Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 25: Conspiracy [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What struck me as being the good thing about this episode was that they set it up several episodes before hand, when an Admiral makes an offhand remark to Picard that he wants to talk to him about a new threat to the Federation. In this episode, he waves it off, but the destruction of a Federation Star ship, plus the Admiral beating Riker uncounscious, shows that something is amiss.

Another thing that I noticed, from my limited experience with the Original Series, is that as we go on, Starfleet seems less and less invincible. This episode shows that they can be infiltrated by small things; 'Best of Both Worlds' showed they can get whipped; and the end seasons of DS9 showed that Starfleet could go to war and kick hard. But what i didn't like was that they set up, at the end, the possibility that something else was coming, but they didn't follow through. I may be wrong (if I am, let me know) but nothign ever came of what could have been a great plot line.

This is an excellent episode although it has caused a lot of contreversy.This is one of the best and most interesting episodes of the first season of star trek the next generation. It involves a race of wormlike parasites that invades senior admirals in the starfleet. Very interesting and well written. However it is also gory and digusting in some parts. ( For example a man's head explodes and there is a scene of a group of people eating maggots. ) Many parts of it were unnecessarily gross. This caused conflicts between people who enjoyed the episode becaues of the good storyline and network sensors as well as fans who were turned off by some of the nasty things that happen to people during the episode. I personaly enjoyed it. I gave it a 3 for two reasons. In some scenes captain Picard is out of charactor and some of the "gross out" special efects are a little to ..well..gross! All in all I would reccomend only getting this episode if you have an appreciation for the darker episodes of the first season of star trek as opposed to the lighter and less realistic episodes of seasons 5 or 6. Only for real trekers.

Among Star Trek fans "Conspiracy" remains one of the most controversial. The premise of a covert plan by alien beings to infiltrate and control the minds of key Star Fleet personnel is eerily handled as one by one, Captain Picard and crew find themselves confronted by "possessed" officers.

There are several really gross scenes, the last of them being the "revelation" of the host alien. Why there was not a sequel to this one is one of the series' mysteries.

All in all, however, this one is a keeper.

This episode starts out promising with the story of a conspiracy that reaches up into the highest eschelons of the Federation, and Captain Picard's mission to investigate.

As the plot unfolds, we find that the Federation is being usurped by wormlike parasites that take over high ranking officials, and it is here that the disappointment sets in. As usual the Federation is still portrayed as a utopian organization, and the first episode to hint at a dystopian future fizzles because the humans are essentially blameless, so once again the Federation is uncompromised by human fear or greed.

Contrast this episode with "Ensign Ro" where Picard will match wits with a rogue Admiral who is acting against Federation policy. That was a much better episode that explored similiar themes.

Plot: Capt. Picard is contacted by his friend Walker Keel and he heads off to a planet for a secret meeting. After being cross-examined with some trick questions, Picard is told by Keel that there is some funny business happening in Starfleet. Despite his unsurity, Picard asks Data to do some research on the command structure in Starfleet. Data does find some anamolies, saying that they may suggest a conspiracy (hence the very simple and yet complex title for the episode). Sudddenly, they find Keel's starship...in a couple hundred pieces. Apparently, it had self-destructed. Picard then heads back to Earth and talks with some of the Admirals and see what's going on. Adm. Quinn (who had hinted similar dark things to Picard in "Coming of Age") is now different, as in, "that whole dark, forbidding, info I gave you was really not a big deal", so Picard warns Riker that Quinn is not the same. After Quinn gets into a fight with Riker (who gets knocked out), Geordi (who gets thrown through a door), and Worf (who, for some reason, can't beat the crazed admiral), Dr. Crusher shoots him several times with a phaser. They then do some examing of Quinn and find that he's being controlled by a parasite....

I'm really being nice for giving it 2 stars instead of 1.

Good points: It's a follow up on another episode, it has plenty of action and phaser fire, it is somewhat suspensful.

Bad points: It's really violent and even gross (head being blown off, some of the food, the parasites, etc.). It has several flaws logically: Adm. Quinn is still human, so there's no possibility for him to suddenly have super strength without damaging himself permantely (and thus giving the parasites a problem in terms of fighting); the need for the phasers being set to kill doesn't make sense since, like the super strength problem, the physical characteristics would still be stunned by the blast (unless, you could maybe say the parasites could keep their hosts consciouness longer than an oridinary human could); that Adm. Quinn even started the whole fight in the first place (did he seriously expect that he could take on the whole ship? I mean, with phasers, explosives, and Data?); that the mother-parasite is so big (like as in, bigger than a bread box) since they're supposed to take over by attatching to where the spine and brain meet. It also has a similar ring to what happened in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, although this invovles more of some parasites actually taking over peoples minds for their purposes and not Khan's.

Like I said, 2 stars is really being nice and I'm grateful that they found a better villian for the Enterprise and Federation to challenge in the long run (i.e. the Borg).

Star Trek: The Next Generation takes a trip to the dark side with "Conspiracy." Thanks to a group of alien invaders, viewers witness levels of paranoia and gore never before seen in any prior Star Trek television episode.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) meets secretly with Captain Walker Keel (Jonathan Farwell) and two other Starfleet captains. They tell Picard that something is amiss with Starfleet Command and that some sort of mysterious conspiracy may be at work. When Keel's ship is destroyed after the meeting, the Enterprise-D heads to Earth to get to the bottom of the accusations. The truth soon emerges after Picard and Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) dine with a trio of admirals. A deadly confrontation with an alien mother creature then ensures.

If there is any one aspect of "Conspiracy" that stayed with you after it was over, it was the sight of Lieutenant Commander Dexter Remmick (Robert Schenkkan) meeting his gruesome end. That particular scene could be interpreted in one of two ways - either as cheap shock that was not in keeping with Trek's high standards of quality or as a sign that the franchise had made a conscious decision not to play it safe anymore. Certainly, Star Trek lost some of its "family-friendly" luster with this episode but in the end, Remmick's bad case of "Scanner-itis" probably was a positive as it helped to lay the foundation for a decidedly more mature approach to the Star Trek mythos on the small screen. And that ultimately was a good thing.

An old friend of Captain Picard, Captain Walker Keel, sends him an eyes-only message, asking him to attend a secret rendezvous. Picard beams down to an abandoned mining asteroid and finds Keel accompanied by the captains of two other vessels. Before the meeting begins, Keel asks Picard several trick questions designed to verify that he is indeed Picard. After Keel is convinced that it is Picard, he then describes what he believes is a conspiracy at the highest levels of Star Fleet. Picard is skeptical, so he has Data search the records looking for anomalies in the patterns of orders. As only he can, Data finds anomalies that indicate something unusual is going on. While not conclusive, it strongly suggests there may be a conspiracy. This is reinforced when they discover that Keel's ship has been destroyed. After thinking about it, Captain Picard makes the decision to travel to Earth to make a call at Star Fleet Command.
Upon arriving at Earth, contact is made with the commanders of Star Fleet and all appears normal. Picard and Riker are invited to beam down and dine with the commanders and Admiral Quinn beams up to the Enterprise. Picard quickly realizes that the man he is talking to is not the Admiral and instructs Riker to stay on the Enterprise and investigate Quinn. Suddenly, the aged Admiral starts fighting with Riker, easily defeating him and Geordi. Even Worf is no match for the incredible strength exhibited by Quinn. He is stopped only when Doctor Crusher stuns him with a phaser.
Once the Admiral is in sick bay, Doctor Crusher discovers that a small parasite is attached to his brain and controlling him. Riker beams down to the planet with a false parasite installed and is able to rescue Captain Picard and together, they defeat the remainder of the infected Admirals. They discover a mother parasite, which they kill. The death of the mother causes all of the other parasites to die and their hosts then fully recover.
While this episode is a good one and demonstrates what could be the most effective way to defeat the Federation. The tactics of the creatures is very similar to those used by Khan in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." However, there is one very weak point to the plot. To date, the creatures have been very effective in infiltrating Star Fleet, so the Admiral's open confrontation with the crew of the Enterprise is a very poor tactical move. This episode is most well known for the exploding head of the human containing the body of the mother of the parasites. In my opinion, it is appropriate, in that the creature inside had to be made visible. Since the creatures infect the brain, it is the logical way to expose them. I consider the episode to be average in terms of quality, not great, but certainly not one of the weaker ones. However, it would have been better if there had been more discussion about learning more about the life form rather than simply killing it off.

This is a controversial episode among Trekkies, but I absolutely love every minute of it. The conspiracy hinted at in the episode "Coming of Age" finally comes full circle and Picard must now go back to Earth to confront the heads of Starfleet. What ensues is a TNG episode like none other! Lots of action, creepy stuff, and some pretty ooky special effects. This is a very dark episode, however, and the ending isn't quite the cheery resolution Trekkies are generally used to. But that's why I like it. It takes new risks and does new things with Star Trek that hadn't really been done before. It's one of my favorite episodes.

This was one of the best first season TNG episodes. It was something quite unique and different in the Star cannon: a gory, terrifying descent into madness by way of bug eating, back stabbing (figuratively and literally), and true conspiracy theories. The video cover picture on Conspiracy of Riker pretty much sums the episode up. Well, of course, so does the infamous exploding head scene. Is there any other Star Trek episode that you can say that about?

1st rate action/horror episode. Creepy and exciting. Buy it