Aah! Another kid episode with another sci-fi subplot involving a wave. This one is a little better than the last one. The psychology is pretty spot on, and I always like that.
So, Starfleet has lost contact with a ship that was exploring a black cluster which is a dangerous area of space that absorbs energy and makes trouble for the systems on a star ship. When they find the vessel it is blown apart and adrift, but Riker, Data, and Worf beam over and find a child that's still alive in the wreckage, both of his parents dead.
There's no eminent danger of the ship exploding or anything however, the boy is trapped under a beam made from a metal that interferes with transporters, which I thought was a neat little twist. So Data lifts the beam away as if it was only cardboard which blows the kid's mind. His name is Timothy. They get him back onto the Enterprise and he says that the ship was attacked and boarded. He also latches onto Data as someone to trust after having suffered the loss of his parents and the life he's known thus far. This episode makes more sense than the episode The Bonding since there's no doubt that his parents are dead and he's not being pursued by an alien pretending to be his mother. So the horrors he's suffering are more realistic when related to the phenomenon that is discovered later on.
It's also a Data episode since he continues to talk to Geordi about traumatic experiences in effort to understand human behavior which is another reason this episode isn't so bad for a kid episode. While the child is reacting to his situation, Data is learning. Their research would seem to confirm that the ship was hit with disruptor style weapons, but that it wasn't boarded and Troi suggests that Data spend time with Timothy in order to draw out what really happened. Timothy is seen to be suppressing his grief. I can personally attest to the authenticity of this reaction. When Data goes to see him he offers only an honest critique of the model he's building which upsets Timothy at first because Data can spot all minor flaws. But he regains his admiration by helping him to build the top portion of it at a super speed which the boy really enjoys. He is curious about the fact that he's an android and very interested in the appealing notion of having no feelings.
He decides to emulate Data and become an android as well, mimicking his mannerisms and speech. I'm sure I'm not the only one who decided to seriously pretend to be someone or something I was not as a child. I can really relate to this kid and I think a lot of other adults that were watching the show as well. Troi understands that it's just a phase and encourages this behavior under Data's guidance in order to get him to open up. The scenes where Data helps Timothy to be an android are actually kind of cool and not as corny as you'd think they'd be. Data styles Timothy's hair to look like his own and they spend time together engaging in Data's hobbies, like painting. The boy does start to admit to things like having nightmares, but the process is slow. Troi suggests that Data talk to Timothy about his desire to become more human and over dessert he explains that he can't actually taste food, nor does he actually need it. That, of course, isn't as much fun to behold as super strength and no feelings and you can see Timothy starting to turn from this fantasy slightly.
Meanwhile the Enterprise enters the black cluster and starts to get knocked around by gravitational fronts and they see a ship that appears to be a reflection of themselves. After experimenting with some phaser fire that just gets sucked in and refracted, they realize that disruptor weapons wouldn't work either as well as cloaking devises. So, it's time to corner Timothy on what really happened. Still wanting to be like Data he takes it to heart when Data tells him that androids can't lie. He confesses to destroying the ship himself. He thinks he did it because the ship was impacted and he fell onto a computer panel just before it was destroyed. They assure him that this is impossible because of safety precautions. He's now throroughly confused and then they're all left to wonder what really happened. Suddenly the Enterpise shakes and Timothy tells them that this is how it started on his ship.
They rush to the bridge and Timothy stays with Data. The engines are damaged by the cluster so they can't turn around and warp out. They keep increasing shield strength and the waves continue to hit them harder and harder with the damage mounting. Timothy remembers that they kept calling for more shields on his ship as well. Data hops up and takes the boy with him to a work station behind Worf to make his own inquiries.
Picard orders warp power to be diverted to the shields in order to make them hold, another order that Timothy remembers hearing on his own ship. Data works his calculations and finally turns to the captain as the next lethal wave is getting ready to impact and recommends that the shields be dropped at once. There is no time to explain and although Riker is a little freaked out by the idea, Picard trusts Data's judgement. They drop the shields and the wave dissipates around them. He then explains that the shields were reflecting the wave and making it impact harder with the more power sent to them. He concluded that diverting the warp power would've made the wave impact so hard that the ship would be torn apart and the mystery of Timothy's ship is solved.
In the end, Timothy is back in school. He's stopped pretending to be an android and started to move on with the grieving process and even feels like his imitation of Data must have seemed silly. Again, we've all been there. But Data can't be condescending about something like that as adults tend to be even if they don't do it intentionally, and he tells him that he took it as a compliment and leaves him with the promise to hang out again sometime.
Yes, this is a kid episode that I like because it's also a Data episode and Data's observations of human behavior is a unique perspective that always draws the audience in. It was well directed (by Patrick Stewart) and like I said, it could've been corny if it had been slightly off in any direction, but it ended up being very real and touching. Both this wave and the warp wave from the last episode are nice little
creative conflicts that pose a threat without trying to dole out some
kind of social or political lesson so that the story could focus on the
personal stories taking place. In the early years the conflicts
themselves were so complicated that it seemed childish to be focusing on
personal drama (which was overly melodramatic at the time,) but keeping
it simple is a better format for character development stories. I have to give this one four stars.
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