Sunday, November 05, 2017

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 159 (Dark Page)

WARNING:  I’m going to give away major details about the episode including the ending.  If you haven’t seen the episode, you may want to hold off before reading this.

Some episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation were great.  Others were horrible.  There aren’t too many people on the other side.  Sure, Inner Light may have some detractors, but the vast majority of viewers would give the episode high marks.  There were a few episodes that were debatable.  They had good aspects and bad.   Some people might have an overall favorable opinion while others had an unfavorable one and it was hard to say who was right.

Dark Page was just such an episode.  It starts off with Lwaxana Troi, mother of the Enterprise’s Deanna Troi, coming back from helping a telepathic species learn speech.  The Cairn normally communicate with each other telepathically, but might want to join the Federation later on.  The problem is that they can only communicate with other telepaths; a non-telepathic brain just isn’t developed enough.

Many Cairn are on board with Lwaxana, including Maques and his daughter, Hedril.  Lwaxana even tries to hook Maques, a widower, up with Deanna.  It’s awkward, to say the least, but they get over it.  Maques does mention that Lwaxana seemed to have a “dark” part of her mind.  Deanna chalks it up to privacy, a concept that the Cairn are entirely unfamiliar with.  Maques eventually comes to realize that it’s more than this.

As Maques is new to verbal communication, he tells Deanna telepathically.  She comes to realize that there’s something seriously wrong.  The magnitude of the problem doesn’t really become evident until Lwaxana collapses and goes into a coma.  Captain Picard and Troi can find very little information except for a seven-year gap in Lwaxana’s journal.

Maques is able to act as a bridge for Lwaxana and Deanna so that Deanna can help her mother.  At first, Lwaxana calls for help, but then sets up barriers like wolves.  Lwaxana even uses the image of Deanna’s dead father as a stalling tactic.  After a few tries, Deanna is able to figure out what happened:  Lwaxana had another child before Deanna named Kestra who died when Deanna was a baby.  Kestra’s similarity to Hedril seemed to trigger the problems.  The episode ends with Lwaxana and Troi waking up.

Here’s where I tend to question the episode’s likeability.  The mere mention of Lwaxana Troi might cause some long-time viewers to turn and run.  She’s always been presented as the overbearing mother, wanting her only child to get married and provide lots of grandchildren.  It’s understandable, even if it’s overstated.  Here, Lwaxana is a little subdued and we do get a good explanation as to why Lwaxana is the way she is.

The problem is that it’s not a particularly great episode.  It’s mostly buildup with a heavy bonding moment at the end.  The entire diplomatic mission with the Cairn basically acts as a McGuffin for Lwaxana’s problem.  It’s also another episode where we don’t have any follow-up.  I don’t think Kestra or the Cairn were ever mentioned again.

One thing that struck me as odd was that the Cairn had mouths.   Alien races tend to appear human as human actors will be playing them.  The thing I’d like to know is why a telepathic race would develop mouths that look like ours.  There are all sorts of ways to absorb nutrients.  You don’t need to ingest it through an opening in your head.

If you happened to miss the episode, it wouldn’t affect your ability to watch subsequent episodes or the other series.  It’s one of those episodes that I can’t recommend not watching it, but I can’t recommend rushing out to see, it either.  If you’re watching the episodes in order, I don’t think watching this one will detract from the series.  If you’re looking for key episodes, though, this isn’t going to be one of them.

IMDb page

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