Genesis

The title says it all for me. These guys know that the "powers that be" do not want to pay the high salaries of seven year veterans for another season, that they can go cheaper with "Deep Space 9" and the soon-to-be-released "Voyager." So, with the light at the end of the tunnel, why worry? The series has been picked up for a full season, and it's too late to cancel the six episodes that remain.

Let the makeup people have some fun. Cut back on the writing talent, and above all, just shelve the science books for a week. Maybe this episode with pick up a cult following like the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" or something.

Better yet, while the first and second seasons were really not that hot, STTNG has never really made a total stinker like Voyager will do with "Threshold," or STTOS did with "Spock's Brain," among others. So it's time to make one so horrible, it will be remembered forever.

Except I had forgotten it. My wife remembered bits and pieces, though it was scrambled. She though that Troi would turn into a spider (she didn't; someone else did), so I'm sure we had seen it together. But my subconscious, protecting me, had erased it totally from my memory, but after watching it a second time, said, "Sorry, Bud. This time you have to live with the memory forever." So here I am.

But it's not the end of the world for me. I actually dozed off in my chair for about 5-7 minutes of the story, and had to ask my wife what had happened.

So many STTNG episodes will be with me forever, treasured and watched again. But I have marked this one mentally. I will never watch "Genesis" again. I would watch "Spock's Brain" first.

There are so many messed up evolutionary events in this offering that it slips into the ludicrous. People are already acting strangely before Picard and Data take off to chase a torpedo that his gone off course, flying into open space. While they are gone, the crew begins to "devolve." They turn into various incarnations of their individual evolutionary past. What is strange is that they seem to come from all kinds of different entities. Data's cat, Spot, retreats to being an iguana. Are cats supposedly the ancestral progeny of reptiles? Picard and Data must confront these things as the Captain begins to show symptoms of regression. Once again, they are facing something that is so utterly foreign to them it would take a group of researchers months to come up with an antidote, if they could even do such a thing. Other than the jump-out-at-you stuff as the ship is filled with combative critters, there's not much here if you have the ability to think. How did Patrick Steward keep a straight face.

While Captain Picard and Lt.Commander Data are off chasing an errant Floton torpedo, Sick bay is is busier than usual. Dr. Crusher does some genetic therapy on Ensign Barkley's equivalent of an alien common cold.

On 21st century earth she would be sued for malpractice. What happens is she creates a virus that spreads through the ship like a wild crown fire and the crew be it human or another race reverts to the primitive.

Some of the reversions are something else. Lt.Worf's and Commander Riker's are the most frightening.

Once again androids are handy to have around in these situations. Data is impervious to these biological ailments and he does work at super speed.

One of the more off the wall TNG stories.

This episode harkens back to the roots of science fiction. It's an amazing homage to the Saturday afternoon matinee science fiction classics within the framework of the Star Trek universe.

The show's prologue involves Lt. Barkley acting like a worried whiner in the sick bay. Dr. Crusher gives him something for a fever. After the credits, the Enterprise soon becomes a mess! Slowly the members of the crew begin devolving into lower life forms. Fortunately, the Captain and Data are not aboard and when they do find the ship is a very sorry state, they set about correcting this problem.

This is a mildly entertaining episode. While it was pretty cool seeing the cool primordial makeup on a few crew members, a few things seemed odd. Shouldn't many of the crew members have been eaten by some of the more aggressive changelings? And where is all the manure and territory that the creatures would have 'marked'? In addition, the show never became enthralling...only interesting.

By the way, Data the living computer made a mistake in this one! He used the term 'de-evolution' whereas the correct term is 'devolution'. Look it up if you don't believe me.