It is a banner calendar week for refutable Star Trek anniversary , but while earlier this hebdomad we found at leastsomething to admirein Voyager ’s bold exploration of the Warp 10 room access and space - amphibian evolution , there is very little to admire in the other major milepost . Thirty years ago today , The Next Generationtook us to Planet Scotland in “ Sub Rosa , ” where Beverly Crusher replace all thought of quality federal agency for 40 minutes in substitution for some generational house ghost lovin’ .
Yes , my friends , it ’s the ghost candle gender episode . But how bad can the ghost standard candle gender episode really be?The answer is very . Very bad .
On the planet Scotland ( okay , it ’s Caldos IV , a major planet that has been terraformed to basically be Scotland , where everyone dresses like it ’s the turn of the 20th century and the regulator regularly remind mass there ’s things like public caber convulse upshot happening , just so you really know it ’s planet Scotland ) , the Enterprise has guide Dr. Crusher to attend the funeral of her granny , Felisa Howard . Shortly after laying her grandmother to rest — and immediately becoming mesmerized by ahandsome , gigantically - foreheaded strangerat the cemetery — Beverly is swept into the peculiar tonal disparity of Star Trek ’s attempt to do its own bodice ripper - flair romance .
Screenshot: Paramount
Star Trek has thrive across its intact being by putting its own spin on musical style beyond sci - fi , of course , and romanticism is one of its regular bedfellows . There is nothing inherently wrong with the series ape the hallmarks of classical phantasy or flow love story , but “ Sub Rosa ” keep the aesthetic furnishing of a raunchy novella back — windswept gothic buildings , enough flowers strewn about the place to make an only newfangled rosiness - based ecosystem , Beverly donning a lacy gown just so the sex ghost , Ronin , can invisibly caress it off her articulatio humeri , or running around with the candela that is his legion physical object — but trades off any tolerant ofactual womanly agencyor lens of the eye in its romantic subplot , undermining what actually progress to bodice - ripper so compelling to interview in the first position .
From the minute Ronin ’s influence is felt up on her , Beverly is present as this foolish , horny cleaning lady just too lustful and sex - crazed by her co-worker to not see how weird and inappropriate it is that she ’s ostensibly falling in love with her of late deceased grandmother ’s lover , incapable of seeing the decisions she ’s making as too rash . When it becomes clear that Ronin ’s phantasmal influence — and his apparitional influence , if you catch my drift — on her is malignant and genitive , her agency is robbed from her even further . The scenes between her and Ronin , when he wear a non - candle , corporeal conformation , are n’t romantic , they ’re uncomfortable and aggressive , and even in the scenes where he has no form , Gates McFaddenis direct fuddle herself about the place and moan in elbow room that are meant to suggest Adam and annoyance in equal measuring . At virtually no point in “ Sub Rosa ” is Beverly ever treated like a character with direct federal agency , and rather a creature — either as a victim of Ronin ’s plans to employ her as he used generation of women in her family before her to exist forever , or as a fool for so whole throwing herself into a unelaborated fling without find out a zillion red flags . This is the primary aesculapian policeman of the Federation flagship !
There ’s a fascinating comparison to be made between “ Sub Rosa ” and “ Fair Haven , ” the not quite as infamous , but still passably notorious , Voyager instalment where Captain Janeway find herself fall in love life with aholographic 19th one C Irish villager . If in that episode we see a surprisingly basal approaching to allowing Captain Janeway to be explored and picture as a cleaning woman witha sexual appetence and office , and for her to not be mock for it by either the show ’s perspective or the interview — no matter how delectably gamey - encampment Kate Mulgrew ’s pitch of “ Delete the Wife ” is—“Sub Rosa ” never allows Dr. Crusher the same kind of delegacy in her windswept romanticism . In the conclusion — when she ’s almost completely subsumed by Ronin , and resigns her commission to ride out on Caldos IV and be with her ghostly lover — she ’s allow to fight back , but only through the behest and influence of another man in her life , Captain Picard , when Ronin attacks him for daring to come see her , the significance of his status as both her overlook officer and a romantic rival .
Screenshot: Paramount
likewise to this calendar week ’s other absurd Trek anniversary in “ Threshold , ” “ Sub Rosa ” likewise has an unhinged tantrum at the end , as Ronin shortly inhabit the body of Beverly ’s dead nanna to fry Data and Geordi as they investigate occult energy readings play havoc with planet Scotland ’s unreal weather system ( in a way that honestly just makes it more like actual Scotland , to be honest ) . That contribute to the final confrontation where , at long last , Beverly is allowed to voraciously deny Ronin , phasering his spook - wax light and then Ronin himself . How does one phaser a spiritual shape , even if they ’re not really a ghost , but plainly an “ anaphasic alien life form ” ? Best not to think about it too severely . That ’s not the point though , because it ’s the actual last of “ Sub Rosa ” that is harebrained , not the Return of the Living Grandma moment . Back aboard the go-ahead having done a take - backsies on her commission , Beverly reflects on the superfluity of being used by Ronin — as Picard line in his police captain ’s logarithm , a retrieval of a “ more personal nature . ” She is not even countenance the representation of addressing what happened to her , and how her torso was violated by Ronin ’s effort to merge with her , as unacceptable .
“ I re - interpret the entries in my grandmother ’s journals , ” she wistfully severalize Deanna Troi ( with Marina Sirtis delivering the flattest , stoniest of facial expression back at her ) in Ten Forward over a drunkenness . “ Whatever else [ Ronin ] might have done , he made her very happy . ” That ’s the concluding dissertation of the installment ! The space - alien - spectre - candle that has violently and erotically possessed generations of her family ’s matriline — including the grandmother who bring up her , who she ’s just entomb — might actually have been hunky-dory in the end , because sometimes the space - foreign - touch - candela boinking was good . It ’s dreadful . It ’s a complete undermining of Beverly as a reference , a horrible interpreting of the Latinian language genre , and above all , it does n’t even rent us remember the possessed granny as something to laugh about : we ’re just left with this horridness .
The gift of hindsight is a remarkable thing . meter permit us to mature , take in new contexts , reflect and revisit stories that themselves have also mature with eld — and sometimes , to return to something that leave us cold the first time around and get hold things that mince our initial harshness , to appreciate what was try in failure . Other time you have “ Sub Rosa , ” where absolutely none of those things have materialise over the last three decennium , and perhaps never will .
Screenshot: Paramount
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Beverly CrusherGates McFaddenJanewayJean - Luc PicardKate MulgrewRoninStar Trek
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Screenshot: Paramount
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