The Child

ST:TNG:27 - "The Child" (Stardate: 42073.1) - this is the 1st episode of the 2nd season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This episode marks the first of many firsts.

1. Dr. Beverly Crusher has gone off to head Starfleet Medical and won't come back until season 3 (trivia: this is a position she will later hold after Star Trek: Nemesis).

2. In her place is Dr. Kate Pulaski (played by Diana Muldaur - who is a Star Trek veteran, having starred as Lt.Cmdr.Ann Mulhall/Thalassa and Dr. Miranda Jones - 2 separate characters in 2 separate episodes of the Original Series). She is very much like Dr. McCoy in her disdain for technology - this is made apparent with her initial disregard for Data.

3. Geordi La Forge is now chief engineer (after the rotating chief engineers of the 1st season) and now has a yellow uniform instead of red.

4. Worf is now also upgraded to chief of security, filling the spot that Tasha Yar had until she died. Worf also has a yellow uniform in place of red now, AND better makeup effects for his face than in the first season.

5. Commander Riker now has a beard - he won't be clean-shaven again until Star Trek: Insurrection - a good 10 years from now!

6. Whoopi Goldberg makes her first of many appearances as the bartender Guinan - she is a mysterious figure supposedly a friend of Picard's - this mystery will slowly unravel itself as the seasons progress.

7. In the same vain, Ten Forward, the bar that Guinan runs is shown for the first time. Ten Forward will be seen in many of the episodes.

8. Troi gets the hairstyle we're accustomed to from this episode on - "Old Bunhead" as she was known in season 1 is no more.

9. Troi names her "child" Ian Andrew, after her father.

10. Colm Meany returns, this time in charge of the transporters - he wasn't seen since the pilot episode "Encounter At Farpoint".

11. You can see many new Enterprise shots, including seeing the Enterprise physically go into warp from the point of view of inside the ship (in this case in Ten Forward).

Indeed, the second season slowly but surely feels more like the series we will come to know as it becomes more comfortable being a series of its own, and not one that relies on Star Trek's past.

I just watched this episode for probably the third time in my life. As others have written, it is forgettable, and I remembered only bits and pieces of it as I watched it.

I understand why Marina Sirtis hated it. The story is ridiculous, and it lacks real, genuine tension. It's also implausible, even for a futuristic science fiction setting.

This episode also marks the introduction of Diana Muldaur as Doctor Pulaski. Almost every Trek fan hated her because she replaced the sexy and talented Gates McFaddden then whined about her experience on the show years later.

I'm going to rank it 3 stars only because Sirtis's acting is believable despite the fact that she knew that her character's situation was ridiculous, which makes her performance even more impressive.

While en route to collect samples of a deadly plague in the hopes of creating a vaccine, the Enterprise encounters a mysterious pulse of energy that infiltrates the ship without detection. The pulse locates a sleeping Troi and impregnates her with a child that grows at an alarming rate.

The second season kicked off with this fairly routine episode that at least manages to feel like proper TNG - La Forge is now Chief Engineer, Worf is no longer a redshirt and we finally get Ten Forward and Guinan. But the story feels like reheated leftovers that has an intriguing premise but poor execution. And Dr Pulaski, the Enterprise's new on-board doctor, is as wooden as a stake and no replacement for Dr Crusher. And of course, Wesley has a subplot we don't care about because he always does. Fine but perfectly skippable.

It turns out, as revealed in the first part of "Making It So: Continuing ST:TNG" (a retrospective documentary that appears on the Blu-ray release of season 2), that this story was originally written for the projected (but never made) "Star Trek: Phase II", with Captain Kirk et al plus three new characters. With the Hollywood writers' strike looming, rather than come up with a new story, "The Child" was revised, with the parts originally written for the new characters of Phase II given to Riker, Troi and Data. Of course, some new elements were necessary: introducing Dr Pulaski, explaining the decision of Wesley Crusher to remain with the Enterprise, and so on. This would explain many of the complaints in earlier reviews published here: notably that the plot isn't up to the standard of other ST:TNG scripts of the time. Simply put, it's not really a ST:TNG script, but a composite of an older script with new characters transposed into it. And, to my mind, it's done pretty seamlessly.

They make it sound like all the galaxy is going to come to an end because this tiny little thing is growing. They want to eject it into space, but that's not a good idea. It's like they can't get rid of it.

I know I'm hardly an expert on stars, but I'm pretty sure they're really really hot. Toasty even. I bet launching this thing into a STAR, would pretty much take care of the darn thing and save the galaxy as we know it. Couldn't the writers come up with some REAL jeopardy, add a little to the story to make it sound REALLY bad?

I enjoyed seeing Whoopee on here, a BIG fan of the original series.