Another one of my favorites. A neat idea that played out well. And an excellent Geordi episode.
It packs in a lot into the opening. The Enterprise is called on to render aid to a Romulan vessel in distress. The ship is completely crippled. Riker gets the away team ready which includes Geordi and Ro. He insists on going unarmed so that they show that they can't be mistaken for being hostile. Ro shows her usual insubordinate attitude by voicing that this seems like a bad idea causing Riker to bristle up as always. When they beam over, Ro and Geordi immediately start picking around through their engineering equipment while Riker tries to establish who's in charge and tell them that they're there to help. Geordi figures out pretty quick that a generator needs replaced so Riker sends him back with Ro and the generator. But the transport doesn't go well. The transporter officer can't keep a hold of their patterns so she terminates the transport. But they never return to the Romulan ship. They appear to have been killed.
Everyone is shocked, but the Romulan ship is still about to have a warp core breech. With the uncertainty of the transporters, they send a couple of more engineers over in a shuttle. But they can't fix it before it over heats and they manage to eject the core just in time. Meanwhile Ro wakes up in a corridor near sick bay bewildered. She tries to use the communications systems and can't and then she realizes that nobody can see her or hear her when she tries to engage them in conversation. The biggest shock comes when she walks towards Picard and Crusher discussing the death of two crew members. When she tries to get the captain's attention by standing in his way he walks right through her and then she stays to watch Beverly make out their death certificates.
The Enterprise starts to transfer energy to the Romulan ship. It's an idea they'd use again in a later episode. Data begins an investigation of the transporters and also volunteers to organize a memorial service for Geordi and Ro. Picard approves. Ro passes through the wall of Engineering to find Geordi. They realize they can see each other and he tells her that he ended up by the arboretum. They confirm that they can both pass through solid matter like walls but they're still "real" to each other. Okay, I see the plot hole too - what about the floors? Ah.. science fiction! When it's a good episode, I really don't care and I doubt anyone else does either. Anyway, these two characters see their situation from entirely different viewpoints. Geordi has been busy in Engineering trying to figure out what's been going on while Ro has accepted that they are dead and according to Bajoran traditions thinks that this time should be spent trying to make peace with their former lives. Geordi is rightfully skeptical and his point about the absurdity of being a blind ghost with clothes makes a lot of sense. They may have been trying to display the difference between scientific people and religious people (most likely Christian types), but if so it shows an ignorance of most religions to think that anyone who is spiritually inclined would be reacting like Ro with no curiosity or suspicion. However, I could just be reading more into this than what's there because I'm so used to Star Trek bashing religion. The way the script is written isn't accusatory of religious people at all. It actually seems to lean more towards a distinction between a thinker and a feeler. Geordi is a thinker and not willing to accept the idea that they've died just yet. He walks off to try and figure out what's really happened to them. He listens in on the conversation between Data and the transporter chief regarding strange chroniton fields produced by the transport and realizes that the answers may be over on the Romulan ship. Ro, meanwhile goes back to the bridge and into Picard's ready room to find Riker volunteering to say a few words about her at the memorial service. She then takes a sentimental moment to speak admiringly to Picard, telling him how he's influenced her. She's annoyed when Geordi catches up to her and tells her that he needs her to come with him to the Romulan ship to find the answers he's looking for, but goes along with him anyway.
They hitch a ride in a shuttle with Data and Worf. (Sitting? Floors? Even though I don't care, I can't help but notice...) They listen to Data trying to work out how to plan the memorial service. He talks about Earth customs and Bajoran customs. Ro cringes when he mentions the Bajoran death chant which is two hours long. It's a funny scene and a touching one as well as Data tries to indicate to Worf how he considers Geordi to be a friend and how he doesn't know how to say goodbye. Coming from a character with no emotions it kind of validates the emotions that people actually have with loss and the inability to say goodbye. Worf gives the Klingon perspective which is a more celebratory one since they died in service to their shipmates. I don't know if a transporter accident would be considered as glorious as dying in battle, but it still fits with the Klingon belief system that since their death was honorable, than it is nothing to grieve over. When they get to the Romulan ship Geordi sticks his head into the casing of one of the main devices in their engineering room and discovers that it's a phase inverter that transforms matter so that it can pass through other matter. He concludes that they were trying to combine cloaking and phasing technology. This is another plot device that would be revisited in a later episode. It also explains what has happened to Geordi and Ro - they aren't dead, they're just phased and cloaked. When Data moves away they hear this theory confirmed by two Romulan officers. But the Romulans are paranoid and fear that the Enterprise has already discovered their new technology and they plan to destroy the Enterprise by sending a feedback particle ray through the power transfer beam. Once the Enterprise goes to warp, their engines will explode. Geordi and Ro set out to get back and find out how to reverse their condition so they could warn the others. As they leave you see a Romulan sitting in a chair looking out of place and as if he could overhear everything that had been said. Then he gets up and walks through a console, alerting the audience to the face that he has been phased and cloaked as well and is now out to get Geordi and Ro.
By following Data around Geordi discovers that he and Ro have been leaving chroniton particle traces wherever they've been. He leads Data around by touching different places on the work console and Data follows with an anyon ray that clears away the particles. But he can't make Data understand that his movements mean that he's in the room with him. At one point while Data is using the anyons he sweeps over Geordi's hand which hurts him and then makes it a little harder for him to push his hand through the console. So now he knows what they have to do and he's uselessly explaining it when he see Data giving up on the project and putting the anyon ray down. Meanwhile, Ro returns to the bridge to see the phased Romulan holding a disruptor to her. Since his disruptor was phased along with him, it is assumed that it will work if he shoots her. He tries to get her to take him to Geordi but she knocks him down and shakes him off.
What follows is a cool chase scene as Ro and the Romulan run through the different private quarters of people on board. A woman looking at her mirror, a guy working out, and a couple having a romantic dinner. But as the Romulan shoots and misses the disruptor is causing very large readings of chroniton particles and Data begins to track down their source. In the room where the couple are having dinner, the Romulan catches up to Ro and shoots her in the leg. At that point Data turns up to ask the people if they've noticed anything unusual and Geordi sees Ro about to be killed. The whole episode is an amazing exercise in acting. Conversations are carried on as though Geordi and Ro aren't there while those characters are talking to each other or, in this case dispatching the Romulan right through the hull and out into space. It's both fun and exciting. Geordi tells Ro about the anyons and they can't think of anywhere they draw attention to a concentrated burst of chronitons but they're reminded as soon as Picard tells Riker that it's time for the memorial service.
When they get to Ten Forward they find a jazz party in full swing. Ro is confused but Geordi is pleased. It's such a uniquely "Data" thing to do. So they set about firing the Romulan disruptor around the room including at Commander Riker when Ro resentfully realizes that she'll never get to hear what he'd planned to say in memory of her. Picard is ready to take the ship out but Data is informed of elevated chronitons in Ten forward. He is uncomfortable going to warp until they are gone so he asks for a measure of anyons to decontaminate the area.
But it's not enough, so they set the disruptor to overload and explode. Data then calls for Ten Forward to be flooded with anyons. Geordi and Ro stand next to Picard and Data as the anyons shock them into temporary visibility where they cry out to be heard. Picard and Data do think they've seen them and elevate the level of anyons as high as it will go after Data puts the same pieces together that Geordi did earlier about them being phased and cloaked. They are painfully shocked out of their cloaked and phased state and then Geordi immediately gives the order not to go to warp. When the ensign that the order was directed at asks for confirmation that it was Geordi giving the order, Picard confirms it and Geordi explains about the particle beam that the Romulans had sent back through their power transfer. They remove the particles before they get underway. Everyone is glad to see them and Geordi insists that the party continue, thanking Data.
It ends with Geordi and Ro reflecting on everything that happened. Ro now appreciates her culture's religious beliefs where she'd always dismissed them before. Geordi thinks that this shows humility and suggests they make their own phased cloaking device which is another idea that the writers later ran with.
It's one of my favorites. The story is good. The plots of the Romulan deception and the phasing of Geordi and Ro blended well together. The science fiction is good, even with floors and seats. The acting and directing was brilliant. They use this episode as a source for other plots later. It's the beginning of the tolerance of a religious viewpoint in the form of Bajoran characters which was one of the central themes of DS9. I have to go five stars with this one as well.
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