“Remember Me”
Written by Lee Sheldon
Directed by Cliff Bole
Season 4, Episode 5
Production episode 40274-179
Original air date: October 22, 1990
Stardate: 44161.2
Captain’s Log: Crusher welcomes Dr. Dalen Quaice aboard when the ship docks at Starbase 133. He’s retiring following the death of his wife, and the Enterprise is ferrying him back to his homeworld on Kenda II. Quaice waxes philosophical about growing old, particularly the fact that all the people you know are gone, and you never appreciated them while they were there.
With that in mind, Crusher heads to engineering, where Wes is doing an experiment with the warp field. There’s a visible burst of light—which Wes says should not have happened—but everything seems fine. The Enterprise leaves the starbase, but Wes notices that his mother is no longer there.
The next day, Crusher goes to meet Quaice in his guest quarters to have breakfast—but he’s not on board. She reports it to Worf, as she’s worried that he’s injured, but a search turns up nothing. To make matters worse, Data can find no record of Quaice serving at the starbase—even though he’s been assigned there for six years—nor a record of him in Starfleet. Neither Worf nor Picard have any recollection of Crusher’s passenger request, even though she filed it weeks earlier, and O’Brien doesn’t remember transporting Quaice aboard.
Crusher examines O’Brien, and while doing so pages Doctors Hill and Selar—but there’s no record of them, no indication that they ever served on the Enterprise, and the nurses and relatives of the doctors have no memory of them.
Wes and La Forge look back at Wes’s earlier experiment, which was with Kozinski’s warp field equations. They tried to create a static warp bubble, but the bubble burst. They hypothesize that Quaice might have been caught in the bubble when it burst, though Picard pokes a hole in it by pointing out that Quaice wasn’t in engineering.
Crusher returns to sickbay only to find her entire staff is missing. She goes to the bridge to report this, only to be informed that she never had a staff, nor would she need one with only 230 people on board the ship. Crusher is, needless to say, shocked, since the ship should have a thousand people.
At this point, Crusher is worried that something’s wrong with her, and she agrees to talk to Troi. Picard, however, is willing to believe that someone has sabotaged the ship, and he agrees to head back to Starbase 133.
When Crusher goes back to sickbay, a giant vortex appears and tries to suck the doctor into it before it closes. La Forge sends a team to investigate, but they find no indication that there was ever a vortex there. Data also indicates that the entire crew is accounted for—all 114 of them, which makes Crusher even more anxious.
Wes’s experiment is the only thing that Crusher thinks could explain all this, but he hasn’t been able to figure out how. He’s also talked to Kozinski, who is equally in the dark. He sent a message to Kozinski’s assistant, the Traveler from Tau Alpha C, but there’s been no reply. Wes and Crusher leave engineering together, but she winds up in the corridor alone. She goes to the bridge, only to find that it’s just her and Picard. The captain blithely says that they’ve never needed a crew, and it’s just been the two of them roaming this gigunda starship alone. Crusher loses it, saying that the crew deserves better than to be forgotten like this—and then Picard disappears, leaving Crusher alone.
After she swears never to forget any of them, the vortex returns. We follow through the vortex to find Wes and La Forge on the other side in the engine room. The two vortices were attempts to rescue Crusher that failed. Wes is convinced they’ve lost her forever —
— but then the Traveler appears with a bit of optimism. Crusher, he says, created a reality when she was trapped within the warp bubble out of her own thoughts. Because it’s her reality, she has to be the one to escape it. The Traveler can help Wes create a new gateway through which she can come home—but she has to walk through it.
Back in the warp bubble, Crusher, now alone on the Enterprise, decides to apply diagnostic methodology. She asks the computer for the full ship’s roster—it’s just her. She then asks what the Enterprise‘s mission is, and then asks if she’s qualified to perform that mission all by herself—which the computer can’t answer. (“That information is not available.”)
She orders the ship to Tau Alpha C, since the Traveler seems to be her only hope. But after she orders the course change, nothing happens, and when she repeats her instruction, the computer informs her that no such planet exists. Neither does Starbase 133, and when she activates the viewscreen, she finds an energy field, 705 meters in diameter, surrounding the ship. Hypothesizing that, if there’s nothing wrong with her, there might be something wrong with the universe, she asks the computer what the nature of the universe. “The universe is a spheroid region, 705 meters in diameter.”
Back in reality, the Enterprise returns to Starbase 133 to the same position they occupied when the warp bubble was formed. When they arrive at the spot, the Traveler realizes that the bubble is collapsing.
In the bubble, Crusher asks for a visual representation of the universe—and it looks just like Wes’s warp bubble. She realizes that she’s the one who was trapped. The bubble is also collapsing to a size smaller than that of the ship, and the Enterprise is slowly being destroyed.
Remembering that the Traveler used thought to form warp fields, she realizes that her own thoughts formed this little universe—and she was thinking about Quaice’s words to her about losing everyone she knew, which is why everyone was disappearing.
The Traveler and Wes open another vortex—and both of them phase out in much the same way the Traveler did the last time he was on board. In the bubble, Crusher jumps through, and makes it safely home—and is assured by Picard that there are 1014 people on board, including her guest, Dr. Quaice.
Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity?: The warp bubble is formed by thought, and so Crusher’s thoughts upon creating it helped shape it. In order to build a bridge to the bubble, the Traveler says that Wes must think beyond traditional mathematics, beyond the numbers. Apparently this involves closing his eyes while working the engineering console.
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: The warp bubble version of Troi helps Crusher be convinced that she’s not crazy, and also points out that she’s acting in the best interests of the ship and the crew with her concerns.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: After Worf disappears from the warp bubble, Crusher’s attempt to remind everyone who he is is hilarious. “The big guy who never smiles?” Blank stares. “The Klingon!”
The Boy!?: Wes is trying to create a static warp bubble using Kozinsi’s equations and nearly gets his Mom killed. Of course, these are the same equations that were dismissed as “nonsense” when we met Kozinski, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that it didn’t work so hot. The Traveler generously gives Wes all the credit for rescuing Crusher in the end, and indeed the effort nearly kills him.
No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: For the second time, Crusher starts to tell Picard something important, only to have him disappear on her. This officially cements Crusher’s wanting to tell Picard something important before being interrupted as a running gag.
I Believe I Said That: “We will start with the assumption that I am not crazy. If I am, it won’t matter one way or another.”
Crusher starting her examination of what’s wrong.
Welcome Aboard: Eric Menyuk returns as the Traveler, and is as opaque as ever. (Menyuk was one of the finalists for the role of Data, and both here and in his last appearance in “Where No One Has Gone Before,” you can see how well he would have done with the role.) Bill Erwin acts very much like a tired old widower in his brief appearance as Quaice.
Trivial Matters: This story was originally meant to be the “sci-fi” plot in “Family,” but it was carved out into its own episode.
Gates McFadden, a dancer and choreographer, did all her own stunts in this episode. Shortly after filming, she discovered that she was pregnant.
This episode is a sequel of sorts to “Where No One Has Gone Before,” what with Wes using the equations from that episode, mentions of Kozinski, and the return of the Traveler. The Traveler will be back for a third appearance in “Journey’s End” in the seventh season, and one can view the three episodes as a trilogy of sorts chronicling Wes’s mental advancement.
In a deleted scene, Crusher spoke to Cara Hill, the wife of the missing Dr. Hill, who has no memory of her husband. This episode also has another mention of Dr. Selar, who appeared in “The Schizoid Man.”
This is the only writing credit for Lee Sheldon, whose tenure as a producer on the show was short-lived.
Make it So: “Maybe there’s something wrong with the universe.” A fun little episode that gives Gates McFadden a rare chance to be front and center, and she makes the best of it. Her growing frustration plays beautifully against the confusion of the rest of the crew, who all make great straight men for her hysteria. (I especially adore Sir Patrick Stewart shrugging and saying that they’ve never needed a crew as the two of them stand alone on a bridge obviously designed to have at least ten people in it at any given time.) So does the ship’s computer, done with Majel Barrett’s usual aplomb.
The mystery is handled well, as the viewer is just as confused as Crusher, and then Bole does excellent work transitioning through the second vortex to the echoing voices of Wes and La Forge followed by the shadowed form of Wes frantically operating a console, and the viewer has the “aha!” moment when it all makes sense.
It’s also nice to see the Traveler again, as Menyuk’s ethereal presence is always welcome, plus there’s nothing wrong with a call-back to one of the absolute high points of the show’s first season.
Neither a great episode nor a bad one, this is a nice solid entry in the series.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Lunacon 2012 in Rye Brook, New York in the middle of March and at I-Con 31 (along with Star Trek actors Nana Visitor, Daphne Ashbrook, Casey Biggs, and J.G. Hertzler, and fellow Trek novelists Peter David, Robert Greenberger,Glenn Hauman, John Peel, and Aaron Rosenberg) in Stony Book, New York at the end of March. You should come see him. You should also go to his web site, as it is from there that you can a) order his latest books, b) go to his blog, his Facebook, and his Twitter, and c) check out the various podcasts he’s involved with: Dead Kitchen Radio, The Chronic Rift, and the Parsec Award-winning HG World.
A strong episode for Dr. Crusher, and thus, why I have a soft spot for it.
I love the “Never Forget” poster. (:
A solid entry, perhaps, but one of the first that freaked me out. (You can probably guess what some of the others are going to be…)
— Michael A. Burstein
“The universe is a spheroid region, 705 meters in diameter” is one of my favorite Star Trek lines ever.
During the course of the rewatch, I’m finding that I see Dr. Crusher more and more as a cultural elitist and get irritated with her. McFadden does a good job with what the script gave her here, but by the end this was added to my list of episodes to skip for future rewatches.
The sci-fi mystery in this one is fun, and it’s nice that Doc Crusher gets something to do. Once the mystery gets solved and we cut back to the regular enterprise it gets a lot less interesting, though.
I’ve always had this idea in the back of my head that this episode would have been better, with more tension if we never left Crusher’s universe until she figures it out. Though I’m not sure if that would be considered too much of a deus ex machina ending
I consider this one to be a warm-up for the deja vu episode.
I always really loved this episode, and I think it deserves at least an 8. The tension builds well, the mystery is nicely disguised, and it has a good resolution. One of my favorites.
The “pocket universe created from thought” premise is absurd, but it does fit fairly well with the metaphysics of “Where No One Has Gone Before,” and it was good to see the Traveler revisited. And yes, it’s a fanciful premise, but I liked the Twilight Zone feel of the first half. I think the episode was right to pull back and give the answers once Crusher was alone rather than dragging it out to the end, because that’s the climax of the “Where is Everybody [Going]?” phase of the story, and that’s when it has to stop being a Twilight Zone episode about mystery and existential dread and become a Star Trek episode about smart people thinking up solutions. (Plus they couldn’t have sustained 20 minutes of Gates McFadden talking to the computer; they needed something to cut away to.) I did like the way Crusher reasoned through her problem once she was by herself, though.
And here they actually remembered the name of the distant planet the Traveler’s supposedly from, Tau Alpha C. When he comes back in “Journey’s End,” they’ll mistakenly say he’s from Tau Ceti, one of the closest stars to Earth, and the primary star of Kaferia in some Trek references and tie-ins.
And I like the (perhaps intentional, perhaps accidental) really obscure in-joke of the title. “Remember me” is the last line of Gene Roddenberry’s deservedly little-known lyrics to the Star Trek theme.
One of my favorite episodes. Yes, not necessarily brilliant, but solid all around, and I’ve seen it dozens of times without ever getting tired of it. It’s one of the very rare occasions that I’ve liked Beverly Crusher – normally she annoys me for no reason I can clearly define. But in this episode, she’s smart (as the “figuring it out” scene displays), and realistically distressed without becoming overwhelmingly hysterical.
Plus, being a kid genre fan when TNG first aired, I was always into the super-Wesley Crusher plots.
(And it doesn’t hurt that Picard blithely saying that they’ve never needed a crew before is one of my favorite lines in the series.)
I don’t get why it’s only a 6, I thought for sure it would be a 9 or 10 and I don’t see any mistakes or flaws pointed out to justify it.
@@.-@: so true! That line made me shiver as a kid. The creepy score underlines it. Is this episode Crusher’s finest moment?…
I’ve also always liked this episode, and I think Dr. Crusher proves herself very nicely in it! Methodically and logically getting to the bottom of the problem.
When it first aired I remember being really surprised by the reveal that the vortex was Wes trying to save his mom, and not some evil kidnapping alien! :)
To me this episode is at least a 9, I also see no flaws and the premise/mystery is interesting, and it gives the chance for a underused character to shine.
I’ve also always liked this episode, and I think Dr. Crusher proves herself very nicely in it! Methodically and logically getting to the bottom of the problem.
When it first aired I remember being really surprised by the reveal that the vortex was Wes trying to save his mom, and not some evil kidnapping alien! :)
To me this episode is at least a 9, I also see no flaws and the premise/mystery is interesting, and it gives the chance for a underused character to shine.
*scratches head*
uhhh…sorry for the double post in the same post….don’t know what went wrong there…
This episode and “Family” are among my top five TNG episodes. Knowing now the connection between the two episodes only adds to my feelings about them.
I can see where this episode might seem weak to those only seeing it for the first time after being exposed to the strong storytelling in series like BSG but I should point out that when this episode first ran it stood out for many fans for being so different from what they were use to.
Folks, keep in mind that the warp factor rating is the least important part of the rewatch. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I have to join the chorus who feel that you’ve been too harsh in your rating of this episode. I’d give it a 9 myself. The uniqueness of the story (in the Trek canon, anyway – I think Twilight Zone may have done a similar episode, and I’m sure it wasn’t a brand new premise), the fact that Doctor Crusher had a prominent role that didn’t involve her falling in love with the guest star of the week, and the dialogue are all contributing factors to raising the episode’s rating in my view.
I remember seeing it for the first time when I was in university. My then-fiance, our roommates and a friend of ours were watching it together, and as Doctor Crusher started to piece it all together, our friend said, “Come on, Beverly… just click your heels together three times.” About thirty seconds later, Crusher uttered the line, “Click my heels together three times and I’m back in Kansas – can it be that simple?” (I also loved it when she asked the computer why she was the only crewmember when she wasn’t qualified to run the mission, and the computer being unable to answer. And the line about the universe being a spheroid region 705 metres in diameter actually gave me chills.)
Rather than Twilight Zone, this episode reminds me very strongly of The Demolished Man; the reason for the scenario is different, but it plays out in much the same way. It does seem rather like the writers were working backwards from the climax, to create an SF scenario that would allow the disappearance of the universe to (1) have a reason to happen, and (2) return to normal in time for the next episode. The reason is ultimately not that interesting, compared to the drama of the gradual collapse of reality – which is nicely done here!
I never cared very much for this episode. Too much technobabble claptrap to suspend one’s disbelief over. This is precisely the type of esoteric episode that Brannon Braga would eventually become famous/infamous for.
Administrative note: due to the unexpected death Sunday of someone I’ve known since high school (she was only 41), there will be no rewatch today (6 March 2012). We’ll be back on Friday the 9th with “Legacy,” the historic 80th episode of TNG, as we meet Yar’s sister and Riker pulls a lame-ass card trick on Data.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m sorry to hear about your friend, Mr. DeCandido. If I’d known her, I would assure you I’d remember her.
My apologies for being late in commenting on this episode (I’ve fallen behind in the rewatch, and am just now starting to catch up).
I liked this episode very much. I like how it forces the viewer to think, and follow along with the mystery, with us trying to figure out what happened, as much as the crew, or just Beverly in this case (“Timescape” in season 6 did this effectivly as well).
Special effects are not the strong suit of this series, but when that warp bubble came on the fake bridge, and Crusher tried to elude it, I was totally taken aback. Bravo to the effects crew on that one.
Sorry about your friend, krad.
@19 AlexG —
Yes, I instantly thought of “The Demolished Man” too. I’d bet money that that was the original inspiration for this episode.
This is one of the episodes that really stuck with me over the years. It didn’t hold up upon rewatching. The quasi-mystical mumbo-jumbo of the Traveler really brings the episode down in my opinion. He seemed wholly unnecessary. I alos feel the reveal of Wesley and La Forge through the vortex came a couple of scenes early. It would have been really nice to see that image of the warp bubble shaped universe before knowing exactly what was going on, giving the audience the oppotunity to come to the realization along with Crusher instead of spending 15 minutes watching her come to conclusions we’d been spoon fed. Between this and the mysticism, the last third of the episode comes off as patronizing.
One of my personal favorites, and a fun, mysterious episode, a real standout for Gates McFadden. You feel every emotion with Dr. Crusher, from confusion, to fright and frustration, to resolve. And its always awesome to see the Traveler, as Eric Menyuk’s presence gives each episode a genuine sci-fi mystery feel. And as others above have said, one of the greatest lines in sci-fi is “The universe is a spheroid region, 705 meters in diameter.” Still gives me chills. I’d rated this episode an 8.
I just saw the episode for the first time (somehow missed it all these years) and I will co-sign all the commenters thus far who latched on to what, for me, is now the most terrifying line ever uttered in TNG: “The universe is a spheroid region, 705 meters in diameter”. The sense of claustrophobia and absolute isolation that line evoked from my subconcious was really quite thrilling in an unnerving sort of way.
I too am a latecomer, watching TNG for the first time after being a longtime fan of TOS. The first time thru, I loved this episode – in fact, it’s the only ST episode ever to give me a nightmare. I can see how it would not be as good once you know what’s going to happen. The great episodes – I’ve seen Yesterday’s Enterprise at least four times in the six months I’ve been watching TNG – stand up to repeated watching.
Ah, this was the very first episode of Star Trek I saw as a kid. Whenever I think back on the series, I remember the eerinees of this episode, THE reason why I sarted staying up late at night on Wednesdays. Maybe not the best, but a sentimental favorite for me.
What? No mention of The Lady Vanishes?
Just watched this one, haven’t seen it in years. I liked it. Add another fan of the whole “universe is 705 meters” bit, lol. Speaking of measurements though… I had no idea Dr Crusher was so FAST. When the ship starts to get.. dissolved? by the collapsing warp bubble we see Crusher running away from the mist behind her. In engineering Geordi said the bubble is collapsing at a rate of 15 meters per second, or for my fellow Americans, ~34 miles per hour.
She must have some hella nice futuristic running shoes :)
There’s an odd thing with this episode where it actually feels very surreal how everyone just accepts what Crusher is saying. We know she’s telling the truth but it’s ludicrous that anyone would believe her even if they trust her. I trust my friends very much indeed but if they told me that they’d just popped to Mars, I wouldn’t believe them. If they kept insisting that they had, I’d get them some psychological help.
So that got me thinking that either this is really badly written (it reminds me of Guinan and Picard in Yesterday’s Enterprise) or that this is a dream world type of place where Crusher is the main character. That let the episode down because it inadvertently made it quite easy to figure out. Also, when Wes is doing his experiment at the start as his mom watches, the flash and then her not going onto say what she was about to say made me think she’d vanished and that the episode was going to be about everyone forgetting her. Of course, the episode then plays out the other way around, with everyone else disappearing, and that made me think I’d just been mistaken. As the oddness of everyone just accepting her mounted, I returned to my original understanding that Crusher is the one that had disappeared and it all fell into place.
So yeah, a good episode with a really unsettling idea that’s let down by being fairly easy to predict. The shrinking universe thing is perhaps the ultimate form of claustrophobia. Any story where the protagonist is aware of something that no one else is, with everyone else thinking they’re going crazy, is always interesting to me. It also struck me as a (probably accidental) dementia or Alzheimer’s allegory as well.
I never saw it as much of a mystery, since we basically see her disappearing from engineering at the beginning. And why does she have to go back to engineering at the end, considering the previous two attempts to get her out happened in Sick Bay and on the bridge? I would have liked it better if Crusher had a bit more hand in saving herself. It was supposed to be her episode, but all she had to do was learn to shut up and let the men-folk save her. Really, it was just a Wes episode in disguise.
Things I like about this episode are that it’s a high-concept sci-fi/mystery story; Dr. Crusher is front and center and Gates McFadden gets plenty to do for once; the return of The Traveler and the actor who plays him; the score; the crackling chemistry and dialogue between Gates and Patrick; the running “I’ve been meaning to tell you something” gag; Cliff Bole’s direction; and the special effects. The episode really does feel cinematic to me despite being a bottle show and is fun to watch with the lights off. That said, there are definitely some flaws: the mumbo jumbo mysticism and dialogue of The Traveler and the continuing theme of Wesley Crusher being super special; when Beverly freaks out to Troi and thinks Wes has gone missing why doesn’t she just ask the computer his whereabouts instead of running off to engineering to look for him?; when we see the graphical representation of the collapsing spheroid and how it’s causing the forward decks of the Enterprise to disappear it is being depicted as happening at such a fast rate that Beverly should have been enveloped by it while she is still standing around on the bridge or the Enterprise in her reality should have been destroyed once we see in the graphic that the nacelles are shrinking along with the spheroid; why wouldn’t the turbolift be able to go in a straight path down its shaft from the bridge to engineering?; but my biggest problem with the episode is it doesn’t really seem to be about anything. It’s fun while it lasts but I don’t feel any further illuminated in learning about who Dr. Crusher is much less the other characters, aside from Wes’ continuing development into a super-being.
@35/GarretH: I like the episode too, and for many of the reasons you mentioned. My favourite scene is Crusher’s dialogue with the computer after everyone else has disappeared. Not only “What is the nature of the universe?”, but the whole conversation leading up to it. It shows that she has quite a scientific mind, and I like that.
I wish they had shown this side of her more often, especially in her talks with Wesley. I imagine that they had scientific chats since he was a little kid, but we never see any of it on screen.
Funnily enough, after rewatching almost the whole of TNG and DS9 in the first half of this year, this episode is among the ones I can remember most clearly.
@37/AT: You mean if the title had been “Forget Me”, you would have done that instead? :)
@38/JanaJansen: I see what you did there. You know, in Germany, where I come from, this epsiode was titled “Das Experiment”. It must have been something different from the title, something more ‘intrinsic’, I guess. ;)
This is actually the first episode of Star Trek I ever saw – at least, the first one I can identify clearly. I would have been 8 when it first aired in the UK (on 4 May 1994 – thankyou, Memory Alpha) and I think I immediately started watching The Next Generation weekly.
It’s the only instance I can think of in Star Trek where a doctor has to solve a non-medical, hard sci-fi problem on their own. These tasks are normally written for gold or red uniforms. So I partially agree with @35, but I think what it teaches us about Crusher is that she’s a doctor and a sci-fi hero.
@39/AT: You’re from Germany? That’s cool. Me too, but I don’t remember (there’s that word again!) any of the German TNG episode titles. I’m better when it comes to TOS, which probably shows my age.
@40/Greg K Nicholson: Yes, it really portrays her as a scientist.
See what happens when you play around with the spacetime continuum? You are so grounded, young man!
Great episode with an awesome sci-fi premise.
A few nitpicks. In the scene where Dr. Crusher is talking to Picard about Doctor’s Hill and Selar, she frustratingly says they have been on board for “months”. I mean technically it is correct, because even a span of over a year, can be expressed in months. It’s just odd too me that she would say it that way since Dr. Selar has been on board for over a year, perhaps even three.
Another nitpick is when Dr. Crusher discovers Sickbay deserted, it’s clear she rushes straight to the bridge to report it. In private, she tells Picard that she “just examined herself”. No she didn’t, she rushed to the bridge!
The final nitpick is at the end when Dr. Crusher asks Picard how many people are on board. He says 1,014, including her friend Dr. Quaice. Umm, the Enterprise crew compliment IS 1,014, but Quaice isn’t a member of the crew, he’s a passenger. Shouldn’t there be 1,015 on board at this point?
I guess Dr. Crusher didn’t escape her personal reality, it’s starting all over again!
And the Traveler was right there when he said it, so 1,016.
if theres nothing wrong with me, there must be something wrong with the universe.
oh yeah, when i say that, i’m being narcisistic .
Am I the only one who thinks it’s important to talk about The Force here?
The Traveller telling Wes to close his eyes and switch off the targeting computer let the Force be his guide… his midichlorians must be super big.
This episode was a truly great second draft, but it does spend WAY too much time telling us what we already know. The idea that she sees everyone vanishing but the real answer is that she vanished, that’s golden. I mean, I figured it out right away, but it’s a compelling idea. And some of the dialogue is hilarious. But the whole creepy mystery thing is too obvious. Then she says the whole plot and everything we figured out already, out loud to the computer.
To the commenter who said it’s not about anything, I totally disagree; it’s about losing people. Despite its flaws, I cried. I think anyone who doesn’t feel something hasn’t lost enough people… and … hopefully you will live long enough to understand it. :/
@47: I appreciate your perspective and I believe I’m the commenter you’re referring to when I said I don’t feel like the episode is about anything. Yes, I can concur with you that the story is about losing people, but that is, in my opinion, in a very general sense. I just didn’t feel like I got a real deep exploration of that here. Perhaps that’s because I was too wrapped up in or distracted by the sci-fi mystery part of the story. The most emotionally affecting thing that has to do with losing people to me happens in the teaser when Dr. Quaice laments about growing old and losing everyone around him that he cares about and loves. Now that iteration of loss is something I can understand and be personally moved by. In fact, I feel like that was better utilized in “The Inner Light” with Picard/Kamen who is aging, and probably in other movies/television shows I’ve seen with the same theme. But that’s what’s great about these episodes and stories is that we can all get something different, sometimes dramatically so, based on our own unique perspectives and interpretations.
Another favorite line (Crusher to that yammering computer): “I wasn’t talking to you!”
Also, cool to know that McFadden did her own stunts for this one. Count me, though, as one more who was put off by that faux-New Age mumbo-jumbo from the Traveler. For me, that took a few Warp Factor Rating points off what was otherwise an excellent episode.
One of my favourites and always worth a rewatch. The 705 metres line is chilling but the scene that sticks in my head is when Crusher comes into the bridge and it’s literally just Picard there and he’s like “what’s the problem?”
As to why everyone believes Crusher’s increasingly outrageous claims, bear in mind that aliens are always messing with reality in Star Trek. You’d surely err on the side of caution, especially with a trusted and mentally stable officer.
shame about the low warp factor rating because however much the author may protest, the score is definitely the most important part of a review. If it wasn’t then they’d serve no purpose and nobody would use them.
A lot of reviews don’t include ratings.
Something I’ve always wondered: In universe, what would have happened to Dr. Crusher had she not resisted being pulled into the vortices in sickbay and on the bridge? Would those attempts have worked? Or were they bound to fail because the Enterprise hadn’t realigned with its former position (never mind the galactic motion in the meantime) and/or because the Traveler hadn’t yet shown up to help? Maybe Beverly would have been lost had she gone through them? It’s just a thought experiment—I enjoy thinking about such things.
I enjoyed it much more than expected because it wasn’t too obviously about Beverly’s angst, despite what I’d seen in Netflix’s summary. Not a fan of the Traveler, particularly. The mystery was fun.
@39/AT: “You know, in Germany, where I come from, this epsiode was titled “Das Experiment”.”
That’s a surprisingly generic and somewhat spoilery title. I wonder why they changed it. Was there some reason “Remember Me” wouldn’t work in German? (Google Translate says it would be “Behalte Mich in Erinnerung,” literally “Keep Me in Memory.” Seems fine to me.)
@54/Christopher: Hmm, it sounds a bit clumsy. I think I’d have preferred “Vergiss mich nicht” (“Don’t Forget Me”). But that isn’t the reason for the title change. They replaced almost every TOS episode title and most of the TNG titles with their own, and quite a few of their creations were generic, or spoilery, or both. “Where No One Has Gone Before” became “Der Reisende” (“The Traveller”). “The Devil in the Dark” became “Horta rettet ihre Kinder” (“Horta Saves Her Children”). “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” became “Der verirrte Planet” (“The Lost Planet”). It got better in later Trek shows.
On a side note, words aren’t capitalised in German titles. Capitalisation has a grammatical function in German, it denotes the noun category.
Though the science is technobabble, this one felt very effective to me on an emotional level. And it pulled bits from both The Mark of Gideon and The Tholian Web. (Yes, I’m re-watching in order, starting with The Original Series.)
Was anyone telling Beverly to “go into the light?” Bill Erwin always reminded me of one half of Statler and Waldorf (can you guess which one?). 4: Its not as great as Beverly insisting there’s nothing wrong with her – just the rest of the universe. 6: Yep, it gets a bit too talky towards the end. 8: I’m surprised Braga didn’t write Remember Me as well. 13: “The creepy score underlines it” – was this before ST music became white noise? 18: Remember Me reminds me of The Langoliers with people disappearing followed by the world itself and a doorway between dimensions. 33: The cast are a bit on the fence over whether or not to believe Beverly, which they all play well. 52: She would have been rescued and the episode would be over. So that’s why she had to stay trapped a little while longer. 55: The show with the most generic titles is Red Dwarf. E.g. An episode where they travel to a parallel universe is called… Parallel Universe.
@57: Brannon Braga’s first official writing credit is on “Reunion” which is after this episode. And the music became like white noise after composer Ron Jones was fired after he completed scoring “The Drumhead” towards the end of the 4th season. The first four seasons of TNG generally have excellent, thrilling, bombastic scores.
@5 Rancho Unicorno: Coming to you from 10 years in the future, I’m asking for a justification of your take that Dr. Crusher is a “culture elitist.” You provided no context or detail 10 years ago, you just stated it like everyone would understand what you meant. I don’t get it, at all. So, I ask you, a decade later: What are you on about?
I know that ambling slowly next to someone can be a challenge not entirely unlike balancing on a bike at a near standstill, but Crusher looks during the opening scene as if she doesn’t entirely know how to walk.
“to be informed that she never had a staff, nor would she need one with only 230 people on board the ship”
Doesn’t a ship of that complement still call for a medical staff, especially if there’s just one fully accredited physician?
“Wes must think beyond traditional mathematics, beyond the numbers. Apparently this involves closing his eyes while working the engineering console.”
Use the Force, Wesley! (No, jofesh @47… You aren’t.)
“Bill Erwin acts very much like a tired old widower in his brief appearance as Quaice.”
He was only 76, which admittedly wasn’t as young then as it is now, and incidentally he lived for another 20 years. Crusher described Quaice as “an elderly man, not in the best of health,” but he looked pretty hale to me, personal tragedy notwithstanding. I’m just saying that, while his ailments may not have presented outwardly, based on McCoy and Soong he doesn’t come across so decrepit.
“Neither a great episode nor a bad one, this is a nice solid entry in the series.”
I too like this episode for Crusher’s rational attack on the problem and the chilling collapse of reality around her oft-cited above. Funny that her last name is what the pocket universe is try to do. :^)
I generally don’t much care for Dr Crusher, but in this episode she came across very well; if that only held in general I’d be happy. She’s maybe a little slow to doubt her own sanity — me, I’d have submitted to medical and psychological examinations right after Data discovers the complete non-existence of Quaice. But at least she gets around to it eventually. And I like how methodically she tackles the problem after some initial flailing. It’s mildly amusing how in her own reality nobody really doubts her which is a testament to her inner conviction — and it’s perfectly in character; it’s that sort of conviction that she’s right, dammit, no matter what anyone else says, that has previously annoyed me and made her a liability (such as in The High Ground). In this case it saves her life. I really, really like how that works out. And I like that she saves herself — I know, ostensibly Wesley does, but if she hadn’t figured it out and trusted herself, his effort would have been in vain; her active participation was required, she was no mere damsel in distress.
I thought it made perfect sense that she didn’t just “go into the light” the first two times she encountered a vortex. It was much more interesting having her figure it out, but I also saw the vortex as quite a scary, disruptive thing that I’d instinctively stay away from; not the sort of light I’d be tempted to walk into. I have no idea what would have happened had she gone through earlier since it was all predicated on treknobabble, not actual science.
The Traveler and his mumbo-jumbo felt so completely out of place when juxtaposed with Dr Crusher’s logical approach, that it threw me out of the story. I was in fact glad we had overall gotten away from the “Wesley is a very special being” conceit; I enjoy him much more when he’s just an ensign — gifted, sure, but I feel emphasizing that always detracts from all his good qualities (how curious he is, and how hard he works, for example, which counts for more than innate talent).
Disregarding authorial intent, which I generally care little about since I can usually not find out what it was, I didn’t think this episode was just about losing people. It was about losing people and feeling nobody around one really understands, even if they try; it’s about the sense of disconnection and isolation that can produce, especially as one grows older and more and more people disappear until one is just left with memories others don’t share and don’t care about. And for me it was even more about the fear of losing oneself. How do I know I am sane? How can I assess that when people around me aren’t necessarily reliable narrators, and I’m not so sure about the observed universe either? Since that was essential to me when I was a teenager, and I am coming up on the part of life when it might again become an issue, that’s more than “nothing”. But I grant it’s very personal.