Apologies for the delay, been a busy couple weeks and, well, the episode wasn't exciting me.
The Enterprise is sent to investigate the loss of communications with a Starfleet subspace radio repeater station, the crew arrives to find the station's computers locked out, the stations two personnel missing and organic residue on a deckplate.
The investigation begins to figure out what happened which begins leading them down a number of paths, the station's shuttle is missing -meaning someone left the station- and review of the station logs finds that there were regular visits by a Klingon commander.
Once recovered, Geordi reviews the logs of one the station's personnel, Aquiel Unari, and learns that things were apparently tense between her and the commander. For now the investigation is assuming that Unari is the one who is deceased. This is until Picard contacts the local commander for the nearby Klingon sector who brings with him a battered Unari, saying he found her inside their borders in the shuttle.
Unari claims she was attacked by the station commander and she fought back in self-defense, blacked-out, and next found herself on the shuttle being picked-up by the Klingons. She relays more of her side of the story and also begins a growing connection with Geordi -who's viewed all of her personal and professional logs.
The harassing Klingon is also soon recovered and he pleas innocence and ignorance to what happened, saying he only arrived on the station after everyone had gone missing.
The investigation over the death of the other communications officer begins to point to Unari, particularly after Worf finds a set-to-kill phaser in the recovered shuttle's glove-box.
Meanwhile, Crusher has been trying to analyze the remains found on the stations but has ran into hurdles due to the damage to the material. She's able to isolate and enhance the remains and begins analyzing them as she does the remains morphs into a blobous pod and touches Crusher's hand, it retracts and then solidifies into a copy of her hand.
It's determined that the being is capable of replicating the organic matter it comes into contact with and maintain the new form for a period of time before having to pick a new one. It's felt the missing officer was a copy, this being, and needed a new form and has either copied Unari or the Klingon commander.
Both are apprehended and put under watch. As Geordi sulks in his quarters and watches over Unari's dog -recovered from the station earlier- the dog turns out to be the being it morphs and tries to absorb Geordi but Geordi manages to destroy it before its attacks can take root. Geordi and Aquiel solidify their bond and life goes on.
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Stop me if you heard this one:
During an investigation Geordi has to review the logs of a female whom he crushes on and then sort-of pervs on when meeting her for real, almost to the detriment of his career and person.
Okay, maybe this isn't quite as bad as what happened with Leah Brahms but it's fairly similar. He hears the logs of a female, is surprised when he finally sees her (Brahms in the holodeck recreation, Unari in the video log) and she's attractive (because the 24th century is so filled with un-attractive women) which makes him so much more adamant to put on his blinders (er... sorry) to the point of not potentially seeing the real her.
In Leah's case he fails to see that she's kind of a hard-assed bitch and in Unari's case it's that she's not a model officer and that she may be guilty of killing someone; as at that point the evidence is pointing at her and her excuse is pretty much convenient amnesia.
Now, granted, in both cases he was hardly "wrong" in that almost to Leah's admittance she was being sort-of harsh when she first got on the ship and Unari is not only innocent but Geordi more rightfully gives her the benefit of the presumption of her innocence until proven otherwise. Still, her memory-lapse seems terribly convenient at the time she claims it.
The "governor" for the nearby Klingon sector says -almost matter of factly- that the shuttle Unari was in was nearly destroyed. Ummmm.... There's an alliance between the Klingons and the Federation, should he really have been so quick to destroy an occupied Federation shuttlecraft?
After learning that there may have been a death on the station Worf later reports that a phaser is missing from the station's weapons locker, this is after a couple days have passed. So, checking the weapons locker wasn't one of the first things they did when investigating the station?
Why doesn't the shuttle have a transponder on it or leave some sort of trail through which it can be tracked, if only by other Starfleet vessels? Everyone seems at a loss on how to find or recover the missing shuttle.
It's a nice touch that the subspace repeater station looks almost exactly like the diagram of one in the TNG Technical Manual. The manual and the episode were made a few years apart and while there's some differences the one in the episode shares a lot of design influences from the one in the manual.
When they know the shape-shifting being is the "real killer" they narrow down the number of suspects to only two, Unari and the Klingon. Why/when was the dog dismissed as a possible candidate? Was there any indication the being had to take on a humanoid form?
While 24th century officers and people may not have to worry about things like sexual harassment or attacks between adult officers it seems odd to me to stick two officers of opposing genders on a station alone, almost asking for trouble. Seems there'd need to be one or two other people on the station to make any foul-play less likely and, well, I'd think it'd take more than 2 people to operate the station. There's a lot of space and stations inside the main room, is two people really enough to man the station 24/7? (Or whatever the 24th century/space equivalent would be.)
In the end, I suppose this isn't too terrible of an episode. Unari actually turns out to be a fairly interesting character and her and Geordi do seem to make something of a genuine connection, but it's just odd how much this mimics how he is/was with Leah Brahms.
The episode really doesn't inspire much from beyond a "meh," though. Even the semi-conflict between Riker and Geordi doesn't really do much or go anywhere beyond a brief encounter in a corridor.
Whatever, next week we've got something better to look forward to.
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