What’s it about: A lost entity takes possession of Picard's mind…
To Baldly Go: Clearly Picard didn’t think too much of Mr Singh because 30 seconds after his death he is delighted to hear that the Enterprise can warp off again. I’m glad he isn’t my boss! Love Picard putting his feet up on his desk when he is taken over, he could do with letting go a bit more often. Patrick Stewart is awesome as he walks around the Bridge explaining away the plot of the story; his background in theatre has ensured that he is at his best when able to play a scene to a crowd.
Alien Empath: Not content with probing people’s minds without their say so now Deanna is performing hypnosis on the crew. She really is a nosy cow.
Fully Functional: Whilst it is quite fun to see Data puffing on a pipe, it really isn’t appropriate to be arsing around during a murder investigation. Once again Data is showing more emotion than some the crew – especially his cute ‘my dear Riker, sir…’ Riker lets him get away with his Sherlock Holmes pastiche but at least Picard slaps his wrist.
Boy Genius: Its great to be able to see Beverley and Wesley in their quarters together behaving like a vaguely normal family. Why hasn’t Wesley been given a uniform to perform his duties on the Bridge? To see him lounging on that leather chair in a jumper makes this ship look as if its some kind of holiday cruise for kids.
Dancing Doctor: Oh dear, Beverley is taken over by the creature and behaves in a zombie like fashion but I cannot see any significant difference to how Gates McFadden usually plays her. I can’t wait until Pulaski comes along to shake this crew up a bit.
The Good: The snakelike Selay are beautifully made creatures, by far the best we have seen yet in the series and it is a shame that they never returned. As these things go that’s not a bad teaser with Worf attacked by a sudden shock of blue lightning. I’ve certainly seen far worse. I love the idea of these two political factions having their own little hunt on the Enterprise. It’s a shame that the episode wasn’t giving over to that far more entertaining subplot.
Poor O’Brien is stuck between the two bitter enemies when they come face to face in a corridor! I was cheering with joy when the Picard controlled creature shot electricity and incapacitated the whole crew! It’s a striking visual and its nice to see characters as useless as Troi, Tasha and Beverley (oh gosh that sounds so sexist but they really are the worst characters on this show!) being tortured!
The Bad: What is wrong with these Starfleet Captains? If you encounter a mysterious cloud or anomaly…go around it! How many engineers are there on the Enterprise? In the last episode it was a bearded Scot called Argyle and now it’s an Indian called Singh! In comparison to the Selay the Antikan’s look vaguely ridiculous with giant furry gloves and puppet like mouths. It all gets a bit ridiculous when Picard decides to beam out into space and become one with the energy cloud and then roams around in the Enterprise circuitry but compared to some of the things we have already seen this year it is practically mundane. Obviously the Selay/Antikan conflict is just supposed to be background colour because we don’t find out why they are fighting or how the peace negations work out. Riker demands that Tasha stops reporting of a missing delegate and a puddle of blood found to say hello to Captain Picard! How relaxed are they on this ship?
Moment To Watch Out For: Mr Singh’s incredible death scene where he is struck by the lightning entity, judders about and throws himself about half a mile across Engineering before hanging over the edge of the warp core.
Orchestra: For the most part the music in this episode is subtle and spooky which is something of a minor miracle in the loud and proud first season.
Result: Considering it has two underdeveloped and largely unintelligible plotlines, Lonely Among Us isn’t that bad. We have already had a story where a virus passing from one character to another and ultimately we learn nothing about this entity and so there seems little point in this exercise aside from to allow the regulars to act out of character (again). On the plus side the majority of the crew are a knats whisker away from looking comfortable in their parts and Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner in particular have settled down considerably since the pilot. What really helps is Cliff Bole’s strong direction and a halfway creepy musical score both of which create more atmosphere than the story deserves. It’s not going to win any awards for innovation but this is an undemanding, fairly entertaining bit of nonsense: 6/10
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