StarTrek TNG ep 2x1: "The Child"
Feb. 22nd, 2010 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wealhtheowThis is a crazy way to open a new season. For some reason the writers thought five minutes of watching a shuttle take off would be a fabulous way to get viewers excited for a whole new season's worth of space adventures. Then we watch Picard, Riker and Geordi (who has finally made Chief Engineer! Yay! I'll miss the ever-changing engineers, actually; it was always fun to see who was in charge each week.) geek out about Geordi's new containment boxes. Exhilarating!
So a little twinkly light roams through the Enterprise before finally crawling up Troi's bedsheets. Her eyelashes flutter, and the light disappears. Dum dum DUN! (The twinkly alien light looks remarkably similar to a flashlight's beam, which I'm sure is just a coincidence and not at all because the entire episode's budget is spent on slathering Deanna Troi in as much makeup as a human face can handle. There are scenes where I fear her entire face is about to slide off onto the floor. There is a *lot* of makeup, is all I'm trying to say.)
Back to the bridge. Picard wonders where his new chief medical officer has gotten to. Apparently, she's in Ten Forward. "Great," thinks Picard. "I've gotten rid of that red-headed twit only to be saddled with a lush." He heads over to the previously-never-mentioned Ten Forward to confront his erstwhile alcoholic doctor. But instead of delivering a smackdown of epic proportions, he receives some very surprising news: Deanna Troi is pregnant, and apparently thought that the ship's bar was the best place to talk about this with the new doctor. Picard is understandably gobsmacked.
Cut to the conference room, where Picard is giving possibly the most uncomfortable briefing of his life. "Deanna is having a child," he grits out. Geordi, Worf, Data and Riker look deeply weirded out. Riker tries to nonchalantly ask who the father is, and Troi shows rare spirit and snarks back. Riker still looks pissed, so Dr. Polaski takes over and shows some fetal pictures of Deanna's baby. The manly command crew all vote in favor of aborting the miracle fetus. Troi, meanwhile, is freaking out because she can hear her baby's heartbeat or something, but snaps back to reality to inform them all that she's keepin' her baby. Papa, don't preach.
I had high hopes for our new Chief Medical Officer, but those are dashed when I realize that instead of, say, monitoring the growth of the miracle fetus, she's letting Troi wander around the ship in a surprisingly nice maternity outfit. Her maternity clothes are so much nicer than her normal uniform that I kind of hope Troi stays pregnant forever. But no, she suddenly decides she's in labor and heads to Sickbay, where Polaski helps her give birth in what appears to be a dentist's chair. The labor looks suspiciously like Troi orgasming for five minutes, which is made doubly awkward by the presence of Riker, Worf, and an entire security team. Riker thinks Troi giving birth is the bestest thing ever. Worf looks ill.
Anyway, Troi and her new baby are very happy together and do all sorts of delightful mother-son bonding. The miracle baby is growing prodigiously fast, but no one seems all that concerned. Polaski isn't even monitoring his progress. I guess immaculate conceptions that gestate in 42 hours aren't that interesting to her. In fairness, she is a bit concerned with the plague samples that have mysteriously started growing in their containment capsules. Although Geordi and some random mustachio-ed medical dude made a big show of checking the containment seals, the plague is growing and will quickly burst through containment. Mustache dude shoosts down each of Geordi's ideas on how to get rid of it with absolute relish. Even for a medical officer he's sadistic.
Back to Troi and her miracle baby. The poor child can't act, but then, neither can Troi. They stumble through a few lines about how he's endangering the ship and has to leave, and then his heart stops. Troi wails and throws herself on top of his body, hair-piece trembling wildly. Everyone rushes into her quarters, but he's dead for realsies. But wait! His body dissolves into light and floats, Tinkerbell style, into Troi's hands. She communes with the light for a few seconds before it zooms out of the ship, never to be seen again. Troi looks up at the crew with shimmering eyes and tear-streaks in her pancake makeup and tells them all that her miracle baby was an alien life form that wanted to experience human life. The plague, which was growing in response to the alien's presence, stops growing, and everything is back to normal.
And thus ends the most boring season-opener in all of Star Trek history.
So a little twinkly light roams through the Enterprise before finally crawling up Troi's bedsheets. Her eyelashes flutter, and the light disappears. Dum dum DUN! (The twinkly alien light looks remarkably similar to a flashlight's beam, which I'm sure is just a coincidence and not at all because the entire episode's budget is spent on slathering Deanna Troi in as much makeup as a human face can handle. There are scenes where I fear her entire face is about to slide off onto the floor. There is a *lot* of makeup, is all I'm trying to say.)
Back to the bridge. Picard wonders where his new chief medical officer has gotten to. Apparently, she's in Ten Forward. "Great," thinks Picard. "I've gotten rid of that red-headed twit only to be saddled with a lush." He heads over to the previously-never-mentioned Ten Forward to confront his erstwhile alcoholic doctor. But instead of delivering a smackdown of epic proportions, he receives some very surprising news: Deanna Troi is pregnant, and apparently thought that the ship's bar was the best place to talk about this with the new doctor. Picard is understandably gobsmacked.
Cut to the conference room, where Picard is giving possibly the most uncomfortable briefing of his life. "Deanna is having a child," he grits out. Geordi, Worf, Data and Riker look deeply weirded out. Riker tries to nonchalantly ask who the father is, and Troi shows rare spirit and snarks back. Riker still looks pissed, so Dr. Polaski takes over and shows some fetal pictures of Deanna's baby. The manly command crew all vote in favor of aborting the miracle fetus. Troi, meanwhile, is freaking out because she can hear her baby's heartbeat or something, but snaps back to reality to inform them all that she's keepin' her baby. Papa, don't preach.
I had high hopes for our new Chief Medical Officer, but those are dashed when I realize that instead of, say, monitoring the growth of the miracle fetus, she's letting Troi wander around the ship in a surprisingly nice maternity outfit. Her maternity clothes are so much nicer than her normal uniform that I kind of hope Troi stays pregnant forever. But no, she suddenly decides she's in labor and heads to Sickbay, where Polaski helps her give birth in what appears to be a dentist's chair. The labor looks suspiciously like Troi orgasming for five minutes, which is made doubly awkward by the presence of Riker, Worf, and an entire security team. Riker thinks Troi giving birth is the bestest thing ever. Worf looks ill.
Anyway, Troi and her new baby are very happy together and do all sorts of delightful mother-son bonding. The miracle baby is growing prodigiously fast, but no one seems all that concerned. Polaski isn't even monitoring his progress. I guess immaculate conceptions that gestate in 42 hours aren't that interesting to her. In fairness, she is a bit concerned with the plague samples that have mysteriously started growing in their containment capsules. Although Geordi and some random mustachio-ed medical dude made a big show of checking the containment seals, the plague is growing and will quickly burst through containment. Mustache dude shoosts down each of Geordi's ideas on how to get rid of it with absolute relish. Even for a medical officer he's sadistic.
Back to Troi and her miracle baby. The poor child can't act, but then, neither can Troi. They stumble through a few lines about how he's endangering the ship and has to leave, and then his heart stops. Troi wails and throws herself on top of his body, hair-piece trembling wildly. Everyone rushes into her quarters, but he's dead for realsies. But wait! His body dissolves into light and floats, Tinkerbell style, into Troi's hands. She communes with the light for a few seconds before it zooms out of the ship, never to be seen again. Troi looks up at the crew with shimmering eyes and tear-streaks in her pancake makeup and tells them all that her miracle baby was an alien life form that wanted to experience human life. The plague, which was growing in response to the alien's presence, stops growing, and everything is back to normal.
And thus ends the most boring season-opener in all of Star Trek history.