Star Trek: The Next Generation - S01E07 - Lonely Among Us

Today in our continuing effort to scientifically determine who fucked the most, we are taking a look at the seventh episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. First airing on November 2, 1987, this episode is about an alien entity that takes over the Enterprise while it transports some diplomats to some kind of peace conference or some shit. All I know is that I hope it has fucking and doesn't have the outright racism that has been so prominently featured in some earlier episodes this season.

Preexisting Prejudices
This is another episode that does not sound all that familiar to me based on the brief episode description. There's some shit about Sherlock Holmes but the only detective shit I recall is stuff that went down on the Holdeck while this seems more like applying Sherlock Holmes style deductive reasoning to the "real world." All I know is that I hope someone fucks in this episode. There have been too many alien of the week episodes in a row and I need some implied P in V intercourse to break up the monotony.

Plot Synopsis
We join the Enterprise as it traverses the Beta Renner system. The two primary planets of the system: Planet Dog-Guys and Planet Snakemen have been beefin' with each other since they first took to the stars but both want to join the Federation. The Enterprise has been tasked with picking up delegates from each planet and bringing them to the planet, Parliament Funkadelic for some kind of peace accords.

Down in the teleportation room, Yar, Riker and Picard are wearing dresses to meet the delegation from Planet Snakemen. The snakemen arrive and Picard welcomes them but the lead snakeman is like, "Yo did you pick up the dog-guys first?" They tell them that they did but explain it was only because Planet Dog-Guys was the planet they passed first en route to Planet P-Funk from their point of origin.

The lead snakeman then asks how close their quarters are to the dog-guys. Riker tells them and they are not pleased. Riker says that they can move their quarters if they'd like. The snakemen would like this very much and specifically request quarters upwind from the dog-guys. Stupid snakeman! There's no wind in space! Anyway, Riker's like, "Okay dudes let's get you to your quarters!" and leads them off.

After Riker leads with the snakemen Yar tells Picard that she thinks that neither the snakemen nor the dog-guys make particularly promising candidates to join the Federation. Picard's like, "Yer goddamn right!" and adds that the peer mediators on P-Funk are going to have a heck of a time getting the two species to agree to anything.

The Enterprise then heads out but as they prepare to do Warp Speed or whatever, Data's like, "Yo Captain, I'm picking up a weird energy object up ahead. Oh look a weird purple space cloud!" The cloud is apparently traveling at warp speed so Picard's all like, "Curiouser and curiouser! Let's check that bad boy out baby!" He tells Data to bring the Enterprise close to the cloud so they can scan it before jumping to warp speed so they can get to P-Funk in a timely fashion.

Meanwhile down in the area of the ship known as "sensor maintenance" Geordi and Worf are maintaining the sensors that need maintenance. Geordi's like, "Yo Worf why do you want to learn about maintaining the sensors in sensor maintenance anyway?" and Worf's like, "Because we have a goddamn captain who expects his junior officers to learn, learn, learn..."

Yar calls them on her phone and asks them if there's any problems down there since they are passing by the space cloud. Geordi tells them that everything is in tip-top shape. As they pass the cloud, Worf hears a weird noise coming from a console and goes to investigate only to get electrocuted by a weird blue electricity beam. Worf collapses like a sack of shit and Geordi rushes over to him and calls for medics. TALK ABOUT A COLD OPEN!

After that good-ass opening theme we check back in at sensor maintenance where Dr. Beverly Crusher and some nameless medical guy arrive to check on Worf. As they begin doing medical aid Worf wakes up and he is PISSED! He hurls the nameless medic away so Geordi leaps onto Worf to subdue him so Dr. Beverly Crusher can administer a sedative. They get Worf calmed down and then haul him off to sickbay to figure out what the shit happened to him.

In the ready room, Geordi tells Picard that he saw a glow in sensor maintenance before Worf was all like, "WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" and got knocked the fuck out. Picard asks Geordi if there's a chance that his V.I.S.O.R. was fucking up but Geordi's like, "Nah I don't think so."

Before I continue with this plot synopsis and my analysis to determine which Star Trekker fucked the most I'd like to talk about the fact that Geordi's visor is actually V.I.S.O.R. which is apparently an acronym for, "Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement." I did not know this until a couple days ago and to be most forthright I was far happier living my life under the impression that it was just a visor because that's what it was. What a dumb, pointless acronym that makes a thing seem stupider than it actually is, but I digress...

Back on the Enterprise, Yar and Riker are visiting the dog-guys in their quarters. There's apparently been a misunderstanding about the dog-guy's food supply. They want their livestock to be live before they consume it or something. I'm not entirely certain what the problem here is. Riker tells Boss Dog-Guy that humans no longer "enslave animals" for food. Boss Dog-Guy's like, "That seems untrue since I've seen you fuckers eating meat." Riker's like, "It's all inorganic matter produced by the ship's replicators." This disgusts Boss Dog-Guy and he calls it "barbaric."

The entire scene is played for comic relief which is kind of weird since it makes all the parties involved look like assholes. Yar and Riker show off some of that good old-fashioned cultural imperialism and the dog-guys get to be those meat assholes who are dicks to vegetarians for some fucking reason. IT'S COMEDY GOLD!

Down in the sickbay Dr. Beverly Crusher examines Worf with a weird science helmet that I'm going to bet only appeared in this one scene of this one episode of this show. As she scans Worf, blue electricity jumps out of Worf and into Dr. Beverly Crusher's science helmet. Troi then shows up to ask after Worf and finds Dr. Beverly Crusher acting hella weird. Troi asks if she's feeling okay and Dr. Beverly Crusher tells her that "Both of us, quite normal now," which is a weird way to respond to that question.

Worf then wakes up and is like, "Yo! Where the fuck am I?"

Troi tells him that he's in sickbay and asks him if he remembers anything that happened to him. Worf only remembers being in sensor maintenance and asks why he's in sickbay. Troi tells him that Dr. Beverly Crusher will give him the deets but Dr. Beverly Crusher is like, "Later! Gotta bounce!" and leaves the sickbay.

Meanwhile on the bridge Data wants to explore the space cloud some more but Picard's like, "It's going to have to wait buddy. We have to get these dog-guys and snakemen to Planet P-Funk posthaste!" He then tells Geordi to blast off to adventure which Geordi does.

Meanwhile at the Crusher residence, Dr. Beverly Crusher arrives to find her son, the Archfiend Wesley Crusher, quickly tab out of online porn to pretend that he's doing work on a nonexistent science project. He tries to hide his boner and then explains Dr. Channing's theory on dilithium crystals. His mom is like, "Tell me all about it," which confuses Wesley Crusher because no one ever asks him to tell them all about some random bullshit fact he's spewing from his stupid fuck-face.

Wesley Crusher rambles about some sci-fi bullshit and his mom is like, "Would that make navigation better?" and Wesley's all whiny as fuck and is like, "Moooooooooom I'm talking about engineering not helm control!" Dr. Beverly Crusher is then like, "Ah that's right! Helm control is located on the bridge!" Wesley asks his mom if she's okay but she ignores him, like everyone should, and leaves.

A short while later, Dr. Beverly Crusher arrives on the bridge and walks over to Geordi's workstation and declares, "THIS IS THE HELM!"

Geordi's sarcastic as fuck and tells her that it is unless someone made some changes without telling him about them but Picard shows up and is like, "Enough fuckin' around! Bev, what's the straight poop about Worf's condition?"

Dr. Beverly Crusher, who in case it's not obvious, is completely under the control of the blue electricity shit kind of shrugs and is like, "His brain was all fucked up but now he's better alright?"

Picard's like, "Yo Worf is my man mang! That's a shit answer. I want a more accurate diagnosis!"

Dr. Beverly Crusher tells him that she'll have to run some additional tests later but Picard's just like, "Use that science station next to Data and MAKE IT SO!" Dr. Beverly Crusher begins to use the workstation while Data looks at what she's doing. The blue electricity the leaves Dr. Beverly Crusher's body and goes into the computer. She's then in a daze and is all like, "Yo what am I doing here?" before leaving the bridge.

Suddenly nothing on the bridge works anymore and they get a call from Lt. Singh in engineering who tells them that the warp drive is all kinds of fucked up as well. More and more systems start failing and Picard's like, "This is fuckin' bullshit! We're not even a year out of spacedock!" He asks Data what the probability of all these systems fucking up on such a new spaceship and Data's like, "Next to zero dude!"

Back from break we're in the conference room as Picard tries to figure out what in the fuck is going on with a bunch of department heads. Singh thinks that some sort of electrical short could be to blame for an individual system, but none of the affected systems interact with each other so it doesn't explain why everything got fucked. Singh namedrops Engineering Guy Argyle from the last episode and says that he's got no idea what in the fuck is going on either. Picard's like, "Whatever! Just figure it the fuck out and give me an explanation before we get to P-Funk."

Meanwhile down in the dog-guys' quarters Riker and Yar scold the Boss Dog-Guy about a weapon they took from one of his dudes...a dude they found lurking in the shadows down by the snakemen's quarters. The Boss Dog-Guy explains that it's a tool to kill the animals they eat, not a weapon but Riker's like, "Whatever guy we're confiscating these. Violence will not be tolerated on the Enterprise!"

Boss Dog-Guy tells Riker that they won't start any violence and then after Riker leaves mutters that they will finish it though, which even in 1987 had to have been a completely overused turn of phrase for pop culture tough guys.

Back on the bridge, Worf tells Picard that the warp drive is failing and the Enterprise drops out of warp speed. Picard is like, "Fuck! Data, send a message to P-Funk and inform them that we're running late." Data attempt to do this but the phones are also all kinds of messed up and is thus unable to.

Later in the ready room, Data tells Picard that if the Enterprise had all these system failures they would have never left spacedock. He and Riker therefore believe that there's a saboteur on the ship. Riker thinks that the Ferengi might have bribed the Dog-Guys or Snakemen to wreck shop on the ship and informs Picard that there's evidence that the Ferengi contacted both the Dog-Guys and Snakemen before the Enterprise picked them up.

Picard asks if Riker and Data have any more suspects and Riker replies that Picard sounds like a right proper private eye. This idiomatic expression confounds Data so Picard explains what a private eye is and mentions Sherlock Holmes because Sherlock Holmes is the most famous detective that was in the public domain in 1987. Data is most interested in this which undoubtedly is leading to some dumb antics.

Down in engineering, Boy Genius Wesley Crusher is hanging around with Singh trying to help the adult do his job and come up with a solution to the failing systems on the ship. Singh's like, "Don't you have school or some shit?" to try to get rid of the annoying boy genius. Wesley Crusher is like, "Yeah, but I think I can learn more by hanging around here annoying you." Singh tells him to fuck off and get to class and so Wesley leaves.

Later in the Crusher residence, Wesley returns home from school to find his mom lounging about in a red housewife fuck-robe reading something. Wesley whines about how lame it is that he has to go to school when he's a boy genius who know more about spaceships than anyone on the ship knows. He mentions the dilithium crystal theory he told her about earlier and Dr. Beverly Crusher is like, "I don't remember you talking about that...but then again I rarely listen to anything you actually say ever."

Back down in engineering, Singh, now completely free of the hassle of having a looming boy genius, is working on a computer. He randomly presses a button and gets wrecked by the blue electricity, collapsing near the warp core. Worf shows up and sees Singh's body and rushes over to him. He then phones Picard to tell him that Singh is all corpsed up.

We return from commercial break and are informed by Picard that an investigation into the death of Singh is underway. Down in engineering it is discovered that the warp drive has been fixed so the ship can engage warp drives whenever they want. Picard's like, "Let's haul ass and try to make up for lost time!" and orders the ship to kick it into warp six en route to P-Funk.

Down in the Dog-Guys' quarters Yar asks them where they were when Singh got murdered. Boss Dog-Guy tells her that they were eating and Yar is fucking poleaxed, "YOU WERE EATING FOR THAT MANY HOURS?!"

Boss Dog-Guy is like, "We found a particular interesting animal..."

Meanwhile in the sickbay, Troi is checking on Dr. Beverly Crusher and Worf trying to help them recover their lost memories. She is going to hypnotize Dr. Beverly Crusher to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Later in the conference room, Data is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and is puffing on a pipe as he explains that the Dog-Guys and Snakemens were wandering around elsewhere in the ship when Singh died and then later went to the sickbay for medical supplies to that people would need after a fight thus proving that they were too concerned with their own shit to fuck with the ship or murdering Singh. Data says, "It's elementary, my dear Riker...sir...they'd kill each other than anyone from the Enterprise."

Back in the sickbay, Troi has hypnotized Dr. Beverly Crusher while Worf chills out and watches. Troi asks Dr. Beverly Crusher to think back to what happened before losing her memory. She says she remembers scanning Worf and then there was another presence there. Troi then gets Dr. Beverly Crusher out of hypnosis and says that her answers were the same as Worf's.

Troi then tells Picard that she thinks something has invaded their bodies. Data believes that this is possible and it's likely whatever the entity that invaded Worf and Dr. Beverly Crusher's bodies probably fucked with the ship's systems.

Out on the bridge, Boy Genius Wesley Crusher and Geordi are talking and Wesley tells him that it's impossible for the warp drive to have fixed itself. The warp engines suddenly fail again and the Enterprise drops to impulse power. Picard comes out of his ready room to the bridge to figure out what the fuck is going on. He touches a console and the blue electricity jumps into Picard's body and begins to act weird as we go to commercial break.

Back from advertisements, Picard, now possessed by the blue electricity order the Enterprise to go back to the space cloud but Geordi's like, "The engines are totally fucked sir we can't move at all." Picard uses his blue electricity powers to restore power to the engines and then orders Geordi to double back to the energy cloud.

Everyone is like, "Yo man what the shit? We're already running late getting the dog-guys and snakemen to Planet P-Funk," but Picard is like, "We only found out a little bit about that space cloud and need to find out more about it posthaste!"

Meanwhile in the hallway Miles "Khan" O'Brien is following Boss Dog-Guy trying to get him back to his quarters. Boss Dog-Guy isn't having it though and is demanding to see Captain Picard in order to find out why the ship changed its course. A door opens and one of the snakemen pops out and starts yelling at Boss Dog-Guy for being near his quarters. They hiss at each other while O'Brien channels the Offspring keep 'em separated.

Elsewhere Riker, Troi, Geordi, Data and Dr. Beverly Crusher meet to discuss how weird Picard is acting and possibly mutinying. Troi says that she could sense that Picard is hiding something from her. They say that if Picard becomes a danger to himself or others he should be relieved of his command. Dr. Beverly Crusher could do this since it's one of her powers as the chief medical officer. Geordi tells her, and I quote, "It's boku trouble if you're wrong."

Later Dr. Beverly Crusher and Riker go to Picard's office to tell him that they want to run a few tests on him. He keeps asking them why and they finally tell him that they think an alien force has possessed him. He gets all angry and tells that they they're all overworked and hallucinating and orders them to get treated by the medics and then tells them to get the hell out of his office before he calls security to take them away. Geordi was right! BOKU TROUBLE UP IN THIS MUG!

Some time passes and Dr. Beverly Crusher returns with the crew's medical test results. She gives it to Picard who's like, "Yeah whatever," and tosses it aside. Dr. Beverly Crusher asks if she's talking to the real Picard and the space cloud blue electricity alien tells her that Picard's in there with it and soon they will both be home.

The Enterprise arrives back at the space cloud and Picard walks onto the bridge. He looks at the cloud on the bridge's TV and then monologues as the blue electricity cloud alien about how when the Enterprise first went near the cloud it accidentally took it aboard. The blue electricity cloud alien tells the crew via Picard how terrified it was to be ripped from its home and how it passed from body to body before entering the ships computer systems and accidentally killing Singh.

Troi asks if Picard's consciousness is still there with the blue electricity cloud alien. The alien says that he is and the Picard and it share the same desires. They dream of exploration and since the creature is an energy pattern without matter Picard could go with it anywhere he desired. The creature then reveals that it (along with Picard) are going to rejoin the space cloud.

The crew tries to get Picard to think it over, but the blue electricity alien has complete control of Picard's body and uses blue electricity to overpower everyone on the bridge. Riker shouts for someone to subdue the captain but the blue electricity is too powerful and Picard leaves the bridge. He goes down to the teleportation room and fucks over the random dude working his shift in the teleportation room. He then turns on the transporter and teleports away into the space cloud.

An hour has passed with the crew of the Enterprise searching the space cloud for signs of Picard's energy pattern but they've found jackshit. Riker, having done all they can, tells Geordi to set a course back to P-Funk, but before they can MAKE IT SO Troi senses Picard out in the cloud. He does not belong there and needs help getting back.

Riker has Geordi move the ship closer to the cloud so they can scan for Picard. They don't pick up and signals at first but eventually Picard's essence enters the ship via the computers like the cloud alien did. Geordi's console suddenly lights up to for a letter "P."

"For Picard?" wonders the crew.

Yes for Picard you dumbasses. Anyway Data has Troi and Riker go with him to the teleportation room. Since Picard's physical pattern was stored in the transporter system or some shit, Data assumes that he'll be able to combine Picard's energy pattern with the physical pattern saved on the teleporter system to remake Picard. This is all dumb sci-fi bullshit that tries to be like real science or something and it makes my head hurt. Whatever the fuck Data's plan is suffice it to say it works and Picard returns.

Picard doesn't remember anything that happened to him and Riker tells him that he should go to the sickbay and rest for a bit. Yar suddenly shows up and is like, "Um we found a puddle of blood near the snakemen's quarters and the chefs have been asked by the dog-guys to broil a reptile...a big-ass reptile."

Picard's like, "You know what? I think I will take that rest," and then he puts on some sunglasses and a wailing 80s hard-rock guitar solo starts wailing.

How Rikered Was Riker?
Dude didn't eye-fuck anyone but he was plotting a mutiny after Picard started acting weird and did the classic dad move of "IF YOU DON'T KNOCK IT OFF BACK THERE I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL TURN THIS SPACESHIP AROUND AND WE WON'T GO TO PLANET P-FUNK!" move. I don't know too much about Starfleet (or Navy) protocol but plotting a mutiny seems like a pretty drunk thing to do. That being said Riker managed to keep his shit together so I'm saying he was moderately Rikered for this adventure.

Final Thoughts
I kind of wonder how many more Season 1 episodes have the basic plot of "some weird thing happens to the Enterprise which makes people act weird?" I've seen 7 episodes now and 3 of them more or less have the plot of "Star Trekkers are not acting like themselves." We had the fuck plague and then the space madness of the edge of the universe and now this space cloud. I mean having characters not acting like themselves is a fine plot device to use from time to time but I don't think it really works that well when you don't know what the characters who are acting all goofy's default personalities are.

Generally episodes like this work better on shows with a few seasons under their belts so viewers have some idea of who the people acting all wonky are, but that's beside the point, this episode had no fucking in it which means it was completely worthless for my very scientific study. Hopefully we get some hardcore boning in the next episode.

Fuck Count
Yet another episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where not one single human dick went into the sex orifice of a hitherto unknown alien race. I'm getting a bit discouraged...

Total Fucks for Episode: 0
Total Fucks for Season: 2
Total Fucks for Series: 2