Note: This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.
The episode begins with Dr. Crusher packing. Guinan comes in, asking for
some medical assistance. (For those that don’t watch regularly, Guinan
runs a lounge called Ten Forward.) Unfortunately, Dr. Crusher has been
relieved of duty and is on her way to a starbase for a hearing.
The first two thirds of the episode is spent in retrospect as Dr.
Crusher tells Guinan what happened. The story begins with Dr. Reyga, a
Ferengi scientist, wanting to test something called metaphasic
shielding. It’s supposed to let a ship fly into a corona of a star.
Others have tried and failed, but Dr. Reyga believes that he’s done it.
Dr. Crusher invites several others, all experts in the field, to meet
Dr. Reyga and to witness a test. One of the other scientists volunteers
to fly the shuttle.
All goes well until the scientist appears
to collapse. Fortunately, the shuttle is able to make it out, but the
scientist is dead. A study of the body reveals that there wasn’t
possibly enough radiation to kill someone, but she’s never actually met
the pilot’s race before. After studying the ship, no one can figure out
what went wrong. Dr. Reyga is insistent that the shielding must have
worked. He’s can’t understand what could have happened.
Then,
Dr. Reyga turns up dead. Dr. Crusher doesn’t think that it’s suicide.
After asking around, she can’t figure out who did it. She wants to do an
autopsy, but the family won’t allow it. Seeing no alternative, Crusher
performs the autopsy anyway and finds nothing; that’s what gets her
dismissed.
Guinan pushes Dr. Crusher to go a little further.
Dr. Crusher eventually figures out that there is sabotage involved and
that the shielding does work. To prove it, she takes the shuttle into
the sun and succeeds. That’s when the real killer is revealed. There’s
no real point in spoiling it for you. You’ll have to watch it to see who
it is.
I have only one major question: What is it about Dr.
Crusher’s personality that wouldn’t let her let Worf handle the
investigation? I realize that Dr. Reyga was her friend, but medical
doctors don’t normally go around asking questions about a murder. Also,
Dr. Crusher shouldn’t have been performing an autopsy on a friend. Even
if the family did allow it, she should have gotten someone more detached
from the situation to do it. The fact that she couldn’t ask anyone
should have told her not to do it.
I also tend not to like
episodes or movies that are told in retrospect. I don’t think that it’s
necessary in most cases and uses the storytelling scenes as filler. In
many cases, it also tends to ruin the story. You spend the entire time
wondering how a character got where they are and if the next mistake is
the one that derailed them. Since there is more of a story after
Guinan’s visit to Dr. Crusher, nothing is spoiled. It also is important
to the storyline. Dr. Crusher needs to tell the story to someone so that
they can give her the necessary push to get things going. Granted, Dr.
Crusher could have gotten a visit from Guinan in the middle of the
episode, but why have her in just one scene? It would have robbed the
viewer of Whoopi Goldberg’s performance as Guinan.
Overall, I give this episode three stars. It’s a good story, even if it’s not a great one.
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