Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 37: Contagion [VHS]

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

 

 

The Romulans make a guest appearence with Carolyn Seymour who would later play several other roles on Star Trek.

This is a welly written episode about the Enterprise stopping the Romulans from getting their hands on a new peice of Technology. About 7 years later the Dominion on Star Trek Deep Space Nine would also try to win control of this Iconian Gateway. GREAT EPISODE!!!!

The Gateway

Steve Gerber (creator of Howard the Duck) and writer Beth Woods wrote this terrific entry in the second season. It's about the Captain of the starship Yamato and his startling discovery in the Neutral Zone. He found a civilization that was long ago conquered but it's probes were still intact. The probe tragically infected all the computer systems with a virus destroying the Yamato. The same virus contaminated logs that were downloaded to the Enterprise! The episode has some dramatic moments where Data is almost destroyed by the probe.

When Picard, Worf and Data beam to a site where the signal is located; we discover the conquered Iconians left a legacy of destruction and deadly weapons. We see the gateway where perhaps the civilization escaped to preserve itself.

I was very surprised that Steve Gerber and Beth Woods, the authors of this story, were never called back for a sequel. Not even a book in the new Gateways series. I would have liked to have seen their version of what happened to this great civilization.

Plot: Another Galaxy-class starship, the USS Yamato, has contacted the Enterprise in the Neutral Zone, explaining that they are having problems with their computers. Picard, naturally, wants to know why in the universe a Federation starship has been flying around the Neutral Zone. The Yamato's captain explains that he had found some info that the so-called mythological Iconions (a species reputed with incredibly superior technology to the Federation) were far less than such. Suddenly, the Yamato explodes, leaving no survivors. As if things couldn't get any worse, a Romulan Warbird suddenly appears and demands an explanation for the presence of the Enterprise (and Yamato). Picard says in respsonse that he will not leave the Neutral Zone until he is completely certain that the Yamato's destruction wasn't because of the Romulans (which they had denied). After finding some clues on the Yamato captain's personal log, the Enterprise whizzes off to Iconia. Of course, we can't have a good story without some woe falling upon the Enterprise. The Enterprise begins to exhibit similar problems that the Yamato had until she blew up. Geordi finally figures out the problem: A probe had scanned the Yamato and had it was completely re-writing the ship's systems, causing a fatal malfunction in the warp engines. But by downloading the log, the virus was now trying to do the same thing to the Enterprise. So Picard must find out if he can solve the problem by going down to Iconia and checking if there are records on how to use the technology (like as in, deactivate it.)

Great episode. While, yes, the solution of re-booting would seem nowadays to be like "DUH!" to us, when this episode was first aired, PC's, internet, etc. were pretty new. So I think they can be forgiven for that. As far as the problem of left over pieces of the Iconion installation are concerned, if you look carefully on the planet as the Romulan Warbird and Enterprise leave, you can see multiple explosion on the surface. So, I think we can safely say that if there's anything left, it would have been quite useless for technological advancement.

Overall, a pretty good episode if one get's past the solution of the episode. Plenty of action and it is well paced.

The most striking feature of this episode is how much advancement there has been in the operations of computers in the last four hundred years. Ironically, this is demonstrated by massive system failures on the Enterprise, the U. S. S. Yamato and Data. It starts with the Enterprise entering the Neutral Zone to aid the U. S. S. Yamato, which is undergoing a systemic failure of its computer systems. The captain of the Yamato tells Picard that he has found the home world of the Iconians, a species relegated to mythology, but purported to possess a technology far superior to that of the Federation.
Suddenly, the Yamato explodes, killing all hands. A Romulan ship arrives and demands to know what the Enterprise is doing there. Picard informs them that he will leave only after he has determined the cause of the Yamato's destruction. After an investigation, the Enterprise crew learns that the Yamato was scanned by an alien device and it appears that the device was Iconian. They also learn that the destruction of the Yamato was caused by an internal failure and not by the Romulans. Picard then assumes the mission of the Yamato and heads towards the supposed Iconian home world. As they travel to the planet, the Enterprise starts experiencing systemic computer failure.
Geordi learns that the problems are due to an extremely sophisticated computer program that is attempting to rewrite the Enterprise software. The Yamato was infected by the probe and the Enterprise was infected when it downloaded data from the Yamato. They arrive at the Iconian world to find it lifeless, having been heavily bombarded from space. Since he has studied the Iconians for years, Picard leads an away team down to the surface and they discover some Iconian machinery still functioning. Using common root words of other languages, Data is able to partially decipher the instructions and open a portal to other locations. However, his translation is incomplete and he is also infected with the program. Worf takes Data back to the Enterprise and Picard stays behind to try to destroy the Iconian equipment. Once he gets back to the Enterprise, Data "dies" as the program completely infests his programming.
However, shortly after that he springs back to life, as his systems performed a complete shutdown and then rebooted from protected memory. This gives Geordi the solution to the Enterprise failures and he is able to purge the system. The Romulan ship has arrived at the planet and is making threats against the Enterprise. However, since their systems are also infected, they cannot carry them out. Right before their ship explodes due to the self-destruct mechanism engaging, the Enterprise crew informs them of the reboot from protected memory solution. At the end of the episode, both ships majestically leave planetary orbit.
While I enjoyed the playing out of the story, there are some incredible and nearly fatal logical holes in it. The first is how simple the solution to the rogue computer program was. Rebooting a system is a solution to system problems that nearly every computer user is familiar with. Because no one seemed to think of it, I assumed that it was not possible for the Enterprise computers to be rebooted from protected memory. Therefore, when Geordi finally stumbled onto the solution, after a bit of overblown cluelessness, I was astonished. Any network manager worthy of the title would have thought of and executed that solution hours before. The only possible explanation for this is that the Enterprise computer systems are so stable and self-correcting that there is never a need to consider a reboot.
The second major logical hole occurs at the end. While Picard manages to destroy some of the Iconian installation, they do not examine the site to determine if it is completely destroyed. Since the whole purpose of the Federation incursion into the Neutral Zone was to prevent the Romulans from acquiring Iconian technology, Picard would not simply leave. Furthermore, the Romulans had accessed the Yamato logs, so they would have known about the Iconian technology. After repairing their computer systems, the Enterprise and Romulans would have engaged in a scramble to either acquire any remaining technology or destroy it so that the other side did not get it.
These two flaws are serious and cannot be overlooked. This is a good story only if you can effectively ignore them.