Oct 31 2012 12:30pm

Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch: “Aquiel”

Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel“Aquiel”
Written by Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Cliff Bole
Season 6, Episode 12
Production episode 40276-239
Original air date: February 1, 1993
Stardate: 46461.3




Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel








Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel



Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel




Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel




“I’m not the one making judgments.”



Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel




Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel




I will say this much: the dog was really really cute. Pity he turned out to be the killer....


Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch on Aqiuel


Warp factor rating: 3


Lisamarie LiGreci-Newton
1. Lisamarie
Ahahahaha, I love your last paragraph. I had the same thought here (and also at the end of one of the future season 6 episodes (Suspicions).

Anyway, yeah, creepy Geordi is creepy. When he started bringing up details from the logs in casual conversation it was like Brahms all over again. And for a minute I thought he was actually totally lying about speaking whatever language it was he said he could speak...but I guess they wouldn't make him that intentionally creepy.
Joseph Newton
2. crzydroid
Glad to hear you're ok. When you missed the post yesterday, we were getting a little worried.

While I clearly remember that I like to avoid this episode, I always have trouble remembering the actual plot. In my mind, it always comes out as something like, "La Forge falls in love with a woman, but then she turns out to be a shapeshifting dog."

I also kind of wondered why there aren't security people on the Enterprise who can split up the task of going through the logs. Why is the chief engineer spending all of his time doing this? To add to the La Forge creepiness, one gets a sense that he's kicking his feet up and eating popcorn while watching these logs. I think there's a scene where Riker walks in on him and he has to justify that he's doing research for the murder investigation.
Christopher Bennett
3. ChristopherLBennett
I knew Reg Cathey mainly as a cast member on PBS's math-education show Square One Television which ran contemporaneously with TNG, so I recognized him when I saw him here. (Larry Cedar, another veteran character actor who's done Trek several times, was also a Square One regular.)

Other than that, this was a pretty unmemorable episode. As for the Enterprise being on a supply run, I'd point out that one of the TOS Enterprise's standard duties was resupplying colonies and outposts. Space is big, and sometimes it can be a long time between ship visits. Then again, by the TNG era, space seemed much more tamed and heavily populated, with many more ships and much shorter travel times, so maybe it's harder to justify there. Still, I could see the E-D happening to be the only Starfleet ship in the area at the time, and being able to take a brief detour to the station en route to its next assignment.
4. Lsana
Was I the only one who thought the "twist" at the end is really obvious? As soon as they said that it would have to absorb another living thing, I said, "Duh, it absorbed the dog." And I was 13 at the time. I lost a fair amount of respect for the crew for never even thinking of that possibility.
5. LMatthews
What I love about this entire ST rewatch is that I'm finally being released from the false obligation of watching some episodes ever again. I can cross this one right off the list permanently and stick with ones like "Darmok" and "Cause and Effect."
Lisamarie LiGreci-Newton
6. Lisamarie
@4, no you were not the only one, I said the same thing to my husband :)

Also, if I remember, they found the dog behind a panel of some kind that was blocked with some other object. How did the dog get behind there as a dog???

PS: Glad you are okay, krad!!!
7. tigeraid
Congrats KraD... You found an episode of Star Trek, out of ALL Star Trek, that I've never seen. Fascinating. I'm going to have to watch this awfulness somehow.
Liz J
8. Ellisande
Wait, they were worried about copying Basic Instinct? And here I've always thought this episode was a deliberate homage to The Thing. At least I know I suspected the dog from the start, because isolated outpost+death+dog probably = Alien Shapeshifter of Evil.

I completely forgot there were Klingons in the episode at all. That's how memorable it was, I guess.
Keith DeCandido
9. krad
Relating to my final comment, there's also an argument that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy faked evidence in order to get Scotty off of murders that he very obviously commited in "Wolf in the Fold," said argument made in the "Jack the Ripper" entry in Steve Lyons & Chris Howarth's The Completely Useless Unauthorised Star Trek Encyclopedia.

---Keith R.A. DeCandido
rob mcCathy
10. roblewmac
Plenty of ways to get away with murder in trek-verse transporters black holes, tossing bodies into suns, dropping dead bodies of 100 years before they were born.
Bastiaan Stapel
11. Stapel
@4 & @6:

Right form the start it is obvious it is the dog, isn't it? At that point we don't know what he is or what he has done, but he has to have some sort of role. We've seen a few shapeshifters before!

Anyway, mediocre episode. However, I feel it could have been a lot better with a few minor changes.
12. RichF
Regarding vaporization by phaser, I liked (tm) the way Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country attempted to deal with that issue. Why not just vaporize the gravity boots? Chekov: It would set off the alarm. It was a necessary plot point for this movie, but there's no telling how many past or future scenes it contradicted in which a phaser vapirized someone/something and did not set off the alarm.
13. RichF
I meant "vaporized".
F Shelley
14. FSS
wow - i have no memory of this episode. at all. of course, it came out during my freshman year of college when i didn't watch any tv, but still, i would think i would have seen this in re-runs at least, but nope, never have.
S Cooper
15. SPC
ChristopherLBennett, thank you so much for bringing up Square One! I saw the name Reg Cathey and it looked terribly familiar but I had no idea why. I was a devoted Square One fan. I'd wonder about the overlap between children's show actors and TNG actors, but the sheer number of actors involved in TNG over its run probably makes it statistically likely.
16. Classic Appa

Since it was Chekov, you probably actually meant "waporize."
17. Lsana

Yeah, part of it is the fact that we know we're watching a TV show, and the dog isn't going to be there unless it has a role. But even beyond that, I felt it should have been obvious that if our shapeshifter could be disguised as any living thing, our intrepid heroes should have considered the living thing that had been wandering around the Enterprise this whole time. It should not have come as a major shock.
David Stumme
18. grenadier
Renee Jones is another "Knepper moment" in this one. She would join the cast of Days of Our Lives in 1993 and stay on the show (with some breaks) till 2012.
19. CPRoark
@ 03 & 15:

Glad I'm not the only one who recognizes actors from Square One. Cathey was just on Law and Order: SVU, and my mind was immediately taken back to Square One.

Now there's a show that's ripe for a rewatch! If only it were available...
Christopher Bennett
20. ChristopherLBennett
@15: Beverly Leech, star of the Square One segment/spinoff Mathnet, played a Kraylor in Voyager: "Nightingale" and did a voice in the Away Team video game. And the composer for the first season of Mathnet was Gerald Fried of "Amok Time" fame!
Keith DeCandido
21. krad
And William Windom, a.k.a. Commodore Decker, played a judge in three episodes of Square One. :)

---Keith R.A. DeCandido
22. RobinM
This is a really bad mystery episode. I figured out it was the dog in the first 15 minutes or so they don't put animals in tv unless there part of the story. Geordie needs to have Riker or Troi explain to him its much less creepy to I don't know Talk to girls instead of cyber peep there logs. The guest star also had no spark with La Forge at all she was much better on Days of Our lives. KRAD I'm glad your alright after Sandy. This is defenitely a 3 episode.
adam miller
23. adamjmil
To those who haven't seen this before....please do yourself a favor and skip it. Please. I think Krad is being awful generous with a 3.
Keith DeCandido
24. krad
adamjmil: I went up to 3 because I though the dog was nifty. As someone with a sweet, wonderful Golden Retriever named Scooter (hey, look, a picture! and another! and a video of him galumphing in the snow!), I have a soft spot for awesome pooches, and Maura was very cool even if she was a shapeshifting killing machine....

---Keith R.A. DeCandido
Alan Courchene
25. Majicou
By coincidence, I recently watched half an episode of Square One TV on YouTube because I remembered Eddie Lawrence doing a math-related version of his "Old Philosopher" bit on several episodes. That was a great show.
26. critter42
I also thought about The Thing when the dog was introduced. The "mystery" in this episode was not a mystery at all. I mean I've read Encyclopedia Brown stories that were harder to figure out than this one - I've only seen it like maybe one time since it first aired, and you could have blown me over with a feather when I discovered this was a Ronald D. Moore episode. I really dislike this episode - as a matter of fact, I rank it down there with Shades of Grey (and doesn't THAT episode title take on new meaning nowadays? :) ) - like others, I think 3 is MUCH too generous...
27. Erik Dercf
This episode was a hint of what if Geordi became a family man. Geordi is a very busy man but almost all the senior staff have someone. Worf has a son Troi and Riker have each other and go on to have a family in books Data has a cat O'Brien is married with a child Crusher has a son. Geordi is the odd man out Picard is a good friend and captain but I wouldn't call the crew his family because he places professional distance between himself and his crew.
Jack Flynn
28. JackofMidworld
Like a lot of others, I assumed it was a Thing homage and tagged the dog as the bad guy; would've been a huge surprise if the dog was just a red herring (and nominee for Best Guest Star) and Uhnari had really been the killer.

Even though I could sorta-see why Geordi would fall in love with a holographic version of somebody (I mean, at some point, don't we all have a crush on some of the fictional people we see on TV?) but I thought it was really creepy to watch him watching her logs over and over again (crzydroid nailed it with the popcorn comment, 'cause I had the exact same thought when I was watching it). Nowadays, I could see a main character that was a creepy guy with boundary issues would actually become a plot point, rather than something just glossed over by everybody.
Rob Rater
29. Quasarmodo
Just more evidence of why you should never have a Geordi-themed episode. Unless you have something else major to hang it on, like Scotty guest starring.
30. Edgar Governo
Our investigative and prosecutorial powers would really take a hit in a world with shapeshifters, entities that can take over bodies, and other forms of telepathic mind control...

You can add me to the list of people who primarily thinks of Square One when Reg E. Cathey shows up onscreen.
31. rowanblaze
@10 "dropping dead bodies of 100 years before they were born" LOOPER!
32. Ginomo
I'd actually been looking forward to your review of this episode in the hopes that it would earn a Warp 0. This is up there with DS9's "Let He Who is Without Sin" as the worst episode of Star Trek ever.

I too had forgotten there were Klingons in this episode. All I could remember was Geordi's weird murder suspect girlfriend and the shapeshifting dog.

I think had she actually been the murderer it would have been better.
Robbie C
33. leandar
I disagree that "Let He Who is Without Sin" is the worst episode of Trek ever. That episode has Terry Farrell in a bathing suit. Any episode with her in a bathing suit gets points. This episode? I think it's a better candidate for worst Trek ever personally. Just..... bleeccch!
j p
34. sps49
Why the supply run at all? Relay station off line or missed a check-in, send the closest ship to investigate. Easy.
Rob Rater
35. Quasarmodo
Ron Moore should have retconned the dog to be a cylon.
Christopher Bennett
36. ChristopherLBennett
I just realized that the episode title is misspelled in the article headline... "Aqiuel" instead of "Aquiel."
Chin Bawambi
37. bawambi
This is one more example of why I also usually detest REG episodes. Geordi is never allowed to resolve any of his issues yet lovable reg gets to resolve almost every one and become a better officer to boot. I wonder if Burton intentionally was bored during these episodes so that the chemistry is part his fault...I watched a few minutes of this when it came in the BBC rotation just because I forgot it was so bad.
Christopher Hatton
38. Xopher
Yeah, crappy. How many episodes have a dog in them? "Some living being" makes you think "oh, probably the dog" before they even finish the sentence. The only reason not to suspect it is that it's too obvious. But then they go with the obvious, surprise! Sort of.

One of the worst episodes.
Keith DeCandido
39. krad
Xopher: Amusingly, both times we've seen dogs on TNG (here and in "True Q") they turned out not to be real....

----Keith R.A. DeCandido
40. Adam Byrne
The dopiest episode ever. Jordi should be fired for incompetence and attempted nepotism.
Christopher Bennett
41. ChristopherLBennett
@40: Attempted nepotism? How did Geordi attempt to grant patronage or favoritism to a member of his family?
42. Adam Byrne
Cronyism then Sir, either way he was completely out of order. He's so desperate for a woman that he would probably want to marry Aqueil Uhnari making her his family if he could get her a job on the Enterprise.

The scene where he ends up on a bed, stroking the dog, while Riker pats him on the back, AFTER he's discovered having telepathic sex with a murder suspect / evidence saboteur is just farcical.

What an utter mess.
43. Sidewinder665
I'm not usually one for nitpicking, but the casualness of the murder investigation really irritated me. Star Trek takes place in a futuristic, liberalised universe and yet there seemed to be a complete lack of due process. When Aqiuel was interviewed it wasn't recorded, her accusations weren't formally outlined and no-one even offered for her to have an advocate present.
Dante Hopkins
44. DanteHopkins
Sigh. You know, I can't for the life of me figure out your problem with La Forge. He's not creepy at any point, and in "Booby Trap" and "Galaxy's Child", he figures out he may have strayed over the line just a tad. That hardly qualifies as creepy. Further, there is no similarity between the Leah Brahms stuff and this, and your attempts to connect them to this episode fall flat, and just feel mean-spirited.

The only similarity between this investigation and the holodeck simulation was that Geordi was doing his job: retrieving information to help resolve a situation. Again, his job.

Frankly I am disturbed by this Geordi-hate.

I completely disagree with your synopsis. This at the very least was an interesting episode, and I found Renee Jones quite interesting (and beautiful). I think it was nice for Geordi to finally have someone he had chemistry with. Its a shame this relationship was never followed up on. Definitely a missed oppurtunity, and it would have been nice to see Aquiel again in say Star Trek: Nemesis.

Flaws aside, its a good story. I disagree about it being the dog as obvious. I had no ideawho the coalescent ultimately was, and the dog was an unexpected twist. A solid 5 of an episode.

And for the love of all that's holy, leave Geordi alone :)
45. JohnC
I'm going to echo Dante's comments, to a point. I actually read some of this synopsis and comments before I watched this episode for the first time, and I'm still trying to figure out what was so terrible about it. So Geordi knows this woman's secrets because he watched her personal log in order to investigate her (believed) death.... what's the big deal? I would say, however, that "the dog did it" was obvious to me from early on. That said, I enjoyed watching this, and I really don't know why Geordi gets so much grief.
46. The Real Scott M
I didn't see anyone else mention this. Here's what I don't understand:

There's a shapeshifter who is made of some kind of goo that takes the form of whatever person it absorbs. So the goo IS the creature. Then where did Crusher's goo come from, and why was it fused to the plate? It had to be part of the creature, because it was able to mimic Crusher's hand. Did Aquiel shoot off a piece of the creature? How? When Geordi fired it was completely destroyed, and he didn't shoot for 30 seconds or whatever they said was required. And does this mean there is now a goo stain on the rug in Geordi's quarters?

I also found it odd that everyone's like, "What kind of weapon could do this?" And the answer is, you know, the one you carry on every away mission. And then Geordi, Mr. Super-Genious Engineer, doesn't believe it's even possible. Of course, maybe that was just his puppy love talking.

And it really should have been Aquiel as the shapeshifter, if for no other reason than to give Geordi a chance to repeat Kirk's line from ST6: "I can't believe I kissed you!"

Meh -- a lifeless episode with a semi-decent mystery that ends up being nothing.
47. Kellia
I need the Romulans to erase this episode from my mind so I can like Geordi again.
Edward Chinevere
48. Drawde

2. Yes, Geordi is a creeper and his episodes are almost always hokey awful. Sorry to the peeps what loves him. That being said- it's not easy to trust people when you can't see their eyes...

3. The dog was super obvs- and this crew is totally incompetent for not putting it under observation too.

4. #40 @Adan Byrne- agreed! I was shocked when I saw that too- to think that they would bring on board this super terrible officer because Geordi has a crush on her... ick. Oh, and yes it is nepotism. Sorry to all you linguistic prescriptivists out there, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people get all huffy about "misusing" language. Words are defined by the way they're used, not by what it says in a dictionary.

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