Another day, another episode I have mixed feelings about. I know I rant a lot about them writers getting the science wrong, but episodes like this just seem like they are rubbing my face in their lack of basic understanding. The idea that an organism could get into you and alter your DNA isn't unreasonable. The idea that it could cause extremely rapid transformation of your body into that of a fully functioning other creature in a matter of hours is nuts. Not to mention that this creature doing the DNA modification isn't from our planet and has never seen our DNA before. Other than the basic premise this isn't a bad episode.
The episode begins with the log from a mission 5 years earlier where Geordi worked with his then crewmates to investigate the disappearance of the crew of a Federation outpost. And back then they assigned one person to be the camera person and just stand there with a camera and light on their head. Now I know I complained a lot in the opening about stuff they got wrong, but to acknowledge that there is something odd about how every other time they watch video it is clearly just footage from the show that could not have possibly been shot at the time is actually kinda nice. It turns out that all the members of the investigation other than Geordi and Susanna who is giving the presentation have stolen shuttles and disappeared headed in the direction of the planet they investigated five years earlier.
As they arrive at the planet to investigate they find one of the shuttles flying in, but it is coming in too fast. And for plot reasons they aren't in transporter range and can't use the tractor beam so the shuttle is destroyed. Riker leads an away team and includes Geordi and Susanna but Susanna quickly disappears. Geordi finds her and has to stop her from running off further. She starts shaking violently and they both beam directly to sickbay. Her blood chemistry is off and for understandable reasons neither she or Geordi are allowed back to the planet. They start working together on the investigation but she collapses and Geordi finds her fingers have merged together and there is a blue growth on her neck.
In sickbay Crusher discovers Susanna is turning into an alien for unknown reasons. Geordi starts working on the logs again and finds a shadow from someone who wasn't there but collapses in the holodeck before he can figure it out. No Geordi is suddenly a full alien and also invisible. Susanna has been partly transformed back into a human by removing an alien parasite. Geordi, now invisible transports down to the planet but Susanna uses her partial alienness to find him and talks him into coming back to the ship to be turned back into a human. They leave warning beacons around the planet and get the hell out of there.
Review: This is a solidly average episode. Some of the scenes between Susanna and Geordi are nice and show some of his history, but then things get silly. At least they don't just solve it all with the transporter like it was second season.
5 out of 10
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