The TREKKER Reviews


SERIES
The Next Generation
EPISODE
91
TITLE
Night Terrors
STARDATE
44631.2


Finally the Enterprise goes somewhere interesting. An uncharted binary star system. Of course they are not the first people there, they are looking for a lost Federation ship, the Brittain. Things are not as they should be on the Brittain though, as Troi senses strange lifesigns and says that she must be in the away team. Why not send the whole bridge crew?

It must have been some party, as there are bodies slumped everywhere! Closer inspection by Dr Bev shows they are all dead, and that they died violently. What's more, the ships life support was still functioning, which means that the crew killed each other. Not something you would want to brag about at Starfleet Academy. Troi detects that there is one survivor, a male Betazoid, but he is completely catatonic - he probably read the script.

That night, Troi has a strange flying dream. I've been told that this is a sign of sexual frustration, so I can't imagine what purpose it has in this episode. To add to the list of strange events, Ensign Dumbo on the Brittain with Geordi, thought he heard something - but there was nothing there. In fact everyone is seeing ghosts in some form or another. Will the disruption in this episode be superior aliens, drugs, or just a general dissatisfaction with their humdrum existence?

To completely surprise us, the Enterprise is left without engines - again! I would have thought that the Federation would have got a better warrantee cover on their flagship, it seems to be continually breaking down. Ah, but the reason this time is that they are stuck in a space rupture - a Tychon rift which is drawing all of the ship's power into itself. It will take a violent energy release in the centre of the rift to destroy it.

Meanwhile everyone on the Enterprise is losing it big time. Picard thinks that the walls are closing in, Riker is sleeping with snakes (and that does say something about his psyche) and Beverly's corpses sit up. The problem is that they are all suffering from dream deprivation. The only one on board who has been dreaming since they were stuck in the rift is Deanna, and she keeps having the same dream: "eyes in the dark, one moon circles...".

Geordi tries a main deflector burst into the rift, but it failed with the Borg and is just as useful here. Worf, unable to cope goes into his quarters and prepares to look at his intestines really close up with the aid of a ceremonial dagger. Troi bursts in, just in time to stop him. If she'd been a feminist, she would have told him to accept his feminine side, and that would have been enough to make any self-respecting Klingon choke. Pretty good coming from someone who hasn't quite accepted her human side. They walk off hand in hand.

Data assumes command.

The aliens... what aliens? Yes, the ones that hadn't up until this point been detected, who are also stranded in the rift. The aliens use the REM frequencies of the human brain for communications, and this is what has been disrupting the crew. They want the Enterprise to pour hydrogen into the rift so they can detonate it - that was the meaning of Deanna's dream. What incredible leaps of logic these people make! Of course they need the Enterprise to do it as they don't have any hydrogen themselves. The fact that they are orbiting a binary star that is probably spewing it out seems to have missed them completely.

Data turns off life support to everywhere except the designated shelters so they can power the hydrogen stream. He sprays it from the Buzzard collectors into the rift, and Deanna must contact the aliens in time to detonate it. After a tense countdown, they think that have failed, when boom, the rift detonates and they are freed. Yawn. They have been using cheap vacuum again as we could hear the explosion.

As his last order as acting captain, Data orders the crew to bed.

Roll Credits...

I wish Data had ordered me to bed as it would have saved an hour of lost sleep. Lets not even worry about the new aliens, never before discovered, who have communications that could destroy humanity. Obviously to the script writers, plot is a four letter word.


This review is Copyright © 1993, Phil Kernick.
Permission is granted for anyone to electronically distribute it - details available on request.