Remember Me

Everything must go in this ever-shrinking pocket universe adventure!

You know it’s a Dr Crusher episode because she gives the log entry in the teaser, but this doesn’t prepare us for the most unlikely of outcomes: it’s an enjoyable Dr Crusher episode - who would have thought such a thing possible! Playing out as a mystery, the good doctor tries to work out what happened to her missing friend and mentor who just upped and disappeared... Along the way, all the crew vanish as well! In the end, it’s up to her son Wesley to save her with his gnarly mathematical skills, but only after he’s been levelled up by a return visit from the Traveler.

Words

This episode was originally the sci-fi subplot in “Family”, whereby crew members were to be swallowed up by a rogue wormhole. However, that screenplay was already packed to the rafters with three separate unrelated plots, so this storyline fell out into its own separate episode. Written by Lee Sheldon, who was a producer during the first half of this season, it’s the only TNG episode he was credited for writing, but not the only one he was involved with.

I actually met Lee at an event we were both speaking at (probably GDC in San Francisco one year) but at the time I had failed to join the dots up in my mind that he was responsible for this gem. Apparently, they wanted him to bring more mystery and action to the show, and this one certainly doubles down on the mysterious. It’s also full of great lines of dialogue, like this wonderful exchange:

BEVERLY: It’s perfectly logical to you. The two of us roaming about the galaxy in the flagship of the Federation. No crew at all.

PICARD: We’ve never needed a crew before.

Classic!

Or how about this one:

BEVERLY: What is the primary mission of the Starship Enterprise?

COMPUTER VOICE: To explore the galaxy.

BEVERLY: Do I have the necessary skills to complete that mission alone?

COMPUTER VOICE: Negative.

BEVERLY: Then why am I the only crew member? (a beat) Aha, gotcha there...

Or even:

BEVERLY: Computer, here's a question you shouldn’t be able to answer... What is the nature of the universe?

COMPUTER VOICE (without hesitation): The universe is a spherical region seven hundred and five meters in diameter.

Genius!

There’s so many great moments like these that it doesn't even feel like the bottle show that it most evidently is from top to bottom. Cost saving and yet thoroughly entertaining - an impressive little screenplay all around. What’s more, I absolutely love that all the drama is achieved with the absolute minimum of technobabble. The one concept - ‘warp bubble’ - carries everything. It’s so economical, other screenplays look upon in envy at its efficiency of language.

Acting Roles

It’s not often they let Gates McFadden carry the show, but here they not only give Dr Crusher the spotlight but she delivers it perfectly. For me, this is her finest episode, probably to a large degree because it’s not a technobabble medical nonsense story, but rather an existential mind-wrecking mystery story - and it doesn’t even resort to the holodeck for resolution!

Although he only appears in the teaser, Bill Erwin’s Dr Dalen Quaice helps set up the story both thematically (remembering the lost) and in terms of establishing the mystery.

Erwin was a perpetual bit player with more than 250 different roles from the 1940s to the early 2000s. As well as TNG, he had a guest spot on Quantum Leap and The New Adventures of Superman, not to mention four different appearances in the original version of The Twilight Zone. I guess they must have liked him!

But the big guest star this week is a surprise callback to season one with the reappearance of the Traveler, which was a late edition to the screenplay.

“Use the Force, Wes! I mean… do mathematics with your eyes closed, Wes!”

The writing team had already talked about bringing back Eric Menyuk this season (apparently he was a huge hit at conventions!), but it wasn’t any part of the plan for this episode, which by all accounts did not have a proper ending worked out beyond the terrible ‘it was all a dream’ Get Out of Jail Free card. Putting in the Traveler rescued the story and made it all fit together perfectly, and it’s fun to see Menyuk reprise his otherworldly role. His delivery makes lines that would otherwise be total nonsense land with absurd plausibility.

Outside of the guest stars, this is a kind of Ten Little Indians ensemble cast show, where everybody gradually gets killed off (or, in this case, erased from a pocket reality). There’s something for everyone to do here - even Troi gets a corridor scene! - and everyone’s having fun with it too.

Even Colm Meaney’s O’Brien gets to play along at cosmic hide and seek!

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

Lots of budget saving reuse of SFX shots here, including Starbase footage from “11001001” that frankly it’s always great to see.

The make-up for the Traveler is slightly different from last time, most of all because they make his skin much paler than before. He still has his delightfully pudgy fingers, though!

Other than that, the most dramatic special effect is the vortex, which is handled extremely well even if it does feel like a refugee from the 1982 movie Poltergeist.

Apparently, McFadden did all her own stunts in this episode - most notably this one!

The chair in this shot was mounted against a wall, which McFadden hung from while compressed air was blown over her to create the vortex effect. Soon after performing this stunt, McFadden learned she was pregnant - which is why we don't see so much of her in the latter half of this season. Not only was it the family season on screen, apparently it was the family season off screen as well!