“Interface” (7×03)
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This one has a number of compelling ideas, but they don’t come together into a satisfying and cohesive whole.
The cold open in strong: We see Geordi without his visor, with full sight, climbing through a Jeffries tube amidst very harsh conditions. He identifies the source of the problem, reports back that it is 2,000 degrees, and then proceeds to reach in to deactivate the problem hardware.
The audience only learns what was actually going on after the fact: Using an interface suit that takes advantage of the same neural implants as his visor, he remotely piloted a probe to effect the repairs. While Geordi is controlling the probe, the episode utilizes “Quantum Leap”-style visual effects; we only see what the probe actually looks like in reflections.
The Enterprise intends to use the probe to for a high risk mission. The USS Raman sent out a distress call after it got trapped within the turbulent atmosphere of a gas giant. The Enterprise must investigate the wreckage to determine what happened, and hopefully rescue any survivors.
Unfortunately, tragic news soon interrupts those plans. Starfleet has lost contact with the USS Hera, under the command of Captain Silva La Forge, and the search party assigned to find out what had happened hasn’t turned anything up.
Geordi, in denial about his mother’s probable death, opts to continue with the mission. But when an alien being inside the wreckage of the USS Raman takes the form of his mother, the encounter quickly compromises his judgment.
The central technology of this story feels pretty neat; it’s a logical extrapolation from technology we have now, like the Oculus Rift. It reminded me a lot of the recent Amazon series adaptation of William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel The Peripheral.
But the emotional stuff doesn’t really track. I don’t think we ever even knew that Geordi’s mother was a Starfleet captain before this episode. The only previous mention of his parents’ occupation that I can recall was in “Imaginary Friend” when he explained that his mother was a senior officer stationed near the Romulan Neutral Zone, while his father was an exozoologist. And I don’t recall any mention of Geordi’s sister at all before this episode.
For most of the episode, Geordi refuses to accept to accept that his mother is in all likelihood dead. And the point in the story that should have forced him to confront that reality instead focused on the science fiction mystery of the aliens aboard the USS Raman.
I did like the scene at the end, when Picard formally reprimands him for disobeying orders. There’s a gentleness to it; he understands why his chief engineer did what he did, and expresses his condolences that things didn’t turn out the way he’d hoped.
Impacts on Star Trek Continuity:
This is the first episode where we get to see any of La Forge’s family. We see his mother, played by Madge Sinclair, in a recording from weeks earlier. We see his father, played by Ben Vereen, in a brief video conference after he learns the bad news. Both co-starred with LeVar Burton in “Roots”.
The fate of the USS Hera remains unknown at the end of the episode, with all souls aboard presumed KIA. It would have been interesting if Voyager had discovered it in the Delta Quadrant, another victim of the Caretaker’s desperate ploys.
Geordi having to live with both the loss of his mother and the uncertainty of what actually happened to her helps explain why he is shown as having become so risk-adverse after having children in the third season of “Picard”. He never wanted to put his daughters through what he went through in this episode.
There is a clear parallel between this episode and “The Bonding“, with the grieving process complicated by non-corporeal aliens taking the form of the deceased. Even though we care more about Geordi La Forge than the child in that episode, the depiction of loss felt weightier and more fully realized in that earlier episode.
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