ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Six "Booby Trap"

ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Six "Booby Trap"
Production Order: 6
Air Order: 6
Stardate: 43205.6
Original Air Date: October 30, 1989

Sorry about the lateness. Was feeling a bit under the weather around post-time.

*******

Interestingly, we don't start out with an exterior shot of the ship this week, or a Picard Log with some exposition. We start out on the holodeck, where Geordi is having a romantic date with a girl on some beach. He offers her another drink in a coconut husk with an umbrella and a stupid name ("coco-no-no"), which she declines. Then he remembers that he programed a Romani musician in to play a romantic song on the violin. He attempts to make a move, scooting closer to her, putting his arm around her.

At this point, she has grown uncomfortable enough that she has to give him The Speech.

"Geordi, you're a great guy."
"Uh-huh," he sighs.
"But I don't feel the same," she adds.
"Uh-huh," he says flatly.
The Romani musician has gotten annoying, so Geordi tells him to fuck off. (Truthfully, he could have just turned the musician off. Dude doesn't exist.)

Wes and Data are in Ten Forward, playing 3-D chess. (Side note: does Data reign it in when playing games like this with others? If not, why would you play with him? Seems like a sure way to lose in two moves.) They briefly discuss the asteroid field outside, which was caused by an ancient space battle.

The door to Ten Forward opens, and Geordi comes in.
"Uh-oh," says Wes. "He had a big date tonight. He spent forever putting together a romantic program for it. Looks like it ended early."
They stare at Geordi for a moment, who slumps onto a barstool and stares off into space.
"Uh-oh," replies Data, with a practiced inflection.
Data gets paged to the bridge.

When he arrives, Riker tells him that they're picking up a signal, and they briefly talk about the possibility of there being survivors of the battle of Orelious IX. When they finally track down the source, it's coming from a ship hanging in space.

"Promellian Battle Cruiser," says Worf in amazement.

Picard is equally amazed, fangirling over it's intact "Lang fusion engines."

When Data reports no life signs, Picard says he is not surprised.

"That signal was generated over a thousand years ago."

Mysterious music! Commercial break!

Picard's Log 43205.6: "So we've been sent to chart out the battle where the Orelions and Promellians pretty much destroyed both species, and we've found an intact Promellian ship."

Picard and Riker are making their way through the corridors, and Riker is salty because the rules say that the captain should never head away missions, but Picard is insistent here.
"What's the worst that could happen? Ghosts?" Picard pauses and says something that Riker doesn't understand. "Have you ever dreamed of climbing inside the bottle?"
"Sorry?"
"Airships in bottles. Didn't you ever do that as a kid? Bet I had a Promellian Battle Cruiser, too!"
They go into the transporter room.
Data and Worf are there, ready to beam down, and Data assures them that there is adequate life support on the battle cruiser that they won't need breathing equipment.
Picard brings up ships in bottles again. Blank looks from the away team.
"Didn't anybody play with ships in bottles when they were boys?" he asks, frustrated.
Sassy Worf: "I did not play with toys."
Sassy Data: "I was never a boy."
Possibly brown-nosing O'Brien: "I did, sir!"
"House points to you!" says Picard happily. "Okay, beam us down!"

Riker gives O'brien a smile that says, "You suck-up."
"What, I did!" protests O'Brien. "Ships in bottles is big-time fun!"
Okay, dude. Who you trying to convince?

The power goes down briefly, and O'Brien says he'll check out some stuff and get back to Riker about it.

On the bridge of the Promellian Cruiser, Picard & Co find the mummified remains of some promellians in their chairs. Worf, typically Klingon, remarks how admirable it is that they died at their posts. Picard waxes poetic about the layout of the bridge.

Back in Ten Forward, Geordi is nursing a drink at the bar.

"Got anything stronger?" he asks Guinan, who is busing tables.

"Yep," she replies.

"Will it help?" he grouches.

She answers truthfully. "Nope."

Then he launches into what comes remarkably close to being a Nice Guy speech, but thankfully does not go there. Instead his lament of "I fix ailing starships, why can't I talk to a girl?" is acceptable. (Do not fall into Nice Guy Fallacies. It's a trap.)

Geordi: (sighing): "Tell me something, Guinan. You're a woman, right?"

Sassy Guinan: "Yes, I can tell you I'm a woman."

He asks her, as a woman, what she looks for in a man. Guinan replies that she likes bald dudes. He says "seriously?" in a teasing manner, and when she replies that a bald man took care of her once when she was hurting, he says wistfully, "I'd like to do that."

Sassy Guinan Moment: "Well, I take care of myself these days." 

He complains that he just can't seem to make it work, and she advises him that he's trying too hard.

We jump briefly over to the bridge of the E, where Wes tells Riker that he's getting weird readings on the power fluctuating, just like O'Brien was in the transporter room.

On the Battle Cruiser, Data gets the lights going, and it turns on the sound of the SOS signal. Picard tells Worf to scan everything for posterity, then he and Data turn that beacon off.
"Found (the Promellian equivalent of a USB drive)," announces Data.
"Ooh, can we watch it?" asks an excited Picard.
"The parts are old, but we can try." Data puts the thing into another thing, and uses his tricorder to boost more things, and we get a staticky picture of the Promellian captain, as well as part of his log.
"I am Galek Sar," says the captain. "This is the ship Cleponji, and I want everyone to know that my crew is awesome, and that what happened to us was totally my fault, not theirs."

The away team is feeling kind of crappy about this new development. Picard pages Riker to tell him that they're ready to come back.

But when they hit the bridge of the E again, Picard is all smiles.
"That was so freaking cool!" announces Picard. "There were totes ghosts on that ship, Number One! It was the old captain, and we watched a log where he talked about how fabulous his crew was."
Riker and Troi exchange smiles.
"What?" asks Picard.
"Your fangirling is cute," says Troi. "Nice to see you in a good mood."

Picard tells Data to contact some authorities about the ship, to have it hauled off and studied.
"Let's go look at other stuff," he directs, and Wes plugs in new coordinates.
"Um, we lost some power," reports Data. "Like, two percent. I'll change up some stuff to make it work."
Alarm.
"Whoa. High-intensity radiation, coming our way," warns Worf.
We get some cuts here where Data reports ever-increasing drops in power output, and Worf states that they're bombardment by radiation is going up.
"Let's back the fuck up and leave in a hurry," Picard directs Wes.
Wes sets the ship for warp one, but they don't move. They call Geordi, who checks all of his settings.
"Dude, we should be flying out of here," says Geordi.
Is there an alien poltergeist in your anti-matter again?
Wes steps on the gas, and the engine revs, but the wheels just spin.
"Hey," pipes up Geordi. "Could we like, slow down so we don't burn out the engines? Kthx."
Wes takes his foot off the gas, and Picard stares at the Promellian ship on the viewscreen, pondering what the old captain said about his actions getting them stuck there, and wondering if the E has fallen into a thousand-year-old booby trap.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

When we return, the senior officers are in the Obs Lounge, trying to figure out what's happening. Basically, they're sitting in some kind of radiation field, but Worf says it's so strong that it interferes with sensors, so he has no idea where it's coming from. Geordi says with the power drain, they'll only have three hours worth of shields, at which point, the radiation will start killing them all. They need a way to keep the ship running without running out of juice. Riker asks Data if the there's anything in the history books that could help them. Data says the Menthars (the people from Orelious IX) had a lot of cool battle strategies, and he begins to list them, but it ends when Riker interrupts to ask if there's anything relevant to this situation.
"Noop," says Data.
They decide to send over another away team. The Promellians weren't able to figure out how to get out of this trap, but they did know the Menthars better.

Down in Engineering, Geordi is having the same problem that a lot of us have had at one time or another: why won't thing do the thing? By talking through it with the computer, he figures out that they can't form a subspace field, which is why they aren't going anywhere.
Geordi goes through the computer logs on propulsion, to see if he can get this shit working again. He encounters the name of one engineer over and over again, L.Brahms.
The computer tells him that Dr Leah Brahms was a graduate of Daystrom Institute and worked as a junior member on the propulsion team for Galaxy-class starships.
"Looks like she wrote the book on propulsion," he remarks.
He calls up the subspace entry logs for the Enterprise, and he chooses Brahms' voice entries over the visual records.

On the bridge, Dr Crusher informs Picard of the precautions she'd like to take just in case they end up with radiation poisoning. Which are good precautions to take, because you know they'll only solve this shit if they have a few minutes left on the clock. She says once the shields go down for good, they'll only have 30 minutes to live before the radiation goes fatal.

In Engineering, Geordi is hashing things out with the voice commands of the log entries of Leah Brahms. He can pull up the specs for the dilithium crystal chamber, but it seems inadequate.
"I need to crawl inside," he muses. "Computer, can I get a 3-D simulation of the inside of the engine?"
"You want the prototype?" asks Majel. "I can give you the prototype schematics and stuff from the Utopia Planitia drafting room."
"Fuck yeah!" says Geordi. "Set it up in holodeck three! And send Leah Brahms' log entries down there, too!"
He's pretty impressed by the set-up for the Utopia Planitia drafting room. Through the window, he can see the skeleton of the Enterprise in dry dock. The schematics he wants are set up on display.

"Leah, did you design this?" he asks.
"There were a lot of people involved with this design," she replies mechanically.
"Off the record?" he suggests.
"Personal logs are restricted," Majel reminds him.
Sassy Geordi that borders on creepy-thing-to-say: "Great. Another woman who won't get personal with me on the holodeck."
He moves on. "Okay, I need to power the ship and the engines. Can I (science)?"
Leah voice: "Theoretically, yes. (More science)."
"Cool. Show me how."
Horror film moment:

He turns around while tinkly, playful music plays. It's Dr Leah Brahms.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

"Hey, computer, did I ask for a simulation of Leah Brahms?" asks a confused Geordi.
"Yep," replies Majel. "You asked for her to show you (science)."
"Huh. Guess I did. Okay."
Simulation-Leah says nothing.
"Continue with what you were saying?" he prompts.
"(Science)," she replies robotically.
He talks himself through it and then tells the simulation that it can be done, and that she's beautiful, only he uses a "you're the best!" inflection.
Geordi calls Riker. "Okay, we can do shields!"
"Awesome!" says Riker. "What about propulsion?"
"Still working on that," he answers.
Picard: "Pass my congratulations on to the rest of your team."
Sassy Geordi: "Thanks, Captain. We're all smiles down here."

On the bridge, Data has put some of those old-school/new-fangled USB sticks into the computer and is trying to pull out any info he can.
"Most of these are too decayed and can't be fixed," he admits.

On the holodeck, Geordi has asked the computer make the adjustments to the dilithium crystal chamber, and asks what the output is now.
"Up fourteen percent," replies Majel.
Geordi celebrates, but Simulation-Leah just stands there like a talking mannequin. He's a little weirded out by it.
"Computer, do you have a personality on file for Dr Brahms?" he asks.
"Sure."
"Okay, and did she ever debate at the intergalactic caucuses on Chaya VII?"
"She did."
"Cool. If you take that info, could you put her personality into the simulation?"
"Yeah, but there would be about a ten percent margin of error," Majel warns.
"All good," says Geordi. "Do it."
There's a moment here, where we're meant to pick up on the fact that Simulation-Leah has gone from just an image that gives answers, to a simulation that moves, speaks, and thinks according to the responses given by the living person in the holodeck program. That moment includes Sim-Leah taking a deep breath and blinking several times, where she hadn't done either before. And I get it, it's a transition from talking dolly to simulation of an actual human. But at no time does Sim-Leah need to blink or breathe, so why is it necessary to have her do both of these in an exaggerated way, as though she's woken up from a coma?
Anyway, she turns and smiles, and immediately gets casual on him, by insisting that he call her Leah instead of Dr Brahms. The simulation has also extrapolated from the conversations he's been having with himself on the holodeck, and she takes charge right away, saying they need to hurry because they can't leave the crystals in that alignment forever or they'll burn out some stuff.
He's a little shell-shocked, and she's all, "Hello? Earth to Geordi?"
"Okay!" he replies enthusiastically.
And they start working.

In the science station on the bridge, Data has managed to coax a few seconds of usable information out of those USB drives.
Galek Sar describes the same sort of situation that the E is in (no propulsion or weapons), and says it comes from the aceton assimilators, but the recording degrades before he can say where the assimilators are hidden.
"Google, what are aceton assimilators?" asks Picard.
"They're ancient generators that can drain power from sources that are far away," answers Data. "It wouldn't be hard to convert energy into radiation."
So the thing is sucking up energy that the E is putting out by running its systems and engines, and it's spitting it back at them as radiation. Basically, don't move or you'll die. But without life support or systems, they'll die anyway. And running the life support drains the energy, which drops the shields, which floods the ship with radiation, and then they die. Again. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
"The Menthars probably hid them in the asteroid debris," says Riker.
All of this leads to an aside which I don't think is ever addressed: presumably, the crew of the Promellian Cruiser died of radiation when the energy was drained from their systems and shields. Now, the radiation would not have come into play beforehand (ie, not present on the Cruiser before the away team beamed over) because it had 1000 years to clear out, and the assimilators were not working in all that time, or there would have been more ships in that asteroid field. The draining of the E began when the away team beamed over, and continued while they were on the Cruiser. Worf did not detect the radiation until after the away team returned, but were they not getting low doses of radiation while on the Cruiser, which presumably had no shields?

Back on the holodeck, Geordi and Sim-Leah are arguing.
Sim-Leah says she did all the calculations herself, and her idea should work, but Sassy Geordi disagrees.
"I don't care if you built it with your bare hands from an old Ferengi cargo ship. It's gonna go [low whistle, explosion noise] and we're gonna go with it!"

He angrily points out that she's used to working on static models, and he's got a working ship with tens of thousands of light years on it. She admits that this is true, and he tells her that he knows his ship in and out.
And she says something that, taken out of context, is awful: "Well then, you must know me inside and out, 'cause a lot of me is in here."
Then they agree that chief engineers should be part of the process of designing ships, and that designers should get out in space more.
Riker pages Geordi to the bridge.
"Don't go away," he tells Leah.
She smiles at him in a moment of program sentience, like, "You dork, I can't leave the holodeck. Where am I going to go?"
"Oh, yeah!" he remembers. "Save program!"

There's an impromptu meeting on the bridge, and Picard asks Data how many assimilators he thinks are in the debris field.
"Several hundred thousand," guesses Data.
"But they've been here for at least a thousand years," protests Picard. "There should be some break-down, right?"
"Like, point-one percent at (coordinates)," says Worf doubtfully.
"What if we fire phasers at that spot?" asks Picard. "Could we destroy it?"
"Maybe?" shrugs Geordi.
"Or maybe we'd just be feeding the beast," supplies Data.
"Let's try it," says Picard.
He tells Geordi to go back to his work on the engines, and has Worf prep the phasers.
They fire the phasers at three spots right near the ship. And just as Data predicted, the assimilators drank in the energy, drained the ship, and increased the radiation.
Dumb move.

Geordi and Sim-Leah are looking at schematics when the computer interrupts.
"Hey, you're using too much energy. The energy level is too low in the ship. I'm gonna shut off the holodeck."
"Override," sais Geordi wearily.
"Noop," replies Majel.
"WTF?" yells Geordi.
Sim-Leah disappears, then Geordi is left in the holodeck grid.
He doesn't have clearance for that as chief engineer? What a crock of crap.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

There's a meeting in the Obs Lounge, but they're letting Geordi telecommute in from Engineering. They're also pretty much talking in the dark.
"Our crystals are breaking down," comments Geordi. "We'll need to get more at the nearest starbase."
Sassy Riker: "The optimist of the group."
A quick check-in of numbers: less than two hours of shields left, radiation up 17% and fatal exposure minutes dropped to 26.
Picard asks Geordi if all non-essential power has been shut off.
"Yeah," says Geordi. "But I really need to turn holodeck three back on. I built a model of the engines in there, and I've been using it to make progress on this problem."
Picard grants him use of the holodeck, but gives him a deadline of one hour to come up with something.

Geordi rushes back to the holodeck. For some reason, Sim-Leah seems to know that their timeline has been shortened.
"Okay, we need to figure out how to get out of this booby trap," says Geordi. "Can we shut it down? Can we outrun it?"
"Well, there's a reaction from the E, then a reaction from the assimilators," reasons Sim-Leah. "Is there any kind of reaction time between those two reactions when we could move forward just enough to escape the radiation given off by that assimilator?"
"Ooh, YAS!" says Geordi, sitting at a workstation. And because he's lost his head a little, and maybe because he's thinking ahead to a celebration program afterward, he asks, "Do you like Italian?"
"Like it?" she asks. "Wait until you try my fungilli."
Noop. Geordi, you makin' dinner plans with a hologram?

A bit later, and Geordi is getting frustrated. He's input a bunch of stuff, but things aren't going quite right for him. He yells and hits the console.
...and Sim-Leah gives him a shoulder massage, which just...
whut?
Like, which part of her thought that was appropriate? Was it the part of Real Leah's personality that the computer decided should be added? Or was it the computer simulation recognizing that Geordi was getting stressed out and thinking that this was a thing that Sim-Leah needed to do? Really, if she was his coworker, would she have actually done that? They've known each other for two hours, max. Would you give a brand-new coworker a massage after knowing them 120 minutes?
Anyway, Geordi starts to go "mmmmmm," then backs the wheeled chair away and says "Don't do that."
But instead of being like, "That's not appropriate work conduct," he's like "I don't want to feel that good right now."
I... just... fix the ship, Geordi. Stop trying to get down with the simulated image of a real-life engineer on the holodeck.

He realizes that they're essentially out of time, and complains that it is both possible and not possible to make that many micro-adjustments per second.
Sim-Leah: "...I could do it."
Geordi: " It's not humanly possible."
Sim-Leah: "I'm not human."
Geordi: "You mean the computer could do it."
Yes, Geordi. She is the computer.
Picard comes in. Geordi acts a bit flustered, like he forgot to lock a bathroom stall, and Picard has just opened the door.
"Oh, um, this is, um, Leah Brahms, a computer-simulated image of one of the E's engineers," he explains. "We've been tinkering with this stuff and we think we might have a solution. We could escape the booby trap if we turn the ship over to the computer."
Sim-Leah says nothing to Picard, making her seem all the more like just some mindless holodeck plaything that he caught Geordi with.
"You think that will work?" asks Picard, eyeing Sim-Leah.
"Not one hundred percent sure," Geordi admits. "We could program a simulation and see how it goes."

Picard is sitting in the dark in his ready room, staring out the window. Riker comes in and asks if he's heard from Geordi.
"Yeah," says Picard. "He wants to turn the ship over to the computer and let it take us out of here because it can make quicker adjustments than we can."
Riker considers that. "I've always been impressed by a machine's ability to take orders," he says. "I'm not as convinced that it can creatively give them."
Hmmm, what does that say about Riker's opinion of Data?
Picard goes on for a bit again about model ships, and ends with "now the ships are flying us."
Dude really loves his model ships.

Geordi and Sim-Leah are running simulations (sim-ception) using what basically amounts to a fancy side-scroller game, like Oregon Trail in space. In one, she does not make it out in time, and the crew is exposed to fatal radiation. The second time she makes it, but the third time, with all of the same moves made, she does not.
Red alert sounds off. The shields have failed, and they're now exposed to the radiation. Twenty-six minutes and counting.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Geordi and Sim-Leah bicker for a bit, and Picard calls Geordi.
"Two minutes," begs Geordi. "There's another way!"
"I have a different idea," he tells Sim-Leah after hanging up with Picard. And he reprograms the simulation.

On the bridge a few minutes later, he explains that part of the problem with his initial idea was that it involved overpowering the trap.
"We need to shut everything off," he explains to Picard. "We do one big thrust for a microsecond, then shut down everything but life support and two thrusters. Then we cruise on out."
"You're gonna die in twelve minutes," announces Majel.
"Did you run the simulation?" Picard asks him.
"Yeah, but it isn't any better or worse than letting the computer do it. About the same odds. Personally, I think there's a lot to be said for the human element of wanting to stay alive."

"Okay," agrees Picard. Geordi offers to take over at conn and do the steering, but Picard declines. He will do it himself.

"Head's up," Riker calls over the PA. "Gonna switch on the engine for a sec, so brace yourself."

"You're gonna die soon," comes Majel's voice again.

"Shut it!" yells Riker. "The captain is trying to concentrate." 

They do one big thrust with the impulse engines, then shut everything down. Picard carefully steers the ship using quick shots from the thrusters.

Riker calls out the headings, and lets Picard know that the large asteroid coming up is pretty close, and it may contain an assimilator, ya know? Picard uses a thruster to steer away from it, and Worf announces that they did not set off an assimilator.

Data puts in that the gravitational pull from the asteroids has slowed them down by 8 percent, and they no longer have the juice to get out of the debris field. Picard simply thanks him.

Data reports that the asteroid ahead is increasing their speed because of its gravitational pull.
"It's cool," says Picard, and he deftly steers the ol' rustbucket into a quick turn, spinning that shit away from the asteroid and out of the field.
"You used the gravitational pull as a slingshot," says an impressed Data.
Picard just hands the conn back to Wes like it ain't no thang.
"Gotta take care of this booby trap before we leave," he remarks to Riker.
Riker has Worf blow the Promellian ship up, taking a bunch of those assimilator-asteroids with it. Hopefully, they've marked it for Starfleet, so someone can come along and take down whatever assimilators are left. Otherwise, yeah, you've taken down the bait, but someone else could just stumble into the field.

Back on the holodeck, Geordi prepares to shut down his program, and is saying goodbye to Sim-Leah.
"We make a good team," she says.
I agree.
"We should do it again sometime," he replies.
That could be helpful.
Sim-Leah: "I'm with you every day, Geordi. Every time you look at this engine, you're looking at me. Every time you touch it, it's me."
Okay, I get what you're trying to say, Sim-Leah, but that could sound very wrong in just the right context, and you couldn't have phrased that differently?
And then, a Why? Moment.
They kiss.
And much like the massage, I have to wonder what's behind this. Does the computer feel that the real Dr Brahms would kiss a coworker? Or did the computer extrapolate from how it thinks Geordi is feeling, and thinks that's the most appropriate action? Because it wasn't Geordi kissing Sim-Leah. She leaned in at the same time. They kissed each other.
And I understand that with the holodeck, all bets are off, and you can kind of do whatever the fuck you want, but doesn't the holodeck really encourage you to go carte blanche like that?

Then Geordi straightens up, stares at her for a moment, and ends the program.

Happy ending music, and end credits.

Okay.
I'm gonna try to judge this episode on its own merits.
Because in season four, there's an episode called "Galaxy's Child" that's a kind of follow-up to this one, and it changes how how I feel about this episode. Like, completely. But I'm trying to approach each of these episodes as though I hadn't seen them before, and just on their own (with possible comparisons made to material that came before it). Because DS9 was the first Trek that I watched completely "live" instead of in syndication, quite a few TNG episodes I watched were out of order and several were repeated more often than others. As a result, I watched "Booby Trap" many times before finally catching "Galaxy's Child," so my opinion of this episode remained the same for years before being altered. Let's shoot for that first one.
So.
Let's start with what's working for me.
I love the booby trap aspect. They go into an area to study what's basically space ruins, and surprise! They find what pretty much amounts to an intact Yaxchilan burial tomb, and Picard practically kiddy-claps, because he's all about that shit. After checking it out, they find out that they're hooked up to some trap from a long-forgotten war, but instead getting the attention of some benevolent alien poltergeist like in "The Bonding," they get a slow version of the boulder that chases Indian Jones out of temples. I'm digging this set-up. Our Disable the Ship means that they're screwed six ways from Sunday, so they have to really think their way out of this. (Bonus points: they have the mummified remains of the last people to fail at this nearby to remind them of the consequences, which is terribly Indiana Jones.)
A think I also like: I thought Geordi's solution to not being able to visualize what he needed to figure out a way out was brilliant. Can't climb inside the engine? Recreate it on the holodeck. Get to the heart of the matter. I also approve of his accessing Dr Brahms' professional log entries. When in doubt, return to the source.
It was the computer's idea to recreate a simulation of Dr Brahms, and that was okay. Geordi was getting tired of someone speaking at him, so he asked the computer to put Dr Brahms' personality into the simulation, and that was alright as well. Recall that if the personality clashed with his, he could have shut that part off, and just gone with talking mannequin again.
Where this episode goes sideways for me is in the romance. The computer seems to have been reading something into its interactions with Geordi, because neither time Sim-Leah got cozy was completely initiated by him. The first time (with the massage) was initiated by her/the computer. And the kiss seemed to be both of them equally. We're seen this before, where Riker fell hard for Minuet, a holodeck creation. But in that case, Minuet was specifically designed to reign in Riker, and then had things added to keep Picard interested as well. But that was the intentional handiwork of the Binars. Here, the computer has created a simulation based on Starfleet records. Then, at the behest of the chief engineer, a personality was divined from other records. But unless Leah Brahms' records indicate that she's a big-time flirt, or into engineers, or looking for hook-ups with guys she just met, then none of that adds up. So it wasn't so much her personality. But if it's the computer, then how deep does this technology go? It seems to read body language, speech patterns, facial recognition, ect in order to properly determine how to have simulated people react to live ones. That's... more advanced than Data, who often gets social clues wrong. And how complicit is the computer when a simulation makes a move that the live person doesn't like? That's all computer making those decisions, but here, part of Dr Brahms' personality comes into play. If it's really 90% or so her personality, and 10% fudged, is there 5% of her that nudges that other 10% that's computer into making out with the chief engineer? Kind of an unknowable there.
And then we have a topic that isn't explored here, but comes up in "Galaxy's Child" (and other episodes): this simulation is based on an actual human. Is it a violation of privacy to create a Leah Brahms on the holodeck, then make out with her? We know from what Minuet says that one can "go all the way" with a holodeck simulation, but how ethical is it to get it on with a simulation of someone living? As technology progresses, we are being faced with these questions. We have, each of us, most likely all been an entry in someone else's spank bank at one time or another, and while that's weird or creepy to think about, does it cross a line that someone might make a physical (but unreal) copy of you, in order to do unspeakable things?
It did not appear to be Geordi's goal to get a snog from this holodeck program, nor did he appear interested in continuing any kind of relationship with someone who could not leave the holodeck. But it did happen, and in some ways, it brings up that question of The Other: if a double exists of you (not  twin, an actual double), and it does things without your consent, are you responsible for taking the punishment if the things it did were not right? Is it responsible for the things it did in your name of which you do not approve?
It is not a simple thing. The ideas and complications behind this episode might have been simpler had Geordi just been glad to have found a new friend and possible person to bounce ideas off of when he is having trouble with the engines. The idea to create a designing engineer to help him was a great one. But the romance was there from the start - Michael Piller said that the whole idea behind this episode was about a guy who got along better with his car than with girls, and here was an instance where the car was the girl. (Please also see Idris, the human form of the TARDIS, on the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Wife.") But it confuses things when you've made the human form of a guy's car the woman who designed the engine. Or rather, a facsimile of the woman who designed the engine.
Bottom line: I like this episode. But it has some issues that could stand to be unraveled.



Fun Facts:
- This episode features all three of the major TNG uniforms thus far: extras playing crew members are wearing the season one and two spandex onesie uniforms with the piping at the shoulders. Most everyone else is wearing the season three uniforms with the Nehru collar. Picard is clad in the newest version, which features no seaming down the front, and an elastic-bottomed jacket.

- Originally, Leah Brahms was supposed to be a descendent of Dr Daystrom ("The Ultimate Computer"). But they realized after they hired a white woman to play her that they would have had to hire a black woman for the role, so the script was changed to make Dr Brahms a graduate of the Daystrom Institute. (Okay, I don't know anything about genetics, but would there not be enough generations between Brahms and Daystrom (three or four, in this case) that it would be possible to hire a white actor to play the grand- or great-granddaughter of a black man? Also, attempting to ask this question in a way that makes me sound genuinely curious about genetics - I am - and not like some racist asshole.)
- The original script called for the holodeck sets to be an actual mock-up of the engine, but time won out, so they went with "drafting room."
- There's a blooper for this episode where Picard asks the away team if any of them playing with ships in bottles as boys, and Worf (Michael Dorn) flubs his line as "I never played with boys."
- This is the first episode of Star Trek directed by a woman (Gabrielle Beaumont).
- In the series finale episode, Picard references O'Brien having played with ships in bottles, so I guess that part was canon, and not O'Brien brown-nosing.
- Guinan's remark about bald men comes into play in a later episode.
- Some of the graphics used in the Utopia Planitia drafting room were a topographical map of Mintaka III, and a graphic from Dr Manheim's lab in "We'll Always Have Paris."
- This is the second of three episodes that feature Picard at the helm.
- Susan Gibney, who played Sim-Leah, will also appear in two DS9 episodes as a Starfleet officer. Interestingly, she was almost chosen to play Janeway, but producers felt she was too young. She also auditioned for Seven of Nine and the Borg Queen.

Red deaths: 0
To date: 0

Gold deaths: 0

Blue deaths: 0
To date: 1
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0

Obnoxious Wes moments: 0

Legitimate Wes moments when he should have told someone to go fuck themselves: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Geordi moments: 2
To date: 3

Sassy Wes Moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Worf Moment: 1
To date: 2

Sassy Riker Moments: 1
To date: 2

Sassy Picard Moments: 0
To date: 3

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Data Moments: 1
To date: 1
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Crusher Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Guinan Moments: 2
To date: 2
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 0
To date: 2

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 0
To date: 7

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 0
To date: 9

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 0
To date: 0
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 1
To date: 1
Picard Maneuvers: 1
To date: 12

Luciano (front) and Jose (back)

ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Five "The Bonding"

ST:TNG Season Three, Episode Five "The Bonding"
Production Order: 5
Air Order: 5
Stardate: 43198.7
Original Air Date: October 23, 1989

So we're orbiting a planet this week, and an away team with some archeologists is downstairs checking out some ruins and tunnels. Worf is in charge, and he calls in to say that the team has determined that the ruins belong to a group called the Koinonians.
"Hey, Google," says Picard, "who are they?"
"A group of ancient people who got into a civil war and destroyed themselves," replies Data.
Troi suddenly shouts, "Beam them out!"

There's a bunch of crashing coming over the open line, and Worf starts yelling for a beam-out and how there are severe injuries.
"Beam them to sick bay!" Picard yells to O'Brien.
An injured Worf and three others beam to sick bay, but one didn't make it.
"One crew member DOA," Crusher reports to Picard.
Well, fuck.

 Picard's Log 43198.7: "The away team was on what should have been a standard mission, but the ship's archaeologist, Marla Aster, was killed."

Picard goes to sick bay to talk to Worf, who explains what happened.
"We were checking out the tunnels, and Lt Aster was behind me, like nine feet or so? We weren't finding anything with our scans. Then suddenly, this bomb goes off. Lt Aster took the full force of it. When the smoke cleared, she was dead."

Picard thanks him, then Worf moves off to get checked out by the medical people.
Troi comes in. "Sooo, more bad news: Marla Aster was on the E with her 12-year-old son, Jeremy. Annnnd, his father is dead, too. Only living relatives are an aunt and uncle on Earth."
"Crap," says Picard.
"Yeah," agrees Troi. "I told his teacher to expect us."
They start to leave, but Worf interjects - he wants to go, seeing as how he was in charge of the away team.
Picard thanks him, but insists that it is his job to break this news to Jeremy, so Worf stays behind.
On their way to the lift, Picard calls Riker and says that he wants Geordi to lead another away team to find out what happened. Then he tells Riker that he has the bridge while Picard and Troi are talking to Jeremy Aster.
Wes overhears what Picard says about talking to Jeremy, and he and Riker share a glance.
This scene is kind of tough.
Wes: "He had to do the same thing for me."
Riker: "Do you know Jeremy well?"
Wes: (shaking his head) "But I know what this is going to be like for him."
Riker: (nodding) "It's a part of life in Starfleet, Wesley."
Wes: "I know. They're very careful to prepare us for anything. But still..."
Riker. "I know."
Wes: "How do you get used to it? To telling them?"
Riker: "You hope you never do."
Data watches this conversation carefully.

There's a brief scene here where Worf contemplates a Klingon dagger and uses it to put out a candle. More on that later.

In the lift, Troi tells Picard that she knows how he's feeling, and that the sense of duty is weighing on him. He paces, and they get into a discussion about having families onboard the E. Picard thinks the idea is iffy, as it puts those civilians in danger every time they encounter a dangerous foe or situation. Troi points out that death and dying are part of the human experience, and Jeremy would not have been protected from it if he were living on Earth. He's concerned about the fact that Marla Aster knew the dangers of being sent out into the field, and that he has a duty to his crew to keep them safe, but to also push the boundaries of exploration.
What he isn't saying? "It sucks that I have to tell a kid that his mother is dead. Will he blame me for it?"
She consoles him by saying that Wes went through the same thing and now understands how things work in that respect. "In time, Jeremy will understand it as well."

And we don't get a reprieve. We just go straight to the Asters' quarters, where Picard gently tells Jeremy that his mother died today.
"How, sir?" asks Jeremy, both sad and respectful.
Picard explains about the mission, and asks about Jeremy's father. Apparently, the dad died five years earlier of an infection.
"I'm all alone now, sir," he says quietly.
"Jeremy," says Picard firmly, "on the starship Enterprise, no one is alone. No one."
He takes Jeremy's hand.

WHO LET ALL THESE SPACE NINJAS IN HERE?

Just in case that scene wasn't rough enough for you, after the commercial break we jump to Ten Forward, where Riker is having a drink by himself. He's approached by Data, who asks how well he knew Marla Aster.
"Not well," admits Riker. "How well did you know her?"
"Why do you ask?" asks Data, in a somewhat suspicious tone.
Riker is taken aback by this response. "Because you asked me."
Data then delves in: several people have asked him this question today, and he wants to know the deeper meaning of the question. Is there a correlation between someone dying, and knowing them well?
In response, Riker asks Data how Marla Aster's death feels differently from Tasha Yar's.
"I don't feel the same absence," Data admits.
Riker says that with humans, friends and loved ones are missed more deeply after they've died, than strangers or acquaintances.
"Shouldn't we feel the same, no matter how well we knew them?" asks Data. "Shouldn't people feel the loss equally?"
"Maybe," muses Riker. "And maybe if we did that, human history would be less bloody."

Geordi calls Riker. He has returned from his away mission, and he has "souvenirs."

Riker and Data go up to the ready room to meet with Picard and Geordi. Geordi brought back one of the bombs that went off and killed Lt Aster. Data looks at them and gives an explanation as to why they wouldn't have been detected by the scanners and tricorders on the earlier mission.
"So this part is creepy," says Geordi. "These were all buried, but have recently been dug up, diffused, and left to find."
"But there's no life on that planet," objects Picard.
Geordi shrugs. "Left to find," he repeats.

Troi and Worf are in the computer access room.
"Tell me about this mission," she says.
He protests that he already gave a report to Picard, but she wants his personal feelings on the matter.
In response, he barks that the Koinonians have been dead for centuries, and there is no one left for him to take revenge on.
"Okay, what else?" she asks.
"Nothing," he grounches. "A good leader stands alone, like Picard."
 "Picard talks to me," she replies, frustrated. "This is going to happen to you over the course of your career, and if you don't learn to deal with it, it'll drag you down."
He pauses then, instead of talking to her about how he feels, he says he wants her opinion about including Jeremy in a Klingon ceremony called R'uustai.
She knows what that is, and is surprised. "The bonding?"
It isn't fully explained here what that is, but Worf argues that it honors Lt Aster, and that, with both of them being orphans, Jeremy will understand.
She counsels him that Jeremy, not being a Klingon child, won't have the same kinds of thoughts on the matter, that when human children lose a parent, they fell the need to be loyal to that parent, and will spurn affection from others based on that feeling. She tells Worf that he can be there for Jeremy, but to go slow.

Jeremy is in his quarters (is no one with him? That seems strange). He's watching iPadd videos that his father took. You don't see Dad, but there's video of Jeremy playing in their home with a calico cat (Patches), and shots of his mother. Jeremy is smiling at the video in remembering.
The door chimes. It's Worf. There's a camera angle from Jeremy's POV.

Jeremy sort of half-invites Worf in, and Worf says that he was with Jeremy's mother when she died. They briefly discuss that Jeremy knows about Klingons from school, mostly that Klingons used to be enemies of the Federation, but are not anymore.
"Did they also teach you that all Klingons wish to die in the line of duty, as your mother did?" asks Worf.
Jeremy fiddles with his iPadd.
Dude, wrong thing to say.
Then they talk about how they are both orphans and understand death, but Worf says he wants to bring meaning to Marla Aster's death, and he would like Jeremy to help him.

 Troi visits the ready room. She tells Picard that Jeremy is angry, but has buried it. She's asked Crusher to ask Wes if he'll talk to Jeremy. And the wild card here is Worf, who wants to do the R'uustai ritual with Jeremy. They talk about her role on the ship as counselor, and how he has to break the bad news to people, but she has to stay with them through the rest of their crappy journeys back to some semblance of happy.

Riker pages Picard back to the bridge, and they both leave the ready room.
"We found an energy source on the planet?" says Riker.
"But that planet is dead," objects Picard.
"Maybe not," says Troi. "I'm sensing a presence."
They do a scan and get nothing.

Wes goes into Dr Crusher's office. She tells him that Troi has asked her to ask him if he'd talk to Jeremy Aster. I've got give credit to young Wil Wheaton here. He does a good job being sad and slightly uncomfortable. He says he isn't sure what help he can be to Jeremy, and Crusher tries a bit harder than is advisable to talk him into it. Like sure, go ahead and tell him how it might help Jeremy, but don't push him into it. Wes might not want to talk. However, when Wes says he'll consider, she just gives him a tiny smile and says "okay."
Wes hesitates, then asks, "Do you ever think about him?"
Crusher is playing it cool, continuing to work, but not looking at him. "About your dad? Sure I do."
He says sometimes he forgets what Jack looks like, and it bothers him. She responds by saying there are time when she can't get his face out of her mind. This is clearly bothering her, and when he starts to reminisce about Jack saying good-bye to them before leaving, and the way Picard looked when he came to tell them the news, she stands up and touches her forehead to his.

Dammit, show. Who gave you permission to give me feels about Jack Crusher?

Back on the bridge, they're still trying to figure out where that weird energy source is coming from. Troi is unnerved. Geordi calls to say that there's something going on with the anti-matter chamber of the warp engines.
In his quarters, Jeremy is watching iPadd movies of himself and the cat Patches playing hide and seek with his mother.
Then -
"Jerrrremeee," sings a voice.

NOOP.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

On the bridge, Geordi says everything is good, but there's still a weirdness in the warp engines. And there's still an energy source on the planet.
"There's a presence on the ship!" says Troi.
"Whut?" asks Picard.
A scan shows nothing strange. Riker calls yellow alert.

Back in the Asters' quarters, Jeremy is not interested in entertaining his new guest. He looks pissed as hell and appears to be doubtful about this new development. He flinches when she tries to touch him.
"They said you were dead!"
"There was a mistake," she smiles. And she never gives any better explanation than that. "I'm never going to leave you again!"
Jeremy is suspicious, but when she offers him a hug, he takes it, because dude actually does need a hug, and believing that his mother isn't really dead is so much easier than probing for the truth.
Creepy, horror film music plays.

"We need to go now," she says. "We're going down to the planet's surface to live in a home. It'll be awesome."
Jeremy looks confused.
Worf drops by to see Jeremy, and when he takes a step inside, he pulls out his phaser.
"There was a mistake!" says Jeremy happily. "She isn't dead!"
Worf tries to coax Jeremy away from Marla, but Jeremy goes back to her again.
She refers to Jeremy as "the boy" instead of "my son" but I guess Jeremy hasn't picked up on that.
Worf calls Picard. "Lt Aster is in her quarters."
"Say what?" demands Picard.
Worf repeats what he just said, and Picard quietly tells Riker that he has the bridge, and to tell security to move in that direction but keep their distance.
He and Troi get in the lift.

"Marla" and Jeremy leave the Asters' quarters. Worf calls Picard to let him know instead of stopping them, because what kind of zombie-poltergeist shit is this? Picard tells Worf to follow them, and Worf reports that he thinks they're going to the transporter room. When they arrive there, O'brien makes the face we're all making.

Marla-thing tells O'Brien they're going down, and his face remains the same, because seriously, WTF is this? They get on the transporter pads like she's not dead and this is all just some routine transfer down to an abandoned planet full of the ruins of a dead civilization.
Picard and Troi show up, and you can see gold shirt security members in the corridor before the doors close.
"Who are you?" asks Picard.
"Marla Aster," says Not Marla, with a slight duh inflection.
"Where are you going?" Picard asks.
"I'm taking my child to the planet to care for him," she says, all smiley-smiles. "I'm going to take care of him." Then her smile drops and she asks, "Why do you resist?"
Because that's what all mothers ask. It's totally natural.
"I'm responsible for him," answers Picard. "What are you?"
This whole time, Jeremy keeps breaking in to point out that this is his mother, and it's not weird at all that she's back from the dead and taking him to live out in BFE, Space with no explanation.
He steps toward Picard, and Worf snatches him off the transporter pad. "Marla" disappears.
Jeremy is dragged out of the transporter room, kicking and screaming alternately about how Worf needs to let him go, and where did his mother go?

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Troi walks Jeremy back to his quarters, trying to convince him that that was not his mother, and asking the sensical question of "why the hell would she move you down to the planet?"
Jeremy points out that he was able to touch her, and while she doesn't have a good answer for that yet, she knows that that was definitely NOT Marla Aster.
Unfortunately, Not Marla is waiting for them in Jeremy's quarters, which she has turned into his house on Earth, complete with Patches the fucking cat. 
See, now I'm pissed at this whatever-she-is. Not only is she posing as his dead mother, but she's recreated his home and his freaking pet, the manipulative bitch.

"How did you do it?" he asks in amazement.
You gotta wonder if he suspects now, especially when she replies with a non-answer and a laugh.
"Does it matter?"
YES IT MATTERS.
Troi agrees.

Not Marla seems annoyed and says she is trying to show them what awaits Jeremy downstairs.
"Isn't that really Patches?" she asks Jeremy.
And he picks the cat up to snuggle him, astounded that the cat knows him.
"Why would you create this fantasy?" demands Troi. "Jeremy, we need to leave."

Troi calls Picard on the bridge to report what's happening. She doesn't think Jeremy is in danger, and she thinks Not Marla wants to help him, and can't figure out why they won't just let her kidnap him.
"Should we get him out of there?" asks Picard.
"Not by force," she replies.
Riker makes a good point.

"Would any of us say no if someone offered back a dead loved one?" asks Crusher.
Picard asks Troi to stay with Jeremy. They'll try to fix things from the bridge.

They determine that whatever is on the planet is using the anti-matter chamber in the warp engine to power Not Marla and her fake-ass Earth house. Geordi gives some kind science-y explanation as to how he can shut off the power.

We go back to Jeremy's quarters, where Troi and Not Marla are engaged in puppy-calling with Jeremy.
"I'll make you happy," says Not Marla.
"I'll never lie to you," counters Troi.
Jeremy looks confused, then the house and Not Marla disappear. Jeremy is disappointed, and Troi hugs him.

Oops, they pissed off whatever Not Marla is. A beam of energy shoots at the E, then ping-pongs through the corridors and into the transporter room. It then knocks over two golds, makes its way down to Jeremy's quarters, and surprise! the house comes back.
"Let's go," says Not Marla.
Jeremy looks nonplussed.

Horror film music! Commercial break!

Troi calls Picard, who is in the lift with Worf and Geordi. Plans go into place to keep Not Marla from taking Jeremy.
Worf shows up at transporter room 3, where O'Brien is waiting in the corridor. That energy ball is bouncing around the room, checking things out. It leaves. Geordi has shut down the power to the transporters.
Not marla takes Jeremy by the hand and they march through the corridors, but Picard has turned on forcefields at specific intervals, blocking every path to the transporter room. Not Marla can leave the ship any way she wants, but Jeremy has limits. Picard shows up and asks how Jeremy is.
"Frightened?" he asks.
"No."
Not Marla smiles triumphantly.
"A little," he admits.
"Yeah, this is frightening shit. We won't let anyone hurt you," Picard agrees. "You should take him to my quarters," he tells Troi.
"NO," barks Not Marla.
She steers him back into his own quarters.
Picard and Troi exchange a look.

Geordi and Riker are monitoring the situation with the energy thing that keeps bouncing off the walls. Geordi tells Riker that the thing is in the engineering panels, learning the ship's computers and systems. After a bit, it turns the transporters back on. Geordi manages to get them shut off again by manual bypass.

Picard and Troi go into Jeremy's quarters. The house is set up again.
We finally get some straight answers from Not Marla. She tells Picard that the planet was once inhabited by beings of energy and beings of matter, and the people made of matter - the Koinonians - destroyed themselves in civil war. The remaining beings - those of energy - feel shitty about Marla Aster dying. They don't want any more people suffering from those old wars. So they've decided to recreate Marla Aster so they can raise Jeremy and make him happy.
"But you're not his mother," points out Picard.
"I can be," she argues. "How do you know he won't be happier with me? I don't understand why you find sorrow so noble."
"It's part of human nature to experience joy and unhappiness," says Picard. "Jeremy's mother has died, and he has to learn to live with that."
Then Troi dumps some realness on Not Marla: is she going to provide friends for him? A romantic partner? A career? There's a lot of stuff you need to raise a kid in BFE, Space. Not Marla would basically be providing another Hotel Royale for Jeremy. Jeremy doesn't look very enthused when Troi points all this out.
Not Marla pauses because she hadn't considered this, but then she's standing firm again about going through with this crap.
"We're mortal," says Picard. "Death is part of our life cycle, and we have to come to terms with it."

The door opens, and Worf escorts Wes in, who looks around at the house in confusion. Picard has asked them to come. Whether he wants to or not, Wes has to talk to Jeremy. And he's not happy about it.
"This has been bringing up bad memories," Wes admits, "of when my own father died in Starfleet."
Not Marla sits down, suddenly interested in the convo between Wes and Picard.
"They talked to us about how dangerous it could be, working in Starfleet," Wes says.
"You were prepared for it?" asks Picard.
Wes: "No, I wasn't prepared at all. How can anyone be prepared to hear that a parent is never coming home again? I tried to be what everyone expected of me -- brave and mature."
Picard: "Wesley, are you saying that you didn't want anyone to see what you were really feeling?"
(Wes nods.)
Picard: "Well, what were you really feeling?"
Wes: "Like somebody had kicked me in the head."
Picard: "Somebody?"
Troi: "Go on. You've wanted to tell him for a long time."
Wes: "I was angry... at you."
Picard: "Why angry? Why were you angry at me, Wesley? Were you angry at me because I was the one who had told you your father was dead?"
Wes: "No."
Picard: "Then why?"
Wes: "Because you led the mission. You came home, and my father didn't."
Troi: "How long were you angry with the Captain, Wes?"
Wes: "For a long time... but not anymore, sir. Not even a little."

Troi: "So, Jeremy... you must be very angry at Lieutenant Worf. He was in charge of your mother's mission, just as Captain Picard was in command when Wesley's father was killed. Isn't that right? Worf came back. Your mother didn't."
Jeremy: (tearfully and angrily turning to Worf) "Why? Why weren't you the one who died? Why did it have to be her?"
Troi: "He can't answer that. None of us can."
Picard: "Lieutenant Worf also lost his parents."
Worf: "They were killed in battle when I was six. When I was alone, humans helped me. Let me help you. The Marla Aster I knew and honored is not in this room, nor does she await you on the planet. She now only lives here (touches his chest) and here (points to Jeremy's chest). (Troi nods at him.) Join me in the R'uustai, the bonding. You will become part of my family for now and all time. We will be brothers."
Not Marla gets up and gives Jeremy a sad smile, then she and the house disappear.

Worf and Jeremy are wearing Klingon garb, and lighting candles in some kind of ambiguous location. Worf places a sash on Jeremy, then speaks Klingon to the candles. Jeremy asks what he said, and Worf replies that it honors the memories of their mothers, joining their families, and making both stronger. Jeremy repeats the Klingon phrase. They smile at one another.

Man, this was rough episode. Great, but rough.
Losing a parent is one of the toughest things a person can go through, and to lose them at a young age and to an accident is especially hard.
This episode works well on a myriad of levels.
Generally speaking, when Star Trek redshirts a character, it is to get a cheap rise out of the audience. A new character is introduced, attached to a principal player, and their death is done in such a way as to purposefully drag the audience along on a roller coaster ride. We are asked to care just enough about this new person that we feel bad for the principal who lost their friend. And sometimes it works. But quite a lot of the time, it is apparent that this is the case, that this new person will never be seen again, or will die before the end of the episode. Here, though, we are not introduced to the real Marla Aster. Her death is not being used to harvest feels in the same way as the others. She is dead in the first scene, and we are left to deal with the fallout. The Marla Aster that shows up is one alien species' approximation of her personality, and so we never come to meet her. The request to grieve her death is not asked of us. Instead, it is used to explore what it means to experience death in Starfleet, an organization that deals with death all the time.
The journey is made through her coworkers, her superiors, and her son. And for once I don't feel like Jack Crusher's death is used in the same way as the redshirting technique, to get an emotional reaction out of the audience. Wes is meant to mirror what Jeremy will face. Anger of the situation, and finally acceptance, is discussed between Picard and Wesley, which is then repeated by a confused Jeremy and a wounded Worf.
What a really amazing performance turned out by Wil Wheaton. He is hesitant, anguished, uncertain, angry, resigned, all within the space of a few minutes. Confessions of deep feelings to a person you revere and sort of fear is not easy, and I felt as though Wheaton managed to hit them perfectly.
While we have touched a bit on what it means to lose someone while in Starfleet, it has not really been explored in depth this way. In this respect, I feel as though Marla Aster's death was actually more important that that of Tasha Yar. While the funeral scene at the end of that episode was a good one, the rest of it was absolutely abysmal, whereas Marla Aster's senseless death was used as a vehicle to further explore death within the confines of the ship.
As per the usual, we got a speech. In this case, it was Picard telling an alien disguised as one of his crew about human nature. Sometimes these speeches are tone-deaf or heavy-handed or preachy, but I felt as though it fit well here. Picard's insistence that Jeremy must process his mother's death rather than pretend it did not happen goes right to the heart of who we are as a species. Jeremy might have been happy on the planet with his fake mother for a while, but not dealing with emotional baggage means that it will always be present. And no human is content to be content. We are a violent, unhappy species who requires conflict of one kind or another as a comparison. We need to know what it is to be truly unhappy in order to know what it is to be happy.
The only part of this episode that feels strange or off is the parts with Not Marla. Often, an outsider is used to describe human nature, to hold up that mirror to the audience to confirm that "yes, this is us." Data is generally used in this respect, and the early scene where he asks Riker about why people keep asking him how well knew Marla Aster was a good one. But it was felt that someone with even less experience with humans was needed here, and a counterfeit Marla Aster was created. It feels a bit like a poignant episode about death briefly became a horror film. For those scenes, a creepy vibe prevails and does not quite eel like it fits with the rest of the episode. Wes' talking to Captain Picard about the day he told the Crushers about Jack felt right to me. Worf talking to Jeremy, and Jeremy angrily accusing Worf of coming home alive when he should have died - these worked for me. The alien posing as a dead woman felt a bit strange.
In all, this episode felt like a good addition to the TNG catalog. Dealing with the inner workings of Starfleet is always a welcome situation to me, and knowing that this is a topic that would come up frequently off-screen makes it all that much better. These episodes serve to really illustrate things that come up in day-to-day life on the starship Enterprise, and in a show that attempts to marry interpersonal relationships with sci-fi, the humanization of the characters is vital.


Fun Facts:

- This was Ronald D. Moore's first script for Star Trek. He was a fan of TOS, and his girlfriend had worked on the pilot. She got him a tour of the sets, and he wrote up a quick script. Turns out the tour guide was one of Gene's assistants, liked his script, and passed it along. The script ended up in Michael Pillar's "slush pile," where it sat for seven months. PIllar had no scripts for season three, and went through that slush pile. He liked Moore's script, polished it up with Melinda Snodgrass, and asked for another script from Moore.
- In the original script, Moore had Jeremy recreate his mother on the holodeck. he wanted to explore the fact that the Enterprise-D includes the families of the crew, and what happens when someone's mother dies in the line of duty. The holodeck was dropped in favor of the alien element (which had been there from the beginning, but not in the same way) because the producers had just done a holodeck script and didn't want to do another right away.
- Gene Rod felt that children in the 24th century would have a better grasp on death, but given that Wes states outright that he was still blindsided by Jack's death, that's clearly not the case.
- This is the second and last time time the computer access room will be seen.

- Jeremy Aster's story ends with this episode. Moore has said that the writers considered bringing him back, but decided against it. According to the writers, Jeremy moves back to Earth with his aunt and uncle, and he and Worf sometimes exchange postcards or letters. However, in apocrypha sources, Jeremy later joins the House of Martok, and becomes close to Worf's adoptive human parents.
- When the energy source is detected on the planet's surface, and Data is asked to zoom in on that spot, a shot of the surface of Mars is used.

- A deleted scene reveals that Marla Aster was an exoarcheology teacher on Earth, but had signed on with the Enterprise to "see the galaxy with her own eyes."

- According to a TNG novel about Jeremy, Marla is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City.

Red deaths: 0
To date: 0

Gold deaths: 0

Blue deaths: 1
To date: 1
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0

Obnoxious Wes moments: 0

Legitimate Wes moments when he should have told someone to go fuck themselves: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Geordi moments: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Wes Moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Worf Moment: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Riker Moments: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Picard Moments: 0
To date: 3

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Data Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Crusher Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 0
To date: 2

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 0
To date: 7

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 7
To date: 9

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 0
To date: 0
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 0
To date: 0
Picard Maneuvers: 1
To date: 11

Kittens like parkour, or something. Good job, Harvey :P