1:[1,#b],2:[2,#i]@1“Interface”@2Next Generation episode #155
Production No.: 255
Aired: Week of October 4, 1993
Stardate: 47215.5

Directed by Robert Wiemer
Written by Joe Menosky

GUEST CAST
Captain Silva La Forge image: Madge Sinclair
Admiral Marcus Holt: Warren Munson
Commander Edward M. La Forge, Ph.D.: Ben Vereen

After successfully testing a new interface that transforms remote sensor data into hands-on “reality” via his own VISOR inputs, La Forge is ready to take on the retrieval of the lost U.S.S. Raman trapped low in the atmosphere of gas giant Marijne VII.
  But the mission is threatened when Picard breaks the news that the Starship Hera has been lost with all its crew ­ including its captain, La Forge’s mother, Silva.
 The engineer opts to press on with his Raman mission, noting that the device is designed to work with his unique anatomy. Just as he finds the crew of seven all dead, a fire flash leaves him with severe hand burns ­ even though the flash was merely relayed from the remote probe’s inputs.
  After Dr. Crusher adjusts the interface to prevent a reoccurrence, La Forge tells his father via subspace that he refuses to believe his mother is dead. Even so, he’s startled to “find” her on the Raman during the probe’s next run. “She” asks him to take the ship lower in the atmosphere, where her vessel is supposedly trapped.
  Despite suffering neural shock in the exchange, La Forge, with Data’s help, risks one more contact ­ countering Picard’s direct order and the beliefs of his friends, who feel he’s in hallucinatory grief. This time, he learns that his “mother” is really one of many fire-based life-forms who were trapped on the ship and will die if not returned to their home lower in the atmosphere ­ and he does so. Initially angry, Picard later relents and shares his sympathy.
              ____________________

Though it became the first installment of what writer-producer Ron Moore dubbed TNG’s “Year of Lost Souls,” Geordi’s background finally comes to life in onetime staffer Joe Menosky’s fifth-season pitch, whose heavy special effects portray a sometimes confusing point of view. “Using Geordi in place of the camera/probe was a difficult convention to establish,” said director Wiemer, who noted it would have been “emotionally unrewarding” to show the reality of filming the remote probe with “Silva” while cutting back to Geordi in the lab for reactions.
  The high-profile guest stars include Sinclair (the Saratoga’s unnamed captain in ST IV) flying in from Jamaica and Vereen, whom Le Var Burton helped attract to the show, buying out a day of his Broadway show.
  Originally Menosky had Riker in the virtual-reality suit, troubled by the death of his father and glimpsing scenes of their Alaska cabin, but Geordi was made the focal character because of Riker’s mind trip late last season (“Frame of Mind”) because of the logic of the VISOR implants. René Echevarria did a late polish, while Riker’s consolation of Geordi was a rare scene added for time and penned by Taylor, not filmed until three shows later. For his part, though, staff writer Naren Shankar wondered if the story’s concept wasn’t futuristic enough, and science adviser Andre Bormanis agreed: “There are prototypes of that kind of thing already, although tying it straight to the brain will take much longer.”
  Menosky coined the names of Geordi’s sister Ariana and his mother Silva, although the name “Alvera K.” was on a bio screen briefly glimpsed in “Conundrum” (214); Taylor thought “Silva” was more “interesting” and didn’t consider the other visible enough to change it. His father, addressed as “doctor,” is not named here, though the earlier screen called him “Edward M.” and the script gives his rank as commander. Both parents had already been referred to as an exozoologist and a command officer (“Imaginary Friend”).
  The suit itself, designed by costumer Bob Blackman, carried “a prop man’s nightmare,” Alan Sims recalled: “blinky” sensors that each ran off its own watch battery and switch, requiring ten minutes in all to turn on or off between takes. “If I have any legacy it’s the teasing from the actors ­ ‘Oh God, let’s save Alan’s batteries,’ “ he laughed. “But it’s not the cost of the batteries ­ it’s what happens when they run down and you have that delay to open ’em up and put in new ones.”
  Background fans: The Raman, named for a Nobel Prize-winning Indian physicist, has a gaseous rather than forcefield fire-suppression system (“Up the Long Ladder”) and carries Starfleet registry number NCC-29487 but has a crew dressed in “civvies”; Riker missed his mother and acted out when he started school; roller coasters are still known in the twenty-fourth century; Deep Space Three, in contrast to DS9, is headed by an admiral and is apparently near the Breen (“The Loss”, “Hero Worship”, Generations) and Ferengi; and the Hera had a mostly Vulcan crew, a century-old Starfleet practice (1967’s “The Immunity Syndrome”). Also seen again is the oft-used biolab lift (“The Offspring”, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2”, Generations) dubbed by set decorator Jim Mees as the “Rocky Horror elevator” after the cult classic.
  Visually, Wiemer and FX supervisor Ron B. Moore were disappointed that the elaborate probe miniature by veteran modelmaker Brick Price was only seen once; producer Peter Lauritson regretted not getting to depict the trapped Raman. The hardest FX shot, Silva’s transformation to flame, used torso-shaped shells of flash paper that live FX man Dick Brownfield had formed and dried around a mannequin; two were butted together so the flames would go the same direction. Geordi’s walk-in wall of fire used the same effect as the Bersallis III firestorms (“Lessons”), although many of the flames were shot live ­ but not too close.