Remember Me (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 5) Dr. Crusher vs The Universe

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break.

When people start disappearing from the Enterprise without a trace, only Dr. Crusher remembers them.

Some cringeworthy lines (e.g. “If there’s nothing wrong with me, maybe there’s something wrong with the universe”) still earn a facepalm, but I really enjoyed Gates McFadden as she Shatners her way through increasingly larger-than-life speeches, filling the screen as the big ship empties out.

Apart from a dimension-vortex SFX shot, this would have been an inexpensive show, since all the scenes were on the Enterprise. Computer displays that seemed so impressive 30 years ago look cartoony now, but the (oft-recycled) space station footage holds up very well.

After a run of truly great episodes, “Remember Me” tells a high-concept character story that earns a second facepalm for the new-agey turn it takes with the return of Wesley’s mystic warp field mentor. Yet the B-plot nicely meshes with the A-plot, and also develops Wesley’s long-term story arc.

Well done scenes include Picard demonstrating that he trusts Crusher even though no evidence supports her claims, Crusher turning to Troi for support, and yet another interrupted “Jean-Luc, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to tell you” moment. I was also happy O’Brien made the list of people Crusher insisted on remembering.

An early scene has Dr. Crusher enter Engineering through an unseen back door she’s never used before, placing her close enough to the warp core that the Wunderkind can trap his mommy in a warp bubble. It didn’t bother me when I saw it the first time, but this time it earns another facepalm.