TNG Flashback: Imaginary Friend

First, the Star Trek: The Next Generation writers brought Worf's son Alexander onto the ship as a recurring character. Then they had a kid imitate Data. Then came another "cute kid" story, "Imaginary Friend."

The Enterprise is exploring a nebula where a strange, unseen phenomenon is inhibiting propulsion. As the crew investigates, an alien entity made of energy sneaks undetected onto the ship for a look around. It manifests itself in human form as "Isabella," the imaginary friend of young Clara Sutter, a girl struggling to make friends on the Enterprise. After Isabella watches the way adults treat Clara, she decides her people should destroy the ship and everyone aboard.

At first, I didn't understand why The Next Generation was repeatedly drawn to these child-centric stories. Then I found this quote from writer Brannon Braga, who crafted the final script for this episode after several freelancers had tried and failed: "The funny thing about kid shows in the Star Trek universe is you can get conflict with kids because they're not developed yet like our perfect adults. In a strange kind of way, kids can have more problems and conflict than our regulars. They can still be imperfect." Aha! The writers saw children as a way around the Roddenberry-imposed edict that future humans would be masters of conflict resolution (and thus, enemies of compelling television drama).

But against that perceived benefit to using children are myriad shortcomings. Most childrens' problems seem petty and small from an adult perspective, particularly when set against a backdrop of galactic adventure. Finding a child performer who can actually act (much less two, as this episode called for) is a tall order. And how much conflict can a child really introduce when, ultimately, an adult can just say "go to your room?" (From a television perspective, I mean. I understand that real-life parents, whose lives don't fit neatly into one-hour episodes, don't have it so easy.)

I guess all of this is me slow-walking my way to this point: this episode is just plain terrible. Its sins are numerous. I'll begin with one I've repeated often of bad episodes: it's another "all about the guest star" story that barely involves the main characters. Only Troi figures prominently in more than one or two scenes, and her role here of counseling a child was far more effective in past episodes involving Alexander -- because in those cases the story involved Worf, another main character. We simply don't know Ensign Sutter and his daughter, and this episode does little to make us care.

This "guest star episode" is anchored by guest stars who can't carry the weight. Noley Thornton does alright as Clara Sutter (and would be used again on Deep Space Nine, in fact). But as Isabella, Shay Astar is a one-note bore. She comes off sinister and arch from the first moment she appears, one of The Shining twins in a blonde wig. Not only does the audience instantly know what's up, it's actually impossible to believe that young Clara would actually accept her now-visible "friend" instead of instantly freaking the hell out.

Not that the script helps the poor young actress. Isabella is one-note on the page as well. And this was apparently Braga's contribution to the story that saved it from rewrite hell. The character was a friendly and curious alien in earlier drafts, but Braga decided to take it in a darker direction. This may have added some bite to the script, sure, but it doesn't entirely make sense. What exactly is Isabella's motivation for goading Clara into breaking rules? Why does she want to go to Engineering so badly? Why, if her first instinct is so hateful, does she bother to live among the crew at all? Why not just proceed directly to destroying the ship?

The resolution is equally unsatisfying. Picard has delivered many a lofty speech in his time (and Patrick Stewart has sold the hell out of all of them), but it strains credibility that the handful of words he offers here are enough to change the alien's mind. That's partly because an impassioned speech about the value of children is inherently awkward coming from Picard. He's come a long way from the "I can't stand children" attitude he held in the beginning, but that left such an indelible mark on the character that it's hard to see him coming this far. Sure, he's figured out how to deal with children, but here he's their champion, and that's a tough sell.

Patrick Stewart isn't the only one straining mightily in this episode. After being occupied with other jobs for most of the season, Whoopi Goldberg suddenly became available here near the end of it. So a last minute rewrite was done to cram Guinan into the script. A cloud-watching scene originally meant for Dr. Crusher was transferred to her instead, and a runner about Guinan's own imaginary friend was added. Sure, Whoopi Goldberg has fun with it. But this story really doesn't merit her talents. In fact, Guinan's presence undermines things a bit; when Troi basically turns to Guinan for advice on how to do her job, it weakens Troi as a character.

But perhaps the biggest sin of all is that this episode recycles much of its premise from another bad episode, "The Child." In case you've blocked it out (in which case, good for you), that episode was about an alien ball of light that came aboard the Enterprise and took on the form of a child to study humanity. At least that episode had the emotional dimension of it being Troi's child, adding personal stakes for one of the characters. Though that episode had ample room for improvement, this one recycles its material for somehow worse results.

Most of the staff didn't even realize just how bad an episode they'd made. Brannon Braga said in a later interview that his work on this script was the most gratifying for him of the whole season. Producer Rick Berman loved the premise, noting "where else but in science fiction could you do an idea about an imaginary friend who turns out not to be imaginary?" (How about Sesame Street? I hear everyone can actually see Mr. Snuffleupagus these days.)

Only staff writer Herbert J. Wright seemed to acknowledge what a dog they'd made. He gave an interview noting the lack of focus on the main characters, and opined that showrunner Michael Piller envisioned this as a lost alien story, a la E.T. (However, Wright didn't totally understand the problem either. He was also critical of doing "90 percent personal stories" on Star Trek in general. In my view, it was the lack of personal stakes -- for anyone we cared about, at least -- that hurt this episode.)

Other observations:

• Geordi gets a bit of back story in this episode. We learn that both his parents were in Starfleet as he grew up. (A later episode would pick up this tidbit and run with it.)

• The quality of the food and drinks in Ten Forward must have really declined in Guinan's absence. First, Clara orders a juice without taking a sip, and later Troi orders a chocolate cake without having a bite.

• When Brannon Braga rescued this story from the slush pile to craft the final script, he chose it over a number of half-baked Q episodes that were also in the works. So, adding to this episode's other offenses, it's the reason fans of Q didn't get a Q episode in season 5.

Bottom line: this was the worst episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation since season 2. And as I'm unable to find any kind of silver lining in it, I can only grade it an F.