[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/skinofevil_hd_386.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I do not serve things evil, I '''am''' evil."'']]

'''Original air date:''' April 25, 1988

The first pivotal episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. An evil, tar-like creature holds Troi hostage on an alien world. During the rescue mission, one of the ''Enterprise'' crew is killed. [[ItWasHisSled It's Tasha]].
----
!!This episode contains the following tropes:
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Troi is on Shuttlecraft 13, which crashes under mysterious circumstances.
* AnAesop: Tasha's death serves as a reminder that our heroes won't always be saved by PlotArmour, and they don't always get to die heroically.
* AintTooProudToBeg: Troi resorts to begging to try to get Armus to release Riker and offers herself instead, but she otherwise doesn't give Armus the satisfaction. The rest of the crew refuse to beg, as well, despite being commanded to.
* AndIMustScream:
** Armus is trapped alone on a dead world with nowhere to go and nothing to do, never to be reunited with the glorious beings who abandoned him there. Forever. And how he screams when Picard rubs that fact in.
** Riker, when trapped inside Armus -- and worse, when he's ''outside'' of Armus, covered in black slime, face frozen in mid-scream.
* AntagonistTitle: "Skin of Evil" describes Armus.
* ApocalypseHow: It's implied (though never stated outright) that the original inhabitants of Vagra II devastated the surface and wiped out nearly all life through their warlike ways, before purifying themselves of their negative aspects. They then left the barren world and left Armus, the embodiment of their cast-off wickedness, as the only thing living on it.
* AsYouKnow: The Chief Engineer (for this episode) announces his name and rank when Picard hails him, even though Picard would be well aware of who his Chief Engineer is. This is because he's the last in a revolving door of temporary Chief Engineer characters spread across season one.
* BaitAndSwitch: The camera zooms in on Geordi studying Armus through his visor while Riker is talking. You'd expect that Geordi would reveal some insight about the creature he'd gained from his special sight, but it's really just setting up Armus knocking Geordi's visor off his face as a cruel game.
* BelievingTheirOwnLies: Captain Picard says this of Armus when he's been stranded on a planet for so long because its former residents didn't want to have anything to do with him, having shed themselves of him (quite literally).
* BlobMonster: Armus is a pool of black sludge that can take a roughly humanoid form.
* BreakTheHaughty: Picard [[LaserGuidedKarma returns fire]] to Armus's KickTheDog actions with ''words'', which are the only thing that can really harm him.
* BreakThemByTalking: Picard's way of defeating Armus; possibly the only way, as he is MadeOfIndestructium to the point where a direct photon torpedo strike isn't expected to kill him, only to destroy the downed shuttle.
* CardCarryingVillain: At the end, while Picard tries to reason with Armus that serving evil enslaves one's mind, Armus has to clarify that he is an actual [[TitleDrop skin of evil]]. Despite this, [[MadeOfEvil Armus had no choice in the matter]].
* ChekhovsGun: The holocube with Tasha's funerary message is given to Data, [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E9TheMeasureOfAMan where it will play an important role]] [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E22TheMostToys in the coming seasons]].
* CompleteImmortality: Armus. And it is absolute torture for him.
* CondescendingCalmness: Picard does this for good reason, to egg Armus on in order for him to lose his concentration and allow the ''Enterprise'' to beam up Troi and the injured shuttle pilot.
* CurbStompBattle: Armus strikes down Tasha, and she is dead almost immediately--much to the dissatisfaction of Armus, who wanted to see her suffer.
* DamselInDistress: Deanna. Trapped in a wrecked shuttle, unable to do anything against Armus. Though her insight does eventually prove significant in helping Picard figure out [[BreakThemByTalking how to defeat Armus]].
* DarkIsEvil: Armus, made out of pure evil, is an entirely black liquid.
* {{Deconstruction}}: What if the security personnel RedShirt wasn't some anonymous character but one of the main cast?
* DontYouDarePityMe: Picard and Deanna both feel some level of pity for Armus when they learn how he came into existence, and just ''how'' unimaginably long he's been alone on the dead planet. Armus feels insulted when they offer their compassion, and Troi's pity presses his BerserkButton, causing him to attack Riker.
-->'''Armus:''' ''Pity'' me?! Save it for ''yourselves''!
* DroppedABridgeOnHer: Tasha Yar tries to ignore Armus and walk around him, only for it to unexpectedly kill her with a single blow. Creator/GeneRoddenberry insisted that Yar's death be senseless rather than a HeroicSacrifice of some sort. Even the new writing staff that took over in Season 3 thought it was such an awful idea that they specifically wrote "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E15YesterdaysEnterprise Yesterday's Enterprise]]" to give Yar a better send-off.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The last time we see an ''Enterprise'' chief engineer other than Geordi, in this case Leland T. Lynch. None of the remaining first season episodes mention a chief engineer, and when Season 2 begins, Geordi has been promoted to the post.
** After Tasha is mortally injured, the away team beams up to the transporter room and then carries her to sickbay. In nearly any future episode, they'd have just beamed her directly to sickbay.
** The ship's crew is gambling on the outcome of the martial arts tournament. Canon would later establish that money became obsolete in the 22nd century. (That said, nothing confirms that they're betting with actual money; it could just be for fun, like the iconic poker games later in the series.)
* EmotionEater: Armus needs it to stave off its own suffering.
* EnemyWithout: Armus was created by an alien race who left his world eons ago, possibly to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. He is the result of a process they used to dispose of their collective negative emotions, of which he is the physical manifestation.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Armus' questions of the ''Enterprise'' crew suggest this. It doesn't seem to get why the Enterprise crew would endure self-sacrifice on behalf of stricken comrades, and a lot of his dialog, when not making threats, revolves around this type of questioning.
* EvilIsPetty: Armus isn't too bright or clever, and all it wants is to torment people for its own amusement, but in rather pedestrian ways like "make Data point guns at everyone." Everyone else refuses to give it the emotional hand-wringing he desires, which frustrates it to no end, and after killing Yar, their deaths no longer amuse him, he is lonely, and the next worst thing it does is envelope Riker and then spit him back out alive again when it is bored. Data even spells out that "Death is no longer sufficient to eliminate its boredom." Basically, Armus is revealed as an attention-starved bully.
* FateWorseThanDeath: Armus is defeated by tricking it into lowering its guard so its hostages can be rescued, then they blow up the shuttle and drop a warning beacon in orbit so no one will ever get near the planet again. Armus has eternity to himself.
* FirstNameBasis: For some reason, both Troi and Picard refer to the injured redshirt on Shuttlecraft 13 simply as "Ben."
* GhostExtras: Yar apparently had no other friends on the Enterprise except everyone in the main cast. You'd think she might have wanted to say something to some of her subordinate security officers.
* HeroicSpirit: Picard says that the human spirit is indomitable, and that true evil is not Armus himself but the resignation of submitting to him.
* HowDareYouDieOnMe: Crusher goes to extraordinary lengths to try reviving Tasha. Even after one of her staff hesitates, she orders the power on the cortical stimulator increased to try again.
* IAmTheNoun: Picard quotes to Armus that [[Creator/PercyByssheShelley "all spirits are enslaved that serve things evil"]]. His reply: "I do not ''serve'' things evil; I '''am''' evil."
* ILied: Armus tells Troi that the ''Enterprise'' crew won't be coming back. Later...
-->'''Armus''': I lied to you. They came back.
* InelegantBlubbering: Armus's screams when Picard is delivering his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech sound very much like weeping. Watching it melt back into a puddle is similar to seeing [[TroubledFetalPosition someone curling up in grief]].
* ItAmusedMe: Armus's stated excuse for killing Tasha and torturing Riker. Deanna realizes that it did ''not'' amuse Armus -- because she didn't suffer.
* ItIsDehumanizing: Armus takes offense to the crew referring to him as "it" as if to suggest he's not a living being. This doesn't stop him from casting aspersions about Data's own sentience, due to being an android.
* KickTheDog: Armus seizes every chance he can get to do this to the away team because he hopes it will amuse him.
* KilledOffForReal: Tasha Yar. Denise Crosby left the show because she felt her character didn't have enough to do in the episodes. The producers probably felt that there were too many characters anyway and needed to trim the cast a bit, so they apparently took it pretty well. In fact, they worked with Crosby to make her departing episode special--in terms of ''Franchise/StarTrek'', the show that was responsible for the {{Redshirt}} trope. Also, driven home is the fact that Yar's death is somewhat pointless and understated and not the type of dramatic heroic death usually reserved for main characters. Crosby has also stated that she would have stayed if she'd gotten more character-based scenes like Tasha and Worf discussing her performance in the tournament.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Considering Armus is living a FateWorseThanDeath, it gets away with ''nothing'' despite ending the episode exactly as it began.
* MadeOfEvil: Armus claims to be a [[TitleDrop skin of evil]] cast off by titans who thought that by ridding themselves of him, they could escape the bonds of destructiveness. He has zero redeeming qualities. He kills because he thinks it will amuse him. He tortures, physically and psychologically for the same reason. He is literally a black tar pit of hate that was cast off long ago. The only thing that might provoke sympathy is that he had no choice in his creation, and his evil nature is torture for him as well, being in a constant state of undirected hatred and rage.
* MagicalDefibrillator: Averted. Dr. Crusher cranks up the cortical stimulator as high as she can trying to restart Tasha's brain function. Her body jumps from the shock, but she's still dead.
* MeaningfulFuneral: The episode ends with the senior officers on a holodeck, where a message recorded by Tasha in case of her demise is played for them. The holocube that contains the message is later given to Data.
* NoSell: Phasers have no effect on Armus.
* OminousObsidianOoze: Armus, a living oil slick MadeOfEvil; while he can take on a roughly humanoid form, he always retains his tarry complexion.
* PowerfulAndHelpless: Armus murders Tasha, physically tortures Riker, and emotionally tortures the rest of the Enterprise away team in order to gain amusement, yet it doesn't amuse him for long and he can't get them to obey him or break their spirit despite his vast power. Rubbing his own impotence in his face turns out to be the key to defeating him, as Picard discovers.
* ThePowerOfHate: {{Subverted}}--Armus is a creature literally MadeOfEvil and this leads the audience to expect that negative emotions would fuel his power. However, being forced to confront and feel his own rage and hate instead of suppressing it makes Armus ''weaker''. Picard fully uses this to his advantage in escaping him. See TalkingTheMonsterToDeath below.
* PunyEarthlings: Armus feels this way about the humans, as his power allows him to kill them with ease despite their force of will.
-->'''Armus:''' You humans are puny. ''Weak.''
* SacrificialLion: Tasha Yar's death makes Armus an especially scary villain for the episode, as none of the other main cast are ever killed off in the series by another villain.
* {{Sadist}}: Armus took no real pleasure in Tasha's death because she went too quickly. He wanted her to suffer first and wants everyone else, too, as well.
* SadisticChoice: Armus tries to force one on Beverly, saying she gets to choose whether Picard, Data, or Geordi die. It doesn't work because she chooses herself, and he would rather she live with the knowledge she chose which of her friends died.
* ScottyTime: Picard telling Lynch to get the dilithium crystals realigned quicker so they can save Deanna and her pilot.
* SenselessSacrifice: Tasha, in keeping with Creator/GeneRoddenberry's insistence that a security officer would die ingloriously.
* ShipTease: Worf encouraging Tasha in her upcoming martial arts tournament, and her smile in response.
* ShutUpHannibal: See TalkingTheMonsterToDeath.
* ShutUpKirk:
-->'''Riker:''' Preserving life--all life--is very important to us.\\
'''Armus:''' Why?
* StupidEvil: Armus. He tortures the ''Enterprise'' away team for fun and then expects them to transport him off world, using threats of more violence as his sole bargaining strategy. Not that he has much of a choice on the matter; as an artificial entity of pure evil, it's literally the only thing he ''can'' do.
* TakeMeInstead: Deanna offers herself to Armus to save everyone else, as she's already his prisoner.
* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Picard utterly [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech breaks, crushes and obliterates]] Armus's spirit.
-->'''Picard:''' [[Creator/PercyByssheShelley A great poet]] once said: "All spirits are enslaved that serve things evil."\\
'''Armus:''' You do not understand. I do not serve things evil; I ''AM'' evil.\\
'''Picard:''' ''(smiling wryly)'' Oh, no. You're not.\\
'''Armus:''' I am a [[TitleDrop skin of evil]] left here by a race of Titans who believed if they rid themselves of me, they would free the bonds of destructiveness.\\
'''Picard:''' Yes. So here you are. Feeding on your own loneliness. Consumed by your own pain. [[BelievingTheirOwnLies Believing your own lies.]] [...] You say you are true evil? Shall I tell you what true evil is? It is to submit to you. It is when we surrender our freedom, our dignity, instead of defying you.\\
'''Armus:''' I will kill you, and those in there!\\
'''Picard:''' [[SuddenlyShouting But you will still be here! In this place!]] [[AndIMustScream Forever! Alone! Immortal!]]\\
'''Armus:''' [[HowlOfSorrow AAARRRGGHHH!!!!!]]\\
'''Picard:''' That's your real fear. [[WhoWantsToLiveForever Never to die.]] Never again to be reunited with those who left you here.\\
'''Armus:''' [[SkywardScream AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!]]\\
'''Picard:''' I'm not taking you ''anywhere.''\\
'''Armus:''' ''[OverlyLongScream]''
* TeleportInterdiction: Armus maintains an energy field around the shuttle that prevents the ''Enterprise'' from rescuing Troi and the pilot. Breaking his concentration on maintaining it is key to resolving the episode.
* ThirdPersonPerson: This episode's entry in the first season's round of finding a Chief Engineer is one Leland T. Lynch, whose gimmick is apparently insisting on using his full name when hailed by the bridge. Picard seems annoyed by this already.
* TonightSomeoneDies: The original episodic promo for the episode (viewable on the Blu-ray release) promised that one of the crew wouldn't be making it out alive, with Tasha, Troi, and Riker all being shown in life-threatening situations. It's the first of the three that ends up getting killed.
* TragicMonster: For all the evil Armus commits, he had no choice in being created as the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil thing]] he is, and is incapable of being anything else. In the end, he is [[AndIMustScream forever stranded and alone]] on a barren planet [[WhoWantsToLiveForever with only his rage, hatred, insanity and loneliness]].
* TraumaButton: Calling Armus "it" makes him think of how the Titans cast him off and abandoned him on this world.
* VaderBreath: Every time Armus speaks it draws a phlegmy breath that makes it sound like it's dying of tuberculosis, in keeping with its appearance as a black sludge monster.
* VideoWills: Tasha leaves a tearjerking one on the holodeck for the rest of the crew.
* VillainousBreakdown: Armus undergoes an epic one in the finale, utterly broken by Picard's speech.
* WhamEpisode: The sudden death of a main cast member in the midst of its first season was quite a shock at the time.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Troi notes that her fellow shuttlecraft crewmember Ben is still alive and greatly wounded. In the end, both are transported out, but there's no mention of whether or not Ben ultimately survived or recovered.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Armus clearly wants to die and his suffering to end, but is incapable of doing so, instead stuck for all eternity on an empty world with his rage and despair.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Armus, rejected and bereft by a species that just abandoned him and left him alone.
* WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied: Armus taunts Troi about Yar; Troi replies that she already sensed Tasha's death.
----
->"''Hailing frequencies closed, sir.''"