Galaxy's Child

DVD, TNG S4 (Galaxy's Child)

One of those episodes where nothing much happens, but in such a nice, comfy way that you can watch in a dozing state and it's never going to challenge you or excite or do much of anything really - it just happens. That might sound like a real bore, but it's more like a well-worn blanket, cosy and pleasant. It's a sequel to the previous season's 'Booby Trap' in which La Forge called up a hologram of the Enterprise's main designer and became attached to her. This time it's the real deal, Dr. Leah Brahms herself, and from the moment she steps on board you can imagine what she's going to say when she inevitably finds out about Geordi's holographic version of her! That was the stand out moment of the episode, as funny as it is excruciatingly uncomfortable for Geordi. Thankfully he's such an easygoing sort that he's not one to bear a grudge at her outburst, and they make up their differences in the time-honoured way of joining together to save the ship from destruction in a sort of off-hand, five minute job.

The peril wasn't important, and neither was the child of the title, a space-borne organism that becomes rather attached to the Enterprise. It looked real enough, as did the asteroid field which they transport it to, with others of its kind waiting there. It must be pre-CGI, but it looks like a computer model rather than a physical one - those production bods were geniuses; in their own way they were the Starfleet engineers of real life! I'm not sure how Dr. Brahms was so easily able to join the Enterprise when in a short space of time it's come to an unexplored region and an unknown creature, but who cares?. Susan Gibney would later be on 'DS9' in another role, but this was probably her best-known 'Star Trek' piece, and another downer for Geordi as he sits alone in the corner of Ten-Forward.

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