| The Next Generation | |
| 122 | |
| Imaginary Friend | |
| 45852.1 | |
Given that all the personnel on board the Enterprise are such well balanced human beings... and other sundry aliens, Troi is reduced to being a child psychologist. Clara has an imaginary friend called Isabella, and this concerns her father. Wesley used to have lots of imaginary friends too, he called them "the crew". "Don't worry" says Troi, "it's normal, healthy activity for a child". How nice.
Finally the Enterprise is going somewhere where no-one has gone before - a nebula around a neutron star. Can you guess who lives here? Yet another strange energy alien! This one looks like Tinkerbell, and decides to investigate the ship. It finally finds Clara and after entering her, reforms as Isabella - now very real! It's time for more exploring, but this time with a body and a friend.
Since grown-ups don't believe in imaginary friends, Tinkerbell conveniently disappears any time any of them are around. That's going to make it hard for Clara to explain... especially when they start exploring areas that they shouldn't. They eventually arrive at 10-Forward, and rather that throw them out, Guinan invites them in for a drink. Troi turns up and drags Clara back to her quarters, and of course Clara claims "the Devil made me do it".
Troi finally decides that this normal, healthy activity has gone too far, and takes Clara off to play with some real children - Alexander to be precise. They are making clay cups, but clearly Tinkerbell doesn't approve as she smashes Alexander's cup and starts throwing clay. I wonder if Clara's head will spin around and vomit pea soup? Of course Tinkerbell only did it because Clara left her. Poor baby. "When the others come, you can die along with everyone else". Poor vindictive baby!
The Enterprise has been impacting with invisible objects for a while, and a forward deflector sweep shows them to be plasma streamers. It looks suspiciously like a large red spider web. Here come the rest of the evil Lost Boys swarming out of the web! They don't have any difficulty draining the shields, and as the Enterprise can't go to warp, it's time for diplomacy. They're doomed!
Picard confronts Tinkerbell, and asks her why she is on the ship. She's come to find out if the Enterprise is a threat, and the quality of their energy sources. In other words, "can you hurt us" and "what will you taste like when you're dead". She says that they all deserve to die, since they've been so nasty to Clara. Unfortunately Tinkerbell only has a child's perspective, but incredible power - somewhat like one of our superpowers - and didn't realise that Clara's restrictions were for her own protection. Once she understands she happily flits away...
