2x07 Unnatural Selection

[6.5/10] When I think of the platonic ideal of a Star Trek episode, I imagine one where the crew encounters some bewildering sci-fi phenomenon, an exciting challenge that must be overcome, and characters learning something about themselves and one another in the process. Several of the franchise’s high water marks (including TNG’s “Best of Both World”) follow that pattern. There’s more to it than just checking those boxes, but it’s a good foundation upon which to build any Trekian story.

“Unnatural Selection” has each of those things. The wild sci-fi phenomenon this week is a mysterious pathogen that causes those infected to prematurely age. The exciting challenge is whether our heroes can use an experimental transporter process to cure the Enterprise’s chief medical officer before she ages to death. And the character stakes come in the form in the initially-shaky but quick-developing working relationship between Captain Picard and Dr. Pulaski. The basic elements are all there.

So why doesn’t this episode rate higher? Because “Unnatural Selection” doesn’t do much more than check those boxes. The “rapidly aging” thing is interesting for about a minute. It doesn’t really come into play as anything more than a gimmick. The real meat here is in how to quarantine and kill the virus. It could kill the host in a thousand different ways and not make any difference to the plot.

The truth is that it’s an excuse for the make-up team to bust out some old age makeovers, but the results are laughable. Dr. Pulaski just ends up looking like she’s wearing a cheesy rubber Halloween mask, and it frankly looks like the techniques haven’t improved since TOS’s similar rapid-aging episode, “The Deadly Years”, more than twenty years earlier. Diana Muldaur tries to rasp up her voice a bit, but even there, the pure acting choices do little to convince the viewer that any of this is really happening, let alone worth investing in.

The same goes for the problem itself and the solution. The thematic question “Unnatural Selection” asks how to balance the need to take steps to protect individuals out of a moral duty versus the need to protect whole crews and the greater good out of utilitarian (and Vulcan) principle. It’s a solid theme, with Pulaski representing the “duty to save my patients” ideal and Picard represents the “protect my ship and its crew” counterpoint.

The show dramatizes that idea over questions of whether to beam up the seemingly unaffected children of the infected Federation outpost, at the risk of infecting the ship, or to simply quarantine the whole colony to avoid any further collateral damage. Most of these debates feel academic, but there’s something to Pulaski hearing Picard’s concerns and finding a middle ground, ultimately examining a single child on a shuttlecraft, so that if things go sideways, she’ll be the only one affected. It’s a smart, comprehensible solution to the problem.

The same can’t be said for the other developments in the episode. Data (who comes along with Pulaski to the outpost after her shuttlecraft experiment goes wrong) discovers the source of the pathogen when he computes the interaction between a local flu and the genetically-engineered kids’ unique autoimmune response. Chief O’Brien(!) figures out a way to use a sample from pre-infection Pulaski + the transporter and a heap of Treknobabble to scrub her of the virus. These are all mechanical, arbitrary solutions to the problems that don’t carry any dramatic weight. Sure, there’s a few bumps in the road that show it’s not a primrose path to arrive at these solutions, but the show doesn’t earn them so much as have its characters nigh-magically divine them.

Even the Pulaski-Picard material is a mixed bag. There’s some solid arcs for both of them here. Picard is against taking any extra measures to aid the outpost’s scientists because he doesn’t want to risk his crew contracting the illness. But when Pulaski herself is infected, he makes saving her a priority and even mans the transporter controls so as to make saving her or jettisoning her atoms his personal responsibility. Likewise, while Pulaksi is more apt to take individual risks in the hopes of saving a handful of the kids from the outpost, she halts any extraordinary measures to treat her without knowing the cause of the illness out of a concern for the greater health of the ship. By the end, each sees the merits of the other’s position, and that’s good nuts and bolts writing.

Picard and Pulaski also go from testy colleagues to a mutual appreciation society. Picard basically asks Troi if she should get rid of Pulaski and politely snipes at her for interrupting him. Pulaski jumps in to have her say and seems to find the Captain difficult to work with. But when he looks into, Picard discovers that Pulaski is not only dedicated like no other but specifically admired Picard’s leadership and wanted the transfer, while Pulaski sees that Picard is fair and let’s her proceed to try her experimental testing when he sees her trying to address his concerns and work within his limits. There’s warmth when Jean-Luc grabs her by the shoulders upon her successful return and welcomes her back from this dicey, harrowing experience.

It just all plays as very muted and artificial up to that point. The infrastructure is there, but the human element is at a remove. So much of the events of “Unnatural Selection” scan as dry or mechanical (something ironic given Dr. Pulaski’s skeptical treatment of Data). The show even aims to go for some philosophy/poetry here, with the genetically-engineered kids turning out to be the cause of the aging disease, meant to be some statement about playing god and the nature of evolution. But it’s undercooked and jumbled, with the point unclear beyond the usual “We’ve meddled with unknowable forces and suffered the consequences” routine.

It just goes to show that there’s more to crafting a great or even good episode of Star Trek than just following a formula. Even a sturdy plot won’t feel much more than satisfactory with more vivid characters, endearing interactions, engaging conflicts, and earned solutions. All the pieces are there in “Unnatural Selection”, but TNG can’t find a way to make them more than the sum of their parts.

(As an aside, I believe the Kirk-era Enterprise performed a similar teleporter cure after Kirk and Spock had been turned into sea monkeys -- don’t ask -- in “The Ambergris Element” from The Animated Series, so there should theoretically be at least some precedent for O’Brien’s plan here. But TAS’s level of canon is fuzzy at best, so take that with a grain of salt.)

EDIT 7/6/2021: I just realized that it's not "The Ambergris Element" from TAS where a similar transporter solution was used, but rather "The Counterclock Incident". And what's notable about this difference is that the technique wasn't used to reverse Kirk and Spock's mermaid transformation, but rather, to deal with the crew of the original Enterprise rapidly de-aging! So there's even more precedent for using this process to combat unnatural aging-related issues!