickbay after he calms down, similar to jailers. In Sickbay itself, the set-up with the transporter pad and Kim at the terminal is reminiscent of someone being sent to the electric chair (though the procedure is actually performed on a biobed), while Janeway giving Tuvix the radioactive isotope has the same weight as a lethal injection. There's even Kes in the role of a family member or loved one looking on, the Doctor as both the attending physician on duty and the one speaking for morality (a priest) or clemency (a governor's pardon), and Janeway making the final call like the warden.
Face Death with Dignity : After it becomes clear that begging for his life won't work, Tuvix calms down, forgives everyone, and peacefully obeys Janeway's orders without another word.
Five-Second Foreshadowing : During the cold open , Tuvok and Neelix are shown having one of their typical mild arguments. Neelix insists that Tuvok is acting "more Tuvokian" than usual, to which Tuvok counters that it's impossible for him to be any more or less Tuvok. Shortly afterward, in an effort to get Neelix to stop trying to cheer him up, Tuvok asks Neelix if he could be less himself for a while. Then the transporter accident happens, which causes both of those things to happen.
Foregone Conclusion : It's a given that by the end of the episode, Tuvok and Neelix will be back, but how we get to that conclusion is the question. It's messier than you might expect for a Star Trek episode.
The episode begins with Neelix singing a Vulcan funeral dirge, and ends with an execution.
Friend Versus Lover : A sci-fi version. Neelix was Kes' lover and Tuvok was her mentor. Now Tuvix is a friend who wants to be her lover. Kes is understandably upset, especially when she's forced to choose between bringing back her lover at the expense of her new friend's life.
Fusion Dance : Tuvok + Neelix = Tuvix. An interesting variation as he is presented as a composite character, but Tuvix doesn't assert himself as a Mental Fusion so much as a new being unto himself. The result is that this trope gets played with and deconstructed as the episode goes on, culminating in perhaps Voyager's most morbid ending.
Heroic Sacrifice : Discussed. Janeway notes that Tuvok would not have hesitated to sacrifice himself to save two lives. Tuvix admits that she may accuse him of being a coward, but he has the desire to live.
I Don't Want to Die : Janeway asks Tuvix to consider what Tuvok or Neelix would do . Tuvix agrees they would sacrifice their own lives, but even if his decision seems cowardly, Tuvix says he has as much right to live as anyone else.
If You Won't, I Will : The Doctor refuses to separate Tuvix because, well, he's a doctor, and doctors do no harm. Janeway immediately takes on the dubious honor herself, even though she isn't the least bit happy to do it.
Layman's Terms : Separating Tuvix is like unmaking a cake after you've mixed the flour, eggs and water and baked it.
Loafing in Full Costume : Averted with Janeway in a pink nightie .
Moment Killer : Harry Kim is playing a beautiful clarinet piece when the Doctor interrupts. Doc does it again when Kes is finally making an overture toward Tuvix.
Tuvix argues that he is a unique life form distinct from Tuvok and Neelix, and therefore splitting him back into those two men would be killing him. But he also claims that allowing him to survive would not be killing Tuvok and Neelix because they live on through him, which runs counter to his initial claim to be a distinct life.
Janeway argues to Tuvix that Tuvok and Neelix would sacrifice their lives for another to convince him to do the same, yet it never occurs to her they would therefore not wish to regain their existence at the expense of Tuvix.
Montage : Janeway makes an entry into her Captain's Log , explaining what an Ace Tuvix is.
No Sense of Personal Space : Tuvix — played for laughs with Janeway and the Doctor, but not with Kes.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business : Kes, who ordinarily is an enthusiastic and inquisitive medical assistant, is reduced to stunned silence when confronted with Tuvix, and as the realization sinks in that she's lost both her lover and her mentor, she totally loses her Plucky Girl demeanor, becoming cold and business-like. It only gets worse as the episode goes on, since she can't mourn the loss of Neelix and Tuvok, because they're right there in the form of Tuvix.
Permafusion : By all indications, Tuvix could have lived a full lifespan (presumably somewhere between Talaxian and Vulcan) if he hadn't been separated.
Portmanteau : Their newest crewmember decides to call himself... Neevok! No, how about Tuvix.
Reset Button : Tuvok and Neelix have to come back because, well, they're main cast members. In-show, however, pushing this particular reset button involves a very hard decision, which The Captain ultimately decides to take upon herself, and the show doesn't shy away one bit from depicting how difficult it is.
Rule of Threes : Kes gets two hugs from Janeway and one from a restored Neelix.
Tuvix argues that Janeway is, in-effect, executing him. However if Tuvix survives, it can only be at the expense of Tuvok and Neelix.
Tuvix goes to Kes and asks her to convince Janeway to relent. As this would mean the effective demise of Neelix, she can't do so.
Sequel Hook : A retroactive one. Captain Janeway orders an Away Team to fly to the planet's surface in a shuttlecraft to collect samples of the orchid. No further mention is made of this mission's outcome or the samples in the episode or throughout the rest of Voyager 's run. Instead, this loose end will get picked up 27 years later on Star Trek: Lower Decks and serve as the catalyst for the Sequel Episode "Twovix" .
Shoot the Dog : When the Doctor refuses to 'kill' Tuvix, Janeway does the job herself.
Shout-Out : Tuvix gives a similar speech to Shylock's "prick us do we not bleed" from The Merchant of Venice .

Tuvok says, "I am who I am, Mister Neelix. It is impossible for me to be more or less like myself." Neelix asks if it isn't possible to both work and have fun at the same time. Tuvix ensues.
Kes tells Tuvix that she wants them to be friends , but it's going to take time to adjust. Tuvix replies "I'm not going anywhere." Right on cue, the Doctor contacts him to reveal that he's found a way to separate him.
When the Doctor finds a cure, he assures Tuvix that he's anticipated every variable. Except, Tuvix points out, the possibility that he wouldn't want to be restored.
Janeway quietly asks Tuvix to accompany her to Sickbay. When he refuses, she has Security come to the Bridge to drag him there by force if necessary.
Played for laughs when Tuvix throws everyone out of his kitchen . Hogan: On whose authority? Tuvix: Chief of Security or Head Chef. Take your pick!
Tough Leader Façade : Janeway's stoic expression as she 'kills' Tuvix. It drops for a moment after Tuvok and Neelix are restored , then Janeway is shown girding herself to be The Captain again.
Tragic One-Shot Character : Tuvix, and how.
We Are as Mayflies : Tuvix argues that it could be years before Neelix is restored, if he ever is, and for Kes that could be a lifetime.
Wham Line The Doctor: I assure you, Mr. Tuvix. There's nothing to worry about. We've accounted for every variable. Tuvix: Except one. I don't want to die.
What Happened to the Mouse? : The flower that caused the incident isn't mentioned nor reappears when Tuvix is separated. In fact it is completely forgotten about in the latter half of the episode.
What Measure Is a Non-Human? Janeway: It's funny. If we'd had the ability to separate Tuvok and Neelix the moment Tuvix came aboard, I wouldn't have hesitated. Chakotay: Of course not. Janeway: But now, in the past few weeks, he's begun to make a life for himself on this ship. He's taken on responsibilities, made friends... Chakotay: I count myself as one of them. Janeway: So at what point, did he become an individual and not a transporter accident?
When Tuvix confesses his love for Kes, she's shocked and asks him to consider Tuvok's wife , to whom he has always been faithful.
The Doctor refuses to perform the procedure, citing 'do no harm' when Tuvix refuses to consent to the procedure. However, he doesn't overtly criticize Janeway's decision as wrong.
Your Favourite : Tuvix makes Trellan crepes for Kes, their Wednesday ritual.
Star Trek Voyager S 2 E 23 "The Thaw"
Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek Voyager S 2 E 25 "Resolutions"

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