“Booby Trap” (3×06) & “Galaxy’s Child” (4×16)
To read more from this series, select a season:
Tonight I watched two connected episodes that aired a season apart.
In “Booby Trap”, a deadly snare left over from an ancient and cataclysmic war traps the Enterprise-D. As Geordi seeks to tweak the engines to escape the trap, he creates a simulation based on the designer of the Enterprise-D’s propulsion systems, Leah Brahms. This simulation is based on the information available to the computer about Brahms, but really it’s the ship itself in human form. Geordi, who has never been smooth with women, gets to reach a more intimate place with his ship in the guise of an attractive woman.
In “Galaxy’s Child”, the real Leah Brahms visits the Enterprise, and Geordi has trouble separating the real person from the computer’s approximation. In the process, the audience is forced to confront the murky moral implications of holodeck technology. Brahms feels violated, and rightly so. Geordi appropriated her likeness without her consent, and used it in intimate ways she’d never have approved of. Worse, Geordi leverages what he’s learned about her from the simulation to his advantage without being upfront with her about the source. Geordi gets some comeuppance when he learns she’s married. But I still don’t think the episode fully grappled with the ethical concerns involved with the premise. I didn’t buy the episode giving him the moral high ground by the end. And I didn’t buy her so easily forgiving his creepy behavior.
Susan Gibney is excellent in both episodes, though, playing two very different characters with the same face. She was a finalist to play Janeway on “Voyager” and you can see why. Even though she was only 27 when she shot “Booby Trap”, she has a screen presence and a deeper voice that make her come across more mature.
The inciting incidents for both episodes were interesting, too. In “Booby Trap,” you have an ancient interstellar civilization that destroyed itself before it could get beyond its own backyard. In “Galaxy’s Child”, you have some truly alien aliens — no humanoids with bumpy foreheads or funny ears here. And as one of the early instances of CG on the show, it’s interesting to see the new visual effects for the child in the HD version that have to match up with the fiberglass models of the adults that are still used.
About The Author
