Star Trek Episode of the Week: Sub Rosa

This week’s Star Trek episode comes from the idea-bankrupt seventh season of TNG.

Plot: Doctor Beverly Crusher attends her grandmother’s funeral on Caldos II, a planet which hosts a human colony of make-believe Scots. It’s here that Crusher encounters her grandmother’s young-looking lover, the anaphasic lifeform Ronin who lives in a candle. Ronin attempts to upgrade to Beverly now that her grandmother is dead, and succeeds for a time by giving her wild, writhing orgasms. Eventually, Ronin enters the body of Crusher’s dead grandmother in a desperate means of fighting off Data and Geordi, and this finally ends Crusher’s interest in him.

Character Development: In this episode, we learn that Beverly Crusher had a grandmother living on one very strange human colony. None of this is of any relevance to her as a character more broadly.

Forehead of the Week: That would obviously go to Ronin’s unnamed species, the anaphasic lifeform. Apparently these creatures have lived among humanity since at least 1647. Their power is incredible, they are able to inhabit creatures and objects, and leech off old ladies for decades.

Memorable Quote: “McFly.” – One of the gravestones on Caldos II, a great Back to the Future reference.