"Star Trek: The Next Generation" Contagion (1989)

Director:

Joseph L. Scanlan

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator)
Steve Gerber (writer) ...

TV Series:

"Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987)

Original Air Date:

18 March 1989 (Season 2, Episode 11)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

The "Enterprise" is called to help a sister ship - in the neutral zone - that is having major system problems...

Plot Keywords:

Captain | Ferengi | Andorian | Space | Klingon

Cast

Patrick Stewart	...	Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jonathan Frakes	...	Commander William T. Riker
LeVar Burton	...	Lieutenant Geordi La Forge
Michael Dorn	...	Lieutenant Worf
Marina Sirtis	...	Counselor Deanna Troi
Brent Spiner	...	Lt. Commander Data
Wil Wheaton	...	Wesley Crusher
Diana Muldaur	...	Doctor Pulaski
Thalmus Rasulala	...	Capt. Donald Varley
Carolyn Seymour	...	Subcommander Taris
Dana Sparks	...	Ensign Williams
Colm Meaney	...	Chief Miles O'Brien
Folkert Schmidt	...	Doctor

Company:

Paramount Television

Trivia:

When Picard, Data, and Worf are on Iconia, several scenes keep repeating in the Iconian transportation device. During the cycle one scene that appears several times is a picture of a building with two rounded towers; this building is the City Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Goofs:

Continuity: While taking the wild turbolift ride to the bridge, a line of sweat appears on La Forge's back. But when he's thrown onto the bridge a moment later, the line of sweat is gone.

Quotes:

Commander William T. Riker: Our own ignorance could kill us.

Fantastic Episode Until the Last 5 Minutes

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The destruction of the Yamato, the Enterprise's sister ship, is certainly quite a site. Indeed, this episode has everything a good Star Trek episode should: drama, suspense, mystery, intrigue. The interesting question as to whether the problems of the advanced star ships are design flaws raise interesting questions concerning the flaws of technology. The whole story about this ancient, lost race is really interesting and well developed. The technological difficulties are equally well done. The repeated encounters with the Romulans are especially good, showing a battle unlike any we have seen before. The dialogue in this episode is some of the sharpest I've seen in Star Trek. In fact, the script to this episode is probably one of the best of TNG. That is, until they went about writing the ending. Okay, I love Star Trek but the ending to this episode certainly must go down as one of the worst and most disappointing. The first 40 minutes really grab you, make you want to know and understand what is going on. But, well, let me put it this way. The 'solution' to the problem is something a 15 year old could have come up with. Any person with half a brain would have tried it first, not almost let the ship be destroyed before it occurred to them. And it didn't even occur to Geordi, he just witnessed Data's system doing it. Seriously, if Geordi is that incompetent he has no place being in the engine room. But of course, as we know, he's not. This is just a badly developed ending that deflates the episode. Simply put this episode could have, and should have been a 10/10, unfortunately, it's not.