Star Trek: The Next Generation - S02E22 - Shades of Gray

So it's come to this...a Star Trek: The Next Generation clip show. First airing on July 17, 1989, Shades of Gray is routinely held up as the worst Star Trek: The Next Generation of all time. Wikipedia says of it, "The episode was intended to save money at the end of the season by being a bottle episode which featured few additional characters," and explains that the reason the episode came into being was due to the fact that, "the show had overspent on the episodes 'Elementary, Dear Data' and 'Q Who,' and Paramount Pictures was holding the series to their overall season budget." So reviled is this particular episode that even the head writer of it, Maurice Hurley referred to it as, "a piece of shit," and called it, "terrible, just terrible." So it looks like I've got a lot to look forward to.

Preexisting Prejudices

This is a bad episode of Star Trek and was always a disappointment when it showed up as one of the episodes on the channel that played back to back episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation at 5:00 and 6:00 pm when I was in high school. To be most forthright, if not for the fact that I can't remember whether or not there's any fucking in the wrap around segments I would probably just skip it.

Plot Synopsis

We find ourselves on some random jungle planet where a forlorn looking Riker With Beard is sitting on a log. Geordi splashes over to him though some water and asks him what's wrong. Riker With Beard tells him that something stabbed him in the leg and we see that his slacks have been ripped and the skin beneath him is all bloody and shit.

Geordi calls up to O'Brien in the teleportation chamber and asks him to beam Riker With Beard back up. Riker With Beard begins to protest but Geordi reminds him that the two of them are the first people to set foot on that planet and they therefore have no idea what the the risks are of him getting bitten or stabbed by some unknown lifeform.

O'Brien tells him that the teleporter's detected unidentified microbes in Riker With Beard and the bio-fliter can't filter them out so he's informed Doctor Grandma. Back down on the jungle planet, Riker With Beard jokes, "I wasn't ready to leave here anyway."

Back in the teleportation chamber, Doctor Grandma looks at the results of the teleporter's bio-filter and decides to beam down to the planet to take a look at Riker With Beard to determine if whatever he has in his leg poses a risk to the rest of the crew. She reluctantly gets on the teleporter and takes a deep breath.

"I hope these are the right coordinates," says a grinning O'Brien before telling Doctor Grandma, "Just kidding, Doctor. I know how much you love the transporter."

"About as much as I love comical Transporter Chiefs," replies Doctor Grandma,

Doctor Grandma beams down to the planet and inspects Riker With Beard's wound and asks him if he saw what stuck him, but he did not. He tells him that there's no pain, but there's some numbness near where he was bitten and Geordi has had no luck in locating anything that could have done it to him. Doctor Grandma calls O'Brien and tells him that she's going to authorize the medical override and have him beam them back up with Riker With Beard.

Back in sickbay, some medical extras help Riker With Beard into a bed. He suddenly says, "This is the strangest feeling. My whole leg just went dead."

After that good, good opening theme song we get Picard dropping a Captain's Log detailing what just happened during the cold open for those viewers who might have been getting a beer out of the fridge when it was actually happening. Picard then goes down to sickbay where he jokingly chides Riker With Beard for putting his "foot where it didn't belong."

Riker With Beard smirks and replies that Doctor Grandma complained about being bored so he though he'd give her a challenge. Doctor Grandma tells him that he did indeed provide her with a challenge and explains that whatever has infected Riker With Beard's leg combines elements of both a virus and a bacteria and it's attacking his nervous system. She goes on to explain that they are multiplying at an incredible rate.

Picard asks her if she can remove them but she says that she cannot do so surgically without wrecking shop on Riker With Beard since the organism has fused itself to his nerves "intertwining at the molecular level." They don't appear to damage the nerves just impede normal nervous function and they are moving towards Riker With Beard's brain. She then explains that if they were to reach his brain Riker With Beard could die.

Picard asks her how he can help and Doctor Grandma says that if she had a sample of whatever infected Riker With Beard she could better understand what they are dealing with. Picard orders Data and Geordi to beam down to the planet ad find whatever got Riker With Beard.

In the teleportation chamber, Data tells Geordi that it might be better if he went alone since he's a robot and therefore likely immune to whatever organic organism wrecked Riker With Beard's shit. Geordi asks him, "how do we know that this bug doesn't like androids more than it likes humans."

Data tells him that it's "highly unlikely" but even if it were the case why risk both their lives? Geordi tells him because he knows exactly where Riker With Beard was when he got bitten which seems a pretty poor argument since they clearly had the coordinates of where Riker With Beard was since Doctor Grandma beamed down right next to him in the cold open. Data could just have easily done the same thing but he doesn't come to this conclusion and instead relents and he and Geordi beam down to the jungle planet.

Back on the jungle planet, Geordi shows Data where Riker With Beard was. Data begins scanning and detects no animal life within 50km but notes "extensive animals remains, mostly fossilized." Geordi meanwhile finds a root and tells Data to take a look at it. Data gets all up in the root's shit and Geordi warns him to be careful.

"I am always careful," says the routinely careless Data.

Data explains that it looks dead but Geordi is less sure since he "can see thermal variations," using V.I.S.O.R. He has Data let go of the root and wants to try to grab it himself saying that the root might "like humans more than androids." Data tells him that if he is right he's putting himself in grave danger, but Geordi tells him he trusts in Data's reflexes.

The root suddenly moves towards Geordi but Data grabs it to prevent his buddy from getting wrecked. They see a big-ass thorn on the vine and laser it off, causing the vine to seemingly writhe in pain as they do. They then immediately ask to be beamed up. Geordi is just holding the thorn with a pair of tweezers.

They get beamed back up and Geordi puts the thorn in some kind of container. Couldn't you have done that before you beamed back up dude? It's a sample of a hazardous material for crying out loud!

Anyway he thanks O'Brien for beaming them up so quickly, telling him "Another minute and we'd have been fossils ourselves," oblivious to the fact that O'Brien knew nothing of the fossils on the planet. Data tells him that that's not true since "true fossilization requires several millennia." Picard shows up and Geordi shows him the thorn. Picard tells him to get it to sickbay posthaste and then asks Data for a report.

Data explains that there are certain vines on the planet that "seek out warm-blooded beings and deliberately infect them. Picard wants to know why but Data doesn't know. He speculates that the might be a symbiotic relationship involved and then explains that there where numerous animal remains in the area and adds that the vines might be predatory. 

Picard lays it out in more straightforward verbiage, "Vines infect animals in order to kill them?"

Data says that he believes so but hopes for Riker With Beard's sake that his hypothesis is incorrect. Picard tells him that unfortunately they rarely are and with that tension built we go to commercial break. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES!!!

Back from break we check in with Doctor Grandma who is hard at work analyzing the microorganism. She tells Picard that it's very mysterious and can't figure out what's keeping it alive.

"Or how to kill it?" asks Picard.

She tells him that she knows exactly how to kill it but can't do so without also destroying the nerves it has attached itself to. Picard tells her that he's certain she's doing her best and then goes out to check on Riker With Beard. Riker With Beard continues to be he's usual jovial self, joking about faking his injury so the medical crew will wait on him hand and foot but eventually gets a bit more serious.

Picard tells him that he's sorry this happened to him but Riker With Beard tells him that he's surprised this sort of thing doesn't happen to them more often considering the fact that they are exploring the unknown. He continues to explain that the one thing he's learned on all these voyages is how sexy every alien babe is...no, wait, that's wishful thinking on my part. The one thing Riker With Beard has leared is that "most life forms act out of an instinct for survival, not out of malice." He goes on to liken it to dropping a hammer on your foot and saying that in such a situation, "it's hardly useful to get mad at the hammer."

Picard goes back to check on Doctor Grandma and asks her if she's made any progress in the five minutes he was shooting the shit with Riker With Beard. She has not. He asks her what he can do to help and she tells him that he can kindly fuck off and leave her to her work.

"Aye aye Doctor!" says Picard before fucking off.

Back out in the sickbay, Riker With Beard continues to make jokes with the medical crew, telling one dude that his grandfather once got bitten by a rattlesnake and how, "after three days of intense pain, the snake died."

Troi comes in and tells him that he's a very entertaining patient and that he's trying very hard to be cheerful. Riker With Beard tells him that as the First Officer he has to set an example. He tells her that "death is the ultimate test of character," and though he has no desire to die, if he is going to he wants to do so with pride.

"And a lot of impudence," adds Troi.

Riker With Beard tells him that dying is bad enough but to also lose his sense of humor would be too much to bear. The two of them then hold hands and Riker With Beard suddenly goes into a coma and all kinds of machines go wild with beeps and blares.

"What is that beeping?!" asks my wife.

"A 1980s sci-fi show," I reply.

"It's very annoying..." she says.

"You have no idea," I reply.

Doctor Grandma tells us that the microorganisms have spread to Riker With Beard's spinal column and that if something isn't done soon he'll be dead within an hour!

We then get Doctor Grandma dropping a medical log informing us that in order to keep the microorganism at bay is to "force the neurons to stay active by stimulating them directly with electrical impulses."

Back in sickbay we see a now shirtless Riker With Beard get hooked up to a brain needler. Needles go into his brain while Troi looks on in dismay. They then shoot up Riker With Beard with some drugs in case he has a seizure and turn on the brain needler and so begins the clip show!

We get a clip of Riker Without Beard wandering around a desolate planet looking for his friends from the season 1 episode The Last Outpost. 

Back in sickbay Doctor Grandma stabilizes the wave patterns or some shit since they were too erratic. Riker With Beard's brain stabilizes and Troi says that he's dreaming. We then get to see Riker With Beard's dreams.

The first thing we see is Riker Without Beard meeting Data in the Holodeck for the first time way back in the episode, Encounter at Farpoint and declaring that Data is going to be "an interesting companion." We follow this up with Riker With Beard, flirting with Whoopi Goldberg to show Wesley Crusher how to spit game at a female from the bad season 2 episode, The Dauphin. We then see Riker With Beard and Troi telling each other "until next time" from the episode, The Icarus Factor.

I have no idea what any of these things have to do with each other but back in sickbay, Troi explains that he's experience feelings of warmth and friendship. Doctor Grandma says that the organism's metabolism has changed and decides to focus "the impulse pattern on the interpretative cortex," to see by intensifying his memories it wrecks shop on the microbes.

Whatever Doctor Grandma did kicks Riker With Beard's horniess synapses into overdrive because we get to see 80s space beach babes and oiled up musclefucks in hot pants from that horny-ass episode where Wesley Crusher also got sentenced to death for landing on a flower while playing ball, Justice. This is followed by Riker Without Beard getting horny for a video game character in 11001001.

Back in the sickbay, Troi's like, "Man, my mang Riker With Beard is horny as fuck right now." This is the sort of content we here at the Star Trek Fuck Report need!

Back in Riker With Beard's subconscious we get more of Riker Without Beard being horny for a video game character before seeing him engage in some dick-plomacy by taking the president of Angel One to the bone zone in Angel One. More horniness follows as we see Riker With Beard fuck a space Irishwoman from Up the Long Ladder.

Back in sickbay we get an update on Riker With Beard's condition. The horny dreams have actually caused the growth rate of the organism to double. Troi wails, "The all we've done is made things worse!" I howl with laughter. Was this a bit of self reflection about what kind of show Star Trek: The Next Generation actual was? Were the writers taking a long, hard look at themselves and acknowledging, "When we do horny shit our show is pretty uniformly terrible?" probably not since I know the horniness continued pretty much unabated through the later seasons.

Doctor Grandma says that it wasn't a total bust though since they now know that the organism responds to the memories Riker With Beard is experiencing. "Or the emotions that they produce," suggests Troi. Doctor Grandma says that since different mental processes generate different chemicals so if horny thoughts attract them maybe other thoughts (and the chemicals they produce) will repel them. She rejiggers the brain needler and we go back to the realm of Riker With Beard's subconsciousness.

We get to see Tasha Yar die in Skin of Evil and that weird blue space light kid, Ian, die in The Child before checking back in with Doctor Grandma and Troi in sickbay. Doctor Grandma tells Troi that the growth rate has slowed and asks Troi what feelings she can detect. Troi tells her that she feels sadness so Doctor Grandma decides that negative emotions must be the key to repelling the infection, provided it's not already too late. Doctor Grandma refocuses the brain needler and sets to work trying to make Riker With Beard feel like shit!

We see Riker With Beard getting into a karate fight with a Klingon from the episode A Matter of Honor and also Riker Without Beard getting into a karate fight with an old man in Conspiracy as well as more clips from Skin of Evil.

Back in sickbay Doctor Grandma explains that they've further reduced the growth rate, but it's not enough and Riker With Beard's vitals are still deteriorating. Troi explains that the feelings she felt were primal survival emotions. Doctor Grandma decides to refocus the brain needler even further, but says she doesn't know if Riker With Beard will be able to survive it.

"Do we have a choice?" asks Troi.

Doctor Grandma tells her that they do not, and if they can't neutralize the infection Riker With Beard will be dead within a half hour.

Doctor Grandma resets the brain needler and we get a montage of clips of space ships exploding and 80s syndicated television gore and fist fights and laser blasts and space hillbillies threatening to murder Riker Without Beard if they can't get their space meth. I'm tired of looking up what episode these scenes are actually from so I'm not going to but I am going to complain that Riker With Beard's memories during the montage includes stuff that he would have no memory of (ie. stuff that was happening on the bridge of the Enterprise while he was trying to escape from an exploding space ship). Up to this point I thought they did a decent job in explaining how and why a clip episode was happening but this slip up here kind of fucked that explanation over.

This ALL ACTION montage is enough to destroy the infection and Doctor Grandma and Troi triumphantly call the bridge to inform the Captain. Picard heads down to sickbay and they remove the brain needler from Riker With Beard's head. He's got holes in his head from it and looks at Troi and says, "You're still here?"

"I could ask you the same question," Troi replies.

Doctor Grandma asks him how he is feeling. He says he feels beat and mentions the crazy-ass dreams he was having saying that they wouldn't believe them. A giddy Troi says, "Oh yes we would!" 

Doctor Grandma then tells him that they were able to eliminate the infection but orders him to lie back down when he tries to get up to return to work, telling Riker With Beard that she has dozens of tests to run before she can discharge him, telling him that there might be some residual memory loss and that she just wants "to be sure you still know who you are."

Data and Picard enter at this point as Riker With Beard declares jokingly, "Of course I know who I am. I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise."

Picard smiles and says, "I'm delighted that you're feeling better, Captain. The Admiral and I were worried about you."

Data decides that Star Trek: The Next Generation needs to continue to be a sitcom and says, "Captain, I do not believe you have the authority to promote me to the rank of Admiral." And that's the episode...and the season! Thank Christ.

How Rikered Was Riker With Beard?

Well, considering he was unconscious for the bulk of the episode it's kind of hard to say. They were shooting him up with space opioids throughout the episode thought so I'm guessing he was pretty fucked up by the close of the episode.

Final Thoughts

I'm going to be honest here and say that this was not as bad as I remembered it being. Maybe it was one of those things where so much ink has been spilled about how shitty it was and how it's one of the worst episodes ever and things like that but watching it here I don't know if that's really true. As I mentioned above I think they did a decent job of explaining in universe why a clip show was happening, which is more than we get from most clip shows. If I had to guess I'd say that most people rank it so lowly because they're of the mind that a clip show has no business existing in the Star Trek universe, but there's no way this is the worst episode ever. Hell. I don't even think it's the worst episode of this season (off the top of my head I thought Manhunt and The Icarus Factor but sucked more than this) especially since this is The Star Trek Fuck Report and one of the chunks of clips was dedicated to every time Riker With/Without Beard fucked and/or was just horny as shit. That's exactly the kind of clip show I can get behind.

Fuck Count
Once more we find ourselves looking at the final fuck count of the season, and though there was fucking in this episode, it was all fucking we've seen before and therefore not eligible to be counted here. So instead we turn our attention to the overall fuck stats for the season.

Season 2 ends with a fairly impressive 10 confirmed fucks with a possible 1~3 additional fucks due to the lack of clarity in precisely who Han Solo fucked in his sole appearance this season. Regardless of whether the total fuck count was 10 or 13 it's a pretty sizable increase over the modest six individuals that got it on in season 1. So now, let's turn our attention to the Most Valuable and Least Valuable Fuckers (MVF and LVF respectively) for the season.

MVF: This is a very easy decision to make since the random one shot character Han Solo ended up fucking at least 2 and as many as 5 crew members in his brief time aboard the Enterprise. Even if we low ball it and assume he only got with two different women that still puts him well above many of the primary characters on the show which is impressive considering he was in but one episode.

LVF: In something of a surprise, once again I think I have to go with Captain Picard for the second season in a row. Chaste dudes from season 1 like Geordi and Wesley Crusher at least exhibited some low level horniness towards Ensign Gomez and a space yeti respectively, while Worf managed to get on the big board by fucking Kyler in the Holodeck. Elsewhere Space Whoopi Goldberg got way too into pretending to flirt with Riker With Beard, Doctor Grandma was horny over Riker With Beard's Dad and Troi had sex with a weird blue space light though that might not have been consensual (I don't know how that works with telepaths and weird blue space lights). That pretty much just leaves us with Picard and Data among the primary characters of the show and while Data did not fuck this season he did not actively avoid fucking either. The same cannot be said of Picard who spent an episode hiding on the holodeck to avoid fucking Troi's Mom in Manhunt.

Total Fucks for Episode: 0
Total Fucks for Season: 10 (+1~3)
Total Fucks for Series: 16 (+1~3)