This episode is kind of a dud. Even the producers didn't care for it because it wandered aimlessly without a plot for a while because there wasn't enough of the main story to fill an episode. I also must roll my eyes because it is a thinly veiled episode about environmentalism. I guess they felt guilty that they hadn't been using the show as a platform for social and political commentary in a while, in the tradition of TOS.
The filler, although funny and distracting, is also random and pushed to the front of the episode without getting wrapped up later; just kind of petering out. It starts with Data going to retrieve Spot from Geordi. He'd loaned him the cat so he could take care of her for a while to see if he'd like to own a cat of his own. Yes - her. Spot changes gender in this episode. It makes me wonder if they were already thinking about the script for Genesis at this time. But no biggie. Geordi is unimpressed with Spot and can't control her. Data even admits that she has some habits that hinder his work at time and they discuss the possibility of getting her trained. They are then called to the bridge to talk about a missing ship. They've lost a medical vessel in a place called the Hekaras Corridor. The corridor is a 12 light year stretch of space where a ship traveling at warp can pass safely through a region of space that has a lot of tetryon fields which are hazardous to navigation and interferes with sensors which would limit their probes. There is a planet in that region, Hekaras II, but the only ship they've had contact with in the last week is a Ferengi vessel. Crusher proposes that they may have hijacked the medical ship to get biomimetic gel which is a valuable product. The possibility of Ferengi foul play doesn't seem likely, but they don't want to rule it out and they set up a search pattern for the missing ship. Riker sends Data to get LaForge to work on boosting the sensors a little but he finds him working on the warp engines. He doesn't understand why since there's admittedly nothing wrong with them. LaForge admits that he's been in touch with an old class mate on another ship who has improved the efficiency of his warp engines beyond that of the Enterprise. So, in a competitive spirit, Georid wants to out do him for his own professional pride and because he wants the flag ship of the Federation to be the best at everything. So, it's boys stuff- my car has a better engine than yours; my toys are bigger and better, etc. They never officially tie this in with the A story but I suppose it could tie in since environmentalists whine and complain about large vehicles destroying the planet, ergo all this manly engine competition is part of the problem that causes the conditions that the Hekaran eco-terrorists are fighting.
So Geordi and Data go to work on the sensors. There's nothing pertinent to the A story here except that this will help them search for the medical ship. So, they continue to talk about training Spot. Data's careful research of professional methods versus Geordi's belief in practical methods citing his sister's ability to train her cat as an example. It kills time until they're informed that they've come across a ship. It's the Ferengi ship that had been through the corridor in the prior weeks and it's heavily damaged. The warp drive is out, the life support is low, and they don't answer their hails. Geordi thinks he can cut through the interference that is causing their communications blackout and Picard approves it but orders a tractor beam be put on them as a precaution. The Ferengi ship fires on them and they raise shield just in time to deflect the shot. They realize the Ferengi ship was playing dead to lure them in but don't understand why. Their DaiMon Prak hails them and accuses them of causing the damage that has stranded them in the corridor. Picard assures him they had nothing to do with it and offers to bring him aboard to discuss it. Prak initially refuses, beating his chest about how this Federatio attack is an act of war. So, Picard politely offers to leave. Prak knows he needs their help so he agrees to come aboard. Prak tells them of a federation signal buoy that emitted a pulse upon their approached that disabled their warp engines and other systems leaving them helpless. Picard, again, reassures him that it's not a new Federation weapon as there would be nothing for them to gain by mining the corridor. They also note that it may not be a coincidence since the medical ship they're tracking disappeared here too. Prak admits to seeing the vessel but that it wasn't in any distress. They ask Prak where it was heading and he barters the information for help with repairs to his ship. Then we head back to Data's quarters for a while where he and Geordi discuss their projects regarding Spot and the warp engine efficiency. Data is having little success and gives it up as a bad job. Brent Spiner hates cats, so they gave him a line that I'm sure he enjoyed delivering as he notes that perhaps she's not intelligent enough to be trained. Geordi, on the other hand, is proud that he's won his competition by .1% thus putting an abrupt end to the filler stories.
They track the last known course of the medical ship to a debris field with enough debris to account for an entire ship. They begin to wade through it to try to find something identifiable when they pick up a probe type of object on their sensors. It begins to emit the same kind of pulse that disabled the Ferengi ship. With no time to react, the Enterprise becomes disabled as well, dead in the water. A ship with two people approaches and they can't raise the shields either so they're left to wait a moment until the two people appear in Engineering. Geordi calls for security. He asks what they want. The man, Rabal, says they just want them to listen to what they have to say while the woman, Serova, claims that they are killing them. They are a brother and sister scientific team that claim that warp fields are damaging this region of space and that Herakas II, where they live, will one day be uninhabitable if they can't stop the damage that's being done. Geordi has heard of the studies and quickly tells them that they've been rejected for lack of evidence. Picard, who isn't as outraged as he should be (in my opinion) about his own ship's damage, suggests they go through the proper channels to petition the Federation to look at their research. They weren't interested in waiting for the time it would take for the Science Counsel to come to them and figured that disabling enough vessels would get their attention faster. Riker's temper is welcomed at this point as he doesn't think this justifies their attacks. Serova doesn't consider them attacks since nobody was injured, which indicates that the medical ship survived and is still out there. Rabal is more level headed and agrees to do anything they want as long as they look at their data on the matter. So Picard puts Data in charge of reviewing their research and orders them to help get the Enterprise up an running again. In Engineering, Geordi is appalled at the carelessness of their actions citing the inconvenience to the Enterprise as well as the disastrous consequences that could've happened by disabling a medical transport ship. But there were no consequences, so Serova doesn't care and leaves, deciding that Geordi is not worth wasting her breath on. Rabal steps in to apologize for his sister's harsh nature. He confesses that he didn't believe it either and spends the rest of the scene admiring his sister's genius and complex models. Geordi tells him that if they're true, Data will find out. Data explains their research to Picard. The analogy made is that of running up and down a carpet until it wears out to describe how warp fields could eventually cause a subspace rift. But there isn't enough evidence to prove it. The only way would be expose a patch of space to warp field energy that's a million times greater than what regular starships produce. Rabal claims the effect builds up over the years and Data concurs that this makes sense. So Picard states that if they draw up a proposal to get a science vessel out here to study it on this basis, he'll recommend it personally to the Science Cousel. Rabal is satisfied but Serova just sees it as another delay. Later on the bridge they are going to rendezvous with the medical ship when they notice the Herakan ship is leaving with Serova on it. They ask her where she's going and she tells them that she's going to give them proof of their theories. She induces a warp core breech which causes a subspace rift, killing herself in the process. The rift is everything their research says it would be. They also begin experiencing the shockwaves that resonate from it. Their shields are holding it fine, but the medical ship, which ended up in the rift, will lose its shields soon. They can't use their warp drive to get them because it'll make the rift bigger and it'll take weeks to get to them at impulse power. Picard sends everyone away to find a solution.
Data, Geordi and Rabal discover instabilities within and without the rift making it impossible to get in to get the ship out. But, Data has the idea to coast in after an initial burst of warp speed, evcauate the ship on the move, and coast back out. Timing would be of the essence, but Picard approves. While they're making the calculations, Geordi expresses feelings of guilt to Data over Serova's suicide. He suposes that she had to kill herself just to get someone to listen to her and he blames himself for being so resistant to her theories. He figures he was taking it personally. If they were trying to tie his competition with his friend about the warp engines to this - paralleling his desire to be the best with the desire to be right, it's a poor comparison. He then tries to assuage the guilt by apologizing to Rabal for not listening. But Rabal knows that they didn't miss anything when examining their data and that the real problem was time to do the research right that Serova wasn't willing to wait for. So we move into the climax of the episode. They jolt themselves into the rift towards the medical ship. They discover that they're trying to initiate their warp drive. They do and it causes the rift to widen. They are able to evacuate their ship, but now they won't have enough momentum to get out. So Geordi decides to bounce off of the resulting distortion waves with the deflector shields and surf out of the rift. It's a long bumpy ride but they get through it. Later, Rabal shows them projections of instabilities in the area that could turn into rifts with prolonged warp exposure. So, the Science Counsel decides to put a speed limit of warp 5 on these areas except in emergencies and they discuss which of the people in the sector will comply and which people won't. They talk about the damage that Herakas has already received and promise to help with their weather system.
And it ends with Picard's little guilt trip as he ponders about all the exploring that he's enjoyed over his career may have been hurting the environment that he holds so dear in the name of the discoveries that they've made.
Personally, I don't respond well to guilt trips and while most people love these well intentioned episodes, they're just not my thing. So I'll just briefly sum up my objections as this: I don't think the Star Trek humanoids would have the
power to destroy space anymore than I think that regular humans have
the power to destroy our planet. Our country is the cleanest on the planet and I'm tired seeing people apologizing for our existence as well as viewing mankind overall as a cancer on the world. I call BS. And notice that the new warp speed limits never came up again because they knew they were only compromising the Star Trek universe with such stupidity and proving that environmentalism (or any top-down control issue) is about controlling people while those in control, the important people, don't have to adhere to the laws they make. But, I have to acknowledge that current events (real or fraudulent) are one of the driving factors of a Star Trek series, so I have to say it was a decent attempt, but not a great one since it didn't have a clear focus from the beginning and the A story was short and full of holes. To be kind I should point out that it wasn't a total loss though. Changing Spot to a female and the mention of biomimetic gel help to not make this
episode an entire waste since Spot's later pregnancy is utilized to
solve a problem and the gel would go on to be used to enhance scripts
frequently in DS9 and Voyager. Three and a half stars.
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