Counselor Troi, did you throw on my old man makeup again? I must say that it at least looks better on you than I and that is not saying much!
Well, it’s time for another weird episode from the Star Trek franchise. I haven’t done many of these in a while. You can only watch so many weird episodes of Trek. I’d rather watch the good ones. Anyway, today’s episode is from Season 6 of TNG. That was a fine season for the show but I can’t really say that about this episode. “Man of the People" was the third episode for the season and it involves Counselor Troi going through the gauntlet again. It tends to happen a lot with her.
The episode starts out with the Enterprise finding a transport being attacked. Apparently, they’re being attacked because a diplomat, Ramid Ves Alkar, is on board. They save the transport and save Alkar who’s with his really overprotective mother. Starfleet orders the Enterprise to take Alkar to his destination since he’s needed for an important peace negotiation. While he’s on board, Alkar takes a liking to Troi and his mother isn’t liking it one bit. The mother then suddenly passes away. Dr. Crusher wants to run an autopsy, but Alkar’s customs won’t allow that. He then gets with Troi to do some sort of funeral ceremony that involves weird stones.
After the ceremony, Troi starts to feel… turned on sexually. She makes advances at Alkar but he refuses her. This leads her to find some random Ensign. Riker finds out about this and is kind of weirded out. It even gets weirder when Troi starts to age rapidly, act unprofessional, and not wear her uniform. She even came on Riker at some point and scratched his neck badly. She tries to get with Alkar again but he refuses. When the Enterprise makes it to the planet and Alkar is preparing to leave, a really old Troi finds his party and tries to kill his female assistant in a jealous rage. Instead, she stabs Picard.
Is that the "Talk to the Hand" maneuver, Sensei Worf?
At Sickbay, Dr. Crusher notices that some readings from Troi are similar to Alkar’s mother. Since this could be a danger to Troi and the ship, Picard allows her to do the autopsy. It’s revealed that Alkar’s mother wasn’t actually his mother and she had the body of a 30-year-old. Looking for answers, Picard heads down to the planet and talks to Alkar. It’s revealed that Alkar has the ability to channel his negative emotions into women which makes them age rapidly. He’s also been doing this for years.
Alkar won’t let her go, so Picard and the rest need to find something save Troi. In order to save Troi, they decide to kill her in order make Alkar leave her body. After they get him back on the ship and tell Alkar about Deanna’s death, he tries to look for a new lady. When Troi’s readings start to get back to normal, they bring her back and somehow make her age back to her regular self. As for Alkar, he starts to age rapidly and dies. The episodes ends with Riker and Troi having a nice moment together.
This is more or less what happens to Alkar only done with a big budget.
So, what do I think of this one? Honestly, it’s alright. It’s weird that I decided to look at yet another episode where one of the female crew is getting attention from the bad guy of the episode. I’m also beginning to notice that these episodes are not that good. At least this was one I could exercise to. The concept of Alkar was based on The Picture of Dorian Gray. For those who don’t know (including me since I never read that book), Dorian sold his soul so that he could hold on to his youth. While he stayed young, a painted portrait of him would grow older and older.
Anyway, the episode is a bit on the bland side. There’s really not much to it. We get a mystery of something going on with Deanna and that’s about it. While the villain is pretty horrid in what he does, the actor playing him is a bit of a bore. We also get some bad make-up for Deanna when she start to turn old. Even the ending is a bit rushed since Deanna goes from old to young in about a minute.
Okay, this scene was pretty funny.
The only good things we really get is Marina Sitiris looking pretty attractive and chewing up the set with that acting. Also, I thought Riker’s reaction when he found Ensign Randomson in Deanna’s room was hilarious. Overall, it’s best to skip this one. I will say that it is better than “Sub Rosa,” though. If you need a good episode with Deanna at the forefront, try “Face of The Enemy” where she becomes a Romulan for an episode. Well, that’s all I got for now. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be wary of mourning dudes with glowing stones. They’re just bad news, guys and gals.
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