Transporter, fountain of youth, po-tay-to, po-tah-to
The short recap:
It’s a Pulaski episode, but more importantly, CHIEF O’BRIEN GETS A NAME.
The long recap:
Chief O’Brien, one of the best damn characters in Trek history, finally gets a name in this episode, and that should tell you one thing: it’s an episode where all things will be solved by transporter magic.
But primarily, it’s a Pulaski-focused episode. The Enterprise is meant to be meeting up with a medical courier, and Picard wants to use the mission as an excuse to give Pulaski her performance review. Conveniently, a much more engaging situation arises, as they intercept a mayday from a Federation supply ship. The Lantree is adrift, and everyone aboard has died of premature old age.
It’s inexplicable; the Lantree’s crew was in perfect health before they set off, except one of them had a cold. As everyone ponders this mystery, Riker just drops “oh, and they stopped by a genetic research facility” into the conversation. Because that isn’t an important detail at all!
They head to Darwin Station (of course that’s what it’s called) and find the rapid-ageing disease has struck there. The chief scientist manning the station recognises Pulaski and they nerd out a bit over medical science, before she insists that they save “the children” – a group of genetically-engineered youngsters who are immune to disease.
Mmmm, sticky.
This is a record scratch moment, because human cloning and genetic experimentation is such a massive no-no later in the Trek run, and it’s all meant to go back to that minor incident involving a certain Khan Noonien Singh. It’s all but punishable by death, and almost everyone subjected to it is institutionalized! But instead Pulaski gets to examine one of the kids – a telepathic 12-year-old with the body of a freshman, frozen in carbonite suspended animation – and is full of awe and wonder at the “future of humanity” (which as Voyager watchers will know actually involves catfish.)
Pulaski has a knock-down argument with Picard about bringing the kid aboard, and confers with Deanna about why they don’t get on; Deanna responds with the fairly predictable, “the reason you don’t get on is because you’re very alike.” Armed with this powerful insight, Pulaski persuades Picard to let her examine the kid on a shuttle, outside the ship, convinced that their superior genetics will prevent them carrying the disease.
Whoops, she gets the ageing sickness too – so there’s no saving the kids! Down to Darwin Station goes Pulaski, to see a bubble-room full of young, pretty, (all white) telekinetic teens, apparently unfussed that their scientist-parents are dying around them.
I was hoping it would all turn out to be a plot by the kids to murder their intellectually-inferior handlers, but it’s nothing that dramatic: they’ve just been created with really, really aggressive immune systems which have responded to the presence of a minor flu by creating antibodies to kill everyone else. Oops!
The Enterprise crew confer, and you really know that they’re going to save the day using transporter magic, because O’Brien gets to be in the briefing room. They come up with a perfect example of TNG plausible-science-waffle; somehow they can programme the transporter to filter out Pulaski’s damaged DNA and thus de-age her.
How are they not evil? Look at them!
There’s a weird little sequence where suddenly there’s obstacle after obstacle – Pulaski’s never used the Enterprise’s transporters so they don’t have a record of her, her last ship deleted her files, her blood samples haven’t arrived from Starfleet, and finally Riker and Data have to break into her quarters and raid her hairbrush. But it fills the time, and allows Picard to find out that Pulaski actively requested a transfer to the Enterprise, because she admires him so much.
Transporter magic saves the day, Pulaski is restored to her normal age, and she and Picard are set to have a constructive working relationship at last … right up until the fans demand Bev back.
This was a surprisingly poignant episode for me. I have very little recollection of Pulaski from the first time I watched the series, so I was actually a little worried she was going to die, and reading her final log entry over the viewscreen was really sad. But she lives – so they keep the sad going by returning to the Lantree and torpedoing it.
Additionally:
- This episode is chock-full of things which will never be seen again, including the styrolite/suspended animation combo, and the fact that Picard can just request computer access to another ship when it’s found adrift. These would definitely come in handy on other occasions!
- I’m torn on the sci-fi naming conventions – like “Darwin Station” for a genetics lab tampering with evolution. When The Chronicles of Riddick came out a lot of people mocked the fact that the fiery-lava-prison-planet was called Crematoria, and it’s a pretty naff name. But you know, it’s also exactly the kind of name humans will give a fiery-lava-prison-planet as soon as we discover one.
- This is irrelevant to the episode, but it must be said: dudes with names like Khan Noonien Singh ain’t white.
Points scored:
- O’Brien: 1 for saving the day by plugging a different attachment into the transporter.
Best pic of him I could find from this ep. WHERE IS THE O’BRIEN LOVE?
MVP: Chief O’Brien
It’s just always, always going to be Chief O’Brien for me. As of this episode he’s just a beta-Geordi, in charge of specifically transporter-related jiggery pokery, but these are recaps in hindsight, and O’Brien goes on be a fantastic character, involved in one of the most realistic relationships portrayed in sci fi, father to the cutest child ever born, and always just on the right side of the “bluff Irishman who tells it like it is” line. He’s also one of the only real “working class” characters in Trek, a show often dominated by brilliant scientists and high-flying diplomats and flamboyant smuggler captains.
