The TREKKER Reviews


SERIES
The Next Generation
EPISODE
174
TITLE
Bloodlines
STARDATE
47829.1


Look, an unmanned, unmarked probe! Worf twitches over the phaser controls - go ahead, make my stardate. It's coloured orange, which means it's almost certainly Ferengi. Aha, could it be a good natured 24th century holographic greeting card? I don't think so - it's a message from Daimon Bok to the Bald Avenger: "I'm going to kill your son."

Bok? Who is Bok? His name sounds like a sound effect from the Chicken Dance. Could he really be the nasty Ferengi who threatened Picard all those years ago, just because the Chrome Dome Gnome killed his son? Yep, he paid his debt to Ferengi society in the accepted manner, with latinum, and has returned on another no-profit venture in the name of revenge. "The Wrath of Bok" just doesn't sound right.

Could Jason Vigo truly be the progeny of the great Johnny Picard? An investment of two minutes twenty years ago, has grown into an angry young man. Angry mostly because the captain had him beamed out of a cave. On learning the sorry story, he gasps, "I hope you're not my father." So do we, Luke...

Welcome to Dr Crusher's House of Medical Experiments! If you'd like to donate a kidney, then we can test for genetic compatibility. No? How about your spleen, that's not over used? Still no, huh? Ok then just hand over a few cells! The house lights dim, and drumroll... It's a match! Now where's a good paternity lawyer when you need one?

To put it mildly, Jason is not a happy camper. Who would be? The thought of losing your hair and growing up to be a pompous git strikes a chord of fear into every young man's heart. Not this little black duck! Jason's tough, he's a crim, he's the anti-Wesley! Ugh - they're both wasting precious oxygen.

Pop quiz: What's thick, hard, has a bald head, and is occasionally found in Picard's quarters after the lights go down? Daimon Bok of course! What were you thinking? Somehow the ugly troll managed to get in undetected, and hang around just long enough to taunt the captain. Now go away or I will taunt you a second time! Intruder or illusion? The smart money has the Captain quietly going insane...

The chase! Huh? Star Trek does not have chase scenes. This is the dramatic interlude where the Enterprise buzzes around the galaxy chasing the shadow of Bok. The only problem is that the FX budget has run out, so you'll just have to imagine it.

Look, another probe. Before Worf can activate the photon-torpedo controls, it spontaneously explodes. Could the flashing lights in the expanding debris field be a message, or just a sad indictment of the quality of Ferengi manufacturing? It was a message of course, "My revenge is at hand!" Ooooh!

Bok's back, and this time he's in Picard's ready-room! Trolls are supposed to live under bridges, not on the bridge. I'm sure that's mentioned somewhere in the Brothers Grimm edition of the Rules of Acquisition. "Pay me for my son's death," Bok cackles maniacally, "with the life of your own son!" I'm sure that if Wesley hadn't gone transcendent, they could have done a deal. Bok doesn't hang around to bargain and beams away...

How? Surely the shields are up? Easy, when you use the new DemTel SubspaceTransporter™! Shields getting in your way? Are you leaving messy transporter traces? Don't like having to be in orbit to visit a planet? Then this new product is for you - with the DemTel SubspaceTransporter™ you can be light years away and still beam onto a shielded ship and leave no evidence of where you came from. Can anyone say anti-matter bomb? Nah, too obvious...

Shake, rattle and froth! You go shake, rattle and froth. Oh rats, Dr Social Conscience pumped Jason full of experimental drugs and he stopped having a fit. Good entertainment is so hard to find nowadays. A few leeches later and Dr Jekyll is certain that the spasms were caused by Forrester-Trent Syndrome, or FiTS for short. Where could he have contracted this terrible desire to impersonate Kirk Cobain? He didn't, it's hereditary. Bev gets out the chain-saw for a microcellular scan...

Bok starts up his super-duper transporter and snatches Jason away. Geordi tries to intercept the pass with a jury-rigged Federation transporter, but fumbles. Touch down! Another probe mysteriously appears, and while Worf fights his restraints, it transmits a simple video message: "I'm going to kill the boy, and you can watch." Yuck, intergalactic snuff films!

This looks like a job for the Bald Avenger! Throwing caution to the wind, and armed only with his devastating lack of fashion sense and a phaser, he hops into an unstable subspace transporter and beams over to see Bok! Wow, that was dramatic. "Drop the phaser or your son dies," cries Bok. Ace-Picard just grins, "we both know he's not my son. At some unspecified time, using some unspecified technology, and without the boy knowing it, you resequenced his DNA to look like mine. There's no profit in it!" Bok's Ferengi crew descend upon him like hippies on a crystal. Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!

Roll Credits...

No sooner has Wesley left, than more surrogate children appear on the scene. How many times do I have to say it - social interaction is for weenies! It tried for action, and failed. It tried for suspense, and failed. It introduced new TrekTech™ with military applications, which is a definite no-no. And finally it rehashed the plot of an earlier episode. Blargh.


This review is Copyright © 1995, Phil Kernick.
Permission is granted for anyone to electronically distribute it - details available on request.