The Loss is an entirely forgettable episode that suffers from a critical overdose of Troi. Her emotional outbursts are more cringe-worthy than a George Lucas love scene and her holier-than-thou arrogance has a decidedly destructive consequence for the episode and the series.

The overall storyline involves the Enterprise getting caught in the midst of various 2-dimensional beings who are traveling through space toward something called a cosmic string fragment (a.k.a. the crisis-of-the-week plot). Because the creatures only exist in two dimensions, the attempts of the Enterprise to escape are futile. The tension mounts as they get closer to this cosmic string fragment that will rip the Enterprise apart because of its strong gravitational tides. This isn’t a terrible sci-fi plot, but it isn’t exactly edge-of-your-seat exciting, either.

What really sinks the episode is what happens to Troi when the Enterprise gets caught within the field of 2-d creatures: she loses her empathic ability. A mildly cynical and sarcastic person might suggest that, since Troi rarely gives any insight that isn’t already painfully obvious to anyone with eyes and ears, the loss of her empathic powers isn’t much of a loss at all. And I would tend to agree with such a person. But for the sake of the episode, we try and play along and accept that this is, somehow, a big deal. Maybe we’ll even learn to find a new appreciation for the oft-criticized counselor.

We don’t.

Troi’s reactions to her “loss” are nothing short of purely selfish, arrogant, and pretentious. As first suggested in The Price, Troi’s use of her empathic powers to the advantage of her ship and crew isn’t precisely moral or ethic. In The Loss, we learn that Troi uses her empathic abilities to maintain a sense of superiority over the crew itself. When Riker tells her that there is something “aristocratic” about her Betazoid abilities, he is being too kind. And Troi’s outbursts toward anyone who shows even the slightest inclination of care and concern about her as a person are nails-on-chalkboard grating and only reinforce her self-serving air of superiority.

All of this could have served a purpose had Troi been knocked down a few pegs as a result of these events. But, true to TNG form, the problems are all solved in the end: the Enterprise manages to find its way out of the field of 2-dimensional creatures and, the moment it does, Troi’s abilities return.

Unfortunately, Troi is hardly contrite and the crew is altogether too accepting of her belligerent treatment of them. True, Troi does apologize to Dr. Crusher, but she absolutely rejects Riker’s “aristocratic” statement — which was, in point of fact, an absolutely correct assessment of Troi as a person. Which means, Troi didn’t really learn from her experiences. And that makes the whole exercise of this episode almost entirely pointless.

Worse still, we are shown Troi’s true character as being both selfish and arrogant. As such, from here on out, it is much more difficult to accept her as genuinely compassionate toward others.

The title of ‘The Loss‘ just might refer to your time spent watching this episode. It had an opportunity to salvage some legitimacy by having Troi’s character truly learn and grow from her experiences. By failing to do so, the episode nearly fails entirely.

Filed under: TNG Reviews