The Child

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.

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.

There's an air of confidence as 'The Child' opens; you can totally feel this is a new season. Geordi's running Engineering, cosmetic changes abound on the bridge, chief among them the origin of Riker's beard (game-changer, baby!). The bad news is we also get Dr. Pulaski and her anti-android prejudice.

But as for the actual episode, we get the Enterprise transporting some sort of death plasma, while Counselor Troi gets impregnated by a glowing blue sparkle (so, Tinkerbell?) and delivers a baby within hours. Miracle of pain and scar-free delivery, no less. All kidding aside, there's actually some emotional weight to this, as the child is linked to the plasma stuff and the Enterprise is under threat. I must've watched a different episode than everyone else did, because I liked it. I got a real "Starman" vibe from this.

7/10

The A plot of Counselor Troy is quite disturbing and hasn't aged well -- while the general plot of Troy being fine with getting impregnated against her will is quite horrible, some of the scenes are cringe worthy. The scene of the bridge officers discussing how to terminate her pregnancy (entirely ignoring Troy) is particularly unpleasant.

The B plot about Wesley Crusher -- particularly the introduction of Guinan -- is fairly good. It provides a good bridge to keep Crusher even though his mom left the ship while providing some good life lessons.