Night Terrors

DVD, TNG S4 (Night Terrors)

I like to imagine that this episode shows what the cast looked like at the end of a long week of shooting! The unsettling nature of the music helped to create the right sort of atmosphere for the crew's gradual descent into madness, but as a whole I didn't feel the story went far enough in upping the tension. There are some striking images that stick in the mind, most impressive of all were the corpses Dr. Crusher was examining in the morgue (was that the morgue or just a temporary space to store the bodies). She hears rustling then looking round she sees all the silent shapes, wrapped in their sheets, sitting bolt upright. Very effective indeed, without any need for gore. The snakes Riker sees enveloping his legs when in bed also worked well, but there weren't many of these moments, or enough to keep the uneasiness going.

Once we know it's a simple matter of not being able to dream, the solution gets all techy, slowing the story. Data again proves how handy he is with the ability to work normally while everyone else succumbs to irritability and tiredness, and Troi shows herself useful too, though this involves floating rather gracelessly through her dream - I bet Marina Sirtis cringed when she saw that sequence! I like it when they go to the trouble of showing the guest ship's name on it's hull, rather than just telling us its name, even if it was a reuse of the Reliant model. The aliens were a bit cryptic, as it would have been much simpler to explain what they meant, but this must have been the only way they could communicate. I just think that if they could speak English, they'd know the word 'hydrogen', but it's nitpicking really.

It was about time we had a look in on the newly-weds, Miles and Keiko, but sadly it was only an argument, presumably brought on by lack of REM sleep. They should really have had a scene to cap it off where Keiko forgives Miles for his outburst, but that's the price of not having a regular for a husband - when she did get that, on 'DS9', she went off to Bajor anyway, so there's no pleasing some people! Guinan's appearance too, was slightly off-kilter compared to her usual role - I never saw her as the type to carry around a hulking great gun, but she certainly knows how to keep order. It was also fitting that she didn't seem to show any effects of not dreaming, as she's so often 'above' whatever happens to the ship, existing almost separately to her colleagues on board.

I thought Worf was showing his Klingon strength by seemingly not becoming affected, but as usual he was bottling it all up until he bolts off the bridge to his quarters, planning to kill himself. An over-reaction? It was worth it for the scene where the petite Troi takes his hand and leads him off to sickbay like a great bear behind her. Crews going mad in response to alien stimuli or spatial phenomena is almost a regular thing, so they should really sort out some protocols for this eventuality, starting with not leaving it too long before they try out any plan to escape. John Vickery, the catatonic Betazoid, also played Gul Rusot in the last episodes of 'DS9'.

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