First Aired: October 26th, 1987
Summary
An engineering upgrade gone awry leaves the Enterprise in a strange place a million light-years from home where thoughts become reality. Only the Traveler, a strange being of unknown origin, can fix his own mistakes to get them home. Just before he does this he reveals to Captain Picard that Wesley, Dr. Crusher's son, is a "Mozart" of space, energy, and everything else involved in running a starship. This revelation leads Picard to make Wesley an acting ensign so that he may sit on the bridge, since his previous orders would prevent that otherwise.
Let's Hear It For The Boys (Only)
Something really struck me about this episode as I was watching it. Wesley, whom I love with all my heart, finally got the chance to prove himself for the pint-sized genius he is to Picard--which the Traveler even confirms to the skeptical captain. Picard's underlying arc about his distaste for children was furthered. We got a little bit more worldbuilding when the ship ends up in Triangulum.
But you know what we didn't get?
If you guessed "relevance for the ladies," you guessed correctly!
So what were they doing while the boys were off having fun? Commander Troi basically did nothing at all. Doctor Crusher was only important for prolonging the Traveler's life by a few minutes. Poor Tasha was only there for some gratuitous Suffering™. In short, since Doctor Crusher was the only one whose lines actually advanced the plot at all, almost every female character in this episode fails the Sexy Lamp Test. (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, the Sexy Lamp Test is something which originated with Kelly Sue DeConnick and asks if the female characters in your script can simply be replaced by the sexy lamp from the movie A Christmas Story. If the answer is yes, your script fails and you should consider rewriting it.)
This honestly came as a shock to me since, whatever qualms I've had with previous episodes, I could at least say that the female members of the crew did something noteworthy in the ~45 minutes of the episode. I sincerely hope that later episodes don't follow suit.
Something About Tasha
Let's talk more about Tasha's role in this episode. As I've said before, Tasha is one of my favorite characters on the show so far. I understand the importance of her Tragic Backstory™. What I don't understand is why Worf got to happily pet his former pig...thing...while Tasha had to have a vivid flashback of losing her cat in a (presumably failed) attempt to escape one of the rape gangs. Yes, it demonstrated that people's thoughts were becoming reality, but using that specific example felt forced and like a gross showcase of a woman's trauma.
It feels like Tasha is constantly, for whatever reason, the Everywoman for this show. She faces the brunt of misogyny from other species, she's the one who is a rape survivor, she's the one who we actually faded to black on when everyone lost all judgement control. Is it because she is the more masculine when compared to Deanna? Is it because she's the head of security? Whatever the reasoning the show's writers have, I have a hard time believing it's good enough to subject her to the things that they do (especially when I know she is not long for this world).
Adding Insult to Injury
One last thing I noted is that the chief of engineering is suddenly a man. In the post linked in the previous paragraph, I commented on how exciting it was to see a woman as the chief engineer. Where did she go? Could they really not get her, or at least some other woman, to reprise the role? All things considered, it was just a little bit of salt in the viewer's wounds. I'll be interested to see if there's a new person playing the role the next time it comes up!
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