Dark Page is dripping with sentiment. And it’s strange (as in bizarre). As I mentioned in Phantasms, there is an inherent danger in delving into weirdness. Dark Page simply doesn’t work. Part of the problem is Lwaxana Troi. But an even bigger part of the problem is a poorly constructed story.

Lwaxana has been busy helping a race of purely telepathic beings learn verbal language. The effort has clearly drained her. And her fatigue is, quite likely, partly responsible for her lowered defenses. As a result, when the daughter of a dignitary (played by a young Kirsten Dunst) accidentally falls into a pond in the arboretum, Lwaxana’s mind goes into shock, and she goes into a coma.

The rest of the episode deals with Troi’s efforts to revive her mother, before Lwaxana falls so deeply into the coma that her consciousness can never be retrieved. The problem is that this episode quite closely mimics the strange, dreamlike, heavily imagery laden Phantasms. And because it follows immediately after Phantasms, it seems very much like déja vu. And because it mimics Phantasms so poorly, it seems very much like failure.

Plus, Dark Page just isn’t as well constructed or crafted. The scenes with the psychic man, Maques, bear an unfortunate resemblance to those witnessed in Violations. Even if Maques’ intentions are pure and noble, the association definitely hinders the episode.

In the end, Troi must enter into her mother’s mind and overcome encounters with a vicious dog, and her long dead father before she can break through and reach her mother. And that is where she learns that she once had an older sister, who died in a tragic accident during a family picnic.

The revelation scene is very much over done. But I’ll concede that it does carry a great deal of emotion — if only for tapping into that great horror for parents: outliving their children. But the scene certainly doesn’t offer anything new on the idea. Nor does it portray the incident with any measure of craft.

Dark Page is an utterly forgettable episode. Any credit it receives for managing to portray emotion during its climax is quickly squandered by the fact that the scene was so overdone that it loses its emotional credibility.

Filed under: TNG Reviews