A ghost story.  Sub Rosa is supposed to be a ghost story.  Many ghost stories are accompanied by an explanation of the ghosts themselves – how they came to be, how they exist and so forth.  So it’s really no surprise that TNG’s take on a ghost story uses a decidedly sci-fi explanation for the ghost that haunts Dr. Crusher.  But that of course begs the question: Is a sci-fi explanation for ghosts really a good idea?

The episode begins with a funeral on the Caldos Four colony, an old Federation colony constructed to mimic the Scottish Highlands.  The result is to provide a very specific aesthetic backdrop for the story which begins following the funeral.  After Dr. Crusher provides a eulogy for the passing of her grandmother, Felisa Howard, all of the colonists in attendance toss a handful of dirt onto the casket – except for one person.  Beverly notices that a man, in his mid-thirties with flowing, shoulder-length hair, has tossed a flower onto the casket of her grandmother.

And so begins the mystery.

As the episode unfolds, Beverly learns that this man, named Ronin, was actually her grandmother’s lover.  And now Ronin has begun to seduce Beverly – as a ghost, not in his “corporeal” form.  This adds “romance novel” layer to the story that is just too over the top to be taken seriously.  I mean, Beverly Crusher writhing in pleasure because some ghost knows exactly where she likes to be touched?

Methinks the sequences leave the audience writhing as well – in agony over the preposterous notion of Picard walking in on Beverly in the midst of an intimate moment with an invisible entity.

At any rate, like it or not, Beverly’s destructive romance is the main focus of this ghost story.  It literally consumes her character to the point where she quits Starfleet to remain on the planet.  The sequence of events, aside from their inherent awkwardness, are also too disjointed and uneven.  The cumulative effect is for the main narrative to feel more and more implausible – not in terms of the supernatural, but simply in terms of character.

Like most ghost stories, Sub Rosa’s ghost, Ronin, draws strength from a specific object.  In this case, it’s a candle that has been in the Howard family for generations.  As it turns out, the candle is the clue to the ghostbusters (AKA Geordie and Data) to figuring out what is going on – that this Ronin character is some sort of technobabble creature of energy.

The climactic scene occurs when Geordie and Data exhume Felisa Howard’s body.  As they study it, Ronin suddenly reanimates her corpse in order to overload them with some sort of green energy lightning (and to help heighten the “creep” factor, I suppose).  Beverly appears, realizes what’s been happening, and destroys the candle with a phaser.

Who ya gonna call?

So is it a good idea for Sub Rosa to have a sci-fi explanation for ghosts?  Well, for this explanation at any rate, the answer is that, in fact, it is a decidedly bad idea.  I mean, what do you call a ghost story which has no ghosts?  But the real problem, aside from the insincere attempts at romance, and a ghost story that isn’t actually about a ghost, is that none of the scenes are particularly compelling.

Filed under: TNG Reviews