This episode was a real let down as a kid. This time I went in knowing what I was getting and it was still a bit of a let down. Now to be fair I think I misunderstood the message at the end of the episode when I was 11, but it still seems a little silly that aliens in the ancient past could have directed the evolution of countless planets to create similar bipedal intelligent life. What about the guy with three arms in TAS? But seriously, I know when I saw this the first time I was as disappointed as the Cardassian lady that the message hidden in our DNA for a billion or so years was just a cheesy hologram. Also, did they really include the code to reprogram any device to act as a holographic projector? I know DNA is complicated, but that still seems unreasonable.
The episode begins with the Enterprise on routine survey of protostars. Riker calls Picard to the observation lounge and when he enters he sees a 12,000 year old artifact on the table and his jaw drops. It drops further when he sees it has been brought by his archaeology professor. Later in Ten Forward the two meet and the professor tells Picard he has been doing microarchaeology for many years now but has been keeping his findings to himself (usually a sign of being a crank, but whatevs). He asks Picard to take a leave of absence for a year or so to help him complete the most important research project of his life. After a night of thinking about it Picard tells him no, his carrier to with Starfleet is too important to him. The professor storms off and leaves the ship on a shuttle.
A few days later while en route to a conference they receive a distress call from the professor. They arrive to find his shuttle under attack from some Yridians. Worf fires on their tractor beam but instead the entire ship explodes (this is never explained). They get the professor back to the Enterprise but he dies in sick bay. All the find in his shuttle is a series of numbers in his computer. Picard thinks back to something he said about life and has the computer look at the numbers as biological somethings (the episode gets pretty vague about the alleged science). They appear to be traces from DNA of species from across the galaxy. They figure out from the logs where the professor was last and race there. But just as they arrive first a Cardassian and then a Klingon war ship arrive and all pretend they don't know why the others are there.
Picard gets the two captains to come aboard and they somehow agree to cooperate. The Cardassian though can't help by betray them and tries to sabotage the Enterprise. Fortunately it is detected and Picard gives them false information. Eventually they find there way to a nearly dead world only as they beam down with the Klingon captain both the Cardassians and Romulans arrive. The two late comers start arguing and Beverley scrapes some gunk off a rock and scans it. Somehow this reprograms the tricorder to be a holo emitter and it creates an image of a female bipedal alien. She tells them her race seeded the primordial life on planets across the galaxy both with the code to create bipedal intelligent life but also the code to create this hologram. We are all connected, yada yada yada. Everybody but Picard and the Romulan captain are disappointed.
Review: I can see what they were going for, but the cosmic revelation at the end of the episode is kinda lame. Also the science in this one is bad even by Trek standards. Not unwatchable, but it could have been a lot better.
4 out of 10
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