By 
Title: Conspiracy
Airdate: 5/9/1988
Plot Summary
Picard is summoned by another captain, Walker Keel, an old friend of Picard and Crusher. He warns Picard that there is something wrong with Starfleet, old friends not acting like themselves. Picard and Data begin digging in and find odd orders by Starfleet over the last year. The Enterprise decides to go to earth and find out what’s going on.
Make It So
Picard has to make nice with the Admirals at Starfleet command. He tries to keep up the act until they put a bowl of mealworms in front of him.
Number 1
Riker gets his ass thoroughly kicked by an octogenarian. He then plays his part with the fake gill to pretend he’s been compromised.
Fully Functional
Data begins searching the computer on all the orders Starfleet has given the past year and is astonished to what he finds.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf also gets his ass kicked by Grandpa Simpson.
Phase Inducers
Geordi gets thrown through the doors by Quinn as well.
Counselor Cleavage
Troi wonders if Data or Worf has ever had a moonlight swim. Worf replies he doesn’t swim because it’s too much like bathing. Data is mystified that one can swim in moonlight.
Dancing Doctor
It’s up to Crusher to have the wherewithal to pull out a friggin phaser and stun the crap out of Quinn.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley still not here. Not sure if Wheaton was in school or what.
Canon Maker
A code 47 is starfleet emergency frequency and is only for a captain’s eyes.
Walker Keel commands the Horatio, an ambassador class ship. We’ll see what that class ship looks like when we see the Enterprise-C.
We see a bolian for the first time, Captain Rixx.
Tryla Scott made captain faster than anyone in starfleet. This means she must’ve broken Kirk’s record.
Canon Breaker
I find it not credible that you need put a phaser on kill to stop someone who has a parasite just because they have adrenaline. A phaser on kill can vaporize you, I don’t think adrenaline could fight that.
Speaking of phasers, they have stun and kill settings. What the fuck setting is it to blast all the skin off the face and then make the head explode?!
A Little Bloody Nose
The Horatio was destroyed, killing Walker Keel and everyone else aboard. Remmick dies most horribly. Or maybe he already was dead.
Technobabble
Data talks to himself while doing his investigation. The computer thinks it’s a voice command and Data explains why people might talk to themselves. He continues on until the computer finally tells him to shut the fuck up.
Please Repeat You Communication
“We seek peaceful co-existence!” – Remmick’s last words before his head explodes.
Library Computer
This episode was censored or outright banned in some countries thanks to the gore. This episode was supposed to be the introduction of the big bad but they realized it didn’t work and instead went with the Borg later on.
The doors in starfleet command would become the entry for 10 Forward in season 2.
I Know That Guy:
Ward Costello and Robert Schenkkan return as Admiral Quinn and Commander Remmick respectively.
Henry Darrow play Admiral Savar. He did a ton of work, most known for the rebooted Zorro series in the 90s. He would return in Voyager to play Chakotay’s father.
Jonathan Farwell plays Walker Keel. He mostly did the soap The Young and the Restless.
Michael Berryman plays Captain Rixx. You may remember him from the original The Hills Have Eyes. He was in a lot of other movies, including Weird Science and My Science Project. He was also in Star Trek IV and Star Trek V.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Man this episode is nuts. While TNG had some genuinely great episodes ahead, it did have a habit of latching on to popular movies of the day. Last week was Casablanca, later on they would do a Robin Hood episode and a Ghost episode, two big hits from the early 90s. This episode was only 2 years removed from Aliens and I have to think that was somewhat of an influence on this.
This mix of Alien and Invasion of the Body Snatchers is somewhat interesting and I can’t help but sort of enjoy it when I watch it. But damn it’s mean spirited. The ending where Riker and Picard first blow up Remmick’s head and then kill the creature inside is needlessly gory. I know Remmick was kind of a dick in Coming Of Age but does he deserve this? It probably wasn’t him at the time.
Was Remmick always at the heart of this? It would seem so. If that’s the case and he’s been working with Quinn, how was Quinn not the first one taken over? The whole investigation in Coming Of Age makes little sense when you find out who was running the whole thing. I mean Remmick had everyone on the bridge crew in a one on one with him. Why didn’t he use that to begin siccing parasites on them then?
Plus these creatures seem to have been working so carefully over many months to get this far. “Quinn” basically tips his hand once he decides to make a scene trying to infect Riker. They basically blew up their entire plan.
The creatures all die when the mother creature does? What are they, Chitauri? Goes to show that old trope has been around a while.
I don’t hate this episode but it’s really the least “Trek” of all the TNG episodes. They could’ve beamed the creature into a cell or something, studied it, maybe tried to communicate with it. It just doesn’t seem like they would’ve just blasted it to dust.
Just a weird episode all the way around.
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