Is the the one Laxwana episode that isn't annoying? Let's take a closer look :
Plot Summary:
Laxwana is on board the Enterprise due to the work she has been doing with a new race who only use telepathy to speak so she is trying to teach them how to use language. But it’s clear she exhausted though she insists she’s fine. After a blow up in Ten Forward Laxwana is examined by Crusher who insists she refrain from telepathy for awhile.
Troi steps in and during a lesson in the arboretum a little girl falls into the water. And Laxwana is soon found unconscious. Crusher determined no physiological cause, it’s almost as if her mind has just shut down. One of the aliens explains that Laxwana has a part of herself she hides, probably a trauma she has hidden away, and that part may be killing her now.
Troi enters Laxwana’s psyche and tried to seek out and help her mother. She manages to get past several barriers but ultimately fails. Troi realizes this has something to do with the little girl, Hedrl. A second visit reveals that the girl bears a striking to resemblance to another girl Troi has never seen. When Troi finally finds her mother she finds the truth, Laxwana had another daughter who tragically died. Laxwana has been repressing that for years, and Troi helps her to let go and accept the loss which saves her life.
Guest Star:
The little girl Hedrl is played Kirsten Dunst. I wonder whatever happened to her?
Episode Pro’s :
Not only do we get the grief parents can feel over the loss of a child but we also get some touches at what kids feel when their parents die. Of course Laxwana survives but there is one scene where Troi, fearing the worst, is going through her mother’s things and talks to Picard about when her father died and it’s a well done exchange. Though why isn’t it Riker in that scene? I also like the reminder Troi does love her mother, even if Laxwana does aggravate her. I think that is common between parents and children, yeah our parents drive us nuts but we know they love us and we them.
The dream world, or whatever we call it, is pretty well done. It isn’t an exact copy of what we saw in “Projections” and the idea of Picard as a barrier is pretty clever. We also had a wolf and Troi’s father trying to keep her away. And kudos to the creator for remembering what Deanna said her father’s name was all the way back in Season 2.
I also like that the episode doesn’t spoon feed you everything. The reason the alien girl made her sad is because of the strong resemblance to her daughter, Kestra. But it doesn’t tell us that it lets us figure it out. Same with what finally happened, in the final scene which is very well structured and acted we get the idea without anyone just saying it and we never seeing anything graphic (we never Kestra drown or even go near the water) but the emotion is still conveyed wonderfully.
I think this really opens up the character of Laxwana a bit explaining why she is so overprotective of Troi, why was was so afraid of being alone, and even giving her nickname for Deanna, Little One, a whole new spin.
Episode Con’s :
This episode has one of the most blatant flub’s in any episode. While trying to figure out what trauma Laxwana had suffered Troi says she spoke to Mr.Homm who had no idea. But at the end of the episode we learn he saved a picture in cases Laxwana wanted to remember her daughter someday. I suppose you could argue Laxwama made it VERY clear he was to NEVER mention Kestra but…still! As much as I hate the cliche of “we couldn’t get in touch with him” it would have worked better here.
This episode aired right on the heels of “Phantasms” which as I mentioned before was another dream episode. While this time it isn’t exact;y “dreams” it is still two similar concepts back to back. In fact it even comes up in the episode that Data had a “recent experience with dreams”. Things like this are a good indicator of the trouble Season 7 had behind the scenes with creators attention more on other projects rather than TNG.
Picard does a good job being the supportive friend in this episode but it bugs the heck out of me in the teaser when Laxwana is talking with him. He acts like he just wants to escape her, even though she is trying to have a real conversation about her work with the aliens. If she was flirting with him again I’d get it but she really isn’t doing that here. Why isn’t at all interested? It makes his concern for her later seem more phony. Oh and the moment Worf accept Laxwana’s mangle of his name is a cute one.
And yes the whole Laxwana had another daughter thing is a retcon. Though it doesn’t bother me to much, you do have to wonder how she managed to hide the little girl’s existence to completely like that. We know she deleted journal entries but were there no other records? It’s not as if Laxwana was an unknown or something! Even her closest friends????
]Fast Forward Moment:
There is a quick scene in Ten Forward where Laxwana storms in and chews out Riker over making her daughter end up all alone. It’s meant to show Laxwana isn’t quite herself but really it’s kind of pointless and quickly forgotten. All it does is give Riker a scene in the episode.
Final Thoughts:
While it’s true there is a lot of padding to move the episode along, all the stuff about Laxwana just being exhausted and the discussions about what the dream symbols mean, but I think when it’s good it’s very good. Majel Barrett pulls off the emotions she has to, and while Laxwana can be annoying I think we see here that there is a real person in there.
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