Beloved Star Trek Actor Fought To Retain Vulcan Lore
It’s obviously not a requirement that every Star Trek actor be an expert in the franchise…in fact, some of the best actors had been relative newcomers to the universe that Gene Roddenberry built. Still, as fans, we love to see when one of our favorite performers not only knows his stuff but fights back against anything that would change existing canon. And that’s exactly what happened with the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Cathexis” when Tim Russ fought against a script change that would have ignored Vulcan lore about these pointy-eared aliens having an inner eyelid.
Tim Russ Knows His Trek Lore
The episode has a battle scene on the bridge of the ship, and the original script had Tuvok getting blinded by a phaser blast. That might seem perfectly sensible to a very casual viewer, but Tuvok performer Tim Russ was a huge fan of The Original Series and told executive producer Jeri Taylor (as quoted in the Captains’ Logs Supplemental – The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) that they couldn’t include this plot point. “Vulcans have a secondary eyelid to protect them, and that’s been established,” he said, referencing classic Spock lore.
If you’re not as versed in the first Star Trek show as Tim Russ, you’re probably wondering what the heck this weird Vulcan lore is all about. In The Original Series episode “Operation–Annihilate!”, Spock willingly lets himself get hit by a blinding light in order to prove that this technique could drive out some pesky invasive aliens from himself and anyone else who had been infected.
It worked, but before the first officer could be fitted for some stylish sunglasses, he revealed that his species has a special inner eyelid that keeps them from getting permanently blinded.
Changed Cathexis
Weirdly enough, Tuvok found himself facing a slightly similar situation in “Cathexis”…namely, that he had been infected with a malicious alien. However, Tim Russ’s infected character is more akin to someone possessed by a malicious ghost, and it takes the efforts of the bridge crew to stop him before the entity can be driven out of his body and away from the ship. His Vulcan character was originally going to be blinded by phaser fire during this scuffle, but the actor citing the deep lore effectively kept that from happening.
While we have nothing but love for Tim Russ for pointing this out to Voyager’s producers, he claims that episode director Kim Friedman also deserves credit for knowing the lore and trying to keep the phaser blinding out of the script. Russ says the producers initially ignored her citation, something he found quite surprising. Later, this moment was cut from the episode, but whether or not it was due to how badly it would violate existing Vulcan lore remains unknown.
Actors Who Are Also Fans
At any rate, this tale gives us just one more reason to love Tim Russ (not that we were hurting for reasons before). He is not just a Star Trek actor but also a fan, and he did his best to keep Voyager from violating Vulcan lore in a way that would have angered half the people watching. Because of this, Tuvok and Spock alike might agree that cutting the phaser blinding from “Cathexis” was the most logical thing the show could do.
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