Line #37 Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E18Genesis


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tng_genesis10.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''[[Music/{{Devo}} "Are we not men?"]]'']]
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4	'''Original air date:''' March 21, 1994
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6	It's a normal day in sickbay, and Doctor Crusher is examining Barclay's latest bout of hypochondria. It turns out that he really is sick this time, though far from any life-threatening condition, it's an ordinary case of Urodealean flu, which his body is able to fight naturally after Crusher gives him [[ChekhovsGun an injection to activate a required gene that happens to be dormant]]. Data also brings in Spot for a pregnancy checkup, and Nurse Ogawa decides to drop the news that she is also expecting. Looks like the day is off to a good start.
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8	On the bridge, Worf is field testing some newly-upgraded torpedoes in an asteroid field. When one of them [[MisguidedMissile veers off course]] (the result of some "improvements" made to the guidance system by Worf himself), a bored Picard decides to take a shuttle out himself to retrieve it. Data joins as well, after leaving Spot in the care of Barclay.
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10	Not long after they leave, the ''Enterprise'' crew starts exhibiting unusual behavior. Most obvious is Worf, who starts becoming almost feral. Troi starts feeling excessively cold and guzzling water, Barclay is running around like he's on meth, and Riker is finding it difficult to concentrate.
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12	The situation comes to a head when Worf enters Troi's quarters while she is bathing (in her uniform, no less) and bites her in a fit of primal lust. By the time the two of them are taken to Sickbay, Worf is no longer responding to questions. Crusher notices that he has developed some kind of toxin sac on his neck, and when she tries to examine it, Worf sprays acid directly in her face. The results are unpleasant to say the least.
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14	With Crusher incapacitated, much of the crew sick, and a crazed, poisonous Worf on the loose, the remaining senior staff hold a meeting to discuss how to handle the situation. Unfortunately, most of them are too far gone by now, particularly Riker, whose cognitive problems have rendered him unable to command.
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16	When Picard and Data return from their mission some days later, they find the ''Enterprise'' adrift and unresponsive to hails. Inside they find what appears to be a mostly empty ship, but internal sensors confirm that the the crew is present, and they have all started to de-evolve into various primitive species. Troi resembles an amphibian species, Riker has become proto-human, and Barclay arachnid. An airborne virus is causing random introns, latent DNA from previous evolutionary forms, to activate and revert the crew to earlier stages of their evolution.
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18	Non-human species are also affected, including Spot. Picard notices that Spot has given birth and her kittens are not affected, leading Data to conclude that Spot's prenatal antibodies made them immune. To that end, they find Nurse Ogawa, since she is also pregnant, to acquire humanoid antibodies that will be effective for the crew.
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20	There is one other problem: Worf's transformation has taken the form of a highly aggressive proto-Klingon predator. As he is trying to break into sickbay, Picard realizes that Worf is being driven towards Troi by his mating instincts. To give Data time to work on the antivirus, Picard lures Worf away using a hypospray containing Troi's pheromones.
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22	After a chase through the corridors, Picard is able to improvise an electrical trap that incapacitates Worf long enough for Data's cure to take effect. Once the crew has returned to normal, Crusher finds that the virus came about from the injection she gave to Barclay, which had the unintended side-effect of activating more than just the one gene it was meant to. Crusher tells Barclay that she's going to name the new disease after him, being patient zero. Seeing the lieutenant's thousand-yard stare in reaction to this news on top of recent events, Troi realizes that she'll need to clear her calendar for the next few weeks.
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24	!!Tropes featured:
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26	* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
27	** Put simply, the events of this episode take a ''lot'' of liberties with how evolution and DNA work. You could argue that the mutations are genetic atavisms being activated but even that would be a stretch.
28	** Spot is clearly not about to give birth to a litter of kittens. The kittens we see are also clearly not a day or two old. Combined, they appear to weigh more than the supposedly pregnant Spot.
29	** T-cells are a type of white blood cell, not a virus or a part of your DNA, and they certainly don't jump from one person to another. (Crusher ''does'' say something about them fighting off infection, though, which is true, so there's that.)
30	** Unless one of Barclay's ancestors married and had kids with an arachnoid alien (which is a stretch even by ''Trek'' standards), there's no way he could have any spider DNA. The common ancestors (nephrozoans) of humans and spiders diverged about 650 million years ago, before we'd even started evolving legs (for reference, the branch (protostomes) that led to spiders also produced the likes of snails and earthworms).
31	** Similarly, cats are not descended from iguanas, nor any other form of reptile. The branches that lead to the evolution of mammals (synapsids) and reptiles (sauropsids) diverged over 300 million years ago.
32	** Humans aren't descended from lemurs or pygmy marmosets either (although in this case at least, Data said Picard would become something ''similar'' to one of those, so you could just read it as "some sort of prosimian or early monkey").
33	* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Crusher claims that new diseases are traditionally named after the first patient diagnosed with the disorder. This is not true, as there is no single tradition for naming diseases. Many are named with a technical description of the disease. Many more are named after the doctor who first researched them, such as Parkinson's disease. Some ''are'' named, colloquially or not, after notable patients, such as Legionnaire's disease or Lou Gerhig's disease (ALS). Others are named for the location of the first outbreak, such as Ebola. Others are named more eccentrically, such as Syphilis, named after a character who had the disease in a Latin pastoral poem.
34	* AsteroidThicket: Actually {{Lampshaded}} for once--Data mentions that the asteroid field is "unusually dense," which is why Picard and Data use a shuttle to chase the stray torpedo.
35	* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Barclay turns into a mutant many-eyed spider, Riker turns into an ape, and Worf into a completely unrecognizable crustacean-like monstrosity. Troi, by contrast, gets frog hands, amphibian eyes, and a little bit of green scales on her face and neck, but that's about it, and Crusher's disfigurement is never actually shown onscreen at all.
36	* BodyHorror: Due to the gene activation injection, the crew starts transforming into various humanoid hybrids. This is not limited to humanoids; Data's cat Spot turns into an iguana. For example:
37	** Barclay: A spider
38	** Troi: An amphibian
39	** Riker: An ''Australopithecine''
40	** Worf: A proto-Klingon predator
41	** Livingston the lionfish: A jellyfish
42	** Picard (though he doesn't transform): A lemur
43	** Nurse Ogawa: An unknown proto-human
44	* ChekhovsGun:
45	** Spot's soon-to-be-born kittens and Ogawa's pregnancy provide Data with what he needs to reverse the de-evolution.
46	** Barclay hooks up a power conduit early on as a bypass. Picard uses it to shock the transformed Worf during the climax.
47	* CoitusInterruptus: The injury Riker's being treated for in the prologue came about when a date in the arboretum got hot-and-heavy, and he rolled into some cactus in the process.
48	* ContinuityNod:
49	** Barclay is still using the medical database to self-diagnose.
50	** Troi takes a duty shift on the bridge after getting a promotion to commander in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E15ThineOwnSelf Thine Own Self]]."
51	** Ogawa is now a lieutenant after getting promoted in "Lower Decks."
52	* DistractedByTheSexy: Worf leers inappropriately at the female server in Ten Forward as his baser instincts start to take over. She's not even wearing anything particularly sexy, but that doesn't seem to matter to him.
53	* EasilyForgiven: While it was a freak accident she was very unlikely to for-see, Crusher is still pretty blasé about causing a plague that injured or even killed multiple crew members and traumatised almost all of them. Despite this being one of the darkest episodes in the series and one of the most destructive incidents in the history of the ship, the story ends with characters joking about the whole thing.
54	* FakeShemp: Crusher spends most of the episode as two burned hands and a splash of red hair spilling out from underneath a blanket, clearly not portrayed by Gates [=McFadden=], who directed the episode.
55	* FailedASpotCheck: The corpse of the poor RedShirt who was operating the conn is still sitting at his station when Picard and Data find him, indicating that he completely failed to notice his attacker until it actually reached him.
56	* FrazettaMan: ''Australopithecine'' Riker (who should, by rights, be one of the more ''intelligent'' creatures on board) is portrayed as an aggressive, near-mindless brute. Indeed, the first symptom of Riker's infection is that he starts to become slow, forgetful and stupid.
57	* GoneHorriblyWrong: Crusher's injection to activate Barclay's dormant immune gene accidentally ends up activating a whole lot more.
58	* GoryDiscretionShot: We don't see the effect of Worf's acid attack on Dr. Crusher, but her reaction makes it clear how painful it was, and Ogawa says she will require [[BodyHorror extensive reconstructive surgery]].
59	* InducedHypochondria: In the first scene, Barclay has been looking up his symptoms ([[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E2RealmOfFear again]]), despite Crusher having told him not to. He becomes convinced he's suffering from something called [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "Terellian death syndrome"]], or possibly "Symbalene blood burn".
60	* ItsAllMyFault: Worf blames himself for the torpedo malfunction.
61	* JabbaTableManners: Worf tears into a table full of food like a wild animal, pausing only to belch or snap at Troi with his mouth full.
62	* JumpScare: Spider-Barclay jumps up and scares the hell out of Picard.
63	* KindheartedCatLover: It turns out Barclay is a cat person. Though Spot's previous sitters have complained about what a terror she is, she and Barclay seem to get along just fine.
64	* LEGOGenetics: The intron virus and its effects are quite firmly outside the realm of plausibility. Apart from the token {{Technobabble}} needed to move the plot forward, no attempt is made to justify it.
65	* MotorMouth: Barclay's first symptoms are twitchiness and rapid speech.
66	* NotHimself: Behavioral changes are the first symptoms of the intron virus.
67	* NothingIsScarier:
68	** An in-universe example with Picard, who starts to become abnormally anxious due to the intron virus ramping up his fight-or-flight instinct. Despite this, in true badass fashion, he manages to control his fear enough to not only come up with a solution, but provoke Worf into chasing him to buy time for Data.
69	** Speaking of Worf; the viewer is never given a clear look at what Worf turned into as a result of the virus. Whatever it is, though, has Picard scared out of his wits! Behind-the-scenes photos do show it, though, and it's basically just a Predator face in Klingon skin tone.
70	* OmniDisciplinaryScientist: Crusher and Ogawa are not only experts in a wide range of alien biology, but they're also veterinarians.
71	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: One of the early symptoms of the syndrome involves behavioral changes. For example:
72	** Riker's mind wanders, and he can't think straight.
73	** Barclay is hyperactive.
74	** Geordi is easily tired.
75	** Troi is constantly [[ImColdSoCold cold]] and thirsty.
76	** Worf is even more aggressive than usual (including sexually).
77	** Picard is on the verge of panic.
78	* PatientZero: The injection Barclay received for his flu is what started the virus aboard ''Enterprise''.
79	* PhlebotinumProofRobot: Data is the only member of the crew who is immune to the reverse-evolution virus that has infected everyone else.
80	* PowerCableAttack: Picard uses this to incapacitate Worf. Bonus points for laying down a non-conductive piece of paneling to kneel on while he lights up the Jeffries tube.
81	* RedShirt: One is confirmed killed before he started transforming.
82	* SleptThroughTheApocalypse: Well, "was out looking for an errant torpedo during the apocalypse" in this case, but the same basic principle. When Picard and Data set off, everything on board the ''Enterprise'' is pretty much routine; they return three days later to find everything's gone to hell.
83	* SnapBack: Once Data synthesizes the cure, we cut back from commercial and everything is completely back to normal.
84	* SpidersAreScary: Especially a six-foot spider who's still partly human.
85	* SuperSpit: Worf shoots out a spray of acid that takes Crusher out of the episode early on and injures Picard during the climax.
86	* ThatsAnOrder: Riker ordering Worf to take a break.
87	* ThermalDissident: Doctor Crusher treats Lieutenant Barclay for Urodelan flu by activating some dormant genes. While this does effectively cure him, Barclay's biology also generates a virus that activates dormant genes in other crew members. Counselor Troi gets infected, and begins mutating into a frog-girl. While she has command of the bridge, Troi routinely bumps up the bridge temperature to tropical levels, to the dismay of Worf.
88	* ThermostatTamperTantrum: After the crew's exposure to an unusual virus that slowly alters and de-evolves those infected -- Deanna Troi as acting captain on watch, while experiencing the first symptoms and feeling cold, keeps asking the computer to increase the temperature on the bridge, to the visible discomfort of all other crew mates. Worf steps in and resets it to normal, asking Troi to seek a medical evaluation.
89	* TooDumbToLive: Despite Worf acting extremely unusual, and Crusher noting that he's growing an acidic toxin sac on his neck, she stares him straight on (without even reaching for a face shield) and tries to examine his mouth, getting a faceful of acid as a result. Real smart, doc.
90	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Geordi is among those affected by the mysterious illness, and his symptoms (extreme lethargy and becoming exhausted easily) are different than everyone else's, suggesting that he is devolving into a unique creature...but he's the only main crew member to ''not'' show up fully transformed in the final acts, so we never find out what exactly he becomes.

Context Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E18Genesis