Transfigurations by: René Echevarria and directed by: Tom Benko

 

“Transfigurations” is written by: René Echevarria and is directed by: Tom Benko.  It was produced under production code 173, was the 25^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 73^rd episode overall, and was broadcast on June 4, 1990.

 

“Transfigurations” is an episode with little going for it.  I will be the first to sing the praises and need of a filler episode in a season of television, it’s part of what makes the medium great.  But “Transfigurations” is an episode that were it more memorably bad it would be a prime example of poor filler.  The premise of the episode is the Enterprise crew coming upon a crashed ship with one survivor, an amnesiac dubbed John Doe, played by Mark LaMura.  This survivor displays a healing factor and begins emitting energy, the mystery of the episode being exactly where John Doe comes from and if he is going to be a danger to himself and others.  There is a moment where John Doe undergoes a resurrection after some time in stasis, something that while not quite commented on but René Echevarria’s script through the first two acts reads as a take on the Christian Passion narrative.  This is strengthened by Doe’s backstory being as a unique member of his species, mutating beyond their physical forms into beings of energy and leaving behind the petty squabbles of their current life.  The episode ends with John undergoing an ascension into the stars.  It’s a Passion narrative mixed with ideas that I am most familiar with from the 1972 Doctor Who serial The Mutants, though that serial was far more interested in the effects of colonialism and empire on society while “Transfigurations” doesn’t really have a central thesis.  René Echevarria has written a script that has a concept to explore, but does not know exactly what further to say on the concept outside of a need for death and rebirth, in the spiritual and societal sense, to grow.  The growth is almost transhumanist, becoming beings of energy that can heal the sick and injured and the implication if interfacing with higher dimensions.  This is certainly something Star Trek has done before, it’s an idea that Gene Roddenberry loved in the 1960s and this episode does it again here with at least an attempt to structure the episode like a piece of television from 1990.

 

The issue with “Transfigurations” outside of not actually saying anything about the trajectory of humanity through John Doe as a character is structural.  Echevarria foregoes the A-plot/B-plot structure after the first act.  The pre-credits scene is actually a really nice character beat for Geordi La Forge being once again not great, but at least a development for his lack of confidence.  LeVar Burton and Michael Dorn as Worf have really fun chemistry together and the episode leads you to believe that connecting Geordi and John Doe’s minds to save Doe has done something to Geordi.  He becomes more confident in flirting and starting a relationship with a woman he’s got a crush on, but then it goes absolutely nowhere.  After the episode’s first act the plotline is dropped to shift the focus on John Doe.  Shifting to John Doe shouldn’t be a problem in terms of the plot, the mystery out of his existence does give some nice scenes with Dr. Crusher early on and Echevarria is clearly trying to do something with the episode, even if it doesn’t come across.  Part of the structural issue is introducing Doe’s people only in the third act.  “Transfigurations” lacks the time to explore the Zalkonian society with the twist that John Doe was on the run: he has a death sentence from his people and the charges aren’t explained to the Enterprise crew.  The crime is just natural evolution which feels like a statement on something, but there isn’t enough development given to that as an idea.  The Mutants has a similar problem of the native aliens who are mutating being shot on site because the culture sees it as a death sentence and the mutation is into something visibly monstrous, not just emitting energy and healing people. Echevarria wants to say something about humanity fearing the different and the other, but not actually saying anything.  It doesn’t help that Tom Benko in the director’s seat is just a generic television director. It’s shot perfectly fine, but it almost feels like a reversion to earlier days for the show with little flair.

 

Overall, “Transfigurations” commits the biggest crime of having nothing to actually say about what it is putting on-screen.  It’s not offensively bad, but it commits to being almost uninterested in the premise and story it sets out to tell.  It’s 45 minutes of filling time with something that reads as if Gene Roddenberry put his hand back into the scripting process but Echevarria came back halfway through and wrote out most of his worst written qualities.  This is an episode of Star Trek that has been done before, likely will be done again better, and just exists as a poorly thought out episode of television.  4/10.