‘VIOLATIONS’ (TNG)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This ‘Star Trek: TNG’ episode isn’t particularly one of my favourites from the series. But it’s pretty tense-driven and I became so gripped as to what went on with the themes of memory and mind-rape.
The episode has the Enterprise conveying a delegation of Ullians to Calder IV. These Ullians are telepathic historians that conduct their own research by retrieving long forgotten memories of people.
The Ullians are David Sage as Tarmin, Eve Brenner as Inad and Ben Lemon as Jev. Tarmin and Jev are father and son. Not sure if Inad’s the mother of the group. Jev’s clearly the young one and has an issue.
The first scene of the episode has the Ullians demonstrate their abilities by helping Rosalind Chao as Keiko O’Brien to recall a lost childhood memory. Not sure where her husband Chief O’Brien’s gone to.
But the memory that Keiko re-lives with Tarmin’s help comes back to her in an instant and he recalls it vividly. It seems very impressive as it can certainly help for people who want to recall lost memories.
After the demonstration, Tarmin offers to anyone who wants to volunteer experiencing re-living forgotten memories. He reveals that Dr. Beverly Crusher is thinking about her first kiss. Nosey Parker! 😀
The main focus of the episode is on Jev. Apparently he’s part of the delegation of Ullians, yet he hasn’t achieved his potential. It seems that it takes years of training for these Ullians to acquire these abilities.
During dinner, when Tarmin blurts this out to everyone in the dining room, Jev becomes upset and he walks out. Counselor Deanna Troi goes out and follows to talk and comfort him when he seems upset.
Deanna compares Jev’s father to her mother when she becomes overbearing. Jev finds comfort when Deanna talks to him. After they form a common bond with each other, Deanna leaves for her quarters.
In her quarters, as Deanna brushes her hair before going to bed, she recalls a certain memory of hers involving a romantic interlude with William Riker. It seems Deanna is re-living the memory very vividly.
But as it goes on, the memory gets more intense as Riker becomes forceful on Deanna and she’s suddenly replaced by Jev. Deanna screams out in pain before she collapses and she ends up in a coma.
Deanna is soon found to be in a coma by her Enterprise crewmembers and Beverly works on a way to revive her. Riker soon speaks to Jev about Deanna Troi since he was the last person to speak with her.
The Ullians are soon submitted to some medical tests to make sure they aren’t carrying any harmful toxins or pathogens. I liked that scene in sick bay where Riker tries to talk to Deanna in her coma state.
But soon Riker suffers a similar experience to Deanna when he recalls a memory of losing someone in engineering and a crewman berating him for it. Jev appears in the memory as Riker ends up in a coma.
Beverly keeps on trying to find out what’s wrong with Deanna and Riker before she discovers an electropathic activity typical of a rare neurological disorder in them. She seems to be making progress.
But unfortunately Beverly gets subjected to a memory flashback where she and Picard visit her husband’s dead body years ago. Jev replaces Picard in the memory and Beverly ends up in a coma too.
The situation gets worse as Data and Geordi take over the investigation with Beverly out of the picture. Data and Geordi discover more when two similar incidents occurred on Hurada III with Ullians present.
Thankfully Troi wakes up from her coma. Jev requests to probe her mind to find out what happened. But what actually happens is that Jev manipulates the memory to make it appear Tarmin attacked her.
Tarmin gets accused of the crime instead of Jev. But as they near their destination, Jev meets up with Deanna again and engages another mind probe on her. Deanna learns the truth as it was Jev all along.
Thankfully though, Data and Worf enter to save Deanna as she resists Jev’s mind rape on her. Jev’s crimes are discovered as he’s taken to his Ullian homeworld. Riker and Beverly come out of their coma.
‘Violations’ is not a favourite of mine but it was tense and gripping to watch. I’m not sure what Jev’s motivations were behind this mind rape, but I’m guessing this could be to get back at his father Tarmin.
‘Violations’ (TNG) rating – 7/10
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