[TNG] Force of Nature

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[TNG] Season 7, Episode 9: Force of Nature

Rating: 2

Force of Nature is one of the bigger swings TNG takes at direct commentary on a present day issue, but it’s a strange effort for a couple reasons. First, the plot is very oddly paced. The whole beginning of the episode is mostly about Data training Spot and Geordi doing some engine maintenance. You’d think, for a subject as large as this, you’d want to get to the central problem as quickly as possible, but it doesn’t really get going until 10 or 15 minutes in. The second problem, Of course, is that they drop this huge bomb of information – warp drives are ripping up space, everyone has to quit going warp speed – but then nothing really comes of it after this episode, which makes the whole event feel vaguely non-canonical. There is a very nice, quietly chilling moment towards the end when Starfleet reports back to the crew with some very insufficient protocols on curbing the problem, but I guess command was right because nothing ever happened.

Read more at Memory Alpha

Notes:

More spot! This show is mostly about spot at this point, which I’m ok with.
Data tries to train spot!
Geordi has a little competition where he wants to have higher power conversion levels than every other ship, and no one knows about this competition or cares. But great job, Geordi!
There’s also some plot about warp technology destroying space, whatever.
She sacrifices her life to prove her theory!
It creates a big purple spot.
Which leads to some space surfing.
The threat of warp technology to the environment is an interesting analogy because it’s a big part of Star Trek, and ultimately the writers weren’t willing to sacrifice the tech-lore in future episodes by phasing out warp technology, so let’s just sweep this under the rug.
So they say see ya, sorry about your sister, and this is all (mostly) forgotten.

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