“Theres some sort of disease present on board the Enterprise. And its spreading.”

- Nurse Ogawa.

She’s right. It’s called Really Bad Overactors Disease.

Do you remember that horrid Geordi LaForge episode in Season 4, called Identity Crisis? Do you recall how utterly preposterous it was that someone’s entire DNA could be rewritten, and then returned to normal as if nothing ever happened? Apparently someone had a bright idea to take that concept and make another, even more ludicrous episode based on the same concept.

The episode opens in sick bay where Lieutenant Barclay is having another “moment.” His hypochondria is acting up again, and he’s pestering Dr. Crusher to the point where she makes some obscure test, just to get him to shut up for a few moments. After learning that Barclay does indeed have some obscure virus, Dr. Crusher gives him a synthetic injection of something designed to activate some of his dormant DNA.

Meanwhile, she also attends to Data’s cat, Spot, who is about to give birth to kittens. At the same time, nurse Ogawa announces that she, too, is expecting. And so we have the building blocks for both the cause of and the solution to the episode’s conflict.

Following a photon torpedo test gone awry (aka plot point to get Data and one human off of the ship before things start to happen), Data and Picard head off in a shuttle to track down an errant torpedo. Back on the ship, various crew members start inexplicably overacting: Barclay runs around like Beavis on too much cappuccino; Riker suddenly becomes stupid (well, perhaps not so suddenly); Troi complains about the temperature and then takes a bath in her clothes; and Worf jumps around like an ape, then bites Troi’s face.

Yum.

The sequences are utterly embarrassing for both the series and the actors. Their gesticulations are at best laughable. At worst, it looks like a class of novice actors trying to find their inner animal and act it out as best they can. But these are professionals — writers and actors both. And they should know better.

Speaking of animals.

It seems that Dr. Crusher’s synthetic T-cell has triggered a virus that makes everyone on board de-evolve. So Riker becomes a kind of prehistoric human, Troi becomes a fish, Barclay a spider and Worf … well, he becomes a Klingon thingy. Who spits venom in Dr. Crusher’s faces.

Serves her right for causing the problem in the first place.

Data and Picard return from their mission to find the Enterprise drifting out of control. Once on board, the episode does one thing right: it uses lighting and cinematography to create a sufficiently spooky mood. But because that mood is the result of a singularly stupid premise, it’s overall benefit is negligible.

Seriously. Having humanoids de-evolve? Having their brains shrink, having their bodies completely change. And then later go back to being themselves? I guess if Rascals can get away with it, then why not Genesis? Except, in my humble opinion, both Rascals and Identity Crisis deserve a great deal of criticism, along with Genesis.

Even the solution is implausible. Data notices that Spot’s kittens were unaffected by the disease — even though Spot de-evolved into … an iguana.  He then noticed that Nurse Ogawa’s  baby was also unaltered.  So he devised an anti-virus using the amniotic fluid from Nurse Ogawa.  But he mentioned that it had to be human DNA to re-evolve the human crew … so what about the non-human crew?

It says something that the episode’s most enjoyable scene was with respect to Data’s cat, Spot.  Barclay inquires about the father.  Data, doing his own best father impersonation, exclaims that he does not know who the father is, but that he intends to run a DNA test to determine the identity of Spot’s mate.

Genesis is a truly terrible episode.  It gets credit for the mood it creates and for the cameos for Spot.  Otherwise, the acting, writing and directing are atrocious.  In the grand scheme of TNG, this one can easily be overlooked.

Topics: Barclay
Filed under: TNG Reviews