Fusion

** (2 stars out of 5)

After all these years, is there anything that screams DEVIANT like a smiling Vulcan? Enterprise meets a space van loaded with elf hippies. These guys smirk, too. AND eat chicken. It probably tastes like chicken. But if it walks like a Romulan, and quacks like a Romulan...

"V'tosh ka'tur" means "Vulcans without logic". They didn't stop being smarty pants and stuffed shirts, they just like LIKING things. They don't consider themselves madmen or heretics like Sybok. No beardy weirdies. Well, no beardies.

Nearly a third of the Enterprise crew are womenfolk, which appeals to portly engineer Kov. He responds eagerly and loudly to Trip's Vulcan sex questions. True to form, the word S-E-X summons Malcolm out of nowhere to hear all about the Seven Year Itch. Somehow, impossibly, this gossip never becomes common knowledge to humans by Captain Kirk's time! You'd think if anyone would know a juicy Vulcan sex tidbit, it would be Jim Kirk.

T'Pol sees this experimentation as dangerous- still, she is drawn to these bad boys, with their arched eyebrows and their JAZZ music. Tolaris (rhymes with Solaris and he IS almost as dull as that Russian sci-fi classic) wants to show her a little something. It's an ancient technique abandoned by mainstream Vulcans centuries ago. T'Pol hasn't heard of it: a mind-meld. He only wants to fondle your brains- what could go wrong?

"Fusion" seems like a fusion of some other tales. "The Way To Eden" and "Violations", mainly. It was, coin a phrase, 'fascinating' to contemplate why Vulcan culture of this era is even more puritanical than any we've seen. The private but fairly normal mind-touching of the future is here practiced only by deeply closeted fringe elements. Worse yet, under the heading "MASSIVE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FAIL" despite the assault on T'Pol, NOBODY punishes Tolaris or even WARNS the other hippies. Who are still travelling with him! I don't know about you, but I'd like to have some advance notice if I'm going to spend years in a tiny metal box with a date rapist.

Violations

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Enterprise is bringing telepathic Ulian historians to Kaldra IV. The garb of the Ulian is, for some reason, cut up like paper snowflakes. It is the only charming thing about them.

The Ulians' leader, chunky old Tarmin, helps Keiko retrieve a memory of her Obachan. He is eager to retrieve memories for everyone, but the crew is a little squeamish. Worf pretty much says it all: "Klingons do not allow themselves to be... probed."

Tarmin brags about how much better he is at telepathy than his withdrawn son Norman... uh, Jev.

Yet soon we learn that Jev IS proficient enough to probe Counselor Troi into a coma. Jev forces his way into her memory, and twists a post-poker game smooch with Riker into an assault.

Jev dodges Riker's investigation by invading Will's mind. He's tormented by the order he recently gave that cost the life of Ensign Keller. And now there's two comas.

When Beverly Crusher starts prying, she conveniently drops into a coma also. She's haunted by the memory of the starbase morgue where she viewed Jack's body alongside bandaged Captain Picard.

"Will keeping telepaths in their quarters prevent it from happening again?" Geordi asks, quite sensibly, when Picard orders it.

Geordi uncovers two cases of weird coma on Jarada III at the same time the Ulians were there. Jev is less particular about who he violates than anyone ever: at least, if that's the planet of the giant cockroaches mentioned in Season 1. I believe I speak for everyone when I say... ICK.

Troi awakens after three days but cannot recall her nightmare. Jev, under supervision, "recovers" Troi's memory... of Tarmin assaulting her.

About to get away with it, Jev cannot resist going back for thirds and is caught making another attack on Troi. She gets in a few good punches before Worf takes the frakker down.

"Memory invasion is simply not a crime that we've ever had to contend with," says Picard. What? WHAT? WHAT? No Romulans or Vulcans have ever tried to pull this crap in the hundreds of years you've known them? Not once? Think hard. I know Vulcans are the good guys, but come on. Mr. Spock's maneuver on Valeris was very much a memory invasion. Necessary perhaps, but arguably criminal.

The punishment for Jev is quite severe. I'm guessing it's not the gas chamber if they're Federation, but if it's a lobotomy it couldn't happen to a creepier guy. Misuse it and lose it.

"Violations" is the first episode made after Mr. Roddenberry's death. Some very ugly concepts are on display here. It's effective, scary drama.