7.19 — “Genesis”

7.19 — “Genesis”

Plot: A synthetic T-cell used by Dr. Crusher to treat Lieutenant Barclay for the Urodelan flu causes the whole crew of the Enterprise to deevolve into animals while Picard and Data are away on a shuttle mission.

Thoughts: It’s a good thing we’re watching DS9 alongside, or else I would feel like I’m complaining all the time. This may be the first TNG episode I have ever considered turning off partway.

Part of this is sheer embarrassment for the cast after watching the opening act. When Riker starts pulling faces, you know you’ve gone down the wrong path, but here Michael Dorn is doing it too!

But while the script and performances are embarrassing, “Genesis” does several specific things that tick me off.

In the opening scene, Riker is portrayed as a Casanova-clown (a continuing trend from recent episodes), and he starts the smirking that will escalate throughout the first act. Riker, we know, is supposed to be the Kirk surrogate. Do you know what Kirk would never do? Get involved in a romance with a subordinate. Remember “Dagger of the Mind?” Remember Janice Rand? Kirk took this boundary very seriously, because that’s workplace sexual harassment. Seeing TNG promote even the implication that this is precedented, acceptable behavior (let alone a joke) makes steam pour out of my ears. In this episode we also see Riker fail to relieve himself from duty long after he knows he has become unfit, also a grave mistake which Kirk would never commit.

Based on the rest of the episode, I feel like the writers are screaming “LOL! Nothing matters!” There is a shocking scene where venom is spit full force into Beverly Crusher’s face. Not to worry! Ogawa says “I managed to get her into stasis . . . she’s going to need reconstructive surgery, but I think she’ll be all right.” And there she is, smiling at the end, not a hair out of place.

A helmsman is disemboweled, and nobody cares. No one ever tries to find out who was responsible, and there is no accounting for the dozens of other crew, at minimum, who must also have been killed. Haha, so what? t’s just a dumb fantasy.

We are so far past even the pretense of realism, the director (Gates McFadden, btw) just replaces Spot, previously established as a male cat, with an iguana. A line says her transformation started during her delivery of live kittens. Who would no longer be live kittens by the time Picard and Data find them (newborn kittens need to nurse every 1-2 hours), and definitely not by the time the ship is saved. Is this supposed to be comedy? For continuity purposes, they should have glued ridiculous-looking lizard appliances to the cat’s face and maybe some ridges onto its back.

The makeup artists didn’t phone it in, though. The art department is always the hardest working team on TNG, and I hate to see them let down by lazy writing. Deanna’s amphibian is truly weird. The scope of what they accomplished using practical makeup on a 1994 television budget and schedule is impressive.

“Genesis” relegates Data into an exposition jukebox, uttering some of the silliest lines this side of “Spock’s Brain.” Tell you what, let’s vaporize a cat placenta, turn on a fan, and in a few hours everything will be fine! We”ll never mention this again.

We should follow suit.

1 out of 5 humanoid spiders crossed with the Elephant Man.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Genesis_(episode)