Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 158: Phantasms [VHS]

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

 

 

Man! Data can be downright frightening when he wants to be! In his dreams, everyone's favorite android cuts a slice out of a cake that looks like Deanna Troi. Mere hours later, he begins cutting into the REAL Deanna Troi with a knife--a detached, blank look in his eyes the ENTIRE time! We are now entering . . . the Twilight Zone.

As an aside, this episode gives some indication that Deanna's not a big fan of Sigmund Freud.

Data finds himself very worried as he starts experiencing nightmares, but no-one takes his concerns seriously. When a strange discovery threatens the lives of the Enterprise's crew, it seems that Data's dreams may hold the key to saving everyone. But can they figure out what is going on in time?
The director did a good job in bringing a dream-like quality to many of the scenes in this episode, and all the dream imagery played out nicely in the real world. But the scene in the turbolift that was meant to be shocking wasn't half so scary as it should have been, and there were too many unanswered questions. There were some good comic touches in this episode, though, particularly those involving Worf, Data, and Spot.
One final note: Counsellor Troi got it wrong yet again! And I think they all owed Data an apology for not taking him seriously.

Data's creator/father, Noonian Soong, was quite a character. Not only did he make Data in his own image - even to the point of making him left-handed, he also gave the emotionless android the ability to dream. In the 9 months prior to this episode, Data has engaged his dream program over 100 times, partaking in surreal imagery. At the opening of this episode, however, Data has a doozy of a nightmare that makes you wonder if he sat too close to a high-powered magnet or used the wrong oil on his circuits.

The dream sequences are shot with a wide-angle lens, which give all straight lines a slight and surreal curve. Data ambles into Ten Forward to see Worf gorging himself with a cake. Worf tells him that it is a Cellular Peptide Cake - with mint frosting. On a nearby serving table is a cake in the shape of Counselor Troi's body (sans cleavage), with the Doctor's real head at the "head" of the body cake. There are no arms and legs and Troi begs for Data not to hurt her. He coldly picks up the cake knife and slices into Troi's shoulder as she screams - although it would appear there are no nerve endings in the cake.

A telephone is ringing and Riker yells at Data to answer the phone. Riker is at the bar with a straw coming out of his head and Dr. Crusher is sucking from the straw like he's an icecream float. I can't imagine how many takes they had to do so they could film this scene without laughing to the point of peeing in their pants. Data wakes with a jolt, having experienced what he rightfully describes as "disturbing imagery."

He shares his concerns with Geordi who has Troi visit with the android Lieutenant. After allowing himself to dream again, Data encounters more disturbing imagery and activates a hologram version of Dr. Sigmund Freud to analyze him on the Holodeck.

When Data must be physically wakened by the senior staff because his internal chronometer failed to wake him, he runs several diagnostics on his posotronic net and everything looks peachy. Then he has a "waking" dream where he begins to act out his dream while he is at his workstation. This behavior continues until he is in such a trance-like state, he attacks Troi in a turbolift, stabbing her repeatedly in the shoulder - the same place where he cut her in his cake dream.

Meanwhile, Geordi and the rest of his engineering staff have continued trouble with getting their new Warp drive to work properly. After visiting DS3 to have it installed, they find themselves adrift, trying several times to turn the proverbial key to get the engine to turn over. As Troi recovers from her attack in Sickbay, Dr. Crusher finds something suspicious in her wound that begins to make Data's "unsocial" behavior seem more easily explained without just writing him off as a psychotic android.

Picard and Riker hook Data up to the Holodeck so they can participate in his dream with him and try to decipher what is going on. This is one of those episodes that has you on the edge of your seat - the surreal imagery, the totally out-of-character behavior of Data and the whole concept of dream interpretation will keep you on your mental toes. A great episode.

Besides featuring some of the most effective and creepy images from the TNG series, 'Phantasms' is also one of the very best episodes to focus on Data. The sixth season of ST: TNG had a number of episodes with dark themes and disturbing images and this show seems to have been created in its aftermath. In the sixth season's two-parter 'Birthright' Data experienced a surreal vision that turned out to be part of a dream program he had been unaware was installed. That storyline resurfaces here and is dealt with in much more depth and provides us with a good mystery also.

Since Data's dream program initiated several months ago he has had 111 dreams before experiencing his first nightmare, and a rather unsettling one at that. Both Geordi and then later Troi tell him it is only natural to occasionally experience fantastic and upsetting images during dreams; that evening however he has a similar disturbing dream and then suddenly finds himself being awakened by Troi, Geordi and Worf because he has overslept - a programming impossibility that further perplexes him. Data then begins having waking dreams and in a catatonic state attacks Troi, stabbing her right shoulder several times before Riker and Worf fortunately intervene. Remembering nothing about the incident Data is confined to quarters while a solution is developed; during Troi's recovery in Sick Bay Beverly detects the presence of interphasic creatures feeding on the cellular peptide of humans. Picard and Geordi deduce that there is a connection between the dreams Data is having and the presence of the alien species. Using the holodeck to implement Data's dream as a projected image Picard, Geordi and Data find the solution to the problem - with somewhat of an assist from a holographic Sigmund Freud!

The opening sequence to 'Phantasms' is an immediate attention grabber. The use of the wide-angle lens is a telling tool that informs you instantly of the surreal nature of the episode; the dream sequence that unfolds is quite shocking with Data being literally ripped apart before he bolts wide awake in his quarters. Each of the following dream sequences gets more horrifying and outrageous causing a sense of trauma within Data. Though he is unable to experience fear he is acutely aware of his instability and that is conveyed superbly in the scenes where he attempts to either understand or explain his nightmares. Troi as a cake, Beverly sucking fluid out of Riker's head through a straw, Worf eating cellular peptide cake (with mint frosting), Data having a mid 20th century telephone inside his chest and Sigmund Freud insisting to Picard he should "Kill zem! Kill zem all!" are all truly memorable providing shocks and laughs. The use of Freud in this episode is inspired even though it does seem he would be out-of-sync with 24th century scientific thought. The sideline stories dealing with Picard desiring to avoid attending the dreadfully boring Admiral's Ball and Geordi having to gratuitously accept the admiration of a young female ensign come off very well also. 'Phantasms' was one of four shows to deal primarily with Data during the seventh and final season, the others being 'Inheritance', 'Thine Own Self' and 'Masks'. In an unusually weak season of TNG these episodes provided a much-needed shot of adrenaline for the series' many discriminating and demanding fans.