Product Details

• Actors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden
• Directors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: May 31, 1995
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302703646
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #385,773 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A substandard Trek adventure that attains a bit of notoriety as the final episode of Denise Crosby's Tasha Yar--at least until her cleverly conceived return in the third season's "Yesterday's Enterprise." When a shuttle crash strands Counselor Troi and a (barely glimpsed) crewman on a barren planet, the away team's efforts to rescue her are frustrated by a black, viscous pool that moves to block their path. The oily goop soon identifies itself as Armus, not an alien being per se, but rather the cast-off remnants of an ancient race that had learned how to make manifest the cruel, destructive sides of their own nature and abandoned this physical embodiment of evil as a hindrance to their evolution. Armus immediately proves his own motiveless malignancy by killing Tasha with wonton dispatch. But murder proves insufficient to satisfy his cravings, and he goes on to torment and torture the remainder of the landing team through such schoolyard stratagems as playing keep away with Geordi's visor and forcing Data to hold his phaser on his comrades. A pretty regrettable episode overall, with laughable dialogue and special effects (the evil oil slick may be the lamest-looking villain in all of Star Trek), but in hindsight the brutal offhandedness of Tasha's death, done without preamble or any great effort on Armus's part, was the first healthy sign that TNG would outgrow the self-congratulatory PC smugness of its first few seasons. --Bruce Reid

From the Back Cover

A rescue mission results in tragedy for Starfleet officer Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby)!

Heading toward a rendezvous with the Enterprise, a shuttlecraft manned by Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) malfunctions and crashes on Vagra 2. An away team is dispatched to the planet where it is discovered that a malevolent entity named Armus (Mart McChesney) has surrounded Troi's shuttlecraft with a force field. When the team confronts Armus, the alien kills Yar.

While Picard (Patrick Stewart) tries to reason with Armus, Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) and Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) discover that the force field weakens when Armus is provoked. Risking his life, Picard attempts to distract the deadly Armus while the away team tries to free Troi.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I never was that crazy about Yar anyway..., July 21, 2000

By 

HyperReviewer "[e-mail]" (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 22: Skin Of Evil [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This episode takes place on a planet, where an evil skin (an oil slick) has been left by a vacated race...they 'shed' there negative qualities..forming this 'skin of evil' and left it behind. So. Well. Hmmm. Mediocre episode...and to be honest, I always felt Denise Crosby overacted anyway...her expression I felt was not subtle enough for STNG, too over-the-top. So, I don't entirely dislike the episode. Nothing personal Denise.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Average episode at best, April 1, 2001

By 

Keith Jacobson (Mitchell, SD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 22: Skin Of Evil [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Skin of Evil" is basically about a rescue attempt of two Enterprise crewmen on Vagra II (counselor troi and a mostly ignored, unimportant crewman whose name is never really mentioned) which results in a really senseless tragedy. An evil alien force named Armus kills Yar and torments the crew while they attempt to rescue Troi and the other crewman. I found the plot really average, and the special effects left a lot to be desired.

The only reason I bought this episode because my favorite character was Tasha Yar, and I collect ST:TNG episodes myself. If you are looking for a memorable, exciting episode, and you don't particularly care about Tasha Yar, then don't buy it. I don't think you'd like it.

However, the ending on this episode is its saving grace; it is really touching and great, and even I had to shed a few tears. At least they gave Tasha the proper send off! It's too bad that Yar dies senselessly in this episode and is soon forgotten by the crew.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars characters go through more development, January 7, 2004

By 

Shelley Gammon "Geek" (Kaufman, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 22: Skin Of Evil [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Some of the plot has more than its fair share of holes in it, but you can see a substantial amount of character development between this and the first episode.

Troi is returning via shuttle from a conference, ready to rendevous with the Enterprise. The Enterprise, the flagship of the Federation fleet, only has one batch of Dilithium crystals, so when they're being aligned, it's tough cookies if you need to go to warp. No back up crystals - very interesting.

Troi's shuttle experiences a systems failure and plummets to the surface on an unihabited planet, Vagra 2. Who names these planets? Vagra is such a good name that you need a Vagra 1 AND a Vagra 2?

Once the crystals are realigned, the Enterprise goes on a rescue mission. They beam to the crash site, only to have a thick oil slick in their path. As they try to walk around it, the oil slick follows them. No readings show up on their instruments, but it's obvious that there is an intelligence there.

An ancient race of titans found a way to extract evil from their society (kinda like popping a pimple) and when all the members of the race had collected all their evil goo together, it made Armus - the oil slick... aka - the "skin of evil."

They abandoned him on the planet - a being that is immortal and cannot die, a being utterly lonely, very powerful (he is able kill with a thought, transport an object from one place to another and he is empathic like Troi), and eager to leave the loneliness of his planet.

Armus claims that his behavior is not merely evil - but that rather he IS evil - the embodiment of evil.

In an act of boredom, he kills Lt. Tasha Yar, regretting later that she did not suffer because her death did not amuse him like he thought it would. Her memorial service is sweet and touching, and elements of this scene show up in future episodes... and Tasha does make a reappearance in a future time-travelling episode.

The goal is to get Troi and her shuttle pilot off the surface, but Armus continues to envelop the shuttle and they are unable to get a lock on the occupants. What's ironic is that Armus can beam (or at least teleport) Picard in and out of the shuttle, but he apparently can't beam Troi or Ben (the injured pilot) out, nor enter it himself. Yes, there are holes-a-plenty in this episode.

Continued dialogue with Armus reveals the nature of his lonliness and desire to leave. His voice is ominous and his flippant attitude toward life is creepy.

Not a great episode by a long shot, but a pivotal one for those who watch a lot of the episodes - this one has important elements for a number of future episodes that refer back to it. Most worthy are character development leaps for Riker and Crusher.