Plot Synopsis: As an ambassador prepares to mediate peace talks to end a fierce civil war, Deanna Troi begins to act erratically after spending some time with him.
Plot A and B Analysis: The teaser involves rescuing an ambassador, Ves Alkar, from a transport ship which involves no effort at all. Evidently he’s the key figure to mediating peace in a nasty civil war. The ambassador and his ‘mother’ arrive and she seems a little overprotective of her son. Plot A is about the ambassador and Troi, there is no plot B, which is unfortunate because plot A is awful. Alkar’s mother dies and Deanna assists him with a funeral ritual, and right after this her personality changes: she acts almost as horny as Tasha Yar in The Naked Now, is increasingly jealous and emotionally erratic. Beverly gets suspicious about Alkar’s mother’s death, and investigates it. Deanna inexplicably starts to age and finally loses control of herself, attacking captain Picard because he’s in her way. Alkar reveals to Picard how he’s using her as the receptacle of his negative emotions. Learning this, Dr. Crusher hatches a plan to save Deanna, it works, and everything ends for this stupid episode. There is a massive plot hole in this episode, however. When Deanna dies (they literally kill her) Alkar already has begun feeling his negative emotions again, because there is no tie between him and a dead person. Bringing Deanna back to life wouldn’t make a difference. There wouldn’t be any massive psychic backlash because there’s no link between them, and even if there was the emotions would continue to flow one way, from Alkar into Deanna. Either way Alkar wins: he uses Deanna as his receptacle, or the new chick if he establishes a link with her.
Favorite Scenes: Marina’s performance is the only good thing about this episode, especially in the 25th minute where she tries to seduce Riker. The only other scene that isn’t terrible is in the 33-35th minute, where Alkar lays out what exactly he’s doing and Picard gives an accurate response:
Picard: You’re a coward, Alkar. You exploit the innocent because you’re unwilling to shoulder the burdens of unpleasant emotions.
Use of Cast/Characters: This is a Deanna Troi episode and it’s maybe the worst one ever, as bad as The Price. There is no real character development from her but to her credit, Marina does the best she can with the script she’s given. Picard has two moments: first when he confronts Alkar, second when he’s overpowered by an old, feeble Deanna! Not a great moment. Riker is pretty involved, seeing the changes in Deanna but in the end not really doing anything helpful. Beverly is the most useful, investigating the medical mystery of Alkar’s mother and providing the solution to the problem. Data has only one line of dialogue, he’s not really in this episode. Worf gets a scene teaching a mok’bara class like he did back in Clues. Geordi gets perhaps two or three lines. Chip Lucia plays Ves Alkar and does an okay job.
Blu Ray Version: If you pause a 1:43 when Troi is getting into the turbolift, you can see the leg of a tripod in the corner of the lift with her.
Nitpicks: Toward the end of the 6th minute Alkar is flirting with Deanna and her response is bad: “Yes I do only, sometimes my body, has a problem conforming to my mind’s wishes.” I put the commas where they are to emphasize how badly the line is delivered by Marina, and how bad the line is anyway. Ugh, use another take and write better dialogue! When Deanna is set free of the link at the end, reducing her neurotransmitter levels wouldn’t magically “de-age” her either. It’s all nonsense.
Overall Impression: Not only is this another ambassador episode, but it might be the worst of the lot. The low point is when Picard, a trained Starfleet captain, can’t even fend off ‘old lady Deanna’ in the transport room. Marina really does her best to play a woman spinning more and more out of control, but it can’t save the terrible waste of time this rushed episode is. I’ve already talked about the huge plot hole above. Okay, the less said about this episode the better. I rate this episode 1.5 out of 5 stars, and that’s only because by now all the cast and crew are so good at their jobs even terrible episodes aren’t quite as terrible as some in the first and second seasons. Still, it’s clearly a candidate for the worst episode of season six.
Behind the Scenes/Trivia: You may be wondering who wrote this piece of crap. Originally Relics was meant to be shot this week, but it couldn’t because of James Doohan’s schedule so they had to write an episode in a rush. As a result the entire writing staff cranked out something as fast as they could, each writer doing an act of the episode and Frank Abatemarco tying them together. No wonder it sucked so much. The episode is loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The transport ship is named Dorian in honor of the book. Marina talked about her performance in this episode, and how she approached it:
I played it like these were underlying parts of Troi that she controlled or managed to suppress. And just looking in the mirror was all I needed to change. When I look in the mirror and see Troi, it’s a very soft and gentle look. In the scene in Ten Forward where my hair was up, I saw Anne Bancroft in the mirror. I saw Mrs. Robinson [from the film The Graduate] and that’s what I played. Basically, a lot of the performance is governed by the way that one looks. Some actors say they put the shoes for the characters on first and figure out the walk. I look in the mirror and play whatever I see in the mirror – especially when it’s a make-up thing like in ‘Man of the People,’ where the old person was a witch and that’s who was in the mirror, so I played a witch.
Missable/Unmissable? Miss it, unless you want a laugh. The next episode is 100 times better.