112 – Violations

Grade: D-

Summary

The Enterprise is transporting a family of telepathic historians who collect memories to add to their vast library. Suddenly, Counselor Troi remembers a terrible experience and lapses into a coma. Later, Riker also lapses into a coma, and LaForge and Data must find out the cause.

Commentary

I am pretty certain I have seen every single episode of the entire Star Trek franchise that has ever aired on TV. But as I have been re-watching the series, I’ve usually found that if I don’t remember what the episode is about, it’s probably because it wasn’t a very good episode in the first place. Several of the first-season episodes that I watched recently were like that for me. This episode is another example. Is it ironic that this episode deals with bad memories that Counselor Troi has forgotten, and yet this episode is one of those bad memories for me?

Simply put, this episode is awful. I hated it. I gave it a D- only because I think the character of the villain was pretty well established, and there were some relatively minor highlights here and there. Most of the episode is pretty creepy, so at least that part was effective.

But it was not enjoyable at all, and Picard’s moralizing at the end of the episode was just way too much for me to take. He seemed to go on and on and on for five minutes, talking about the importance of eliminating violence from humanity. What they used to do in the Original Series was have McCoy and Spock trade short statements for the enjoyment of the audience. Here in this episode, we have to endure one of his “marvelous speeches” — as Q would put it — just in case we didn’t get the moral of the story during the previous 40 minutes. I blame lazy writing for this entire failure of an episode.

In the Star Trek film Nemesis, there is at least one scene that is just exactly like a scene in this episode. It’s when a mind-invading alien attacks Troi while she’s remembering being with Will Riker. I hated the scene in this episode, and I can’t think of any reason why they’d want to repeat this episode in a feature film.

I wouldn’t recommend this episode for any reason. It’s only slightly better than Shades of Gray, but not much.

Of Note

Keiko O’Brien appears in this episode by herself, and that’s the first time we see her in any Star Trek episode without her husband, Chief O’Brien.

Also, Riker pays a visit to Troi while she’s in a coma in Sickbay, just like she visited him during Shades of Gray when he was remembering things during his coma. I guess that’s a nice touch, but it’s not enough to make it worth more than a D-.