A hauntingly familiar disease is unleashed aboard the Enterprise after it makes contact with the Tsiolkovsky, a now-dead research ship that had been investigating a nearby star’s collapse. Those afflicted act intoxicated and mentally unstable.
As Dr. Crusher races to find a cure, the disease’s symptoms ring a bell with Riker, who goes looking through decades of records with Data until they realize that the original Enterprise encountered much the same disease.
But the old cure doesn’t work, and before Dr. Crusher can discover why, her afflicted son helps disable computer control, putting the ship at the mercy of the nearby collapsing star. Eventually almost the entire crew ­ including the doctor, Picard, Yar, and Data ­ come down with the virus.
Finally Data and Chief Engineer MacDougal hold off illness long enough to subdue Wesley; the android then uses his speed and dexterity to restore the computer memory in a desperate race against time to get the ship functioning in time to avoid a head-on collision from a chunk of the former star.
After a working cure is finally discovered, the crew ruefully gets on with life.
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This episode sparked the first of many waves of early criticism from fans who felt that too many TNG plots were being lifted from original-series stories. In this case, however, that was exactly what Gene Roddenberry wanted: a story, like “The Naked Time” of 1966, in which the wants and needs of new characters could be quickly revealed to a waiting audience. Black, listed here as coauthor, wrote the original; J. Michael Bingham is Fontana’s pseudonym. “It was an homage, not a copy,” Berman said of the episode. “We even mentioned the old Enterprise and its remedy, which doesn’t help our crew in this new situation after all.”
This era’s story roots go back to the opening thirteen pages of an unfinished teleplay GR began called “Revelations.” The same opening points are included, except that Geordi makes a move on Tasha, who is the next to get the Tsiolkovsky virus even though she brushes him off. Fontana initially turned out a teleplay with a harder edge: Data turns down Tasha’s advances but becomes a “perfect little boy” so as to become human a la Pinocchio; Troi bemoans an empath’s lack of mental privacy among hundreds of humans; Riker fears a lonely captain’s career; and Picard worries over the families he has aboard this ship.
Brooke Bundy’s one-time appearance as Chief Engineer MacDougal began a season-long parade of characters in that position. In three more episodes MacDougal would be “replaced.” Rider began a three-show stint as the first regular yet unnamed transporter chief; the actor would reappear from time to time in other positions.
Beginning an Okuda tradition for most “new” ships, a dedication plaque on the bridge identifies the Tsiolkovsky as an Oberth-class vessel (actually a minor redress of the USS Grissom in Star Trek III), a descendant of today’s Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome, although little did anyone know then how dated the USSR reference on the plaque would be! A copy of the plaque was sent to the Kaluga Museum in the hometown of the starship’s namesake, Russian space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
As the Enterprise awaits Picard’s return from a special briefing, Data can’t resist investigating a three-hundred-year-old capsule that floats by. Three humans are found frozen inside the capsule. They are the only survivors of the fad of cryogenic preservation for the terminally ill.
But the last thing Picard needs is a sideshow of relics; his return brings news of disappearing outposts and the suspicion that at long last the Romulans are returning to activity along the Neutral Zone.
The revived humans have their own problems: a broker demands access to his money, a homemaker misses her kids, a bored country singer wants to party. Picard relies on Troi and Data to help solve their problems while he deals with another challenge: a cloaked Romulan ship, the UFP’s first contact with its old foes in fifty-three years. A tense exchange yields the information that outposts are disappearing on the Romulan side of the Neutral Zone as well. The two sides agree to exchange information in the future, but the Romulans leave no doubt they mean to be reckoned with again.
With tensions eased somewhat, the Enterprise heads back, arranging a long ferry ride to Earth so its three new passengers will have enough time to get used to their new home century.
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Hurley recalled putting this script together in a day and a half, a rushed and possibly unrefined casualty of the continuing Writers Guild strike. Originally, the rendezvous with the Romulans had been discussed as the first of a multi-part story that would have united the two governments against the newly discovered Borg, who were developed as a replacement for the disappointing Ferengi. The strike nixed that idea, though, and the Borg had to wait (“Q Who”). References to the pattern of their destruction, however, remained in the script. The subplot of the revived twentieth-century Americans ­ criticized by some as too reminiscent of the original Trek’s “Space Seed” ­ came from a fan story by Deborah McIntyre and Mona Glee.
Peter Mark Richman once starred in the series Cain’s Hundred and has racked up more than five hundred television guest roles, from The Twilight Zone and Perry Mason to Bonanza and Mission: Impossible and even to Three’s Company, where he played Suzanne Somers’s father. Leon Rippy appeared in both parts of North and South with Jonathan Frakes and in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple as the storekeeper with eventual TNG cast member Whoopi Goldberg.
In this episode Data makes history of another kind when he mentions the current Earth year as 2364 ­ yet another sign that after more than twenty years, the many loose ends of Trek’s background were being tied down once and for all. We also learn from Data here, ironically, that television had “died out” by 2040.
Finally, fans knew the Romulans’ boast ­ “We’re back!” ­ was no idle threat when their new vessel, eventually dubbed a Warbird, turned up here. Probert’s size-comparison sketch comparing it to the 1701-D is dated March 25, 1988, and the miniature, which Greg Jein built, was released a year later by AMT as a plastic kit, along with the Ferengi and Klingon Bird of Prey vessels. The ships boast the new Romulan crest: a stylized bird of prey clutching the twin homeworlds of Romulus and Remus, one in each claw.
All the models were enhanced by Legato’s first use of a moving camera on TNG for visual-effects sequences, allowing objects to move in relation to one another as the crews began getting away from the lock-off static shots needed in compositing the old stock-library elements.
On the eve of testing the Soliton Wave, a historic new drive system, Worf receives an unexpected visit from his foster mother, Helena Rozhenko, and his son, Alexander. To Worf’s surprise, Helena tells him that he must take custody of his son for the boy’s own good.
The lieutenant soon discovers what his mother is talking about: he finds Alexander has been lying and acting up in class. After Worf threatens to send him to a rigorous Klingon school, Troi points out Alexander may be feeling neglected after his mother’s death and his father’s virtual abandonment of him.
When the Soliton Wave experiment goes awry and reaches power levels that could wipe out a colony in its path, the Enterprise must start a “backfire” effect, using its photon torpedoes. As they prepare to break up the wave, Alexander is visiting his favorite animals, unaware that the biolab is unprotected by shields. He is trapped there when the wave is penetrated; a fire breaks out in the lab, forcing Worf and Riker to rescue him.
Worf then realizes how much he would miss his son if he were sent away; Alexander agrees to remain aboard the Enterprise.
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For the only time this season, the writing credits carried no staff names; still Michael Piller credited Ronald D. Moore with lending “a big hand” in the polishing of Grant Rosenberg’s teleplay, taken from a story by TNG veterans Sarah and Stuart Charno, who wrote “The Wounded”.
After child actor Jon Steurer originated the role of Alexander in last season’s “Reunion”, the slightly older Brian Bonsall ­ who’ll best be remembered as Andy, the youngest Keaton in the later seasons of Family Ties ­ was brought in; he had the series track record desired for what was now to be a recurring role. Alexander’s age became a topic of some discussion and not a little confusion when he first appeared in “Reunion” so soon after his apparent conception in “The Emissary”, but some clues are provided here. His birthday, the twenty-third day of Maktag, is a nice bit of trivia, but his stardate birth, 43205, falls during the time of season three’s “Booby Trap”, only 304 stardate units after K’Ehleyr’s first Enterprise visit and 1,041 units before the boy turns up with his mother later ­ although 1,000 units are generally considered to be a year. Of course K’Ehleyr’s half-human makeup may have altered Alexander’s maturation process from the Klingon norm.
A nice bit of continuity was provided by the Klingon legend of the fighting brothers Kahless and Morath, whose statue Worf refers to in his quarters. Kahless the Unforgettable was one of the evil images in an original-Trek episode, “The Savage Curtain,” in 1969. The statue was a stock piece, but the figures “grew” Klingon ridges thanks to Michael Westmore’s deft touch.
The experimental Soliton Wave glider is a re-dress of the Mars defense ships that were easily picked off by the Borg in “The Best of Both Worlds,” Part 2.
~1:[3,#b],4:[2,#i]@1“The Next Phase”@2Next Generation episode #124
Production No.: 224
Aired: Week of May 18, 1992
Stardate: 45092.4
Directed by David Carson
Written by Ronald D. Moore
GUEST CAST
Ensign Ro Laren: Michelle Forbes
Mirok: Thomas Kopache
Varel: Susanna Thompson
Transporter Chief Brossmer: Shelby Leverington
Parem: Brian Cousins
Ensign McDowell: Kenneth Messerole
Picard offers aid to a wrecked Romulan science ship, but the rescue mission ends in tragedy when Ro and La Forge apparently die in a transporter accident.
The two rematerialize on board the Enterprise but somehow remain unseen. Ro thinks she is dead when she discovers that she can pass through walls and that others can walk through her.
She locates La Forge, who wants to find a reason other than death for their state, and they learn their presence causes chroniton particles, a harmless by-product of cloaking devices. They soon deduce the truth: thanks to an ill-fated test by the Romulans, they are cloaked!
As the Enterprise delivers an energy beam to the Romulan vessel to help it power up, Data attempts to clear the ship of a series of puzzling chroniton fields using an anyon beam. The android is puzzled, however, when new fields keep popping up all over the ship. Ro and La Forge are trying to get Data’s attention by leaving lots of “tracks” so they can warn him of the Romulans’ plan to cause a residual feedback in the energy beam and blow up the starship once it goes into warp. Their task is made considerably more difficult, though, when they encounter a Romulan who is also cloaked. Finally La Forge and Ro discover a way to leave enough chronitons to force Data into using a maximum-level spray of anyon, causing them to reappear ­ right in the middle of their own memorial service, and in the nick of time to save the ship.
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This was supposed to be a money-saving bottle show, but like “Power Play”, it turned into one of the year’s most expensive ­ with characters actually running through the walls! Actually, the walk-through effect of the cloaked characters was straightforward but time-consuming, Rob Legato reported. The actors and set pieces were filmed in second-unit shooting before a blue screen backdrop and then carefully animated into the live action.
Lots of background bits adorn this story, including the fact that Picard first met Geordi during an unspecified inspection tour and that Geordi has known Riker longer than anyone aboard. We also learn about the two-hour Bajoran death chant, and we are given their word for spirits and souls, borhyas. At the same time it is revealed that Worf’s people view an honorable death as joyful. Riker also gets another chance to play his trombone, and Picard delivers a rare reference blooper in the script, saying Ro’s troublesome incident occurred at Garon IV instead of Garon II, as in “Ensign Ro” and “Conundrum”.
The Goddard is the shuttle’s name here, for American rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard, while the Romulan science vessel miniature is a re-dress of Jarok’s scout ship from “The Defector”. The Romulan ship ejects its off-line reactor core through the top instead of the bottom, as the Galaxy-class starship does. And for the truly trivial: for the first time since “The Defector” two Romulan terms of measurement are given: melakols, a unit of pressure, and kolems, a unit of engine flow or frequency. And though no captain’s log is heard establishing a stardate, the one listed on Ro’s death certificate is 45092.4.
The Enterprise finds the starship Brattain, missing for several weeks, adrift in space. The entire crew save the ship’s Betazoid counselor, is dead.
While the crew is investigating the incident, odd events begin to occur. Troi is tormented by nightmares, and La Forge can’t restart the Brattain’s engines. Dr. Crusher suggests that the irritability among the crew might indicate a repetition of whatever happened to the now-dead science vessel. Picard decides to leave the area only to discover the Enterprise’s engines don’t work either.
Data, unaffected, theorizes the ships are caught in a Tyken’s Rift, a spatial rupture that is draining their energy. La Forge fails in an attempt to dislodge them. Dr. Crusher finds that the crew’s depression and shakiness stem from dream deprivation, and Troi realizes that her colleague’s nightmares mirror her own; she wonders if they could be an attempt at communication.
While brainstorming with Data, Troi guesses that her nightmare images come from a ship trapped on the other side of the rift. The other ship is asking for their aid in freeing both vessels with a release of hydrogen; the Brattain crew died before they could figure it out.
Troi tries to reach the other ship in a dream while Data vents all the ship’s stored hydrogen. Just as their attempts seem to have failed, there is a giant explosion and the ship is thrown free.
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Though it’s regarded as the clinker of the fourth season by many fans and by those involved, this script ­ from a story by Shari Goodhartz, who penned “The Most Toys” during season three ­ does let Troi save the ship for once. The story suffered from time problems, among other things. Michael Piller recalled that the energy and pace were so slow that the episode ran nine minutes over and had to be severely cut.
After “flying” in a suspended harness during the filming of this episode, Marina Sirtis joked that her plea for more action scenes for Troi had backfired ­ she is deathly afraid of heights. The scenes shot throughout an entire day of second-unit production, “seemed like a great idea in the meetings,” but were a “terrible” production mistake, Jeri Taylor said. Rob Legato was more blunt: “horrible!”
Longtime Trek fans should recall Brian Tochi as young Ray Tsingtao in the original-series episode “And the Children Shall Lead.” More recently he was the voice of Leonardo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies and has appeared in everything from Santa Barbara to the last two Police Academy movies.
Michael Okuda’s plaque for the Brattain ­ inexplicably labeled “Brittain” on the re-dressed Reliant miniature from Star Trek II ­ identifies the ship as NCC-21166 of the Miranda class, built at the Yoyodyne Division (another Buckaroo Banzai reference) over 40 Eridani-A (Vulcan’s sun, according to Franz Joseph’s 1974 Starfleet Technical Manual).
More in-jokes: TNG staffers’ names can be seen in the explosives manifest that Data and Troi examine. Entries include Mooride Polyronite 4 (Ron Moore, visual-effects coordinator), Takemurium Lite (David Takemura, visual-effects associate), Neussite 283 (Wendy Neuss, associate producer), Bio-Genovesium (Cosmo Genovese, script supervisor), and Hutzelite (Gary Hutzel, visual-effects coordinator).
Sent to repair the malfunctioning Argus Array telescope, the Enterprise discovers an alien probe near the installation. An energy surge from the probe knocks out La Forge and Lieutenant Barclay, who have been sent to study it from a shuttle.
When they come to, both officers seem to be fine, but Barclay soon begins making leaps of insight and showing abilities he never had before. He describes how to destroy the probe when it grows dangerous and then how to fix the telescope in a fraction of the time he would normally need.
A scan of the lieutenant’s brain tissue reveals an underlying physiological reason for his new abilities: he is rapidly evolving into the most advanced human ever seen. The crew is edgy about his new powers, but Barclay seems innocent enough.
Then the telescope’s reactors begin to fail rapidly, and even Barclay is stymied. Just as the installation is about to explode, the computer blinks out and then comes back on line ­ speaking with Barclay’s voice.
The transformed crewman saves the installation and then propels the ship to a point thirty thousand light years away. Picard now fears Barclay’s intentions but is reluctant to sever the lieutenant’s link to the computer, fearing it might kill him.
Suddenly the image of a smiling alien appears. His race, the Cytherians, studies other civilizations by transforming them using the probe, and then bringing them to their home system. Barclay is restored to normal as Picard agrees to be scanned in exchange for information about the Cytherians.
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Looking for a vehicle to bring back popular guest star Dwight Schultz and his milquetoast character, the staff decided on Joe Menosky’s idea of an episode focusing on superintelligence. Rob Legato made good use of his effects background here in his second outing as a director, using live lasers to “connect” Barclay to the ship’s computer on the bare holodeck.
Legato recalled how the pages for the final scene arrived the day of shooting on this ever-changing script, making the alien a floating head whose purpose was much more benevolent than in earlier drafts ­ an attempt to get away from the standard hostage plot. He was proud of a camera shot on the bridge in which he rejected a series of close-ups in favor of a long continuous roll from one speaker to another.
This segment demonstrates how Gates McFadden’s pleas to round out Beverly’s character with “comedy and hobbies” were finally being met. We see her interest in the theater here on top of past glimpses of dance, in “Data’s Day”, and biology in “Clues”. Michael Piller credited Rick Berman with suggesting the Cyrano de Bergerac scene between Barclay and his teacher, the “drama doctor.”
Geordi and Barclay’s shuttlecraft here is the Feynman, named for 1965 Nobel laureate physicist Richard P. Feynman. The “ODN bypass” mentioned concerns the optical data network, the starship’s multiplex data transmission system. And the graviton concept, used by the Cyterians to bring their subjects home for study, was first used by the two-dimensional creatures in “The Loss”.
