Hey it’s the end of the first season of Star Trek: Voyager! In “Jetrel”, Neelix’s history is revealed to be somewhat darker than originally thought. Then, in “Learning Curve”, Tuvok is revealed to be a dour stick-in-the-mud.
Trekabout Episode 245: Jetrel/Learning Curve
Eleanor R
-The thing that gets me about Tuvok in Learning Curve is that, in the pilot, Tuvok had been pretending to be a Maquis for months. And I’ve come to terms with the idea that none of the Maquis are resentful of Tuvok for lying to them, but after this episode I had so many questions about his efficacy as a spy and how the Maquis reacted to him.
Eric Brasure
-That’s a really good point–I guess the only thing that makes sense is that maybe Tuvok was only undercover for a couple of weeks? Did they say how long he had been there?
Eleanor R
-I thought the length of his undercover stint was mentioned by Janeway during Caretaker, but I can’t find any evidence of that online, so maybe my brain just inserted that information. Memory Alpha did remind me that, in the seventh season it’s revealed that he was caught during his spy stint, brainwashed by a counter-agent gone rogue, had his memory altered, and then returned to the Maquis, so long enough for that to happen, I guess. He was working with Chakotay and Seska long enough that Chakotay thought he might have known Seska was a spy.
Maybe they did too good of a job with the memory wipe. It’s also possible Tuvok was just a really bad spy. There are some possible explanations. I rarely want flashback episode, but I just have so many questions, and the adventures of a maquis ship filled with spies could be really entertaining.