Star Trek TNG Suspicions

Another good episode. A Beverly episode... they're usually really good anyway. But it's also a pretty good little mystery as well. I've said before that mystery writing was a weak point for the writers, but this one exceeded their usual standards.

  

It opens with Beverly in her quarters. She's pacing frantically and finally begins to start packing a suitcase. Guinan, in her last appearance on the series, comes to her complaining of tennis elbow. The teaser scene ends with Crusher delivering the bombshell that she's no longer the chief medical officer on the ship and that Guinan will have to go see Dr. Selar. She continues with a few cryptic hints about a formal inquiry and a court martial and her career being over in just under a week. Guinan, using her own brand of psychology, continues to insist that Crusher look at her elbow anyway. However, she has to do more than hint before Beverly begins to tell her why she's packing to leave. She talks about being at a conference and meeting a Ferengi scientist, Dr. Reyga, that she believed had succeeded in creating a shield that would enable crafts to enter the coronas of stars. But Ferengi scientists aren't really respected, so nobody would take him seriously. Then she talks of the plan she hatched to bring his ideas to light and the scene fades into a flashback. Most of the episode is in flashback creating just the right mood for a mystery. She pulled a lot of strings and got approval from Picard to invite as many scientists in the field as possible to witness a demonstration of the metaphasic shield. Only a few came though. A Klingon scientist named Kurak. Klingon scientists aren't respected very much either so she's very defensive and cranky. A Vulcan named T'Pan and her husband Dr. Christopher were also there and a Takaran scientist named Jo'Bril. In her narration over their first meeting she admits that she knew nothing about Takarans and that she didn't know what to expect from him. Reyga gives his presentation and offers exclusive rights to whoever decides to back him and help him. He's not a typical Ferengi as they'd been portrayed on TNG up to this point. He's docile and sincerely committed to his research. Now that DS9 was well under way, they were starting to develop the Ferengi a little more deeply and this less aggressive type of Ferengi would be  represented in Rom and Nog on that show. At any rate it was good to see something different out of a Ferengi for a change in this show. Kurak, T'Pan, and Christopher all voice a tremendous amount of skepticism over his invention. They even regard him as a little touched for choosing to demonstrate it in a star with a powerful and unstable corona such as Veytan. It turns out the Jo'Bril is the only one who seems to think that Reyga's work is on the level. He also volunteers immediately to fly the shuttle into the star since they all agree that they'll need an impartial critic. Beverly is alarmed but pleased at how fast it's all moving. Reyga is thrilled. He has no interest in competition but just wants to gain the respect of his peers. They make sure Jo'Bril knows how to work the shuttle and the shielding device and send him out to Veytan. It's all going very well at first. T'Pan and Christopher are reluctantly impressed while Kurak is sour as Reyga confidently smiles watching the shuttle move into the star. Jo'Bril keeps a running commentary of how deep he is and how remarkable the view is.

Jo'Bril notes a build up of baryon particles which Reyga says is normal, but then he begins to become short of breath. It appears that the radiation has found it's way through the shield and is rapidly killing him. Picard urges him to fly out of the star's corona because they can't beam him out while he's in there. He maneuvers out and is beamed to sickbay. He has some touching last words about seeing the sun before he dies. We cut back to Guinan and Beverly for a minute and you can see that Beverly felt guilty over what happened. Guinan suggests she's being too hard on herself, but Beverly tells her that that's not all of what happened so we go back for more. Picard talks to Beverly while she's autopsying Jo'Bril's body. She's very frustrated because she can't figure out why he's dead. His anatomy and physiology is such that he should be resistant to most injuries so whatever happened to him must have occurred on a cellular level. She also doesn't understand the way his body is behaving in death. His rate of decay is extremely slow. Meanwhile Geordi and Data examine the shuttle and found out that some radiation did get past the shielding. This infuriates Reyga who refuses to believe it. But Crusher decides to end the conference. Reyga begs her for another demonstration, offering to pilot the shuttle himself, but everyone is just convinced that they were right to doubt his shield to begin with and Crusher doesn't want to risk anyone else's life.

 A few hours later they find him dead from a plasma charge. He's holding a plasma infuser and Worf decides that it must have been suicide. But Beverly doesn't think it is because he didn't seem suicidal at their last meeting. He seemed even more determined to prove that he was right. She wants to preform an autopsy on him as well but Picard tells her that his family won't permit it due to the Ferengi death rituals. She pleads with him, convinced that there may be a murderer aboard. Picard grants her permission to investigate, but not autopsy. So she goes to T'Pan and Christopher's quarters to question them. T'Pan is as cool as any Vulcan, but Christopher is outraged that she's even thinking that one of them could've murdered Reyga. He admits that he saw Reyga and Kurak having a fight shortly before his death, but he doesn't believe for a second that she killed him. So, Crusher goes to question Kurak and, of course, you can't just go insulting the honor of a Klingon. Kurak throws Beverly around but she bravely stays until she finds out what their fight was about. Reyga had suspected Kurak of sabotaging the shield. But she firmly denies that as well as any insinuation that she murdered him. Crusher believes her and leaves. After a lot thought she decides the answers lie with Reyga and chooses to autopsy him anyway. That's the main cause of her trouble.

Especially since the autopsy turns up nothing. She goes to Picard to confess what she'd done. He can see she's genuinely remorseful, however he has no choice but to tell her about the serious trouble she'll be in from disobeying his orders and the hassle it will cause from the Ferengi government. She understands what she's done and is prepared to take the consequences. It then fades back to Beverly and Guinan as Beverly finishes her story by explaining to Guinan that this is how she's ended her career. Guinan's approach is simple: she continues to talk about herself and her elbow. Beverly is mad now because she feels like she's been ignored while she's been pouring her heart out for hours. And Guinan asks her why she's only complaining and not doing something about it. Beverly realizes that she has nothing to lose now, so she goes to talk to Data about possible sabotage to the shuttle craft. He says that it could've only been sabotaged while in flight but it's unlikely that Jo'Bril would put himself at risk. He explains how it could've been done and the effects are something she can detect in Jo'Bril's tissues, so she goes back to the morgue. She's locked out of the computers but Nurse Ogawa helps her anyway and she finds out that the scenario Data posed could've happened. It's not conclusive, but it does prove sabotage. That's all the information she needs to take the shuttle craft with the repaired shield modifications and try the experiment herself. All Picard and the crew can do is watch helplessly while she flies into the star. That's what I love about Beverly. She's brave and ballsy as well as super smart. One of the most well rounded characters on the show. And even though she needed a little push from Guinan in this episode, she would've gotten there on her own anyway because this is Beverly Crusher in her natural state and why she's one of my favorite women of Trek. She flies the shuttle into Veytan's corona keeping a running commentary of how far she's gone as Jo'Bril did. She reaches the point that Jo'Bril made it to and there's a brief moment of uncertainty, but then she reports that the shield is holding. She congratulates Dr. Reyga and asks Picard to confine the other scientists to their quarters since this would seem to prove that Reyga's death was a murder. But then they lose communications with her.

Then for the big surprise as Jo'Bril emerges from his hiding place on the shuttle holding Beverly at phaser point. I thought it was a wonderful twist and since so little is known of his species, it's a very creative notion that his kind can control their metabolic functions to simulate death. Of course, like any good mystery, the killer admits to killing Reyga so that nobody would pursue the technology but him. He then explains that he intends to simulate a warp core breach in the shuttle so that the Enterprise will leave and he can take the shielding technology back to his world to tweak it into a weapon. But Beverly quickly makes a dive for the controls and plunges the shuttle craft further into the star knocking Jo'Bril backwards so that he misses her with his first shot. They fight and she gets his phaser. Her first shot doesn't hurt him... it only makes a hole in his torso confirming her earlier theory that he's resistant to injuries. So she turns the phaser up all the way and vaporizes him. The shield holds but she gets out of there quickly and contacts the Enterprise to tell them what happened just as they had assumed the worst and were starting to search for debris from the shuttle craft. Naturally, she's reinstated as the CMO.

While the other scientist leave unconvinced of the shielding technology, Beverly goes to Ten Forward to present Guinan with a tennis racket that employs the very latest technology to prevent tennis elbow. Guinan can't deny it's a good looking racket, but she then owns up to the fact that she's never played tennis, which is typical of how Guinan works to draw out people's feelings so that she can help and advise. It's a nice, light-hearted ending.
Of course, there'd still be some hell to pay with the Ferengi government for violating a corpse, but they skate over that since she was in the right and found out who killed Dr. Reyga. When it's a great episode, details like that are no big deal. It's another example of how limited some of the characters are by necessity. Riker had to be the dutiful first officer, so getting to see him in a very different set of circumstances in the last episode was refreshing. This isn't the first time we've seen Beverly having to deal with circumstances outside of her sickbay or medical emergencies - she shines in Remember Me and Disaster as well - but it's still a lot of fun to watch her capabilities being explored to their fullest. I'm very biased towards Beverly, so I love this episode. Again, not in my top ten, but definitely my top twenty. Four and a half stars.