6.22 — “Suspicions”
Plot: Beverly Crusher is relieved of duty and prepares to leave the Enterprise and her career behind after a series of experiments go wrong, costing the life of two scientists.
Thoughts: I am reminded of the XKCD cartoon: “SCIENCE! It works, bitches.” https://xkcd.com/54/
But not like this.
sunny jim points out that there is no reason to send a manned probe on a highly dangerous mission into the sun when all the data can easily be collected remotely by drone. Nor is there reason to precipitously abandon a promising line of research because of a few unexpected results, or because someone died. This is not a thing.
So, the premise is complete bollocks. As a murder mystery, it’s also not particularly good. The Takaran was tipped as the villain from the beginning. The explanation for motive that this respected scientist, present on Beverly’s invitation, just wants to steal the technology and turn it into a weapon for profit in this post-scarcity economy was unpersuasive. The writers are saying “I don’t think you care why this is happening, let’s move on.”
I could overlook most of this if the episode was fun. Gates McFadden’s delivery is so monotone, unfortunately, that Crusher could be diagnosing a patient, directing a play, or declaring that the dead body at her feet has been murdered and it all sounds the same.
Final request to the writers’ room in 1993: less technobabble, please.
2 of 5 metaphasic shields.
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