Realm of Fear is a noticeably substandard episode. And it’s not like there were any glaring mistakes made. It was just … boring. Nondescript. Uninspired. And that isn’t exactly the best way to officially kick off a new season.

Lt. Barclay is back. And I’ve noticed something about his character. He’s memorable. But he isn’t a particularly likable or enjoyable character. His bumbling and fear of people have slighty improved this time around, but now … he has a fear of transporters.

Well, golly. Isn’t that just a swell idea for a story.

Apparently a science ship has been missing, and the Enterprise finds it in the midst of the same special effect we saw in Evolution. Though, I don’t think it’s supposed to be the same location. Either way, it’s a step backward for the series to have to pull out three year old VFX for a new season.

About the only interesting aspect of the episode is the perspective of someone in a transporter. It’s a neat moment. But after that, the rest of the episode is spent trying to figure out what happened to the science vessel’s crew — and what it is that Barclay sees, or thinks he sees, in the transporter beam.

There’s also this parallel mystery of Barclay’s arm and a reanimated corpse from the science ship. But honestly, they are no more interesting than the rest of the episode.

As it turns out, he sees these worm-like thingies with orifices (yes, the use the word “orifice” and that should tell you something about the episode). And so we have to spend our time watching him in full hypochondriac mode, believing that he has transporter psychosis — instead of actually reporting the unusual incident.

As it turns out, Barclay is not insane (too bad, that probably would have made for a more interesting episode) and that he has, in fact, found the missing crew members who have, somehow, been trapped in the transporter beam all this time. Plausibility aside, it just isn’t a very good or interesting solution. Then again, the mystery itself wasn’t all that interesting, either.

Realm of Fear isn’t a terrible episode. It’s just not very good, either. And its final sequence, with O’Brien and the tarantula was a purely pointless attempt at shock value. A rather pedestrian trick for a series in its sixth season.

Topics: Barclay
Filed under: TNG Reviews