User reviews

I've heard plenty about 'Sub Rosa', most of it negative; but there's still the possibility of something being so-bad-it's-good, right? Sadly, that doesn't really apply here . . .

It all starts off well enough with a solemn eulogy, eventually blossoming into a trashy romance novel. Throw in the brainwashing angle, and it just gets worse. Maybe it played differently pre-"Twilight", but that's out of my hands.

You have to credit Gates McFadden for making the best of it. How often does a Beverly episode come along - and here it is, complete with green vapor sex scene. It has a decent closing scene makes some of this worth while, but will I ever revisit this episode in the future? Probably not.

4/10

Every so often a series will have an episode that is not up to the standards we expect. This episode proves that 'TNG' is also hit by the clunker syndrome.

In this episode we have Doctor Crusher attending her grandmother's funeral where she finds out that her 90+ year old granny had a 30 something lover. But is seems that the lover is a ghost that haunts the family and now Beverly is next in line. And supposedly the ghost has the sexual prowess to convince Beverly to resign her commission and start a new life on the Scottish planet. And all his power comes from a candle that Beverly was warned about at the beginning of the episode.

It will be easy to blame this episode on Gates McFadden but the fault should be squarely on the writers. They tried to make this a sexual episode that would appeal to women thus bringing them into the fold of the series. But what they ended up with is a cheap dollar love story that did little to cause any interest.

This episode should have just been called, Beverly needs to get laid. Horrible episode from an otherwise great show.

Okay. I admit: after reading most of the very negative reviews, I'd planned on skipping this one (This is my first run through the series). The one element that changed my mind was the fact that Jonathan Frakes directed. As far as I can remember, I've enjoyed every one of his directorial episodes.

Then there were the occasional glowing reviews. So I sighed, and decided to give it a try.

A great episode? I wouldn't say so; and yet......the script, the direction, the performances were all so enjoyable. Perhaps it feels to be such a lightweight episode, that many viewers were turned off to its story; but what a nicely done ghost story (if you will), and yes, told with a light touch.

I sure am glad I overcame my resistance and saw this charming episode for the first time!

I thoroughly hated "Sub Rosa" and feel it's among the most embarrassing and stupid episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". My wife didn't hate it quite as much as me, but she thought the show was indeed inferior.

Beverly Crusher goes home to a colony where she grew up in order to attend her grandmother's funeral. Here, you learn she's of Scottish descent--which is odd as it was never mentioned before or after. It all seemed very contrived as soon she was caught up in what was a Gothic Scottish romance combined with a paranormal story. While this combination MIGHT work, putting it in outer space and on this series was awfully bad. What follows is a ghost-like story along with LOTS of heaving bosoms and perplexing romance. All in all, it was just god- awful and Gates McFadden didn't do much to help this story.

UPDATE: By the way, it isn't just me who hated this episode. At the 50th anniversary Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, this was voted as one of the 10 worst of all episodes from every Trek franchise! That is some ignoble designation!

At first this episode comes off as a romance novel with mysterious candles, ghosts, a gothic yet picturesque Scottish setting, and an exploration of sex from a female perspective. This last element is the most interesting, the rest is actually rather stupid and more 3/10 territory, especially a rather tacky resurrection sequence. The first thirty minutes or so will have you thinking "there is no plot here", and that is sort of true, apart from an 800 year old "ghost" trying to seduce Beverly Crusher, nothing actually happens apart from some whacky weather. The romance elements are rather predictable in all honesty and the idea of combining the genre with space opera is really a matter of personal taste, which might be why so many people find this thing plain awful. What salvages the episode is its treatment of female sexuality, utilizing Crusher and to a lesser extent her conversations with Troi. Although I found myself at times laughing at the episode rather than with it, this isn't a terrible episode. B-.

Wow, where to begin.

We suspend disbelief a lot for our beloved TNG, but this was way too much.

The story centers around a ghost, a spirit, a whatever, that has been seducing generations of Crusher women. And there we encounter one issue...this becomes the first star trek show to have incest as a plot line.

Now for some reason, this spirit needs the burning of a flame in order to come close to the Crusher women(!). All of a sudden, Beverly is willing to leave behind her career to spend her life with Quint. And now its up to her crew mates to save her from making a terrible choice.

That is the nuts and bolts of it. And what we are left with is perhaps the worst TNG episode of the entire bunch, and a excellent character (Crusher) is making choices that seem completely out of place, even for someone as her. And Gates McFadden, who's done well in stories that were centered around Crsuher, tries her best to hold everything together. She can't, and even her cast mates seem to know that this is simply a terrible plot.

If TNG even jumped the shark, it was here.

Although I'm a long-time TNG fan and have seen almost all the episodes, this is the first episode I've ever reviewed (I just created my account here for the first time).

Why? Because I felt strongly about the comments from the other reviewers and did not feel the writers deserve to be disparaged by such negative reviews for what I thought was a worthwhile episode.

I'm male and I actually enjoyed this episode very much. Of course, there was a suspension of disbelief necessary but that's true of all sci-fi (TNG included).

What I enjoyed the most was the setting/production design (I've been to Scotland and it is a magical place), as well as what I considered to be a thought-provoking ending which raised some interesting questions about the nature of love and the meaning of relationships.

In any stage form, whether it be theater or television, the best stories/episodes are the ones that touch you in a unique way. This episode was definitely one of those.

Anyway, kudos to the production team as well as the writing team. In my opinion, they all deserve some long overdue praise.

In any television series that runs for seven years, there are bound to be some bad episodes, but Sub Rosa is an exceptional stinker. I think the other reviewers did an excellent job picking apart the ridiculous plot and pointing out Gates McFaddin's poorer than usual acting. However it takes an exceptional piece of garbage for the person who wrote the episode to provide their own review. The author was attempting to justify why the episode was not a blatant rip off of a vampire pulp novel and how pleased they were at creating the proper Scotland in space atmosphere. Perhaps if we added the author's disclaimer to the start of this episode, it would somehow make this disaster any better to watch.

Fans of classic V will enjoy Duncan Regehr, as long as they don't mind doing so with jaws agape in disbelief. If you know someone who loves NEXT GEN but hasn't seen this one, i guarantee they will absolutely not believe that it isn't some practical joke created by a fan with too much time on his hands last Thursday. The only way for it to have been any bizarrer would have been for Beverly to get on a motorbike, jump a tank of naked Evel Knievels, and land in a threesome with Pinky and Leather Tuscadero. Note the "McFly" on the Scottish tombstone. I swear to you, if Ellen Dow (THE WEDDING SINGER) had started rapping from within her coffin, it would have fit right in.

Well indeed, ahem. A semi-gothic ghost story in outer space, with Dr Crusher getting all hot and bothered. In my more caustic moments I have been known to describe the less riveting TNG episodes as 'a bit like social work in outer space' but this is something different again.

This episode sits incongruously alongside the usual TNG fare, so naturally some fans will just hate it. On the other hand the few 10/10 reviews each have their reasons. According to one, if you happen not to like it, that would be an attack on female sexuality.

I found it moderately interesting but not especially compelling; since there are plenty of TNG episodes that are like that (if you try enough slightly different things there are bound to be a few that fall flat) then it shouldn't come as a massive disappointment if you happen not to like it.

in point of fact a few things did irritate me, but they were not the ones you might expect; first there is a character that has an accent that I can only describe as belonging to an Irishman who has been told to talk a bit Scottish; a more mangled sound you have never heard. Second when someone is attacked and they fall over, they are immediately declared 'dead' with no attempt whatsoever made to resuscitate them. Very un-TNG, that. It isn't explained how the Howard family line even came to be; the candidates are alien incest or more than one relationship, I suppose. There also isn't much of a sub-plot in this episode; I thought that such things were almost compulsory. Maybe I read it wrong, but the other gravestone (other than the one that says 'McFly') appeared to me like it might read 'Nadir'; I didn't think it was that bad, but for some this would sum up this episode nicely.

This episode is the worst one. It stank so much that we could stand only 10 minutes of this pointless drivel before we tossed it. I was wondering how this stink bomb made it to the screen, and found this answer.

The creators of the series were stretched very thin during the last season of TNG with the ongoing filming on Deep Space 9 and starting both the TNG movie and Voyager. This lead to some very poor quality control in what scripts were accepted.. It was submitted by a totally unknown script consultant who ripped off a very bad Ann Rice story about Scotland and an incubus like creepy ghost.

That's some horrible quality control. if you've never seen this, don't waste you time. After 10 minutes, you may do the exact same thing, switch it off and search for the occasional gems in the dreck that season 7 tuned into.

Gag. Me. A sex ghost? Lame. My review is not too short.

Whether or not they meant it, Anne Rice did this story about Lasher, who became a spirit in 12th century Scotland and attached himself to a woman, then her daughter, then her daughter...etc. He brought them gifts, wealth, protection and also lots of trouble and heartache. He also knew how they liked to be touched and could only take form briefly, with effort. He loved each one of them, too. The similarities are too much for me to believe that book didn't influence this episode.

Boring and ridiculous. Fully deserving of its rating as one of the worst ever. Odd that some see this episode as somehow positive for Crusher considering she was deceived, seduced, and manipulated.

Given how people keep harping on the alleged ghost angle one can only assume they didn't pay any attention to the episode. The episode very clearly explains what type of life form Ronin is and why he needs/uses the Crusher women. He's not a ghost, accept it already.

Then there are those taking issue with Beverly's actions. Apparently some people have no concept of lust or what chemicals acting in the brain and body can bring a person to do. I guess they've never been infatuated with someone. Like people never do anything stupid when blinded by lust. Ronin was intoxicating Beverly and influencing her, hence her unusual choices.

Also, there's no incest like one reviewer said. Come on now, incest in Star Trek?

This is a solid episode and has been one of my favorites for a long time. They introduce a new life form and show how it affects people and interacts in the world. I thought the subtle use of color throughout the episode was also a nice touch. It's not an overly technical episode and not every Star Trek episode needs to be. It is a welcome diversion from the usual.

I am a lifelong Trekkie since early 70s. Like most everyone, when Sub-Rosa first aired I thought it was bad. It was like...a Ghost Story.....huh? But watching this episode years later, I actually enjoy it. If you look at this as a character study and take time to appreciate Gates McFadden acting it is enjoyable. Also, realize that "Ronan" is an alien (not a ghost) who has been attached to Beverly's family for years. This was another episode from the last season of TNG when each character was getting an "episode" and then each were getting paired with another cast member for a showcase like "Picard & Beverly" in Attached. It can be very enjoyable. Especially, considering there has bern no TRUE STAR TREK Since ENTERPRISE.