‘THE NEXT PHASE’ (TNG)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
In this ‘Star Trek: TNG’ episode, we have Geordi and Ensign Ro being completely invisible to the Enterprise crew. Actually this is one gripping episode from the ‘TNG’ series and is one of my favourites.
The episode has the Enterprise respond to a distress call from a Romulan ship that suffered an explosion. The away team led by Riker with Worf, Geordi and Michelle Forbes as Ensign Ro beam over.
When Geordi and Ro take a piece of equipment from the Romulan ship back to the Enterprise, they are seemingly lost in transit during a beam-out. It’s assumed by everyone that Geordi and Ro are dead.
But it turns out they’re not dead. Apparently they find themselves back on board the Enterprise unable to interact with the ship or crew. They’re completely invisible to everyone else apart from themselves.
It was quite scary to see Ensign Ro wake up in a corridor; go to sick bay and find everyone unresponsive to her. Even Picard walks through Ro like she was a ghost after talking with Beverly Crusher in sick bay.
Thankfully Geordi and Ro meet each other in engineering. Geordi is convinced that they’re still alive, whilst Ro believes they’re dead and in the afterlife after seeing Beverly writing their death certificates.
Geordi is unwilling to believe that they’re dead and is determined to work out what’s going on. Meanwhile Ro decides to make peace with her former crewmates when a funeral service is prepared.
Whilst Ro does that, Geordi sees Data trace the cause of the transport accident to the Romulan ship. Geordi catches up with Ro as they join Data and Worf in a shuttlecraft to journey to the Romulan ship.
It was unnerving to see Geordi and Ro overhear Data and Worf’s conversation in the shuttlecraft about arranging the memorial service for them. Data is trying to work out what would make the best funeral.
On board the Romulan ship, Geordi discovers a phaser inverter device and assumes he and Ro are out of phase. It’s like Geordi and Ro have cloaking devices like a Romulan ship to make them undetectable.
They also overhear that the Romulans are planning to transmit a signal to cause the Enterprise’s warp core to explode when it has entered into warp-drive. Geordi and Ro decide to return to the Enterprise.
But Geordi and Ro are unaware that a Romulan who is also out-of-phase is following them. This was a surprising twist to see in the episode and I am pretty sure I didn’t see that coming when first seeing it.
Back on board the Enterprise, Geordi sees Data analyse data from the Romulan ship and discovers high levels of chronoton emissions. This connects to him and Ro being in many places aboard the ship.
Geordi and Ro being out of phase leaves off these chronoton emissions in order for Data to detect. That was a pretty clever way to establish Geordi and Ro out of phone and provides a clue to save them.
It was tense when Geordi tries to encourage Data to study more on the emissions. This is despite the fact Data can’t hear Geordi out of phase, even though Geordi keeps giving Data clues during the story.
It was equally tense when Ro encounters the Romulan that followed them who threatens her with a disruptor weapon. This soon leads into a case where Ro and the Romulan run through the ship’s walls.
Thankfully when Data detects the chronoton radiation from this chase, Geordi soon sees Ro attacked by the Romulan in one of the rooms and runs in to save her. Soon, the Romulans is sent out into space.
Geordi and Ro manage to acquire the disruptor from the now deceased Romulan. They use the weapon to attract the attention of Data and the others to save them and to bring them back to reality.
They soon end up in Ten Forward as their funeral service takes place. It’s more jovial than a standard funeral service. After Ro fires the disruptor quite a number of times, she sets the weapon to overload.
This gets the attention of Data who instructs Ten Forward to be swept with anyon particles, causing Geordi and Ro to come back temporarily into reality. Can Geordi and Ro rescue the Enterprise in time?
‘The Next Phase’ is a brilliant episode from the ‘TNG’ series. I enjoyed Geordi and Ro’s journey from being out of phase to trying to get back into our reality. It was pretty tense and gripping to watch here.
‘The Next Phase’ (TNG) rating – 10/10
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