The Enterprise is experimenting with a prototype for a new type of probe, one that allows a user to directly interface and interact with it as if they were the probe itself. This particular prototype has been designed to interface directly with the implants that allows Geordi's VISOR to work, giving him a much greater level of control and functions. The dry-runs of interface show promise.
The Enterprise is then dispatched to investigate the disappearance of a crew that was studying a gas giant planet and the ship seems to somehow have been pulled into, and trapped, in the planet, meanwhile the ship receives word of another missing Starfleet vessel, this one commanded by Geordi's mother.
The circumstances of the the disappearance of Geordi's mother's ship are grim and everyone assumes the ship a loss, including Geordi's father and siblings; any rescue efforts seen as formality. But Geordi is far less willing to give-up hope and won't let his mother go.
When the ship reaches the gas giant they use the new probe to investigate the ship as an active away team is impossible and conventional sensors cannot get them the readings they want, while interfaced with the probe Geordi finds the crew dead but, unexpectedly, encounters his mother in one of the ship's compartments. Soon after greeting her problems arise with the probe and the interface is terminated.
Crusher and everyone else is convinced that the information overload was playing tricks with Geordi's mind, that he wasn't really seeing his mother but rather a hallucination generated as his brain tried to cope with an information overload. None of their readings indicate Geordi was ever near another person, though Geordi thinks it could have been a hologram or other form of communication.
Geordi commits himself to rescuing his mother, now believing her trapped in a lower layer of the planet and begins grasping at straws on how her and crew arrived there, 300 LY away from their last known position. Everyone realizes, Geordi is desperate for any sign of hope but remain unconvinced anything he says is possible. Even Data says the likelihood of the set of events to occur to allow this to happen are nearly impossible.
Geordi decides to hijack to probe interface in order to reconnect with his mother only to be stopped by Data who eventually decides to help Geordi. On the trapped ship, Geordi reconnects with the illusion of his mother who confirms Geordi's theory on how she and her crew got there. She wants Geordi to lower the trapped ship deeper into the gas giant's atmosphere in order to recover her and her crew and Geordi obliges, even though it means increasing his interface with the probe which can endanger his life. Data, reluctantly, agrees.
When the movement of the trapped ship is caught by the bridge they go into the probe's interface room to stop Data and Geordi but his connection with the probe is so strong he cannot simply be cut-off from it. As Geordi continues to talk more with his mother it's soon revealed what's really happening. When the ship entered a lower part of the planet's atmosphere it accidentally captured some subspace alien beings who couldn't survive once the ship ascended. The beings tried to communicate with the crew but ended up killing them through their attempts. But they have been successful in communicating with Geordi through the probe. Geordi forces the ship lower into the planet's atmosphere which allows the beings to escape back into safety. Meanwhile, Crusher and Data find a way to safely disconnect Geordi from the probe just before it's destroyed by the ship deep in the planet's atmosphere.
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Another meh episode..... Man this is going to be a long season. I've really nothing to say this episode. It exists. It's nice to see Geordi's family -as this season serves some purposes in filling in some "family gaps" with the crew as we also meet some of Crusher's family and learn some more about Troi's family- but other than that...... This episode exists. It's pretty much the very definition of what we'd today consider to be a "filler episode" between sweeps weeks when bigger, ratings-drawing, things happen. It's here to pad out the season.
The probe thing? Fancy technology that only exists for the sake of a story and we never hear or see of it again.
Geordi and Data defy orders and Geordi get's a finger-wagging from Picard (including a note in his "permanent record", along with those fights he got-into on the play ground in 4th grade. Ooooooooo) but nothing ever comes from it. Geordi's mother is really dead.... we guess. Because it's never addressed again, the episode seems content to say her shop going missing is enough to get Starfleet to go "Meh, whatareyougonnado? NBD." even though I'd think a ship mysteriously disappearing would be a common occurrence for a Starfleet vessel. How many times has the Enterprise vanished from its location, transported hundreds or thousands of light-years, only to be returned later?
Data so willingly helping Geordi near the end is sort of interesting in how his moral programming would likely clash with his loyalty to his friendship and his loyalty to the command structure in Starfleet.
And.......... There's a nice counseling session with Troi?
I dunno.
More interesting things unfold next week.
