I absolutely don’t wanna squash your enthusiasm, but I think for people randomly popping in here from /all, watching three whole series to answer one question is a bit overkill. Even if I’m interested in ST (and I definitely am), the suggestion* that I have to watch them all in order to be a part of the community is a bit daunting. Personally, I struggle with having shows hold my attention anyway, so committing to all that is a non-starter.
* I know you didn’t mean it as an explicit “you have to”, but the expectation “you’ll want to watch… at minimum” creates a certain impression
I mean, you don’t HAVE to do ANYTHING. But anyone who wants to get this community’s memes without needing them explained will find that most of the memes comes from TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, the last of which is certainly abound with memes (such as Janeway’s obsession with coffee, vaguely offensive Irish stereotypes, distinctly offensive Native American stereotypes due to the producers inadvertently hiring a bad/fraudulent cultural sensitivity consultant, and… well… the whole THING with Tuvix), but is not everyone’s cup of tea, unlike the other three which are far closer to being universally beloved.
If it helps, TOS was only three seasons, and after each commercial break it’d return with Kirk doing a voiceover summing up what the plot of the episode so far has been. So you could easily second-screen it.
I absolutely get your intention. My personal problem is that “only” three seasons made me snort before I reminded myself that other people don’t struggle nearly as much.
To give you an example, I watched a few episodes of Picard, which I absolutely found interesting (even if I didn’t quite get everything without looking some stuff up)… then the next day I didn’t feel like continuing. At all. I knew I found it interesting, but I just wasn’t in the mood for watching something longer.
“Second-screening” has a history of getting paused because I realise I’m not paying attention or because it’s distracting me from whatever main activity I’m doing… and never get restarted.
I still haven’t picked it back up. At this point, I would have to rewatch it all because I don’t even know where I left off. It sits in a pile of unfinished shows, video essays I wanna watch “later” and Warhammer 40k miniatures I’ll definitely paint “some time” when I can muster the will to focus on them for a while.
So I’d rather look up the explanation of memes and learn the lore in trickles, or better yet, ask about it and learn in conversation with others who get a chance ato share something they love with someone who’s delighted to hear it.
In that sense, if you feel like taking the time: What’s the “thing” with Tuvix?
Well I can relate to that because I often get intimidated by many seasons of serialized television. IMO there’s too much serialized television these days. Fortunately, TOS is completely episodic - not serialized at all, with each episode being a completely standalone story that you don’t really need to watch any of the other episodes to understand. Like The Simpsons, everything always returns to the status quo at the end of each episode.
TNG and VOY were, like, two-thirds episodic and one-third serialized, while DS9 and ENT were more like one-third episodic and two-thirds serialized. Discovery and Picard were fully serialized, and TBH if I hadn’t already watched TNG and already developed an emotional attachment to those characters, I would have found Picard to be a slog too.
Anyway, on to your question. Tuvix is an episode of VOY wherein two characters - Tuvok and Neelix - get into a transporter accident which merges them into a single being, who names himself Tuvix. At first the Doctor declares that the merger is irreversible so the crew just decides to accept Tuvix and move on. Tuvix proves to be an valuable member of the crew, with the abilities of both Tuvok and Neelix, and even a few new character traits entirely his own. But weeks later, the Doctor discovers that the process is in fact reversible… at which point Tuvix announces that he refuses the separation procedure, as although it would bring back Tuvok and Neelix, it would essentially be death for him. As the ship is currently stuck in unknown space, 70 years from home, the only authority in a position to decide what to do is Captain Janeway. I’ll let you see how that turns out. Fans considered the ending to be extremely dark, and there continues to be “trolley problem”-esque debate over what the right thing to do was. Most memes play up the coldness of Janeway’s decision, portraying her a sociopathically bloodthirsty.
I absolutely don’t wanna squash your enthusiasm, but I think for people randomly popping in here from /all, watching three whole series to answer one question is a bit overkill. Even if I’m interested in ST (and I definitely am), the suggestion* that I have to watch them all in order to be a part of the community is a bit daunting. Personally, I struggle with having shows hold my attention anyway, so committing to all that is a non-starter.
* I know you didn’t mean it as an explicit “you have to”, but the expectation “you’ll want to watch… at minimum” creates a certain impression
I mean, you don’t HAVE to do ANYTHING. But anyone who wants to get this community’s memes without needing them explained will find that most of the memes comes from TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, the last of which is certainly abound with memes (such as Janeway’s obsession with coffee, vaguely offensive Irish stereotypes, distinctly offensive Native American stereotypes due to the producers inadvertently hiring a bad/fraudulent cultural sensitivity consultant, and… well… the whole THING with Tuvix), but is not everyone’s cup of tea, unlike the other three which are far closer to being universally beloved.
If it helps, TOS was only three seasons, and after each commercial break it’d return with Kirk doing a voiceover summing up what the plot of the episode so far has been. So you could easily second-screen it.
I absolutely get your intention. My personal problem is that “only” three seasons made me snort before I reminded myself that other people don’t struggle nearly as much.
To give you an example, I watched a few episodes of Picard, which I absolutely found interesting (even if I didn’t quite get everything without looking some stuff up)… then the next day I didn’t feel like continuing. At all. I knew I found it interesting, but I just wasn’t in the mood for watching something longer.
“Second-screening” has a history of getting paused because I realise I’m not paying attention or because it’s distracting me from whatever main activity I’m doing… and never get restarted.
I still haven’t picked it back up. At this point, I would have to rewatch it all because I don’t even know where I left off. It sits in a pile of unfinished shows, video essays I wanna watch “later” and Warhammer 40k miniatures I’ll definitely paint “some time” when I can muster the will to focus on them for a while.
So I’d rather look up the explanation of memes and learn the lore in trickles, or better yet, ask about it and learn in conversation with others who get a chance ato share something they love with someone who’s delighted to hear it.
In that sense, if you feel like taking the time: What’s the “thing” with Tuvix?
Well I can relate to that because I often get intimidated by many seasons of serialized television. IMO there’s too much serialized television these days. Fortunately, TOS is completely episodic - not serialized at all, with each episode being a completely standalone story that you don’t really need to watch any of the other episodes to understand. Like The Simpsons, everything always returns to the status quo at the end of each episode.
TNG and VOY were, like, two-thirds episodic and one-third serialized, while DS9 and ENT were more like one-third episodic and two-thirds serialized. Discovery and Picard were fully serialized, and TBH if I hadn’t already watched TNG and already developed an emotional attachment to those characters, I would have found Picard to be a slog too.
Anyway, on to your question. Tuvix is an episode of VOY wherein two characters - Tuvok and Neelix - get into a transporter accident which merges them into a single being, who names himself Tuvix. At first the Doctor declares that the merger is irreversible so the crew just decides to accept Tuvix and move on. Tuvix proves to be an valuable member of the crew, with the abilities of both Tuvok and Neelix, and even a few new character traits entirely his own. But weeks later, the Doctor discovers that the process is in fact reversible… at which point Tuvix announces that he refuses the separation procedure, as although it would bring back Tuvok and Neelix, it would essentially be death for him. As the ship is currently stuck in unknown space, 70 years from home, the only authority in a position to decide what to do is Captain Janeway. I’ll let you see how that turns out. Fans considered the ending to be extremely dark, and there continues to be “trolley problem”-esque debate over what the right thing to do was. Most memes play up the coldness of Janeway’s decision, portraying her a sociopathically bloodthirsty.