4.23 — “The Host”
Plot: Beverly has a new love interest, an–oh my God! What’s that crawling around in his stomach!?–ambassador from Trill named Odan. When Odan is injured on an away mission, Beverly discovers that Odan isn’t Odan at all, but a parasite living in Odan’s guts. The parasite needs a new host. How about William Riker? Can love survive?
Thoughts: A beautiful story sometimes wears ridiculous clothes. As Riker volunteers to be implanted with the heavy-breathing parasite, I wrote on my notepad “This episode has veered into the absurd.” Later, as Beverly and Deanna trade astonishingly long monologues in Ten Forward to the sound of pan pipes and swelling romantic music, I wrote “I want to hurl.”
He was a little much, that first Odan (or, first host for Odan). The love story in the first act is still more convincing than earlier romances depicted on the show (“Haven,” anyone?) that made you wonder whether the writers had ever seen a real couple interact before.
It is amusing to see Jonathan Frakes imitate the original Odan’s raffish new-age Yanni style. I wonder if the actors worked this out together?
But the writers would like us to turn our attention to more thoughtful questions. Is love about the outer shell, or is it an internal, spiritual communing? Or something else altogether? Is love selfless, or selfish? How much does the other person matter at all?
Shakespeare wrote “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” But what did he know? Did he even consider the possibility of sentient space parasites?
I don’t know either. All I can do is quote Lloyd Bridges’ character Sam Granymore from Joe Versus the Volcano (1990): “Damned if I know, Kimosabe. All I know is when you’re making those kind of calls, you’re up in the high country.” Personally, I don’t think I could get over my lover turning into my co-worker. I can’t say I’ve been in that situation, however, and the heart has its reasons.
There’s something progressive about the message that love can survive all manner of transitions, even switches in gender, and that love takes all shapes and forms. The ending is somewhat ambiguous as to why Beverly rejects the final version of Odan. Is homophobia a factor? Body switching is fine, but gender switching is a bridge too far? Or is it just that repeated switches is too emotionally taxing? Considering that the first romantic same-sex kiss on television was not aired until May of 2000 (during the third season finale of Dawson’s Creek), nine years after this episode aired in May 1991, I think they went pretty far here, even if they could have gone still farther. For Odan, gender is fluid.
This is a pretty wild episode, but it is the best Beverly Crusher episode so far, right? What might possibly rival it? “Remember Me?”
I had fun, so… 4 out of 5 futuristic laser scalpels.
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