7-19. Genesis.

Picard discovers Troi, transformed into an amphibian!

THE PLOT

When a test of Worf's new weapons guidance system results in one of the torpedoes swerving off course, Picard and Data take a shuttlecraft to intercept and disable it. While they are away, crew begins exhibiting strange behavior. Troi complains about the environment controls, finding the ship too dry and too cold. Worf becomes hyper-aggressive. Barclay becomes just plain hyper, working around the clock at full-tilt speed with no sign of fatigue. Riker finds it increasingly hard to concentrate, or even to remember the ship's current assignment. Too late, Dr. Crusher and Nurse Ogawa realize that a disease is spreading through the ship... one that is slowly affecting every member of the crew!

Picard and Data return to find the Enterprise adrift in space with no power. They discover that the entire crew have transformed in various ways; Troi is an amphibian; Riker is a proto-human; Barclay is halfway to becoming a spider; Worf is some strange Klingon creature with an armored hide and an aggressive mating instinct.

They are able to determine that amniotic fluid is the key to curing the virus, and go in search of the conveniently pregnant Nurse Ogawa. But they have only a limited time to find a cure. The disease is airborne - and Picard is already showing signs of infection!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: When Picard begins to "de-evolve," he develops a heightened sense of fear. Patrick Stewart gives Picard a slightly higher pitch to his voice and makes him a little less still and a little more fidgety. Because the process never gets past its initial stages in Picard, we see the man we know struggling to maintain control. When the transformed Worf is battering his way into sickbay, Picard can see that Data - who is working on a cure - is indispensable and that he is expendable in this situation. So he creates a distraction to lead Worf away, despite his terror.

Data: As Picard's faculties start to be affected, Data takes the lead in their investigation. He observes that Spot's newborn kittens were not infected, which provides the vital clue to the cure. He argues against Picard's dangerous plan to lead Worf away from sickbay, but does provide Picard with what he needs to execute that plan. And, as the one crew member immune to the virus, he is in a unique position to save the day. Again.

Worf: Continues to inch toward a relationship with Troi. It seems a bit odd that they would have a dinner date when all their relationship progress occurred in either parallel dimensions or hallucinations. Then again, both Worf and Troi have glimpsed the potential relationship in non-realities, so perhaps by now they have compared notes and decided to give it a try in the real world. Though he ultimately is not "Patient Zero," Worf is the first crew member to be visibly affected. Michael Dorn does a good job of showing Worf's decline. At first, he just seems excessively stressed, then he becomes ridiculously short-tempered and aggressive. When he attacks Troi, he stops, appalled at what he's done... but that is the last time he is able to stop himself. The next time he moves, his mind is basically gone.

Barclay: The opening scene presents Barclay as a hypochondriac, with Dr. Crusher all but treating him like a child while treating him. The fact that she manages to identify a mild illness by the end of that scene in no way stops her from treating him like an idiot. Even after the events of the episode trace the virus back to Crusher being careless with a treatment, the tag scene sees her and Troi basically exchanging eye-rolls over how neurotic Reg is. Why exactly doesn't he want to transfer off this ship? The episode makes less use of Barclay than most previous appearances by him, but Dwight Schultz remains engaging. His scenes both as hyper Barclay and as spider-Barclay are a great deal of fun, largely because of the actor's enthusiasm.


THOUGHTS

"Captain, I believe the crew is de-evolving!"
-Data makes an earnest pronouncement, and actor Brent Spiner somehow manages to keep a straight face.

Genesis is surely one of the silliest episodes of TNG's run. Brannon Braga's script is a dumb premise that exists solely to allow the cast to act in weird ways, all of which is given only the flimsiest justification. It's "science" is straight out of a 1950's "B" movie: De-evolution of humans into amphibians and spiders(!)? The episode might as well have a crew member turn into a crocodile and snap at Picard's heels!

It also spends far too long on setup, with fully half the episode passing before the crew has firm awareness that there even is a ship-wide problem. It should have been restructured in one of two ways: With Picard and Data on the ship throughout, working to stop the infection as it spreads; or with Picard and Data returning to the ship much earlier, with the bulk of the episode focusing on their efforts to resolve the situation. As presented, there is no real mystery, because we spend half the episode watching the disease spread. Picard and Data are able to solve the problem a bit too quickly and easily, because no time is left in the episode for their efforts to encounter serious complications.

Gates McFadden, in her directorial debut, may have gotten lumbered with a ludicrous script, but she makes a good stab at bringing it to life. The dark corridors of the drifting Enterprise of the second half are eerie, the noises of the transformed crew members adding to the atmosphere. Spider-Barclay's abrupt entrance, banging against the glass through which Picard is peering, is a "jump scare" that works, and the makeup job on Dwight Schultz is highly effective (if slightly comical). The chase at the climax, in which the transformed Worf pursues Picard into first the turbolift, then a Jeffries tube, takes care to keep Worf in the shadows to avoid the budget limitations of his costume from ruining the effect. This has the bonus of keeping the focus on Patrick Stewart, acting the heck out of the increasing terror the infected Picard can barely keep in check. I'd love to see another episode directed by McFadden - preferably one with an actual good script.

In a way, this episode feels like the flip-side to Masks. That episode featured Data behaving strangely while the ship transformed around the crew. This episode features everyone except Data behaving strangely, while the crew transforms around the ship. Unlike Masks, there's no sense of anything interesting is struggling to get out. Much of it plays like Braga's first draft for Voyager's infamous Threshold, like he needed a warm-up to figure out what works so that he could be sure to remove those elements from his next try.

In short, it's all dizzyingly dumb... but it's also very watchable.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Eye of the Beholder
Next Episode: Journey's End


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7-15. Lower Decks.

Worf champions Ensign Sito (Shannon Fill).

THE PLOT

The Enterprise's senior officers are doing reviews of the junior staff... Making this a very nervous time for the ship's young ensigns. Gossip leaks to Ensigns Sam Lavelle (Dan Gauthier) and Sito Jaxa (Shannon Fill) that they are both contenders for the same promotion. Each feels the other is more likely to actually get the nod: Lavelle believes Riker dislikes him, and his attempts to ingratiate himself only make that situation worse; Sito knows that Picard hasn't forgotten her role in the cover-up of an Academy cadet's death, and fears that her spotless record since that incident isn't enough to make up for it.

Even as they fret over their future career paths, they are intrigued and puzzled by the ship's new heading. The Enterprise has taken up a position on the border of Cardassian space, and the senior officers are conferring privately. Geordi snaps at a Taurik (Alexander Enberg), a young Vulcan ensign, for running a routine scan to identify a lifeform on a ship they're rescuing: "No one told you to do that!" When that lifeform is beamed to sickbay, all staff are cleared out save for senior officers and a security officer is stationed outside.

Something clandestine is occurring - and that something is about to come very close to home for one of the junior officers, who will soon have much more immediate concerns than a mere promotion!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Calls Sito into his ready room in order to give her a dressing-down, laying into her lack of character during the Academy incident and telling her that he doesn't know how she ended up on his ship. Patrick Stewart is terrific in this scene, which is written just enough within Picard's normal character that I believed his anger was genuine - making the revelation that it was actually an act all the more effective for tricking me as much as it did Sito. His disclosure that she ended up on the Enterprise on his specific request, to make sure that she got a fair chance to prove herself, says a lot about his own character (and reminds us that he also was involved in something scandalous at the Academy).

Riker: It's no wonder Lavell feels like Riker doesn't like him. The commander shows irritation or outright disapproval in their every interaction. This is consistent with what we've seen in previous episodes, notably in Hollow Pursuits and Ensign Ro. He may be easygoing with those high in the command structure, but he's quite firm with subordinates, particularly ones he finds fault with. In this episode, he's finally called on this, when Troi tells him that Lavell is very like he was when he was younger, and that he's not giving the young man a fair chance.

Worf: Acts as a mentor to Sito. He thinks highly of her work as a security officer, and he believes she is capable of being more. After Picard chews her out, Worf refuses to allow her to meekly accept that situation. He stages an impromptu challenge, putting her into a position where she can only lose and barking his disapproval when she does - all to push her to protest that his challenge is unfair. When she does so, Worf agrees and tells her:"Perhaps next time you are judged unfairly, it will not take so many bruises for you to protest." Odd that his paternal attitude toward her seems so much more authentic than his relationship with Alexander - but then, this episode is well-written, while most Alexander episodes... were not.

Hot Alien Space Babe of the Week: Shannon Fill returns as Sito. In The First Duty, her role was relatively minor. She was onscreen a lot, but was really just a background part of Locarno's entourage. Here, she gets the most prominent role. Sito comes across as sympathetic, while remaining individual enough to avoid the "Mary Sue" trap that can ensnare guest characters who take center-stage. Her final scenes are quite strong, with her Bajoran background used to good effect. 


THOUGHTS

Lower Decks is a clever idea: Take the characters who are usually little more than extras and show events from their point of view. Rene Echevarria, a writer whose strength lies in character interactions, is a good choice for this piece. He is up to the challenge of taking one-shot characters and making them feel authentic and relatable.

Too relatable, sometimes. There is something decidedly uncomfortable in watching Lavell's attempts to ingratiate himself to Riker. When his friend Ben (Bruce Beatty) urges him to go up to Riker in Ten-Forward and strike up a conversation, my every instinct screamed: "Don't!" Riker may not go to the bar to be treated like the First Officer, but he also isn't there to enjoy the spectacle of junior officers jumping about like eager puppy dogs. The subsequent "conversation" is painful, in part because most viewers will at one time or another be able to relate to Lavell's awkwardness (some will be able to relate to how awkward that conversation would be for both men).

Scenes such as this, or Sito's dressing-down by Picard and Worf's unique way of getting her to stand up for herself, would have made for a perfectly fine minor episode. But the ambition here goes a bit further, with the point-of-view switch given to a story that would still have been interesting without that. This gives a dramatic structure to the character material in the first half. We can see that something is occurring that isn't routine, but the information is denied to us just as it is to them. 

This acts as an effective hook for the first half, and it allows the story to transition from being purely a character piece to being a strong narrative in a way that feels absolutely seamless. As the episode goes along, we get more and more clues to the mission unfolding, unseen, around us. At the midpoint, we get a key revelation when Alyssa Ogawa (Patti Yasutake) is let in on the identity of their guest in sickbay - which fuels even more good character material, as she must then keep that secret from friends Lavell and Sito even as they continue speculating.

Ultimately, it's a good episode. Almost all of the individual pieces work, and the script's careful structure and strong handling of both character and plot material keeps it feeling unified throughout. One of Season Seven's better stories, and exactly the recovery the series needed after the idiocy of Sub Rosa.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Sub Rosa
Next Episode: Thine Own Self


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