“Felis catus, is your taxonomic nomenclature an endothermic quadroped, carnivorous by nature?”
Between this and “Man of the People,” we’re now deep into episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation whose existence had mercifully been deleted from my memory banks. I used to know this shit like the back of my hand – my brother used to tease me about / be amazed by my ability to spit out the title of a Next Gen episode off a single second of a single shot, anytime we flicked past one on TV. I was slightly better able to recall “Schisms” than “Man,” but in both cases, it took some work to call up a rough description of the plot.
It’s another “weird shit is happening on the Enterprise” episode, of the kind that’s been done better previously in episodes like “Night Terrors” or “Clues.” This time, members of the team are being abducted in their sleep, which is making Riker very cranky, and also making him fall asleep at Data’s poetry reading. (This is followed by one of the only instances in which we go to the opening credits without a dramatic music swell to tie off the prologue’s intrigue – largely because there isn’t any yet.)
The abductees, including an anonymous member of the Enterprise population we’ve never seen before (or ever again), turn to the holodeck to reconstruct their shared experiences of being abducted. I can only think of the poor prop master who had to come up with all the table variants to make the scene work. (The computer makes some amusing leaps of design logic between iterations of the holographic operating theatre, cutting down on the prop master’s workload somewhat.) But it’s really just a procedural gimmick, like the holographic recreation of the away mission in “Identity Crisis” – it has no bearing on the story as a whole, and seems instead just another regurgitation of “holodecks are cool, huh?”
The episode improves appreciably as it goes along, and I quite like the idea of a basement of subspace, a few levels down, where creepy mutes scuttle about, clicking at one another and abducting innocent Starfleet crew members for surgical experiments like severing and reattaching Will’s arm, or turning another crewman’s blood into liquid polymer. I also like the small detail of Geordi giving Riker a tricorder, in addition to his homing beacon, when sending Riker into the alien realm – to bring back whatever data on the phenomenon he might be able to capture. These guys are, after all, explorers.
“Schisms” marks the second appearance of Lanei Chapman as Ensign Sariel Rager (a name I quite like), the latest in the endless coterie of red-shirted ensigns, always female, who filled Wesley’s spot on the bridge after Wil Wheaton left the show. Ensign Ro notwithstanding, it always felt like a missed opportunity to me – why didn’t they ever just grab one of these ladies and hang on to her? Six seasons in, Next Gen certainly could have used the fresh blood.
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season Six is in stores.