“Will there be any physical evidence of what you are going to do to him?”
The big takeaway from “The Mind’s Eye” wasn’t anything to do with the plot proper of the episode itself, which sees Geordi brainwashed, Manchurian Candidate-style, to kill a Klingon politician. No, the big “squee!” moment back in ’91 came because the sequences of Geordi’s brainwashing included the silhouette of a Romulan woman standing in the shadows – who spoke with the voice of Denise Crosby.
Sure, the producers tried to screw it around some by electronically processing the voice, but Crosby’s silky half-lisp is pretty hard to disguise. And so we got our first indication that the late Lt. Yar might not be so late after all… although the actual mechanics of her resurrection were still an episode or two away. In the meantime, we get a decent Geordi show based around the age-old spy premise of a man who does not know he’s been programmed to commit an assassination. Unfortunately, the episode never has Geordi (who spends most of it investigating a gun-running conspiracy in which he, himself, is an unwitting key member) figure out that he’s chasing himself. That’s left to Data, and the climax of the show, when Data puts it all together, is thrilling. Otherwise, “The Mind’s Eye” is a staid, moderately creepy suspense story on the Enterprise; the best scene is the very last one, where LaForge freaks himself out by half-remembering the Romulan vessel attacking his ship, while going over his false memories with Counselor Troi.
With Geordi listening to Spanish guitar in his little shuttle pod in the pre-credits teaser, before the Romulans attack, we realize that it is the character’s annoyingly unquenchable sunny affability that makes him such an unsettling choice for a killer. LeVar Burton wisely chooses to play brainwashed Geordi exactly as normal, which makes stuff like him sitting down for a drink after shooting (a hologram of) Chief O’Brien all the more unnerving.
It’s line producer David Livingston’s first turn in the director’s chair, and he acquits himself well; his occasional use of a fisheye lens to follow the somnambulant Chief Engineer on his murderous mission is nicely chosen. I don’t like the Geordivision here, though – or really, anywhere afterwards, either. Geordi’s POVs in “Heart of Glory” were a wonder of dizzying visual information, a kind of kaleidoscopic waterfall, which – as Captain Picard observed – really told you something about the man. From “The Mind’s Eye” onward, Geordivision is just (badly) video-processed two-tone imagery, and is nowhere near as beguiling to watch or to think about.
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season Four is in stores now, and here comes Season Five.