Dark Page

Well, I´m reviewing TNG, now that I´m 38 years old, first seen at the age of 14. So far, this was the only episode that deeply touched my heart, and I´ve ended up crying, tears don´t come out easily to me. I´ve always found Lwaxana as a bit of annoying character, but not on this episode. Star Trek was never about FX, Space Exploration nor Alien races... it was always about human complexity, and this episode explores one of the darkest fears. I´d probably fallen asleep with this episode when I was 14 years old... but not now.

"Dark Page" is a very odd episode. I really cared very little for it but by the end, I found myself being sucked into the show in its very moving finale.

The Enterprise has some unusual visitors aboard. The Cairn are a race of folks who can read minds and aren't used to spoken language. Because of her ability as an empath, Lwaxana Troi has been selected to act as intermediaries with the Cairn. However, the more she works with them, the more emotionally taxing it all becomes. Eventually, she falls into a near-death coma. How does the Cairn's visit relate to all this?!

I guess the bottom line is that although the episode is pretty slow, the solution to Lwaxana's problems is unusual and satisfying--though a bit draining as well. Plus, it does give you a chance to see a young Kirsten Dunst before she achieved stardom in "Interview With a Vampire" and other film projects.

The low rating for this one is confusing. It's the best Lwaxana Troi episode by far-- most of the shows that feature her are insufferably annoying. Story-wise, it was a great way for Majel Barrett to close out this character on this show (she reappeared in "Deep Space Nine"), and she is at her best-acting wise as well. It's also much better than almost all of the GOOFY and tedious episodes that I've seen in this season so far.

It has great depth, and it shows the bond between Troi and her mother-- a bond that we will never witness again in Trek history. RIP, Majel Barrett.

There could have been another way they approached this to make it a better episode, rather than using "random alien telepaths with really annoying voices", but still the ending of the episode is great. It's a very emotional episode and one that I'm sure anyone who has been through something similar could relate to. The first 15 minutes of the episode gives this a lower rating, but the end makes it much better. I'm also not sure why this situation was going to cause her to die, I guess something to do with Betazoid physiology, but instead of spending time on the aliens they could have instead investigated this part of the story more.

This was a truly beautiful episode about pain and how people try to bury it.

The acting in this episode was one of the finest I'd seen in a while on Star trek TNG. Majel Barret's performance broke my heart. I had no idea she was capable of such phenomenal dramatic acting. Truly one of her best performances on star trek TNG. This episode definitely deserves a much higher rating.