Tuvok and Neelix are on an away mission to collect some special orchids. When they are beamed up, the orchids cause them to fuse into one abomination. The Doctor can't separate them right away, so the crew is stuck with him for about a month. Once the Doctor finds a cure, "Tuvix" (as he chooses to be called) decides he wants to be selfish and not submit to the procedure. Janeway deliberates a bit, then forces him to get split apart again.
The science here is pretty laughable, even in the context of a science fiction universe where people can be converted into energy and transported over long distances on a routine basis. The idea itself of life that reproduces by fusing its genetic material with that of another species on its own is pretty cool, though problematic if this form of reproduction doesn't in some way increase the quantity of that particular species. I guess that normal floral reproductive techniques must also be in use here, or else there wouldn't be an abundance of that flower on the planet, but I'd still expect them to have found more hybrid flowers around on the surface. The real problem I have with the physics here is that not only did the flowers fuse with the people they transported with, but they also somehow got the two separate transporter streams to cross and fuse the two non-flower creatures into a being that can somehow still walk and breathe.
Of course, many episodes have silly premises. This one might have been easier to buy into if the actor playing Tuvix weren't atrocious himself. No, that's not fair. He might be a decent actor; he has been in a million different things (that I haven't seen), so he must do something well. But here he moves like a robot with a five-second delay on all of his motor functions, and talks like he's only read about verbal communication in a book and is just giving it his first shot.
It doesn't help that everyone around him treats him with such disgust - it really feels out of character for them too. In the memory alpha annotations, Tuvix's actor complains that he got just about no help from the director, which certainly goes a long way to explain why he doesn't convincingly act like a fusing of Tuvok and Neelix. But the director is a Trek veteran, with some impressive credits to his name, so that doesn't explain why all the regulars also seem to be adrift. Well, no explanation except as a cheap trick to set up the Moral Dilemma.
The Moral Dilemma feels exceptionally contrived. Tuvix himself admits that Tuvok and Neelix both would be selfless enough to give up their lives for another, but that he is unwilling to give up his one life for two others. This whole part of the episode was just set up to give Janeway a Tough Choice, and her earlier disgust with Tuvix was set up just to allow Tuvix to make a case that she's prejudiced against him (which, oddly, and thankfully, he does not). It is admittedly a tough choice, and I do like Kes' scene where she is asked by Tuvix to speak to the captain on his behalf, but she finds that she cannot. Janeway ultimately decides that she must speak up for Tuvok and Neelix, who cannot speak for themselves, and reverses the accident. But once we have them back, and they have the opportunity to weigh in on the matter themselves, Janeway smiles and just turns and leaves sickbay.
(Big segue alert!) Babylon 5 is just chock full of moments like that, and they drove me crazy. I love B5 and all, with its fascinating universe and powerful story arcs, but realistic character dialogue was not its strength. Characters were always walking in, dropping conversational bombs, things that demand a response, pausing a beat, and then leaving the room (sadly, it has been too long since I watched through it, and the B5 wiki is absolutely barren in comparison with memory alpha, so I can't come up with a good example). Not particularly relevant, just airing a pet peeve of mine.
In terms of exploring a being's desire to cling to its existence, I feel like the previous episode just did it so much more effectively. Fear's desire to exist feels so much more real, so desperate, that Tuvix's dilemma seems like quibbling in comparison. He's not even really dying: if the separation works anything like the merger did (and we have no reason to expect it not to), Neelix and Tuvok will still carry his memories and experiences. That's more than most other mortals can hope for; Fear simply vanished.
Watchability: 1/5
Bottom Line: The whole episode just feels like a tunnel-visioned sprint for the moral dilemma, only instead of a sprint, it is a crawl. If there's one redeeming quality it is that the writers don't have the characters agonize or moralize too much about the choice.
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