Remember Me: One of the best Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes
Remember Me
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 79
Written by: Lee Sheldon
Directed by: Cliff Bole
Stardate: 44161.2 (Earth Calendar Year 2367)
Several months have passed since the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) completed her repair-and-refit work at Starfleet's Earth Station McKinley, and with a few missions under her crew's belt, the starship is at Starbase 133 for a regularly-scheduled personnel rotation.
Along with some of the new crew members, Starbase 133's now retired medical officer, Dr. Dalen Quaice (Bill Erwin), boards the Enterprise as a passenger. A friend and mentor to Enterprise Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), the recently widowed Quaice is on his way to his home on Kenda II.
Not long after Dr. Crusher welcomes her friend and colleague and helps him settle in his stateroom, she decides to head over to Main Engineering, where her son, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) is carrying out a warp field experiment based on the equations of Starfleet engineering theorist Kosinski (a character from Season One's Where No One Has Gone Before).
As she watches her son work, Dr. Crusher sees, for a brief instant, a bright flash of light, but when nothing else seems to have occurred, she decides to look in on her friend Dalen, who, after all, must be going through a rough time with the death of his wife and his subsequent retirement.
However, when she arrives at the doctor's assigned quarters, he is not there, nor are any of his personal belongings. Every query Beverly makes - to the ship's computer (voice of Majel Barrett Roddenberry) and to Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) - results in a dead end; there's no record of a Dr. Dalen Qaice boarding the Enterprise, nor does O'Brien remember beaming him aboard. Worse, there's no proof that Dr. Crusher's friend and mentor ever existed.
For Beverly, whose memories of Quaice are very real and recent, this is just the beginning of an odd and nightmarish experience; as time goes by, more and more crew members and passengers vanish, leading the good doctor to wonder if what she is experiencing is part of a strange plot or, worse, if she's losing her mind.
My Take: As a Star Trek fan who was dismayed when Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST-TNG) lost two of its major female cast members at the end of the show's first and somewhat uneven season, I was - and still am - glad to see the show-runners and writers got around to focusing episodes on the female supporting characters and not just on Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) and - later - Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn).
Even though ST-TNG had been intended to be a true ensemble show - unlike its 1966-1969 forerunner, Star Trek - the writers tended to write episodes which relied too much on the captain, first officer and operations/conn specialist to the detriment of Dr. Crusher (McFadden), Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Security Chief Lt. Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). Though Sirtis stayed with the series throughout its seven-year-run, Crosby and McFadden left the series; Crosby's Yar was killed off in Skin of Evil, and McFadden's Crusher was transferred to Starfleet Medical on Earth, which gave both the producers and the actor a window of opportunity for Dr. Crusher to return to the show someday, even if it was as a guest star.
Happily, McFadden decided to come back full-time after Season Two, and the writers gave her several Crusher-centric episodes throughout the rest of ST-TNG's life as a first-run syndicated TV series.
Here, McFadden - who is also known as the first actress to portray Cathy Ryan in the movies based on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels - displays her talents as an actor to full effect as her odyssey through space and time progresses, going from the lowest ebbs of bewilderment and fear to finding the steely determination to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of her friends and shipmates.
For seasoned ST-TNG fans who started watching the series since its two-hour premiere Encounter at Far Point, Remember Me makes use of overt internal continuity because it not only refers to Wesley Crusher's warp field experiment as being based on Kosinki's equations (as per Where No One Has Gone Before), but it also brings back that first season episode's intriguing guest alien The Traveler (Eric Menyuck), who had told Picard that Wesley was gifted and that his talents should be nurtured.
Star Trek fans should also note that this episode matched The Original Series' total 79 aired episodes tally; the following episode, Legacy, would see the first time a Star Trek TV series would reach the 80-episode mark.
Of course, viewers who are seeing Remember Me as a stand-alone show with no previous knowledge of the series will be confused at first, especially once Dr. Crusher sets out to find the mysterious Traveler, a character that they have not yet encountered and yet is the key to the riddle Dr. Crusher is trying to solve.
The teleplay by Lee Sheldon is nicely written and obviously tailored to highlight McFadden's bravura performance, while Cliff Bole (for whom the Bolian race was named) does a great job of directing Remember Me.
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 79
Written by: Lee Sheldon
Directed by: Cliff Bole
Stardate: 44161.2 (Earth Calendar Year 2367)
Several months have passed since the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) completed her repair-and-refit work at Starfleet's Earth Station McKinley, and with a few missions under her crew's belt, the starship is at Starbase 133 for a regularly-scheduled personnel rotation.
Along with some of the new crew members, Starbase 133's now retired medical officer, Dr. Dalen Quaice (Bill Erwin), boards the Enterprise as a passenger. A friend and mentor to Enterprise Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), the recently widowed Quaice is on his way to his home on Kenda II.
Not long after Dr. Crusher welcomes her friend and colleague and helps him settle in his stateroom, she decides to head over to Main Engineering, where her son, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) is carrying out a warp field experiment based on the equations of Starfleet engineering theorist Kosinski (a character from Season One's Where No One Has Gone Before).
As she watches her son work, Dr. Crusher sees, for a brief instant, a bright flash of light, but when nothing else seems to have occurred, she decides to look in on her friend Dalen, who, after all, must be going through a rough time with the death of his wife and his subsequent retirement.
However, when she arrives at the doctor's assigned quarters, he is not there, nor are any of his personal belongings. Every query Beverly makes - to the ship's computer (voice of Majel Barrett Roddenberry) and to Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) - results in a dead end; there's no record of a Dr. Dalen Qaice boarding the Enterprise, nor does O'Brien remember beaming him aboard. Worse, there's no proof that Dr. Crusher's friend and mentor ever existed.
For Beverly, whose memories of Quaice are very real and recent, this is just the beginning of an odd and nightmarish experience; as time goes by, more and more crew members and passengers vanish, leading the good doctor to wonder if what she is experiencing is part of a strange plot or, worse, if she's losing her mind.
My Take: As a Star Trek fan who was dismayed when Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST-TNG) lost two of its major female cast members at the end of the show's first and somewhat uneven season, I was - and still am - glad to see the show-runners and writers got around to focusing episodes on the female supporting characters and not just on Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) and - later - Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn).
Even though ST-TNG had been intended to be a true ensemble show - unlike its 1966-1969 forerunner, Star Trek - the writers tended to write episodes which relied too much on the captain, first officer and operations/conn specialist to the detriment of Dr. Crusher (McFadden), Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Security Chief Lt. Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). Though Sirtis stayed with the series throughout its seven-year-run, Crosby and McFadden left the series; Crosby's Yar was killed off in Skin of Evil, and McFadden's Crusher was transferred to Starfleet Medical on Earth, which gave both the producers and the actor a window of opportunity for Dr. Crusher to return to the show someday, even if it was as a guest star.
Happily, McFadden decided to come back full-time after Season Two, and the writers gave her several Crusher-centric episodes throughout the rest of ST-TNG's life as a first-run syndicated TV series.
Here, McFadden - who is also known as the first actress to portray Cathy Ryan in the movies based on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels - displays her talents as an actor to full effect as her odyssey through space and time progresses, going from the lowest ebbs of bewilderment and fear to finding the steely determination to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of her friends and shipmates.
For seasoned ST-TNG fans who started watching the series since its two-hour premiere Encounter at Far Point, Remember Me makes use of overt internal continuity because it not only refers to Wesley Crusher's warp field experiment as being based on Kosinki's equations (as per Where No One Has Gone Before), but it also brings back that first season episode's intriguing guest alien The Traveler (Eric Menyuck), who had told Picard that Wesley was gifted and that his talents should be nurtured.
Star Trek fans should also note that this episode matched The Original Series' total 79 aired episodes tally; the following episode, Legacy, would see the first time a Star Trek TV series would reach the 80-episode mark.
Of course, viewers who are seeing Remember Me as a stand-alone show with no previous knowledge of the series will be confused at first, especially once Dr. Crusher sets out to find the mysterious Traveler, a character that they have not yet encountered and yet is the key to the riddle Dr. Crusher is trying to solve.
The teleplay by Lee Sheldon is nicely written and obviously tailored to highlight McFadden's bravura performance, while Cliff Bole (for whom the Bolian race was named) does a great job of directing Remember Me.
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