Genesis (S70E19)
Airdate: 21 March 1994
Written by: Brannon Braga Directed by: Gates McFadden
Running Time: 46 minutes
Throughout its celebrated seven-year run, Star Trek: The Next Generation provided a unique platform for its ensemble cast to explore roles beyond their on-screen characters, with the opportunity to direct episodes being a particularly coveted prize. Jonathan Frakes was the first to step behind the camera, and arguably the most successful, leveraging the series to launch a formidable career as a television director. The mantle was soon carried by LeVar Burton, who also found significant success behind the camera. Patrick Stewart, despite his immense talent and experience, limited his directorial efforts to a handful of episodes within the TNG framework. By the time the series reached its conclusion, this exclusive club of directors was joined by Gates McFadden in Genesis, the nineteenth episode of the seventh season. This production represents her only directorial effort for the show, marking a significant milestone in her involvement with the franchise.
The episode opens with McFadden directing a scene that immediately establishes her character, Dr. Beverly Crusher, as the apparent protagonist of the narrative. The scene takes place in sickbay, where Crusher is treating Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, a character known for his hypochondria and insecurities. The plot hinges on a medical misunderstanding: Barclay has contracted a relatively harmless condition known as Urodelan flu, which he mistakes for the deadly Terrelian Death Syndrome. While most humans are naturally immune to the latter, Barclay is an exception. In an attempt to cure him, Dr. Crusher attempts to activate an immunity gene by injecting a synthetic T-cell.
As this medical procedure takes place, Captain Picard and Commander Data leave the USS Enterprise in a shuttlecraft to retrieve a photon torpedo that went off course during a weapons exercise. However, in their absence, strange and increasingly disturbing physiological changes begin to afflict the crew members. The episode initiates a slow creep of chaos, beginning with unusual behavioural symptoms: Counselor Troi starts feeling an intense cold and an unquenchable thirst, while Commander Riker struggles with concentration issues. The situation escalates dramatically when Worf becomes aggressive and bites Troi on the cheek. Both officers are brought to sickbay, where the situation turns lethal; when Dr. Crusher attempts to examine Worf, he spits acidic poison into her face. In the ensuing panic, Nurse Ogawa places Troi in stasis to treat her injuries, while Worf escapes the infirmary.
Three days pass, and when Picard and Data finally return to the ship after retrieving the torpedo, they discover the Enterprise uncontrollably drifting and devoid of main power. Upon boarding the bridge, they find Ensign Dern (Carlo Ferro) dead, the victim of a savage attack. The mystery deepens as they discover that the crew has undergone a radical transformation suggesting a process of de-evolution. They find Riker degraded into an Australopithecus-like creature, Troi submerged in a bath having developed gills reminiscent of an amphibian, and Barclay transformed into a giant, spider-like monstrosity. Data gradually deduces that the cause of this phenomenon might be linked to the very synthetic T-cell Dr. Crusher injected into Barclay; these cells have activated the crew members' introns, triggering a dormant de-evolutionary process.
Unlike Picard, who begins to feel the first signs of his own transformation, Data remains unaffected due to his android physiology. This allows Data to function as the protagonist of the crisis, bringing other infected crew members to sickbay to begin work on a cure. His scientific efforts are constantly threatened by Worf, who has de-evolved into a dangerous, feral creature intent on breaching the sickbay. To divert Worf's attention, Data provides Picard with pheromones derived from Troi's gland secretion. Picard must then navigate the ship through the Jeffries tubes, where he has several close and frightening encounters with the transformed Worf. Despite these hurdles, Data successfully synthesises a cure in the form of a retrovirus designed to be distributed through the ship via gas. His efforts succeed, and the infected crew members are restored to their normal human states. Following the resolution, Dr. Crusher investigates the infection and decides to formally name the condition "Barclay's protomorphosis syndrome."
With only a few episodes remaining before the series finale, Genesis represented one of the final opportunities for the creative team to experiment with storytelling that had not been attempted previously. Brannon Braga, one of the most respected writers in the Star Trek canon, used his script to deliver an episode that leaned heavily into the horror genre rather than traditional science fiction. The narrative utilises motives and tropes from classic monster movies and zombie apocalypse scenarios, offering a darker tone than standard Trek fare.
The episode is structurally sound, divided effectively into a pilot episode for a catastrophe and a survival thriller. The first part allows the cast to play with variations of their respective characters that display uncharacteristic behaviour, grounding the fantastical elements in relatable human reactions. The second part, in which Picard and Data have to face their friends and colleagues turned into grotesque monsters, is particularly effective. Here, Gates McFadden shines as a director, showcasing the Enterprise as an eerily dark and claustrophobic environment, transforming the familiar ship into a setting of dread.
The production also benefited significantly from the work of Michael Westmore and his team on prosthetic makeup. Westmore later described his work on this episode as the most demanding in the entire series. Character of Dr. Crusher is relatively incapacitated early in the episode for practical reasons; her absence in the infirmary allowed McFadden to concentrate on directing during much of the production. To balance the pervasive darkness of the script, details were added to the script, such as Nurse Ogawa and Data's cat Spot being pregnant, to make the world look "cute" and serve as a comforting counterpoint to the horror.
Genesis also serves as another example of the late TNG trend that attempted to hint at a romantic relationship between Troi and Worf, a direction that the later incarnations of the saga would ultimately take a different turn.
However, the episode is also one of those Season 7 episodes that tends to be very divisive among "Trekkies." While some fans enjoy it as an exercise in style and an attempt to temporarily turn Star Trek into a horror show, others are appalled by the complete lack of "science" in Brannon Braga's science fiction premise. The logic does not stand up to scrutiny, at least not to those with a basic knowledge of evolution. The idea that humans or humanoids could de-evolve into random and biologically unrelated animals was for many the antithesis of Star Trek, which usually prided itself on grounded science. This concept would be revisited by Braga two years later in Threshold, an episode of Star Trek: Voyager that turned out to be among the most controversial in that series.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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