Series: Star Trek: TNG
Episode: 7.02 Liaisons (September 27, 1993)
Rating: 3.5/5
Redshirt Status: 0/0/57
Notable Guest Stars:
Barbara Williams (Anna) – Ms. Williams does not seem to have an extensively familiar filmography. She has appeared on several shows as guest stars, including a 2-episode guest starring role on Flashforward in 2009 and Quarterlife in 2008. She has also written and been a member of the crew for various productions.
Eric Pierpoint (Voval)- Peirpoint is a Star Trek Alum, appearing in several shows of the franchise. He also starred in Alien Nation alongside fellow alum Gary Graham. More recently he has appeared in Hart of Dixie (as Harold Tucker) and Parks and Recreation (as Chief Trumple). He also writes young adult novels in his spare time.
Paul Eiding (Loquel) – Eiding is known mostly for his voice acting, but he has done live action work as well. Aside from Star Trek, he has appeared in ER, The Pretender, The West Wing, and My Name is Earl.
Michael Harris (Byleth) – Like Williams, I was unfamiliar with most of his filmography. He did appear on ER. According to IMDB he has spent quite a bit of time focused on his theatre career.
Ricky D’Shon Collins (Eric) – Collins, like Eiding, is well known as a voice actor. Some roles I recognized were Recess, Danny Phantom and Happy Feet. He did several shows as a child actor.
Review:
In this episode we see the Enterprise crew interact with a new species, the Lyaaran. Humanoid of course – the budget wasn’t high enough for non-humanoid creatures at this time of TV production. Worf, Deanna and Picard all have completely different experiences with their partnered Ambassador.
Read more: The Rewatch 232: Liaisons.Deanna has Loquel, a joyful man who massively enjoys the sweets on board (outdoing Deanna’s tolerance). Its mostly amusing although I find the fact that no one was bothered that this guy just went up and grabbed a kid because he was confused as to what they were. The only one who seemed to be going “What the Hell?” was Eric, the boy himself.
Worf has Ambassador Byleth, a rude gentleman who tests Worf’s limits of his good nature. To the point that the two actually get into a physical alteration that Riker has to pull Worf away from.
Picard has the weirdest one of the them all. He starts the episode with Voval, a rather uncommunicative fellow. They “wreck” and Picard finds himself prisoner to a woman named Anna who claims she loves him and in general is just really weird. Of course, the reasoning seems sincere – she’s been trapped alone on that planet for seven years.
However, the plot twist at the end of the episode is that its all a farce. Voval and the others have met with humans before, but found their understanding lacking. So each went in search of understanding an element. Given their lack of understanding when it came to certain emotions (Pleasure, Animosity, and Love) this episode has a rare lack of Data. Maybe they too realized that they do a lot with Data and wanted to use some other characters a bit.
It is nice to see Deanna doing something as an officer of the ship. She is of course the counselor, and its always nice to see her doing that as well, even if its mostly in the form of a Barclay episode. Worf gets to stretch his diplomatic muscles much more in this episode then usual and Riker and Data take a backseat.
Given all that went on, I’m rather surprised that Picard seems okay with all of it. As if it was just another day at work and he hadn’t been led to believe his life was in danger.
While the scenes on the Enterprise wasn’t that bad, I found the Picard plot a bit weird and didn’t really care for it. I’m going to give this episode a 3.5 out of 5. Everyone did a good job acting, but I agree with the production team that this episode just doesn’t quite hit the right note.
Interesting Notes:
- Story by Roger Eschbacher and Jaq Greenspon
- Teleplay by Jeanne Carrigan Fauci and Lisa Rich. These two were writing interns on the show, and also wrote and/or contributed to 2 DS9 episodes. Carriagn-Fauci’s daughter is also a writer (Tai Fauci) so it’s a family business now.
- Directed by Cliff Bole
- This episode was inspired by (at different points of its creation) Misery and Fatal Attraction.
- Brannon Braga was ambivalent towards his uncredited script doctoring, and Cliff Bole wasn’t pleased with this offering either.
Pros:
- Any of Deanna’s scenes. With an asterisk (See cons)
Cons:
- Why was the mom okay with some strange man grabbing her son??
- Why is Deanna back in that uncomfortable body suit uniform.
Screencap via CygnusX1.net
Sokorra Lewis 