One of my favorite episodes. One of the best Geordi epidsodes. It has a nice, old-fashioned science fiction vibe to it.
There's lots to get in on this episode so there's not a lot of dilly dallying around. It starts out with the senior staff in the observation lounge being briefed by a Commander Susanna Leijten over a mission from five years prior. She'd been commanding an away team that was investigating the disappearance of a group of colonists on Tarchannen III. It was a small away team which Geordi La Forge had been a part of and she's running the video record of it. There's Geordi in his red uniform (props for continuity!) They cut to the problem quickly - one by one, all of the members of that small away team were beginning to disappear as well. They've actually tracked down one of them who had stolen a shuttle and was heading back to the planet. At this point Susanna and Geordi are the only ones left that haven't disappeared. The progression is believable. If one person from the group had disappeared it would be tragic. If two, it would certainly be disturbing. But once the third person takes off, a pattern is established and people start to think it may be a problem. There's no tease on poor Geordi's romantic sensibilities in this episode. Susanna always was and always will be just a friend. They take a minute to catch up and wonder what all this disappearance thing is about and if it was related to the disappearance of the colonist they'd investigated five years ago.
Unfortunately the man that stole the shuttle doesn't survive. He enters the atmosphere too quickly and burns up but they do detect two other shuttles on the surface and head down to investigate. It moves into the beginnings of a thriller... they don't find anyone, they only find footprints. And a discarded uniform. Worf feels like they're being watched. Susanna disappears for a moment and when Geordi finds her she's getting strange extra sensory perceptions as well; sensing the presence of other people. But then she collapses screaming in pain and panic so they beam out fast.
She appears fine but she feels compelled to go back to the planet. She's ordered to stay on board and while they're investigating cellular matter from the planet that doesn't seem to belong to any native being of the planet, Susanna and Geordi look over the record again to see if there's a commonality that made members of the away team want to go back to the planet to be abducted. It's an absurd notion that someone would want to be abducted but her desire to return to the planet makes her think that whatever made the others disappear is happening to her too. Then it starts to make sense. Susanna begins to convulse and collapses again. This time she appears to grow strange veins on her neck and her fingers are fused together.
Crusher discovers the mysterious cellular matter on her and it's revealed that the away team have been one by one transforming into members of another species. It's alarming enough and then Susanna's body starts to undergo radical transformation with her body temperature dropping and her skin becoming more visible under a UV light. Of course they want to confine Geordi for his own safety but he begs to be left free to try to find out more about what's causing all of this. He goes back to engineering promising to return if he starts to feel any symptoms and he watches the video record repeatedly, analyzing as he goes. I always like to see Geordi scenes where he's talking to the computer. Nobody could pull that off quite like Burton. Even in Remember Me when Crusher working out her situation by talking to the computer it doesn't come off as smoothly as when Geordi is doing it. It's so easy to believe that he actually does this for a living. He's really one of the more underrated characters.
He sees a shadow that he can't place in the video and decides to recreate it on the holodeck, which as you know from yesterday's post is one of my top favorite uses of the holodeck. As he's headed in he begins to get the shakes and instead of reporting to sick bay he ignores it because he feels very close to solving the mystery. Of course, one can predict what will happen but it doesn't stop the intensity of the scene Geordi reconstructs the video in true dimensions. He has the people in it moving backwards and forwards in real time and in slow motion. (Another reason why this holodeck moment is so cool.) He eliminates everyone except the person with the light source and discovers the unknown shadow and in truly creepy moment has the computer guess as to the height and shape of what it could be in three dimensions. Then his fingers begin to fuse together. All of this with the disappearing crewmen that are being turned into aliens and time running out for the main character is what gives this episode a classic sci-fi feel... as though it was something from a short story or movie from the 1950's. With the updated holodeck technology and a modern atmosphere that's adequately creepy but not overdone makes this a great episode to me.
While all of this is going on, Crusher discovers what looks like a
parasite on Susanna and removes it just in time before she loses her
humanity all together. They then start looking for Geordi but it's too
late; he's already left the Enterprise. They go to the holodeck to find what he was looking at along with his communicator and torn uniform.
When Susanna comes around she explains that the experience was this species way of reproducing. The parasite is implanted to cause a complete metamorphosis. She insists on going down to help search for Geordi because she knows she'll still be able to sense him down there. He's already invisible when they arrive and some may complain that this is a goof since it took the whole episode for Susanna to transform slowly, but I don't see it that way. After all it's an unknown phenomenon and could effect some more quickly than others and Susanna had constant attention and attempts to reverse the process. I think the only way to really nit pick it would be to say that it would take her a little longer to return to a normal than it would seem to in this episode, but of course, time is a factor in an hour long show. Data rigs up a UV light for them to search by and they find him beginning to run away with a group of others. Susanna speaks to him and reaches out to him.
Her voice calms him and he returns to her. This episode won awards for makeup and it's easy to see why. I thought this was one of the most creative alien suits ever designed. It was a 6 hour job and Burton had to have a nurse standing by for removal for his bathroom breaks.
The creative writing is commendable too. The story of this alien race is being told all the way to the end with only little bits revealed at a time. This race wasn't intelligent but bestial, acting only on instinct. So there was no malice, but it was far too late to retrieve the other two since the metamorphosis was complete. They were all in the wrong place at the wrong time and it solves the mystery of the colonists as well, making it a bitter sweet ending. I just loved it. Four and half. I don't give away that extra half for a total five star rating very easily, but apart from this being a one off episode, there's nothing wrong with it at all. It has a good flow and progression. It's nearly perfect and has a classic feel and I see no reason just to give it four stars alone.
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