This episode isn't as so-so as the last one. There's actually some decent science fiction going on here. It's a likeable enough episode. Just a little on the slow side perhaps.
One of the factors that made the first and second season episodes so slow was the way they tried to telegraph what would be happening in each show at the beginning. We have the captain asking Troi if the new doctor is basically obsessive. It's appropriate to use the ship's counselor in this advisory capacity, but it's also a little too obvious now what will happen in the episode. Not like the last one where Data growing a beard was also a teaser, but a very vague one that could easily be dismissed as character development. It slows things down because now that I know that Pulaski is going to be obsessive about whatever is going on, I just want to skip to that instead of going through the motions in between.
I'm not complaining entirely though. I liked what they were going for with the dynamic between Picard and Pulaski. Instead of pursuing that Spock-Bones relationship between her and Data, they decide to take her abrasive personality and set it against Picard who is better equipped to handle it. Had she stayed on, I think it would've made a fine pairing. Not a romantic pairing like with Beverly Crusher, but a partnership of sorts. The further development in the early parts of the show indicate that Pulaski and Picard are a little too much alike which is why they have an underlying friction. It's good psychology and later on when the writing improved it could've added an interesting flavor to Picard to have had a main character that he would continually be butting heads with, but in a productive way.
Anyway, to the story. The Enterprise has to take a vessel called the Lantree into tow because all of their crew died from old age and the only clue they have to go on is that they stopped at Darwin Research Station (Darwin! [un]Natural Selection! Hardy har har! These word-plays with they way they named everyone and everything were becoming tiresome too... because they weren't clever... it's like teenagers who just discovered the connections were writing some of this stuff. I try not to point it out to much because I figured they were trying to teach kids with the writing, but sometimes it's just too silly. Although this isn't as bad as the Medusans... that takes the cake.) At the Darwin station they're all aging uncontrollably too. So they beg the Enterprise to take their children who are living in a sealed off room for fear that they would become infected too.
They assure the Enterprise that they can't be infected because they've been genetically engineered to be physically and mentally superior. Kind of a benign redo of whatever was supposed to be going on in the late 20th century with Khan and his group of super humans. It's like the way people try to rationalize socialism - it hasn't worked because the right people haven't tried it yet. And it would seem to be the same with eugenics in this episode. The wrong people tried it before so they made super monsters, but these good people at Darwin have made super kids that are perfect as well as telekinetic and telepathic. But it fails again, just like socialism. Sorry for the digression. It has nothing to do with the episode, that's just where my mind goes when I watch this episode.
The Enterprise is rightfully cautious and doesn't want to take on people from a quarantined area without examining them. A thorough examination can't be done while the boy is in stasis, so the obsessive, stubborn doctor takes him onto a shuttle craft with Data since he can't be affected. And here's where the science fiction gets good. It's the children that are causing the strange aging disease because their immune systems starts actively and outwardly attacking any inferior being in order to protect their bodies from the usual ravages of age and disease. I liked it. Again, not a big surprise, but not undigestable. Of course it's not without the usual first and second season melodrama... big, stupid Worf insisting that it's a trick because the 12-year-old boy looks more like 20 due to the genetic enhancements... (Grrr! Worf smash! ugh..,)... Pulaski assuming that Picard won't approve what turns out to be the most logical thing to do...the progression of the disease on Pulaski moves a little too fast compared with the Darwin people. But it's a mostly satisfying plot.
Pulaski quarantines herself to Darwin station where the scientists are shocked that the kids are the cause of the problems. And that's when they make use of Pulaski's transporter fear which was a direct copy of McCoy's transporter fear that I still don't approve of.
Of course, transporter science fiction is about as solid as Holodeck-coming-to-life science fiction, but it's acceptable in the same way too. I thought it was a great idea to find an old trace from when she didn't have the disease to filter her back to normal. It's a concept they'd use again. And everything works out great although without resolving the problem of the kids being genetic monsters. O'Brian is the hero and I think this really solidified his presence as a reoccurring character.
So, another good but still so-so episode. I can do three stars on this. I do like Diane Maulder. She makes a good character and I always thought they should've brought her back from time to time after she leaves at the end of this season.
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