The Survivors (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 3) Charming geriatric love and a pacifist morality play

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break.

After the Federation colony on Raina IV is obliterated, the Enterprise discovers a perfectly preserved house with two elderly survivors.

The standoffish Uxbridge impresses Worf by confronting strangers with a non-functional hand phaser, and the hospitable Rishon tells a charming story of how the two fell in love on Earth.

The script does a good job of building a mystery around how they alone survived the attack, why they don’t want to leave, and why a huge warship keeps showing up out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, Troi is driven to distraction by music playing in her head. Only the audience knows it’s the same tune from Rishon’s heirloom music box, but somehow Picard intuits a connection. He gives increasingly unusual orders, without telling his crew he’s testing a theory. (Not great leadership, that.)

Picard seems not at all surprised by a head-scratchingly random plot twist in Act V. Because we have no particular reason to care about the Douwd or the Husnock, my emotional response was muted. Still, I enjoyed a mystery that sets up a good trek morality play.