Identity Crisis by: Brannon Braga from a story by: Timothy DeHaas and directed by: Winrich Kolbe

 

“Identity Crisis” is written by: Brannon Braga, from a story by: Timothy DeHaas, and is directed by: Winrich Kolbe.  It was produced under production code 192, was the 18^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 92^nd episode overall, and was broadcast on March 25, 1991.

After “Galaxy’s Child” was a failure for Geordi LaForge, it’s nice that “Identity Crisis” proves that he can carry an episode of the show on his own.  This is an episode playing on the idea of horrors coming from the past to catch up with the present, in this episode it is members of an away mission disappearing after five years have passed.  Much of the first act of the episode is establishing the relationship between Geordi and Lieutenant Commander Susanna Leijten, played by Maryann Plunkett.  Brannon Braga is credited with the final script for the episode, and he decides that what Geordi LaForge needs is to have a healthy relationship with a female coworker that is not rooted in romance.  This is a breath of fresh air after “Galaxy’s Child”, Susanna even confiding her own romantic troubles with Geordi in the way that friends do.  For any other main cast member on Star Trek: The Next Generation this would be a normal episode, but Geordi has this trouble of being stuck in the role of either romantic failure when he is given focus in an episode or being relegated to the guy that fixes the Enterprise.

 

Braga gives Geordi a life outside of his standard duties and breaks down those relationships to make a horror episode that under the surface is about losing one’s identity through an exterior, encroaching force.  The big twist is that the away team disappearing is mutating into alien life forms that took five years to gestate within their hosts.  As aliens the parasites are unthinking and uncaring, the infection is a natural part of their life cycle and there is no agency in whom they infect.  “Identity Crisis” has its roots in a different type of science fiction story, one of an illness from space.  This type of story was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s as humanity was first leaving the Earth’s atmosphere and the fear of bringing back a space born virus was very real.  One of the earliest pieces of televised science fiction, The Quatermass Experiment, dealt with this exact problem in a contemporary setting.  Star Trek has done similar premises before as far back as the original series with episodes like “The Naked Time” and “Miri”, the former being an early highlight of the show.

 

While Star Trek: The Next Generation has done space illness episodes before, “The Naked Time” was poorly remade into “The Naked Now”, “Identity Crisis” is unique in the fact that this is very much an episode made with the 1991 audience in mind.  Timothy DeHaas is credited as providing the initial story outline for “Identity Crisis”, though Braga rewrote to focus on Geordi as a character.  It wears its influences prominently on its sleeve: the general premise has its similarities to 1979’s Alien and 1982’s The Thing, though with less sexual imagery and less emphasis on paranoia.  Exploring a slow loss of humanity is clearly inspired by David Cronenberg’s film version of The Fly while the mutated Geordi being able to become invisible and being likened to a hunter has clear links to 1987’s Predator.  “Identity Crisis” is a grab bag of plot points and ideas from popular and cult science fiction and horror films from essentially the last decade.  It’s those aspects of the episode that indicate its origins from a science fiction fan and not a seasoned television writer, but between it being a solid science fiction premise and Brannon Braga’s rewrites there is genuinely effective body horror here.  Michael Westmore is responsible for the costume and makeup effects on the mutated Geordi LaForge, leaning into the color blue as an aesthetic choice is particularly interesting as it is a shade that looks particularly alien.  Westmore has been with Star Trek: The Next Generation since its beginning and his work is often quite fantastic, but “Identity Crisis” is an episode that visually creates a challenge.  It helps that director Winrich Kolbe shoots much of the mutated Geordi from either high or low angles, depending on where the mutation is.  The early stages lean particularly heavy into creating disfigurement, there is a moment where the fingers fuse together.  It’s especially horrific for an episode of syndicated network television that cannot show much blood and gore while getting the episode through standards and practices.

 

Overall, what makes “Identity Crisis” work so well is both being effective at telling a body horror story from a production perspective and giving a standard character focus to a character who only two episodes earlier was treated particularly poorly.  It’s clear that the cast is having a lot of fun with the material and getting to play a script structured like celebrated horror films from the time while the makeup team is pushing as far as they can.  This is not going to be lauded for breaking the mold for Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it is another in the category of very enjoyable episodes that define the standard for a good episode.  7/10.