Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 128: Realm of Fear [VHS]

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If you ever have any reason to think that there is no way you could get past some of your worst fears, watch this episode, because you never know what you're capable of until you're scared to death badly enough, or if lives are at stake and you hold the only key to saving theirs as well as your own. Barclay's over exaggerated fear of transporters is put to the test when a transporter malfunction is causing a mystery as to the whereabouts of the crew of an abandoned ship. In his investigation, his growing malady from the first trip through the transporter takes a different turn when it causes physical side efects, therefore bringing further strain to his already taxed nervous system, and in trying to find an answer, everyone thinks he's going nuts. But when it all comes together as to where everyone is, his illnes turns out to be the best clue to the transporter malfunction. When its all over, Barclay's the hero and his fears (at least ONEof them) are laid to rest, until he meets an old friend of Chief O' Brien's.

The Enterprise discovers the USS Yosemite, deserted and damaged near a high-energy plasma stream. The away team finds the fragments of a smashed container, but as they beam back Lt. Barclay sees a wormlike creature swimming in the transporter's matter stream. The creature appears to bite his arm and when he returns to the Enterprise his arm has a blue glow and hurts. Data and La Forge try to reconstruct what happened aboard the Yosemite, while Barclay worries that he has "transporter psychosis" while Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi try to deal with this fragile body and mind.

It is always nice to see Dwight Schultz as Reg Barclay trying to do his best under the trying circumstances that always afflict the character. However, the wiggly things in the transporter beam are a bit bizarre, especially when the truth about them is revealed. I do not know a lot about science, let alone how it functions in the Star Trek universe, but this is one of those episodes that certainly seem to be a bit of a reach for me. That downside sort of balances out the plus side of having Barclay back again, so this ends up being an average STNG episode.