7x06 Phantasms

[6.4/10] If “Birthright” asked the question, “What would it mean if Data had dreams?” then a natural follow-up is “What would it mean if Data had nightmares?” “Phantasms” tackles that idea with vigor, finding more success in plumbing the pecuiarity of what a night terror would look like for an anrdoid than in actually deriving any meaning or point from it. But in its final season, Star Trek: The Next Generation continues to explore the human experience through the lens of someone outside of it, encountering dribs and drabs of the fundamental or strange parts of our existence.

Unfortunately, it also subscribes to another long-running trend on TNG -- a mystery whose answer is obvious long before the show drops its big reveal. In the opening scene, Data dreams about a group of miners hacking away at a warp plasma conduit. Then, just a scene or two later, the ship sputters when trying to jump to warp speed, only for Geordi to tell the captain it’s due to a malfunctioning warp plasma conduit. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Data is perceiving problems aboard the ship, but processing them metaphorically in his dreams for whatever reason.

It’s not a bad concept! But it makes the ensuing forty minutes, where Data, Troi, and nearly everyone else aboard the ship tries to piece together why Data’s having these dreams and what they all mean feel unnecessarily tedious. Charitably, it’s always a fine line when it comes to unspooling these sorts of puzzles. Make it too easy, and the steady grind of plot progression seems like a waste of time. Make it too opaque, and the solution feels inadequately setup. I don’t envy the writers trying to fine tune this one, but suffice it to say, the balance of mystery to setup is off.

That said, “Phantasms” works best apart from its plot as a pure spook-fest. The word “Lynchian” is thrown around all too easily for anything that goes weird or deploys pretzel logic in its presentation. But the core of David Lynch’s ability to unnerve didn’t just rest on the strange, it hinged on turning the everyday and familiar into the disturbing and alien, and Data’s dreams fit that to a tee.

They make the simple act of walking down the hallway seem strangely chilling, with a Kubrickian approach to the long hallways of the Enterprise, and shots of Data walking into and out of his own perspective. The different lenses and editing have enough in common with the approach from “Birthright” to communicate that this is a dream, while also making familiar sets and characters seem just unreal or out of place enough to evoke the sense of the uncanny.

What’s impressive is that, in a vacuum, there’s nothing all that frightening in Data’s nightmare. The miners tearing him apart is a little freaky, and Troi’s pleas not to be hurt as Data cuts off a piece of her in baked good form wind you up. But for the most part, it’s the sundry details that feel the most scary: an omnipresent ringing (something Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” would pick up), Worf savoring some mint frosting, a phone inside Data’s chest cavity, demands from Commander Riker to answer it. Taken on their own, there’s nothing that bizarre about any of these things, but the presentation, the sense of each of them as out of sync with reality, creates a steady sense of unease that becomes the best achievement in the episode.
At the same time, “Phantasms” finds its way toward more traditional scares. There’s something endlessly terrifying about turning Data into a slasher villain. There’s a Hitchcock vibe to him grabbing a serrated knife, pursuing, and eventually stabbing Counselor Troi. (It may have even been a direct *Psycho homage.) Again, the blocking and staging make it terrifying on its own, but conceptually, it’s just as disturbing to think of Data, with all his crew-thwarting abilities, using them to hunt and kill his fellow crew members rather than protect them, even if it’s a feint.

Likewise, it’s skin-crawlingly creepy when Dr. Crusher flashes some futuristic UV rays and discovers that there’s undetectable bugs all over everyone’s skin, slowly but surely sucking them dry. The art direction on the insects is superb, and it adds another layer to the horror show that “Phantasm” does so well. These elements don’t necessarily add much to the story, but as pure craft, unvarnished horror set pieces, they’re extraordinary, and the biggest thing the episode accomplishes.

Sadly, that’s most of what “Phantasms” has going for it. Outside of the disappointing main plot and the horror sequences, what’s left is mostly filler. There’s a running gag about Picard trying to get out of going to a boring “Admiral’s Banquet” that feels like the reheated leftovers of a sitcom. There’s an abortive subplot about an ensign having a crush on Geordi which goes nowhere. (If I’m generous, maybe her presence is supposed to be a red herring for the mystery plot? Otherwise, she’s just another Ensign Gomez.) The only redeeming element of this detritus is that there’s some amusing feline-based material, with Data watching Spot sleep, playing with him via a cat dancer, and most amusingly, giving Worf a laundry list of ways to care for the little kitty. Otherwise, all “Phantasms” has to offer is an overly telegraphed mystery and some shticky interludes with Sigmund Freud to gild the lily.

The worst part of the whole thing is the final act, where the show removes any pretense of subtext, and just has Picard and Geordi waltz into Data’s dream and decipher the meaning of every piece of symbolism in Data’s nightmare. It makes the whole thing artless and facile, holding the audience's hand through any bit of ambiguity so that it’s as plain as the nose on your face what’s going on.

Despite some beef with his other work, I’m hesitant to slate writer Brannon Braga too much for the overly long, overly explanatory final act of the episode. I can just envision some studio executive saying, “This is too weird and cerebral! You need to tell the audience what’s going on in no uncertain terms or no one will get it!” But it still makes the closing set of answers, about bugs only Data can perceive draining the new warp core, feel like a dull waste of an out there concept in its conclusion.

That concept is a good one. Asking “Do androids dream of electric boogiemen?” is a worthy use of the show’s time and Data’s continued quest toward humanity. Exploring the notions that dreams often help us to work through problems, mixing and matching ideas until we see the right connections, is a worthwhile tack. And using the show’s talented production team to convey terror and unnerving scenes is a great idea. But the story here sags, and ultimately, the show removes all of the unknown and the transcendent from the liminal space Data is traipsing through. It makes his experiences, his mental metaphors, knowable and prosaic, ironically moving him further away from the psychological mysteries of the human experiences, instead of bringing him closer to them.