‘LONELY AMONG US’ (TNG)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
In this ‘Star Trek: TNG’ episode, the Enterprise takes aboard delegates of two waring alien races. They’re the reptile Selay and the canine Anticans, off to an interplanetary conference on Parliament.
But on the way, the Enterprise comes across a strange energy cloud and they, as usual, investigate. Very soon, an alien entity gets inside the ship before it infects Worf and takes possession of him too.
This is a tense, dramatic ‘Star Trek’ episode that sees the ‘TNG’ team facing an invisible enemy. It gets tense when the alien entity takes possession of our heroes and they do not seem themselves.
When Worf gets possessed, he becomes violent before Dr. Crusher sedates him. Eventually, in sick bay, the alien takes possession of Beverly Crusher and she gets interested in the ship’s helm control.
It was disturbing when seeing Beverly acting strangely and not quite herself. But of course, it’s the alien who’s using Beverly’s body and after it leaves her, she has no memory of what just happened.
This episode also introduces a new development for Data’s character. Whilst investigating the Enterprise’s malfunctions caused by the alien entity, Data takes on the mantle of the great detective.
That great detective happens to be…Sherlock Holmes. Picard mentions Holmes to Data whilst they with Riker collate information. Data instantly becomes fascinated and soon studies Sherlock Holmes.
It was funny when Data attempts to emulate Sherlock Holmes’ mannerisms, including smoking on a pipe. Sometimes it does get on Picard’s nerves when Data smokes his pipe during a briefing session.
The make-up for the Selay and Antician aliens seems very impressive by Michael Westmore. I wish we could have seen more of these aliens and have more of their conflict than what we actually got.
Colm Meany makes a second ‘TNG’ appearance in this episode as a security guard. I suppose Chief O’Brien was indecisive on what he wanted to be, before becoming the Enterprise’s transporter chief.
It should be noted that Marc Alaimo, although uncredited, makes his first ‘Star Trek’ appearance as an Antican called Badar N’D’D. Marc Alaimo would later star as Gul Dukat in ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’.
John Durbin guest stars as Ssestar, the Selay leader in the episode. John Durbin would go on to play a Cardassian in the two-part story ‘Chain of Command’. Sadly, he doesn’t do a lot in this TV episode.
Eventually, the alien entity takes possession of Picard and he begins to act strangely. This causes concern from the Enterprise crew, who see Picard being very smug and issuing very unusual orders.
Riker and Beverly try to persuade Picard to have some medical tests on him. But Picard refuses and seems disinterested in their concerns for him. Beverly even informs him ‘the new Picard’ scares her.
The Enterprise eventually returns to the energy cloud and Picard informs everyone he is beaming down into it. The crew are about to protest, before Picard shoots energy out from him on the bridge.
Picard soon beams out into the energy cloud via transporter and seems to be lost forever. The Enterprise crew tries to find him, having no luck, before they receive a message from Picard himself.
I like it when Data works it out and uses the transporter to reverse the process on getting Picard back via his energy pattern. Picard has no memory of what happened, but is pleased Data got rid of his pipe. 😀
‘Lonely Among Us’ is a pretty decent, tense-filled ‘Star Trek’ episode. It’s interesting how the alien entity gets inside the Enterprise, though its true intention wasn’t as clear as I would have hoped for.
‘Lonely Among Us’ (TNG) rating – 7/10
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