Star Trek: The Next Generation 2.6 (The Schizoid Man)

Cast:
Barbara Alyn Woods(Kareen Brianon)
Suzie Plakson(Lt. Selar)
W. Morgan Sheppard (Dr. Ira Graves)

Writers: Richard Manning, Hans Beimler, Tracy Tormé

In this episode, a dying scientisit downloads himself into Data.  Secretly.  However, everyone eventually works it out because of the way he is behaving.

I mean, what a dreadful episode.  The premise is just not thought through.  There are some quite nice moments between Data and Ira Graves before he dies, but once Graves inhabits Data’s body it really goes downhill.  Surely nobody could be so arrogant as to think that Data’s strange behaviour would not be noticed by his crewmates?  Wouldn’t a better option been to have swtiched him off, kidnapped him and do the swap away from everyone?  Or even better, give the whole dready storyline a miss and give us something decent?

One good thing worth mentioning is the amazing Suzie Plakson, making her Trek debut in this stinker of an episode.  Her character - a Vulcan Doctor called Selar – grabbed the imagination of the Trek fans and the character, who only appears in this episode, makes her way into many of the books, in the same way M’benga did in the original series.  And her performance clearly impressed the producers, as she comes back later this season as a rather important Klingon woman.  She also turns up in Voyager way down the line as a female Q.

But, good as she is, she can’t save this episode.  It is really, really shit.

Crew Deaths: 0
Total Crew Deaths So Far: 5
Score: 1/10