Realm of Fear

DVD, TNG S6 (Realm of Fear)

I had a frustrating time with this episode, not because of anything wrong with the story, but thanks to a fault in technology: my DVD disc had something wrong with it, perhaps from a scratch, and so two or three times it skipped over the damaged area meaning I lost three or four minutes - just before Reg, O'Brien and Geordi have a look at the transporter pad, then during the autopsy of Kelly, skipping ahead until Reg leaves Ten Forward. Such annoyances can really colour the perception of an episode and I suppose I should feel fortunate that on my many DVDs I haven't had a problem like this for years.

In spite of problems with the medium I did enjoy the episode, Reg Barclay's third appearance on the series. As always, his nervous problems cause him to feel as though no one will take him seriously, and for once his phobia is understandable. Just think about what being transported actually means and then consider if you would be willing to hop on the pad. The episode is notable for being the first, perhaps even the only one to feature being transported from the transportees eye view. It's actually beautiful to behold, like a shimmering crystalline snowfall all around. One thing I never liked was that people were seen to move within the beam. To me it would make more sense that a person who was having their molecules disassembled and then reassembled would be frozen because you couldn't move your arm if there were molecules missing from it. The argument may be that all the hard work has been pretty much done when we see people phasing in so maybe that's why they can move, but I always preferred it when people kept stock still.

Sometimes background knowledge can very slightly detract from an episode. Usually it's not a problem, but knowing the grey, worm-like entities in the beam were really Dan Curry waving a sock puppet around did lose some of the impact. It may not have helped they were one of the less successful designs. Still, that moment when Barclay is justified by reaching out and grasping his fear only for it to be revealed as a person caught in the matter stream was a brilliant ending. Barclay's a hero and it's such a surprising conclusion. I also like the moment he wakes the senior staff and though they have reservations they do believe him whereas in the past they might have been a bit dismissive.

I did think the dangerous experiment Geordi, Data and Reg carry out in engineering would have been better suited to a science lab rather than a few metres away from the warp core! They did know there was a likelihood of explosion as that was what had happened on the other ship, and what if the containment field had failed? There's a lot of O'Brien in the episode, he and Barclay finding some common ground, which is really nice, but I don't remember Christina the tarantula ever being mentioned on 'DS9,' so maybe Keiko was partial to spider lasagne? We also hear O'Brien's been a transporter operator for twenty-two years and never lost someone in the job which was reassuring. Of course Reg is in distinguished company over his fear of transporters - Dr. McCoy felt the same way about the 'contraption' as he would probably have called it. It's fun hearing Reg point out stellar cartography as he walks the decks. One set that wouldn't be seen until 'Generations.'

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