| The Next Generation | |
| 92 | |
| Identity Crisis | |
| 44664.5 | |
Look, a re-run! Not the episode, but the display on the view-screen. It looks like an investigation from Stardate 40164.7, and it has Geordi in it. It also seems to have various unknown bit characters milling around. At the time they were investigating the loss of an entire colony. You would think that the Federation would be more careful about where they put them, given they seem to lose them regularly. The strange thing is that three of the team have since stolen shuttles and headed back to the planet, probably for a five year reunion. Unfortunately neither Geordi nor Commander Susanna Leijten got invitations.
Geordi and Susanna reminisce about old times in 10-Forward, and after saying that she once nearly got married, she asks Geordi about his marital status. "I enjoy the bachelors life too much" he quips. Sure he does! That's why he gets it on with holographic images at the drop of a hat.
The Enterprise has managed to track one of the missing shuttles. It is heading directly back to the planet where the investigation took place. I mean "directly back", as in not bothering with things like landing. Picard plaintively asks the pilot to pull up, but alas he becomes smog. I wonder why the Federation flagship can't outrun a sublight shuttle? Probably because it is convenient.
After forming the standard "everyone on the bridge" away team, Riker and friends beam down to find two more shuttles, but no lifesigns. After a bit of wandering about and getting nowhere, Cmdr Leijten disappears. Search the area Riker says. Why not just locate her using the locater in her communicator? Too obvious. Geordi finds her contemplating going away with the fairies, wrestles her to the ground, and gets them both beamed back to the sick-bay.
Susanna should learn to Leijten up, but instead she is freaking out. She wants to go back and play on the planet again, and just to prove her point, fuses some of her fingers together! Yet again one of the crew is being transformed into an alien. Yawn.
Geordi is somewhat worried, as blue veins will clash with his normal skin colour, and so looks back over the record of the investigation again. After a suitable delay, he thinks that there is a strange shadow in the image, and gets the computer to recreate the scene on the holodeck. He manages to extrapolate the position of an invisible alien due to the shadow, but... he collapses before he can tell anyone.
Meanwhile Dr Bev has managed to locate a parasite in Leijten's thalmus (a gland located suspiciously in the middle of her chest), that is causing her DNA to change into the alien's! She manages to remove it and amazingly Susanna gets better. I can imagine her report: "I removed the cancer (she shows a small blob), and this is all that was left...".
Geordi is nowhere to be seen, and the Enterprise's wonderful computer can't locate him on the ship. It's not really very good at finding things is it. However the officer manning one of the transporters is surprised to see, or rather not really see, a mostly invisible thing bash him and then beam away. It looks like Geordi has borrowed a Predator field generator!
The away teams returns to the planet, and as Paramount's FX budget ran out, they find Geordi by using an ultraviolet lamp. The alien suit is really unconvincing. Susanna convinces the tiny spark of his humanity to return with them to the ship. Of course he does, and gets cured just like she did.
