"Star Trek: The Next Generation" Relics (1992)

Director:

Alexander Singer

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator)
Ronald D. Moore (writer)

TV Series:

"Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987)

Original Air Date:

10 October 1992 (Season 6, Episode 4)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

The Enterprise stumbles upon a Dyson's Sphere, with a ship crashed on the outer surface. An away team finds some systems still powered up and the chief engineer from the old Enterprise, Montgomery Scott, locked in the transporter cycle.

Plot Keywords:

Dyson's Sphere | Captain | Ferengi | Andorian | Space

Cast

  (Episode Credited cast)

Patrick Stewart	...	Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jonathan Frakes	...	Commander William T. Riker
LeVar Burton	...	Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge
Michael Dorn	...	Lieutenant Worf
Gates McFadden	...	Doctor Beverly Crusher
Marina Sirtis	...	Counselor Deanna Troi
Brent Spiner	...	Lt. Commander Data
Lanei Chapman	...	Ensign Sariel Rager
Erick Weiss	...	Ensign Kane
James Doohan	...	Scotty
Stacie Foster	...	Bartel
Ernie Mirich	...	Waiter
Majel Barrett	...	Enterprise Computer (voice)

Company:

Paramount Television

Trivia:

The visual and sound effects for the Jenolan's transporter were taken directly from the TOS Enterprise transporter.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Geordi and Riker beam Scotty out of the transporter buffer for the first time, the transporter effect shown is the same one used throughout the original series. The Jenolen crashed 75 years before the time of this episode (2369), which would mean it crashed in 2294, which places it shortly after the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). In all six Star Trek TOS movies, it is shown that the yellow transporter effects from the original series are no longer used, and instead a blue transporter effect is shown. Therefore when Scotty is seen being beamed out of the transporter buffer, the effect should have been blue, not yellow.

Quotes:

Scotty: [to Geordi] I was driving starships while your great-grandfather was still in diapers.

Movie Connections:

Edited from "Star Trek: The Mark of Gideon (#3.16)" (1969)

Third of three original stars makes a visit

Following on the heels of Deforest Kelly and Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan became the third cast member of the original "Star Trek" to appear on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in the episode, appropriately entitled "Relics". Doohan returns as "Scotty," who was somehow trapped in mid-transporter transmission during a space battle. Now in the twenty-fourth century, Scotty must adapt to a world that sees him as an antiquity from almost a century before.

However, Scotty's engineering wizardry comes into play when Geordi must contend with a Dyson Sphere, a planet encased in a protective armor that has "swallowed" the Enterprise.

Not only is this installment an homage to the original show, it also is a fitting final TV look at the actor that will forever be associated with the phrase, "Beam me up!" Prior to his death and after the airing of "Relics," Doohan would reprise the role for one more theatrical film but "Relics" remains one of his best turns as the redoubtable Scotsman.