“Remember Me”

Great reviews, Jammer. I've been a lurker on your site for years and it's a treat to see your take on TNG in its prime.

Having read all of your previous Trek reviews I was surprised to find you more forgiving of the Traveler than I expected - both in your review of "Remember Me" and in Season One's "Where No One Has Gone Before". While I certainly admire continuity touches I can't believe that of all the elements the producers could (and did) have recur in TNG they picked that guy. I just never liked this character on any level. I find Eric Menyuk's delivery irritating. (Thank Roddenberry that guy wasn't cast as Data!) His whole vague sponsorship of Wesley's odyssey into heightened planes of consciousness or whatever smacks to me of half baked writing at best. At least Riker delivered the annoyed line "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" when the Traveller gets metaphysical in describing Beverly's predicament.

I guess to me The Traveller was the living embodiment of the failings of how the Wesley character was handled by TNG which, of course, culminated in Season Seven's "Journey's End". After the compelling, flawed and very human Wesley Crusher of "The First Duty" we get The Traveller to come back to tell us that Wesley isn't just Mozart with a tricorder - he's better than your whole species! He can freeze time and shit - he's almost a frakkin' Q!!

Anyway keep up the good work and can't wait to see your opinions on the rest of the series...

Remember Me was probably my favourite stand alone episode of the season. I re-watched TNG recently and had somehow had missed this episode in the shows original run.

I loved the desperate, confusing and maddening scenario Crusher was thrown into and the battle of logic versus fact which she was confronted with. Particularly interesting was the part where she was alone on the bridge challenging the computer about the nature of the universe only to have it respond that the universe is a sphere 645m in diameter

There aren't a great deal of episodes which use Crusher effectively, but this was one of them

Remember Me was one of the most maddeningly fun episodes of TNG for me. Some of the back and forth dialog between Crusher and the computer near the end was great. It's nice seeing the positive comments for the episode.

I only saw Remember Me the once, when it first aired in the UK; but I still recall my glee at the computer's line towards the end, when Beverley's micro-universe has collapsed to the point where it's smaller than the Enterprise. When she demands to know why the Enterprise is starting to break up, the computer pauses for half a second - then replies "Flaw in ship's design".

Regarding Phil's dislike of Wesley's Q-like state in "Journey's End": I agree Wesley's character wasn't as compelling in that episode as he was in "The First Duty," but was it really any worse than Sisko becoming a Prophet on DS9?

To Jake RE: Sisko becoming a Prophet no worse than Wesley becoming a Traveler... (I see you posted this months ago but hadn't been to the site for awhile)

I think "What You Leave Behind" was an outstanding finale. However, the resolution to Sisko's story and his transformation are, for me, one of the weaker points of the episode. Having said that I do think the Wesley Crusher storyline is much worse.

Benjamin Sisko was the central figure of an epic seven season story arc. I don't believe the writers started out knowing that he was the child of a Prophet whose destiny was to one day return to the Celestial Temple. But when they decided to go that direction late in the series it didn't, to me, feel wildly out of place with what we had seen before. In the pilot "Emissary" he had no desire to have anything to do with Bajor and couldn't move beyond the loss of his wife. Only when he encounters the Prophets does he find the drive to begin a new journey. And along the way he resists, begins to accept and eventually champions the role of the Emissary. When the war is over and the Pah-wraiths are vanquished his return to the Temple seems to thematically parallel Odo's rejoining to the Great Link and even, to a lesser extent, Worf's return to the Klingon homeworld (which the shitty "Star Trek: Nemesis" rendered meaningless) and O'Brien's return to Earth.

Wesley's character arc is not nearly so epic or consistent. To me the decision to make him an interdimensional being felt arbitrary. I realize that, as with Sisko, the seeds had been planted for that destiny seven years before but Wesley only regularly appeared on the show for less than half of its run. I just don't believe the producers ever had a good handle on what to do with the character. I think Wesley Crusher was an unwanted inheritance from Gene Roddenberry that Berman and Co. eventually stuck on a fold out table in a galactic yard sale with a Post-it that said "1 Bar of Gold Pressed Latinum or Best Offer". And I just didn't buy it.

Phil,
I still don't think Sisko's 'evolution' into an interdimensional being was any better than Wesley's.
Sisko having a bond with the Prophets was one thing but for them to pull a Darth Vader/"I am your mother" revelation on him toward the end of the series was just too much.
Sisko should've either died heroically fighting Dukat or the final shot should've been him & Jake staring out that window.

Oh Jammer...

I've only just begun to delve into your TNG reviews and I'm not optimistic--it colours your view on everything else..."Remember Me" is one of the worst episodes of trek EVER! It's poorly acted, pointless in every regard, contrived, and purports a seriousness that it can't begin to deliver upon--Beverly flying sideways on the bridge...c'mon seriously? Troi's speech about acting in the best interest of the crew...really? And "Redemption" is possibly better than BOBW, and it gets 2.5 stars...really?

I'm disappointed.

"I'm disappointed."

By what? The fact that someone has a different opinion?

"And 'Redemption' is possibly better than BOBW, and it gets 2.5 stars...really?"

I gave "Redemption" 3 stars.

@Jammer I could have sworn that part II got 2.5, my bad. It is still possibly better than BOBW, which would mean it should get 4 stars, no?

@Craig Actually, I'm disappointed because I have found myself in strong disagreement with many of Jammer's VOY and DS9 reviews, but I was hoping that in a series which we both love, there might have been more harmony. Everyone is entitled to his opinion, even if it's wrong.

I just wanted to say I too love this episode as well. I never skip it when rewatching the TNG series on DVDs. There is some really amusing lines and dialog in it, like when Beverly says she's the only one on the ship? The computer replies in the affirmative, then she says does she have the qualifications for it? When the computer fesses she doesn't, she says I got you.

I loved the scene on the bridge where Beverly tries to convince Picard that there should be many more people on the large starship then just her and Picard and Picard replies deadpan "We never needed others before."

I agree with Jammer's rating on this one.

The scene between her and Picard on the bridge being the only 2 people left in the universe is one of my all time favorite TNG moments. I also remember when this episode first aired, I was 8 years old and the scenes of Beverly being chased down the corridors by white nothingness scared the crap out of me.

I liked this episode, it had some nice moments, except when Wesley starting pressing blindly buttons. That was lame.

Riker's annoyed tone in his "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" line was pure epic. I like this guy.

Ditto for the "what the hell is that supposed to mean line".

The bits about the dimensions of the universe and the crew complement of the Enterprise were amusing too, and, once again, TNG does what Voyager never could, a high concept episode that is coherent with its own premises, and although it has a quick fix, isn't so reset button-ish or easy.

Ditto as well with being glad that the Traveller didn't get the Data character.

Note: the way I tend to read texts, including TV shows, is to tend to try to find what meaning I find there and not try to worry too much if it was authorially intended. I mention this now because this episode I think is especially neat -- but it's especially hard to know how much the writing staff were thinking about these things, or whether they caught these things subconsciously, or not at all. I also don't know how much they planned to return to Wesley and the Traveller again.

I love this episode too. I think it's probably second only to "Cause and Effect" in terms of pure tech-centric episodes, though I do think this has a greater character core and resonance. What this episode does is in the best tradition of SF, and especially television SF (especially "The Twilight Zone"), in which it uses an extreme high-concept to illustrate an extremely specific emotion that almost any straightforward drama would not be able to represent directly without being "burdened" by the more general associations.

There are, I think, two central themes for the Beverly side of things, which do dovetail with each other fairly well (though not perfectly). One is what Jammer describes -- the demonstration of Beverly applying sound logic to her situation, and still being unable to get through to those around her. This leads to the great absurdist humour that runs throughout everything, as well as the fantastic sequence after the ship has been emptied of everyone but Beverly and the computer, and she does everything she can to work out the problem by herself. The Traveller's repeated words to Wesley -- that he can open the door for him, but only Wesley can walk through it -- also apply to what Wesley does for his mother, for while it's Wesley who "saves" her, it's really Beverly who does the hard work of figuring out that she is being saved, and she does so through the application of logic and deduction. With the possible exception of Data and Wesley (who is not much longer for the ship anyway), Crusher is the cast member most obviously dedicated to scientific pursuits, though her focus is on life rather than physical science. Since the entire Beverly plotline, ultimately, takes place within her mind, it is a pleasure to watch her struggle against the trap that her mind has created for her *emotionally* (i.e. emotionally, she has created a scenario in which no one but her remembers those missing and thus no one but her is capable of seeing the absurdity and illogic of what is happening) by punching her way out intellectually and through careful understanding of what has happened to her.

The second is the theme that the episode itself announces more directly -- whereby Beverly is thinking about Dr. Quaice's words when she enters the warp bubble. To wit:

"QUAICE: We had a lifetime together, doing all the things we'd ever dreamed, and more. But when she was gone, I couldn't continue to work in that office, sleep in that bed without her. The absence of her was too distracting. I'm not sure that I'm making any sense.
CRUSHER: Jack and I didn't have a lifetime together, only a few short years, but I understand. When you realise someone you love is lost forever
QUAICE: You know what the worst part of growing old is? So many of the people you've known all your life are gone and you realise you didn't take the time to appreciate them while you still could. Oh, I'm sorry. There was no reason to heap all this emotional baggage on you. I usually travel light. "

When I had seen the episode in the past, I loved it but wasn't all that convinced the episode was actually "about" aging and losing loved ones -- after all, how does Crusher being unable to convince the crew on the ship that they are missing crew members tie in with this at all? But looking carefully at Quaice's words, he twice indicates that he doesn't really think that Beverly can or should understand what he's going through. "I'm not sure that I'm making any sense." "There was no reason to heap this emotional baggage on you." Part of what is painful for Quaice -- and it's subtle (and possibly even unintentional) -- is not just that he is losing loved ones, but that he has to bear this burden (mostly) alone; his younger friends like Beverly don't really understand what it's like for him, and he has lost most of the people his own age. In that sense, Beverly's nightmare scenario created by her thoughts is not just a matter of losing the people whom she loves, one by one, until she's completely alone: it's that every time she loses someone, no one around her understands what she's going through or even believes that what has happened is significant. That's part of what I meant earlier when I said that this episode is about something so specific that a straight drama could not really examine this easily. This isn't about losing people -- it's about the disconnection and isolation that comes with losing people and those around you not being able to connect to your grief. Because it's an extreme version of that, it's not only that people can't understand what Beverly is feeling, they deny that her feelings have any referent in reality at all.

I was thinking about why this had to be a Crusher show. Besides Picard and obviously Guinan (as well as Pulaski) Crusher is the oldest in the cast. But Guinan has already been through the trauma of people dying many, many times and does not have to learn that lesson; meanwhile, Picard has eschewed close emotional connections most of his life, and so doesn't really understand any of it either. Beverly is entering a time in her life when people *are* going to start leaving her life permanently. Dr. Quaice is going to die. Picard eventually will, too. Jack has already died -- and while many of the characters in this show have lost parents, most of them were too young to really, really remember it. And while Wesley is not going to die, he *is* going away soon; and viewers who have seen ahead know that after "Final Mission," Beverly only sees Wesley about three more times before he goes off into another dimension and leaves her behind as a permanent presence forever. It's appropriate that it's Wesley's experiment with warp bubbles that got Beverly trapped, because these experiments of Wesley -- which eventually require the Traveller to come by. Wesley's "destiny" (quotes because I don't mean he "has a destiny," but rather just the thing that eventually Wesley will devote his life to) is the thing that will take Wesley away from her for good and leave her alone, and so it is natural that it's because of Wesley's experiment that Beverly becomes trapped in the nightmare version of aging and losing everyone in your life.

So, is there a connection between Beverly the aging woman who is losing everyone in her life, and Beverly the rational scientist who figures her way out? I am not positive -- but maybe the reason this all works so well is that ultimately Beverly's nightmare is irrational. People are going to die, and people are going to leave her, but Beverly is not yet alone, and the worst-case scenario -- wherein people simply disappear and only she is able to contain the knowledge of their existence -- is not reality. Wesley will eventually leave her, but he won't just disappear -- he will go on to pursue his best life. And he will probably visit. (I guess he visits in Nemesis for the Riker/Troi wedding, but I also want to pretend that movie never happened.) It's not Beverly's sole purpose, either, to hold the memories of everyone in her head. Trek values intelligence and rationality in a way many other works, even SF works, do not, and the suggestion that cool-headed logical thinking is the way to quell irrational fears -- even fears with some element of truth to them -- is something that I appreciate and find very Trekkian.

Wesley's doing calculations blindfolded is pretty goofy. But ultimately this is the least of a stretch of any of the three Wesley-Traveller episodes. Wesley saving his mother works well because he was the one who trapped her there -- and the joyful reunion that the two have at the episode's end is rather touching, especially knowing that they are going to go separate ways soon. After pretty much all of season three except for "Evolution" relegating Wesley to the background, it's nice that he is taken more seriously as a character in the run-up to his departure in "Final Mission." The three most important people in Wesley's life -- living or dead -- are Jack, Beverly and Picard, and there is one episode which devotes time to each relationship (Wesley & Jack in "Family," Wesley & Beverly here, Wesley & Picard in "Final Mission"). Wesley's warp bubble project, his destiny away from his mother, is what sends her into the nightmare where she loses people, but he has the chance to make things right and bring her back, removing the chance that his departure to go live his own life will destroy his mother.

I just find the whole thing a lot of fun, and really touching too when Beverly finds herself alone and talking about how much everyone deserves better than to be forgotten. I love Beverly's sarcasm and annoyance throughout, too. I think this episode shows off her great qualities better than any other episode in the series. It is probably "only" a 3.5 star show, but...ah, heck, let's say 4.

Re: points above, yes to almost all (positive) comments. "A flaw in the ship's design" is a brilliant computer line. (Though technically, I don't see why there should be any decompression -- where exactly is the air supposed to go?)

BEVERLY: Here's a question you shouldn't be able to answer. Computer, describe the nature of the universe.
COMPUTER: The universe is a spheroid region, 705 metres in diameter.

And also:

CRUSHER: What is the primary mission of the Starship Enterprise?
COMPUTER: To explore the galaxy.
CRUSHER: Do I have the necessary skills to complete that mission alone?
COMPUTER: Negative.

Riker's "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" is great. The whole episode is filled with gems.

The music in this episode really stands out, particularly in the later scenes where Crusher is on her own on the bridge. I love those tuba triplets.

Wow, what a wonderful episode. FANTASTIC.

Submitted for your perusal: Dr. Beverly Crusher, age 42. As a member of the medical profession, she has assisted in the birth of new life, the setting of bones, the healing of wounds, the curing of diseases. Her success depends on a calm, scientific mind that understands how humans fit within a rational world. In a few minutes, she will realize the limits of this assumption, as she comes face to face with a loss that she cannot explain nor solve. A situation that will metamorph from curiosity and concern to a terror that can freeze the soul. But one must expect such circumstances at the intersection of the Final Frontier and the Twilight Zone.

The first half or so of the episode really is a good Twilight Zone romp. We have a normally rational character thrown into a bizarre and frightening situation, and then get to see how she reacts. Like so many TZ characters, she tries at first to cling to rational arguments (her friend merely is lost and hurt somewhere, and his presence on the ship just slipped through the cracks of bureaucracy), but such pretenses of rational explanations disappears quickly. She tries to explain it, but people look at her strangely. She becomes resigned to the fate of the world, but still tries to understand it while desperately hoping she is not going insane. It invites us the viewers to wonder what we would do differently in such a situation, what we could do differently.

But, unlike TZ, this features a character we know, and thus the situation must be wrapped up and must be solved in a rational matter. So thus we have to have our technobabble-filled solution to get Beverly back. Unfortunately, it means the second half is a bit formulaic. Once we know what's going on and the twist is revealed, everything runs the way we would expect it to.

Fortunately, though, the execution of everything, both the eerie setup and the simple conclusion works thanks to several nice details:

- The fact that Beverly was the one who disappeared in the real world, which caused her to believe everyone else was disappearing, was a nice twist. Likewise, we witness what could be the cause of everyone's disappearance, only to discover later that it's the key to saving her. I thought it worked well.

- All of the nice touches as the bubble collapses. People mentioned many of them before. In any case, the back and forth between Bev and the computer were great exchanges, and seeing the gray nothingness advance was fun.

- Beverly trying to work things out. It's a bit of a cheat that the computer was able to help her with everything, such as what the link between the real world and the bubble would manifest as, but whatever. It was good to see her able to figure some stuff out on her own.

- Good acting by everyone all around. This is probably the best acting Gates McFadden had in the show. And having Picard be the last one to disappear worked well was a good idea. Picard was fully believable as the captain of an utterly ridiculous starship, and Stewart did a great job of selling that sincerity in the show.

In the end, this TZ/ST hybrid ends up an excellent sci-fi piece. Sci-fi is commonly used to mirror the current human condition, but sometimes it works best just as a bizarre "what-if" scenario. We got to see that here, and was good clean fun. Of course, with the Wesley/Traveler arc included, there were some important plot points for the overall show, but whatever. This was Beverly's show through and through.

"Use the force, Wesley. See past the numbers." "Yes, Master Yoda."

I don't like it when Star Trek goes too far into "space magic". I have trouble suspending my disbelief. The idea that space and time can be controlled by someone's imagination... That's pretty much magic.

I kind of liked the concept of having people disappear aboard the Enterprise. The reveal that Beverley was the one trapped was nice, but... I can't say I liked the solution too much. I wish they would never have introduced this traveller and his mystical powers.

In my mind, the Enterprise should solve problems by using logic, reason, science, philosophy, but not mystical powers or magic. For me, that belongs in another universe, maybe Star Wars.

I like this episode, but I wish it had been done without the involvement of the Traveler. I don't much care for the concept of a being with those powers (I always wondered if he supposed to be some form of Q), and here his silly "it's not over" entrance onto the scene was reminiscent of Frankie Avalon's teen angel on Grease.

He could have started serenading Wesley...yoooouuur stoooories sad to teeeellll...a teeenage ne'er do weeell...

One of the most annoying episodes I have ever seen.
I have just watched the episode for the first time, and within the first 10 min, knew approximately what had happened (without the technobabble reasoning). I had to suffer through the rest of the episode waiting for them to catch up. Dr. Crusher's idiocy is astounding.

I really enjoy the scenes of Crusher on her own, especially her conversations with the computer, but the entire concept of the traveler, people's minds making things possible in the physical universe, Wesley doing calculations with his eyes closed, are just absolute twaddle. Pure unadulterated nonsense that was at home in season one, but now that TNG has become consistently good it is beyond me why they chose to resurrect this half baked concept.

God I feel better.

This is a good one with a nice M. Night Shyamalan style "tvist". Like others, I would have prefered to leave the traveler out of it. During the first two attempts to rescue her, Dr. Crusher hasn't figured it out so it seems she is disappearing like the others on the enterprise. After she gets the rub that she is the one trapped, recognizes Wesley's experiment, and realizing that time is scarce, she would have come out on her own during the 3rd attempt. No need for the traveller. I hadn't seen this episode since it was new until rewatching and was surprised the traveler was part of the plot (he shows up in the thumbnail in the blu ray menu) He seems like a last minute addendum to the script as filler and a continuity easter egg to older episodes. Normally a good thing, in this case it weakened it somewhat.

Confession time. I'm a Beverly Crusher fan. And I'm not just saying that because I prefer her over Pulaski (which I do). I legitimately like the character. That's why I'm always glad when TNG actually spends an entire episode with her as the main character. Sadly, it doesn't happen often. As a result, I'm more than a little predisposed to be lenient with Crusher episodes. I'm even willing to give "Sub Rosa" something of a break simply because it actually gives Beverly something to do.

"Remember Me" is possibly the best of the Crusher-centric episodes. That is due in no small part to Gates McFadden herself, who has to almost single-handedly carry this episode on her shoulders (quite literally in several scenes at the end). Like in "The High Ground," she shows that she's more than up to the task. She's even able to make the scenes of Crusher alone with the computer riveting and entertaining, even though it's essentially a one woman show at that point.

Another thing that I really like about this episode is the fact that they are, once again, taking something from the first season (The Traveler) and trying to make it work properly. "Where No One Has Gone Before" was one of the better episodes of Season One, but still a rather poor outing. I still don't think they succeed with the concept, but at least they're trying. Seriously, I could really do without the whole "Wesley as interdimensional superbeing" idea. He's already annoying enough. Someone in a previous comment compared this to Sisko being part Prophet in DS9. I don't think the two are anything alike. Sisko's elevation to demigod status felt natural to his character. You might not like that character development, but I don't see how anybody can say it comes out of left field like Wesley's elevation. Also, Sisko isn't a completely insufferable, unlikeable character; so, there's that.

In fact, one thing I have to hold against this episode is Wil Wheaton's performance at the very end. What the hell is he doing when he's hugging Gates McFadden in Engineering?! Just look at his face! It's freaking hilarious! I think he is trying to emote utter exhaustion combined with joy and relief, but he fails - HARD! I almost hate to say this, but he looks like he just orgasmed or something. It's so distracting that it ruins the emotion of the scene.

Still, it's episodes like this that make me wish they hadn't inexplicably given Crusher such short-shrift and let her have more adventures.

8/10

I find this episode extremely entertaining. I won't mention a particular scene, but every one previous posters have mentioned are worth the price of admission. Unfortunately, it gets a little esoteric at the end with the reappearance of the Traveler, and doesn't bear much scrutiny. 3 stars.

This is very nearly the complete episode, but just drops the ball toward the end. The build up is extremely effective as Crusher's frustration grows as the Enterprise crew disappears - it's a great moment when we are told there are only 230 left and the scale of the problem is fully revealed. Some very nice music here too.

The arrival of the Traveler is where it goes a little bit wrong for me - it's a nice callback and clearly this is meant to show Wesley's growing powers but nothing is really explained as to what they are actually doing and it's all wrapped up in seconds.

Never really noticed the wood veneer on the consoles until the reverse shot of the empty bridge here too! Nice! 3 stars.

The first time I saw this episode, I missed the first few minutes where Beverly is talking to Quaice and Wesley's experiment is seen, and I didn't know my Trek quite well enough to be sure that the crew count was off. I didn't know quite what to make of it until fairly far along. It seemed unlikely that there would be an entire episode about Beverly losing her mind, and there was that weird vortex, but on the other hand, I had no idea whether we were supposed to know that Quaice was real or not or the slightest clue what could be causing all this either way.

This was a great episode that I was enjoying so much until the freak known as The Traveler showed up with his metaphysical babbling. At that moment, I wanted to throw up.

I would have preferred Jordi to bring her back by using super secret tachyon beams but that would have meant Wesley was not a special being that shouldn't belong in this universe.

Why? why? I hate clowns dressed in whole suits without even a zipper where it should be.

Horrible episode imo. I found it boring and generally do not prefer b crusher heavy episodes

Why did Wesley need the traveler at the end of the episode to help him create a vortex bridge to the warp bubble when he had apparently created several earlier vortex bridges on his own?

Listen, if you want to make fun of this show, please stick to "Wesley is the worst" and "Beverly and Wesley make the worst mother-son TV combo of all time." Because that is completely true.

Aside from that, these shows are basically (cringe) 30 years old, and they reflect some of the social attitudes and public conversations people were having that day.

So for example, you have a "warp bubble" in which one "creates their own reality," "close your eyes Wesley and see past the numbers" and 30 years later basically half your family is either in a Tony Robbins workshop or loved Power of Now. And of course Stephen Hawking biographies are winning Oscars. But whatever, right?

Same goes for "Suddenly Human" and some of the family/domestic violence issues it deals with, for example disciplining your child physically, and same goes for "Brothers," where people were seeing computers for the first time compete with humans, but what made us human was our "emotions." Somebody comes along and says "I didn't care for the sick baby brother subplot" in that episode like they are some kind of genius. I think the writing of TNG is completely lost on certain people.

I may as well throw in the fact that it is refreshing to watch a TV show from the 90's depict a professional female solving problems using her brain. Beverly was having the sh*t gaslit out of her in this episode. 4 stars.

I love a good mystery, and I think what's great about this one is how the problem starts very small and explainable (Maybe Dr. Quaice fell? Maybe he had to leave suddenly; it's a big ship!). Then things get more and more ominous as Picard suggests that Dr. Quaice may have gotten mixed with the wrong crowd.

Also, Jammer captures what's great about this episode in asking how one convinces others that her assertions are correct when one have no way to substantiate her claims. It's interesting how people do try to humor the Doctor as a Senior Officer, but even that cracks down as even low rankers like O'Brien question the Doctor's sanity.

Funny enough, the solution to the mystery is given right at the beginning of the show (by Wesley, the ever-right, no less!) but is dismissed as improbable and a dead end. And yes, okay, the Traveler comes to the rescue at the end, but plays such a minor part that it doesn't mess with the dramatic nature of the mystery.

So I would grade this one less on the solution, but more on the alternate universe cooked up. I think it ranks along shows like "Message in a Bottle" where the viewer knows something is up, but it's hard to put your finger on who is fooling who at one point.

3.5 Stars

I read William B's comments closely, and I think there's an additional element to what he was saying about how the show is about the inability to communicate the sense of loss to others. The show begins with a man who's focused on people *he has lost*, and the first plot twist is that he, himself, becomes lost. That irony outlines what the story is about to me, which is not only that loss is a solitary experience that others cannot access, but also that fear of loss is an all-too-Human self-centered conceit.

Beverly goes through the whole episode unable to communicate to others that she is losing people from her universe, all the while what's actually happening is that she is the one who has really been lost. She was so focused on *her* universe and what she was losing that she never considered that others might fear losing her or that it was her stay in the world that was temporary. The very fact that she could not communicate with others about her loss made her blind as well to their perspective about loss, which manifested in her literally being stuck in her own private universe. This is kind of like the idea that humans thinks of themselves as a god of a sort, where the universe revolves around him/her and where its value or lack thereof is defined by what he/she gets out of it. By the end this is made almost literal, where Beverly basically is god - the only being in existence. Quite the physicalization of humanity's subconscious bias, no?

We may also observe that her universe over the course of the episode became smaller and smaller the more she felt she was losing everyone, which seems to mean that she was defining *the* universe based on who *she* had left in it. I think I would argue that this is meant to show a glaring lack of perspective, which the show probably suggests is common to most or all people. The reason I think the arrival of The Traveller is important - and not merely a token reference to an earlier episode - is because it takes someone with a transcendent view of reality to see past the limitations of one's confined perspective on what the universe really is. He helps Wesley to break past the barriers of his own sense of reality and at least momentarily bridge his reality with that of his mother using nothing more than his understanding (i.e. no gadgets).

Although this element of the plot isn't underlined, I see the 'isolated, limited view of reality' undercurrent throughout the whole episode, and it rings chord with me that reminds me greatly of a similar message Q gives to Picard in All Good Things. I like the episode because that content is there, even though it doesn't dwell on it and hammer it into you.

I had always 'rated' this episode as mediocre despite the fact that when I watched it I always enjoyed it a lot. I'll reform now and agree that it's great science-fiction.

@Chrome, Peter G.,

I rewatched this episode lately, oddly enough with my mom, who had not recalled seeing the episode (she watched Trek, though not as obsessively as I). I forget what brought it to the fore. Anyway, I really enjoyed Peter G.'s extrapolation on what I was saying to mention Beverly's inability to recognize that she was lost, BECAUSE she was so focused on what she was losing. In that sense, I love how the episode pulls the double-reversal. Actually, the crew *were* right in their skepticism about Beverly's claims, Beverly was "wrong" in her appraisal of reality. What she believed was happening was impossible. And so I like the idea that part of the issue here is that Beverly is so focused on the heartache of losing others, and on the feeling that no one is listening to her, that she stops trying to solve her problem -- in fact, she spends the whole time trying to make others solve her problem for her, shouting at them that they are failing to recognize her experience, rather than trying hard to locate her experience. What's great is that we are, or at least I was, very much on board with Beverly, finding the crew's skepticism and condescension hard to take, wanting to fight back at them for "gaslighting" her (as another commenter said), albeit unintentionally, but this was a dead end. Beverly was always doing this to herself, and had to be willing to recognize help when it came.

Watching this with my mother also made me note again how much it is a mother-son story about separation, loss, confusion and difficult reunion. I am not sure if I have anything new to add, except that the Wes side of this story reads to me like he's terrified of visiting his mother in a home after she's had a nervous breakdown which he blames himself for, or something like that -- and it takes the Traveller to remind him both to let go of his guilt (and the implicit self-indulgence of that guilt -- the view that because it's partly his fault, it's ENTIRELY his fault, suggesting that his mother has no interior life besides him) as well as reminding him that Wesley can only offer Beverly a way back, but NOT force her to take it. Communication between generations is not always easy, because it requires a willingness on the part of both to actually confront and deal with each other as individuals.

I too think of All Good Things when I watch this episode.

"What's great is that we are, or at least I was, very much on board with Beverly, finding the crew's skepticism and condescension hard to take, wanting to fight back at them for "gaslighting" her (as another commenter said), albeit unintentionally, but this was a dead end. Beverly was always doing this to herself, and had to be willing to recognize help when it came. "

Let's even go further than this. Throughout the episode the attempts to reach through to her and help her were experienced by her as distressing, terrible intrusions into her reality. They were even shown as TV-ish obstacles for her to overcome, so that when she escapes them we felt her relief that she dodged a bullet. She could return to her normal reality; except it was anything but normal. That's the funny thing: she went from a sudden 'crisis' back to her more comfortable world of slow, recognizable crisis.

If the biggest crisis for Beverly was these intrusions then it seems that the takeaway is that someone focused on *their* world and *their* losses is not only unreachable by others, but more importantly, *does not want* to be reached. There is a kind of egoistic vanity in feeling something very deep and important, and even a kind of self-adulation is the feeling that 'no one understands me, I experience this alone.' How much more elating to feel that one's pain is a special, unique phenomenon that no one else can share or understand, rather than to face the truth that everyone else faces the same things and that one's own experiences are not, for the most part, very unique at all. That's a very deflating realization, but also potentially illuminating as one realizes one really doesn't have to be alone in the world unless one chooses to insulate oneself in a universe of one's own making.

To touch on your point, William, about a mother and son, it's all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking of one's son as being "my son" rather than "a person with whom I can commune." That sense of ownership, and the worry that goes along with it, can smother both people and prevent them actually communicating. If the episode is about showing Crusher's tendency to worry *about* her son, I think its conclusion tries to show that it would be much better for her to begin to think about what she can do *with* her son. It's perhaps apt that "The Traveller" is the one to bring this lesson, since the fault being outlined is sitting in one's own mind, worrying about one's own problems, disconnected and unmoving, waiting for things to be lost. Connecting with others requires "travelling" to their point of view, connecting with them on a level other than seeing them as a relational object "my son", "my captain", and so on. Actually this one (for all the content we get on it) the same reason she cannot really get closer to Jean-Luc during the run of the show, either. Their established positions with each other tends to define their relationship.

@Peter G.,

I know it's a few days late, but I wanted to add a little more. I like your comparison to "All Good Things..." and I think that the idea here that Beverly is trapped in her inability to fully empathize with others (and to view her experience as universal, albeit tragic) has a lot of meaning for that episode. A lot of what I appreciate about the future scenario in AGT is that the central thing that is lacking is connection between the characters, which is made pretty explicit of course but works more subtly. All the (non-retired) characters have ended up in a profession which mostly fits their role in the show, to some degree or another, and while some appear happier than others the roles themselves seem mostly to fit; in particular, they are all roles that the Enterprise was able to function as. Data is in academic research, Beverly in humanitarian aid, Worf in governance, Riker in military/strategic might, and Geordi in culture (Geordi-as-author is superficially the furthest job from what he was doing in the show, but I think the overlap has to do with engineering as creative endeavour, and now he's applying his creative engine elsewhere). Picard's job before he had retired was as an ambassador. The future is not dystopic, because everyone is more or less doing the jobs that they wanted to do and in some respects have come to an ultimate version of themselves, but what is lacking is a connection between this different fields. The later seasons of the show and DS9 also showed the fraying of the ideal of the Federation flagship being able to be all things at once. And the breakdown of the crew is tragic because of course they need each other to be their best. I think it's especially notable then that Troi is dead; obviously her death is the direct catalyst for the Worf/Riker split, but more generally her absence represents an absence of empathy and (internal) social cohesion (whatever you think of how effectively Troi's role as social cohesion was portrayed within the series proper). They have all retreated to their own worlds and are lessened by their distance from each other, and it takes a kind of miraculous faith for them to be able not only to communicate but to trust each other, and, finally, trust Picard, which also means trusting a kind of close bond and ability to work with each other which has largely been left in the past, hence Q's lesson about Picard unlocking his mind from the current space *and* time, and encouraging his crew to do the same. The ability to care about spacetime anomalies when the demands of the here and now are so great amounts, to some degree, to having faith that the...for lack of a better term, nonmaterial world is important. The "Encounter at Farpoint" crew had little difficulty observing the anomaly because they are full of wonder, but have no faith in their skills to deal with it (or their captain's knowledge), and the future crew have developed their specialized skills which have atrophied their sense of wonder and their ability to connect to one another, and the implication is that both the future, highly specialized and pragmatic/jaded crew, and the idealistic, acting-on-faith, untested crew are necessary (as well as the mostly-balanced crew represented by season seven, which already shows signs of the future and has some of the newness of the past).

I guess in the beginning it takes an act of faith to start forming a relationship with another person, and then eventually it requires an act of faith to believe that one's past relationship still has meaning, with constant effort required to renew the connection to others in the interim. I think this is one of several great episodes in the series' run which demonstrate this theme, of how the future of humanity is very closely linked with the ability to escape one's own narrow point of view and connect to others (whether it means connecting to one's own son here, to an entirely alien, and extinct, species as in "The Inner Light," or to something that is more or less a physical representation of a philosophical idea as in the anti-time anomaly in "AGT"). Season seven in particular is also full of examples of the failure to make such a connection, sometimes through the fault of the characters and sometimes because it is real that some such connections are impossible, or illusory (this is true in bad episodes as well as good ones -- insofar as it is "about" anything, "Genesis" is "about" the crew getting locked into primitive versions of themselves unable to maintain social contact with each other), emphasizing that there is always a risk that attempting to go outside one's own perspective (and connect to another) will fail.

Regarding Beverly herself, I think that she has a tendency to be closed off to change, maybe because of what happened with Jack. How often does Beverly actually reach out and genuinely trust another person's POV? She cannot make the adjustment to see Picard differently than as captain, as you have said, and much of that is because Picard is also *Jack's friend and captain*, and so associated with her husband rather than a different man. She is unable to adjust to Odan, as she herself says in The Host, and we can hardly blame her for having a rigidity which most people would probably identify with, but I suspect that someone like Troi would be able to roll with the punches better based on Troi's encouragement earlier in the episode. The way she hides her "dancing doctor" past speaks of a desire to manage others' view of her. On moral issues, she is stubborn and shows a lack of desire to even *see* the other side; the issue in Symbiosis or Ethics is not, IMO, Beverly's base moral instinct (which is usually a valid humanistic concern), but her immediate dismissal of opposing views as ones that she deliberately blocks out, sometimes, as in Ethics, with great effort (i.e. blocking out the reality that Worf is on the verge of killing himself and that it is not doing him favours to protect him from Russell's less-than-fully-responsible medical positions). In Cause and Effect, of course the whole ship is caught in the loop, but it's Beverly who is specifically placed in the position of repeatedly failing to prevent the glass from being broken, no matter what she does. A comparison with Pulaski, who fulfills much of Beverly's role in the show as both doctor and also as a voice for a certain kind of humanism, underlines this: Pulaski is even more strident than Beverly in her views, but ultimately in her season-long shift on Data (from viewing him as pure machine in The Child through to viewing him as deserving of rights in The Measure of a Man and finally making the case that he is having a human-like emotional breakdown in Peak Performance) shows more direct evidence of an ability to change her mind than what we mostly get with Beverly. What I like though is the idea, presented here and in other episodes, that Beverly's scientific curiosity and rationality might be the particular way that *she* can get outside her preconceptions. This is, admittedly, mostly shown off in bad episodes; I think it applies to Suspicions, where she gets out of her funk by running an experiment, and I also think it applies weirdly to Sub Rosa, where it is by identifying Ronin as an anaphasic whatsit and running her tricorder that allows her to escape generations of gothic ghost sex. This episode is an instance where Beverly actually succeeds, whereas episodes like The Host and Ethics show her making some effort to break out of her somewhat rigid mindset, but finally coming to a point where she will not move any more; in The Host she frames this as her own tragic flaw, and in Ethics frames this as a certain moral strength. Where we do see progress is that she does let Wesley do his own thing, at the series' end, and while "letting" implies more control than she actually has, I do think it indicates some growth that she does not take Wesley's becoming a higher being as some sort of personal slight, the way she seems to be taking Wesley's being a teenager in Evolution. This seems to be one of the intermediate points on that particular journey (underwritten though it may be); I think True Q, where Amanda is something of a surrogate Wesley, is another.

Third time I go over the whole series of the "newer" ST. Let me add a bit of info about this episode. Forgive me if I have missed a similar comment on this string of comments, but I think not. I believe the basis of this episode is "The Tibetan Book of the Dead", originally intitled " The Great Liberation from the Bardo through Hearing". If you have not read it, or heard about it, it may change your life, but that is a different issue ... Anyway: At the moment of death, the progressive dissolution of the "physical" components of the human body end up releasing consciousness, and at that moment the basic luminosity of the essential nature of everything becomes overwhelming. If one's mind rejects, fears, tries to avoid the unavoidable, the "individual" mind of the deceased will go over a process of dramatic adjustment to its own creations in the form of imagery and situations which may end up in its reincarnation into another form of life in one of the (6) different levels of form existence (samsara). If at the moment of the great flash (the light tunnel in Near Death Experiences one's mind recognises the unity of it all, and lets go, there happens the liberation from reincarnation (nirvana).
Of course, the process is a lot more detailed, and fascinating, but this is a quick summary.
How does that show in the episode? It is an allegory, a sequence of parallels:
1- The bubble in engineering is death
2-The loss of reality and progressive detachment from reality at death time is the Doctor's process of inability to stay connected to the reality of the crew members that she perceives as disappearing.
3- The alien comes up and mentions that: "the quality and substance of her thoughts at the moment of absorption into the reality of the bubble determines the reality of her experience in her new dimension". This is equivalent to the statement in the Bardo Thodol about determining your reality as it is a projection of one's own mind ... and here it all connects with the beautiful theories and experiences as explained mainly in Tibetan Buddhism, but also appearing in many other traditions.
Thank you.
For the true happiness of all beings.
Ansel

This is one of my favorite episodes of tng. Yeah the traveler appearing was lame, but Wesley was working directly from Kosinski's equations so it does make some sense that he would appear.

The part of the episode that makes me laugh is near the end where Wesley passes out and Picard runs past him slumped down on the console to get to Beverly. Beverly sees Wesley on the ground but speaks to the traveler first and then makes her way over to her son who is starting to recover.

My father and I watched this episode together during the original run. We tuned in late and missed the opening scenes, so we watched the episode without knowing anything about Wesley's experiment.

Had we seen the show from the beginning, I don't think we would have enjoyed it nearly as much. I'm confident we would have figured out that it had something to do with Wesley's experiment at some point along the way.

Instead, we spent nearly the entire episode throwing ideas back and forth, trying to guess what was going on. It was glorious. We were wrong time and time again, but it was immense fun bouncing ideas off each other while watching this highly entertaining episode.

I still have fond memories of this episode. I think it is probably my favorite episode from any of the series, all because we missed the first 5 minutes. :)

I guess I'm in the minority of people who dislike this episode. When I first saw it 20 odd years ago I actually enjoyed it, but it doesn't really hold up to repeat viewings and hasn't aged that well. The best part of the episode is the first act, involving the disappearance of the Doctor. Where it starts to go downhill, however, is when more people start going missing, which leads to a quite absurd series of events taking place. At this point, we know that nothing taking place is actually real, so I started to lose interest because why should I care anymore? 2.5 stars from me.

It was a fantastic episode until the last 10-15 minutes or so. Wesley and the Traveler... super contrived metaphysical / almost religious nonsense across the board.

I loved the actual main plot though with Beverley Crusher slowly experiencing a loss of the crew and indeed the entire universe at the end, and how she has to deal with it. Is she going insane? She seems to seem convinced she isn't throughout, despite everyone else appearing to believe so from her crew mates.

I feel like this episode deserved a better end!

I agree, Bob. I really like this episode, but the solution by Mary Sue (again) - and this religious-like nonsense spoiled the ending. It's still an episode I rewatch a lot, though.

Can't say I liked this episode at all, but then again I don't like Beverly. She spends too much of the time looking scared or bored even after McFadden's Botox wears off, is incompetent even by Trek doctor standards (doesn't believe headaches or colds exist anymore, even though she ends up treating both, can't figure out how respiratory ailment is spreading (hint: through the AIR), I could go on...), doesn't really seem to integrate well with the rest of the cast, and is overall a boring and unlikeable character IMO, so spending almost an entire episode only with her was pretty grating on me.

Maybe I'm over saturated with sci fi, but it seemed obvious to go into the vortex, even before we were told it was Wesley trying to save her. Watching her actively avoid the one thing that could save her from the dilemma she was in and reunite with the crew was annoying but par for the course with the character. She was alone on the ship and the vortex was trying to take her somewhere else, presumably where the others had gone, really, what did she have to lose at that point? Her first priority upon getting rescued is Picard, she pretty much ignores the son that half-killed himself trying to get her back. Poor Wesley.

I wanted to know more about Quaice. The episode could have followed him and given Beverly more backstory instead of being about Beverly wandering around the ship with the same scared, bored look on her face she always has. Honestly fleshing her out could only help the character, we're four seasons in and still know very little about her.

3 stars for me - as many others have observed, the Traveler hokum of the final third derails it quite considerably, due to Menyuk's unconvincing performance and the daftness of having Wesley pressing buttons with his eyes shut in some kind of telepathic trance. The episode plays its hand a little too soon; we should have stayed in Beverly's reality until almost the very end, rather than starting to cross-cut between her reality and the real Enterprise, which pops the buble of mystery and intrigue which until then had been very effectively built up. Gates McFadden's performance in this episode is really excellent and holds the whole thing together - it's compelling, relatable and extremely well-realized, acting as a relatable anchor for viewers and basically saving the episode.

I love it when a sci-fi show does sci-fi. I felt for Dr Crusher as her world became smaller and smaller. It's nice to see that the rest of the crew didn't treat her like an idiot when she was telling them more people should be aboard.

Oh boy, this episode was a stinker. 4.5 stars? Seemed like a leftover script from season 1 to me.

Maybe it's because my wife and I immediately predicted the premise after Wesley's experiment created a "mysterious flash" and then he turned around and his mom was gone. "I bet that flash just sucked Beverly into another universe or something" we said, practically simultaneously as the title fanfare started to play.

All mystery gone, the rest of the episode is unbearably frustrating and repetitive. Every time something else disappears from the universe there's a protracted reaction shot from overacting McFadden. It became comically predictable after a while. No one seems to be able to come up with the idea that "the warp bubble was confined to engineering ... *maybe it affected Beverly, who was in engineering at the time*." We got through the episode by speculating on the many ways the script could have used this premise better... "what if Riker's beard is suddenly gone in the next shot?"

Toward the end things got more interesting purely due to the script embracing its absurdity. I enjoyed the computer's responses about the nature of the universe, and the "design flaw" of the enterprise. Unfortunately, it's around then that we get the return of the traveler and oh look -- wonderboy wesley crusher might have some traveler abilities too! I thought we rid ourselves of the "wesley can do everything better than everyone" schlock after the first season. Oh well.

Beverly crusher finally gets a feature episode, and it's this pile of uninteresting filler. I feel bad for her.

Felt this was kind of a bogus episode - certainly not one I enjoyed. Is the episode supposed to represent the need for some kind of belief in I'm not sure what? Plenty of the kind of technobabble I don't get -- warp bubble / space-time continuum / moving into phase etc. It did not make a lot of sense.

And then some kind of space traveler appears and has Wes do some God knows. He's closing his eyes and pressing buttons.

It's a heavy sci-fi episode - thoughts altering reality in a warp field. Decent performance from McFadden although others doing this kind of episode have done better (Frakes in "Frame of Mind" did a better job). ENT's "Vanishing Point" was better as well - less technobabble/pushing sci-fi to the limits of beyond what is acceptable.

Can't give this episode more than 2 stars. Maybe the best part of "Remember Me" was the cool sci-fi shots of the vortex and the ship disappearing around Crusher as she runs to engineering.

4 stars

It is the first in a series of episodes this season where TNG takes a single character and makes them the headliner of a particular episode(Bev here, Data next in Legacy, Worf in Reunion, Riker in Future Imperfect, Wes in Final Mission, Troi in the Loss, Data in Data’s Day etc). This is a personal favorite from year four.

The episode is an example of really strong storytelling with its elegant construction, its fresh sci-fi concept. It also didn’t hurt that this was a good mystery and I love mysteries.

The way the writer Lee Sheldon built the tension up of the mystery by first cleverly focusing our attention on one man’s isolated disappearance and localizing the threat to the ship was a great hook leading to a host of questions--What is going on? Why Quaice? Who took him? Why erase all evidence that he ever existed?

It starts out like a routine missing person’s investigation before things get really interesting and the plot thickens. I particularly liked all the attention to details—Worf mentioning that even if Quaice is missing why would his luggage be missing, the crew suggesting checking for replicator usage since Quaice couldn’t go long without eating, scanning for Quaice’s communicator, Picard suggesting Quaice might have returned to the starbase amidst all the traffic and Beverly realizing O’Brien would have remembered seeing the two of them in the transporter room.

Then we get our next twist… O’Brien denies ever seeing Quaice! Is Beverly now the focus? Is there a conspiracy by Starfleet? Why? Is Picard involved and why would Bev be left out of the loop? Because of her relationship with Quaice? What was Quaice possibly involved in? Why is O’Brien lying? Is O’Brien lying? Or did someone or something alter his memory? Once again I liked she thought to run a scan on him to see if he had been tampered with.

If those moments weren’t surprising enough the scope of the unknown threat continues to widen even further with a series of nicely placed revelations that pack a nice punch. First, there are now more missing faceless crewmen, then the crew complement has dwindled, then no one seems to remember Worf?!?!?

These are shocking revelations on their own but made even more insidious by the fact that they don’t faze the crew at all, who casually accept it as normal—the way things have always been. The crew continues to act intelligently about the threat considering Wes’ experiment might hold the answers before determining it couldn’t have the reach to effect anyone beyond Engineering.

Another nice misdirection that throws our suspicion off of the obvious but ultimately turns out to be the culprit. Also it soon becomes clear whatever is happening is beyond just an alien conspiracy. Something is wrong with the very universe itself—a staggering prospect. Then Beverly has her run in, which was nicely presented, with the mysterious vortex that seems very likely to be the source of the bizarre happenings.

It all culminates in an appropriately surreal scene where Picard tells Beverly that they are the only crew the Enterprise has ever needed. Should have seen the episode was working towards this but the moment comes and is shocking The way Beverly described all of the senior staff as she was trying to convince mostly herself that all of these people were real and not some figment of her imagination was handled well

I really liked that poignant moment after everyone has finally disappeared and she makes a promise to them all that she will *never* forget any of them and that pained look on her face. She now realizes for whatever reason she is the only one left in the universe and the galactic burden is on her to now find some way to bring these people back—how devastatingly overwhelming.

Sometimes the payoff is never quite the equal to all the build up but this was a perfect way to handle the mystery.

The idea Beverly created her own reality based on what she was thinking about at that moment when she was pulled into the warp bubble was a clever idea and one that was quite satisfying, holding up just as strongly to all the previous build-up. Not only did it build on an already pre-existing thread established all the way back in “Where No One Has Gone Before”, which doesn’t make it seem contrived or out-of-the-blue, but the manner in which the writer uses the earlier conversation with Quaice, which seemed like throwaway banter, to play into the heart of the dilemma by taking the notion of losing people in your life to its most concrete reality was very clever and subtle. I really liked that element a lot. The reveal also allows for everything that happened to hold together and make sense—the loss of people, the effected memories, the logic just works so well.

I loved how Sheldon was determined to not let up even after the main mystery was solved. One example being when Beverly wisely sets a course for Tau Alpha C to contact the Traveler and then being to left to wonder what is wrong now when the engines won’t engage. That void on the screen was disconcerting--presenting the notion of nihilism in a very dramatic and literalway. Very effective.

Then came the ultimate WTF mind-boggling moment when she learns that she is the only one left in a universe that is only 700 meters in diameter and the shape of the universe is very familiar. The writers just kept ratcheting up the insanity. It was great. It reminded me of the very best of the Twilight Zone where perception and reality are distorted.

The last 10 minutes were just as thrilling as space starts collapsing and more of the ship ceased to exist and Beverly raced to reach the threshold in time. Another one I liked was that the vortex was seemingly at first threatening turns out to not seem so ominous once we know what was really going on—turning out to be the way home. And Beverly asking Picard once back the crew compliment as a bit of reassurance and peace of mind hit the right note

However brief his appearance, I really liked Quaice too and the way the two managed to sell the warmth and long history between them in such a short amount of time was impressive(The way Beverly intertwined her arms in his as they walked down the corridor for instance). I also really liked the dialogue between the two. Not to mention I’ve always thought that the name “Quaice” was really cool. I also liked the title works as both a plea and as a question.

This is one of those episodes that the show did over the years that really was fun and exploited the series’ sci-fi premise to wonderful effect.

I remembered this episode as one I had enjoyed when I first saw it.
Having an episode that focuses on one of the more secondary characters in the show was nice -I would have to confess I am not a great fan of McFadden's portrayal but here she was convincing as her universe descends into nightmare.

I am not sure that bringing back The Traveller was such a good idea -although 'Where No One Has Gone Before' is one of the very few good points in Season One the TOS novel it is adapted from-The Wounded Sky-is vastly superior so having him pop back up dispensing metanonsensical physics is a bit of a trial to say the least.

Episodes like this, Birthright, and a few others make me wonder why they're allowed to do any experiments in Engineering. The Warp Core isn't merely like a nuclear power plant that can meltdown and wreak havoc under specific circumstances, it's also a massive nuclear bomb that will explode, killing everything on board and within a decent distance should its delicate containment field(s) be breached.

Knowing this, they still hook up random crap from the Gamma Quadrant directly to said engine core, beam space gasses into lab containers right next to it, dick around with super cool new warp fields, etc.

There's really no justification for testing new torch and lighter technolgy in the room full of nitroglycerin.

"Everyone is entitled to his opinion, even if it's wrong."

Elliott, I truly hope you are saying this ironically! I have to say your comments on this forum are so amusing! I get that you have different opinions, but your arrogance is LEGEND! (And that's not good)

This episode is so incredibly memorable. "The universe is a spheroid 705 metres in diameter." Dr Crusher used to rankle with me as her delivery of lines wavers between being terrible, boring and, in First Contact, extremely impressive. I always preferred the craggy and bombastic female McCoy, reviled by fans as Pulaski. Yet she acquits herself well here and, gasp, she waa allowed to show slight emotional range.

Unfortunately it is somewhat spoiled by descending into mystico-Treknobabble nonsense. The Traveller was very poorly acted, he came out of nowhere to save the day - Deus Ex Machina much?

Still, for sheer mystery and sci-fi weirdness, this has got to be one of Trek's finest outings.

An excellent story and a good ending. Only the minutes before the ending made it stupid. Beverly solved her mystery herself. Jump into the vortex next time it appears. Good thinking there. Now, did Wesley really have to "follow the force on the keyboard" in order to do this. They only needed the third and last attempt. I can accept the Traveller turning up and giving some hints, not necessary but trek tradition.

Although preferring Dr. Pulaski before Dr. Crusher (Pulaski's directness brings dynamic) , McFadden is doing a great performance here. I also like the small appearances of Miles O'Brian. Colm Meaney really brings a so natural performance to a down to earth character not having another goal than conduct his task with perfection and professionalism.

Unfortunately the sudden appearance of a Luke Wesley makes it a weak 3 instead of a distinct 3.5.

Very good Dr. Crusher episode.

I was too harsh in my 1st evaluation of this episode -- in terms of psychological thrillers (am I going insane?) it's not bad and felt like something Braga would concoct. I've never been impressed with McFadden and the Dr. Crusher character but she does a convincing job here. It's reasonably suspenseful and, with a big stretch, can be rationalized, although it doesn't go enough into Crusher's personal notions or conceptions. So we don't necessarily learn enough about her. I think something similar might be "Barge of the Dead" for Torres -- a superior episode that plays on some of her personality attributes.

The ending with the traveler dude from "Where No One Has Gone Before" makes things arbitrary and somewhat silly and is definitely the weakness in this episode.

2.5 stars for "Remember Me" -- ultimately some good sci-fi, though how it comes about is a bit farfetched, but was hoping the episode could shine some light on some aspect of the human condition through Crusher instead of just self-doubt etc.

After seeing this episode for the first time yesterday it has become one of my favourite TNG episodes so far.

I love how spooky this episode feels, and the dialogue between crusher and the computer towards the end was spectacular. It's a trippy pure sci-fi episode, and those types tend to tick all the right boxes for me.

I agree with other commenters that the appearance of The Traveller was a downer. Turning the show from technobabble to magic. Wesley Crusher closing his eyes and doing god knows what felt something more akin to Star Wars. It completely broke my suspension of disbelief. So it loses a whole star for that.

Still the rest was good enough to not fall over just because The Traveller was there.

One of about a half-dozen I can still remember seeing 25 years ago.

Beverley v. The Computer in the final act is great fun.

The whole Wesley thing is lame. He's such a super-genius that he can play around with something a pre-eminent physicist has devoted his life work to...but Wesley is what, 17? And he still can't get into Starfleet. Yet Tasha runs away from her home planet somehow, and has no trouble entering.

How convenient that *ping* the Traveller just happens to show up. Typical "wrap it all up magically in the last 2 minutes" Trek.

Loved this episode. Thankfully, I seem to have missed the "Dr. Crusher disappearing" hint in the beginning the first time. Found it excitingly mysterious and creepy before getting an idea of wtf was going on. Those conversations about people that never existed were chilling.

Watching it again, I dislike the oh-so-deep Traveller BS. But still a great episode.

Normally any episode in which Wesley is prominent gets an automatic zero from me. But this scores one star for having the best line ever - "So it's not me, it's the universe that's wrong.". I've had that feeling my whole life!!! In fact, add on another half-star for the way McFadden says it with such sincerity...

I loved all the build up in the first half of the episode and, equally, I loved all the bits towards the end where Beverly solves the mystery on her own. It's nice that Beverly gets to star in an episode for a change, and it's great that it showcases the best qualities of the character; her connection to her crewmates as well as her problem solving skills.

What utterly tanks the episode for me is all the mumbo jumbo with the Traveller. This is perhaps a product of the time, as well as Roddenberry's utopian vision of mankind, but all the talk of "unlocking potential" smacks of narcissism about the nature and capabilities of the human race.

I'm prepared to suspend disbelief on a great many improbable and likely impossible phenomena presented in Star Trek, such as telepathy and faster than light travel. What I am not prepared to accept is the absurdity that external reality can be shaped by our thoughts. No amount of enlightenment will ever allow us to manipulate space and time with our minds. We are tied to the material plane, and no amount of magical thinking espoused by philosophies such as the Traveller's will change that.

Otherwise, this is a solid and enjoyable romp ;)

I don't really get the praise heaped on this episode by Jammer. It's a passable sci-fi mystery episode, but the fact that it's placed on the shoulders of the severely underwritten Beverly Crusher hurts it quite a bit. The 'O'Brien must suffer episodes' generally succeeded because of how well written, acted, and conceived the character of O'Brien was. Beverly Crusher is none of those things. "Frame of Mind" also worked much, much better. And of course, the resolution was nonsense.

2.5 stars.

Hello Everyone!

When this first aired, I was shocked and astonished and pleased to see The Traveller. I think it partly had to do with the acknowledgement of Anything from the first season, and the thought that Wesley might Indeed be something special (apart from being a brainiac) and reminding us of that from season one, was kind of neat.

When I discussed it with my friends back then, we didn't think it was a cheat at all. Today, I have to stand by those thoughts. I think The Traveller was a pleasant surprise, and a nice touch of continuity.

Heh, I just went back and scanned Jammer's review. I almost worded it the same. :)

Oh, and we didn't Hate Wesley, but did sometimes have a mild annoyance with him. :)

After reading so many who didn't like The Traveller, I figured a mention from someone who thought he was a positive in the episode was in order...

Of course, these are just more random thoughts... and your mileage may vary.

Regards... RT

P.S.: I wonder now, if the episode wasn't written backwards? How do we get TT with Wesley again, and they wrote it back to front from there.... but that just popped into my head as I was about to hit submit.

Mmmm I can't rate this as high as Jammer. I did like the problem solving done by Crusher. I didn't like the scifi premise of her being in her mind or wherever. That seems beyond Star Trek. If this is what they were dealing with then, why are they out exploring? they need to get home and start studying this phenomena. I know I know, they are the explorers and others will take over. I would have been fine if Beverly was caught in some kind of other dimension. Yes and Wesley turning into a Traveler is the worst of TNG and almost ruined the whole series if my memory serves.

8/10

Always enjoyed this one back in the 90s when originally watching and rewatching TNG episodes as a teenager. In my mind, it's associated with the other time loop/alternate reality/someone cut off from the rest of the crew in some way stories like Cause and Effect, Parallels (Worf there, Crusher here... love watching those 2 back to back especially), Timescape, and the Next Phase in particular. A great fivesome, those.

I just happened to turn on BBC America a day or two ago when this was airing and something struck me near the end that I don't believe I had ever noticed before in at least 3 or 4 previous watchthroughs:

The Traveler and Wesley are hard at work trying to use the force (apparently) AND science together to rescue Dr. Crusher, but in the meantime, the Enterprise is going to dock in the exact same position it was located at during the initial warp bubble experiment gone wrong that disappeared Beverly. I think someone on the bridge even says they're in the same position as before after they finish docking. The implication being that by being in the same exact spatial location, opening a bridge/portal/doorway to the warp bubble to allow Crusher to leap out will be easier or possible in the first place or make the connection stronger or something.

There's just one problem: the space station itself is of course not in the same place as before. I believe they show it over a moon or planet, which means it's in some sort of orbit. And whether polar, geosynch, or whatever other orbital variety, there's no way the celestial body itself is in the same spot as it was when they were first docked there. Not to mention the solar system and galaxy themselves also being in motion, so even if the space station was keeping itself "still" in a specific spot in that system with constant RCS corrections, that still wouldn't check out.

Just a little nitpick, but one I had a fun time suddenly noticing, and after reading all the comments in here, it doesn't seem anyone else has mentioned it. Kicking myself for not noticing it years ago on a previous rewatch, though!

The first half is classic Frasier; dancing around the details to cause more confusion. I checked out for the technobabble second half. Gotta love how the Enterprise is mostly functional with only one or two people on board.

A good one.

A great Beverly vehicle - I may be forgetting something, but I'm thinking it's her finest hour.

It's been a rough a couple years in the Springy family, and my Thanksgiving table is down three people from two Thanksgivings ago. I had just finished counting the guests and making my shopping list, and thinking about the diminishing number of people, and lo and behold, I get this episode next in the line-up, to complement my thoughts.

Maybe we ALL make our own realities.

The ep keeps us on the Family theme we've seen all Season, but with a very different, creative angle. There's the obvious mother and son connection, but more than that, we see, through Quaice's reaction to his wife's death and Beverly's Incredible Shrinking Crew experience, how all our loved ones, our connections and relationships, define the size of our Universes: quantity and quality.

Nice touch to bring back the Traveler.

Well done!

Giving some thought to the title - Remember Me. It's an odd title for an ep that seems to be more about not forgetting others, than hoping others remember you.

But the part that memory plays in our lives is certainly being explored: Quaice can't stay in a place where his memories of Patricia are so vivid. The fact that Wes remembers the Traveller saves Beverly. Beverly places great importance on remembering her disappearing comrades; the implication is that it is the only way to keep them in the Universe now - alive in her memory.

It's interesting that Beverly is making her own world and that in that world, her "wild claims" are taken seriously well past the point that might be expected. It's no coincidence that her thoughts are creating her world, and the last thought anyone has is that maybe BEVERLY is the one that's lost. Picard, Riker, Data, etc. - they're not able to suggest Beverly might be the one with the issue, until Beverly herself starts to wonder.

It's interesting to that Picard is the last one to "abandon her."

But Beverly still has one last thing, even after Picard is gone: Herself. Maybe that's what the title refers to, that Beverly has to remember Herself. She had to stop seeking non existent external help and validation, she has to remember Beverly.

Well, people in my Universe are calling me away. Back soon, but in the meantime: Remember me. :)

I'm not fond of this one. I'd seen it once before, in the '90s and the only thing I remembered was Beverley asking the computer about the nature of the universe.

I'm usually quite keen on alternate dimension / parallel universe type sci-fi and this one gets off to a promising start. But when the 'traveller' turns up the whole idea turns out to be silly. Beverley manages to think up a new universe, helped by what amounts to a sort of unintended feature of the warp drive, provoked by an experiment.

A couple of thoughts. Everyone in Beverley's universe seems very slow to conclude that she's the one at fault. O'Brien is examined, the Enterprise is searched, Picard agrees to take the ship back to a star base for diagnostics before they decide that she's suffering from a delusion, even though it's the only plausible explanation from their point of view.

It's certainly handy that Beverley likes to think out loud, isn't it? And she seems to solve the puzzle, based on what she knows and is able to find out, ridiculously easily.

In both universes, Wesley's experiment is ridiculously dangerous. Does he just get away with it?

I'm doing a partial The Twilight Zone (original) rewatch and watched And When the Sky Was Opened (season 1) recently. I recommend it for fans of this episode; it is similarly predicated on the "people are being forgotten, and only one person is aware of it" SF premise. It plays more as an alien conspiratorial cover-up than the aging/mental illness themes Remember Me seems to be dealing with, and so is quite different in final effect, but I think it's an interesting case for comparing similar starting material.

TNG as it should be - sciencey, intricate, intriguing, *and no holodeck silliness*, and no preachiness either.

4 out of 4.

I don't remember seeing this episode before, so this was my first time viewing it. I was blown away. McFadden did a great job (thought admittedly I am a Beverly fan), especially when it was just her and the computer. And after the dreck that was the last episode, this was a nice change of pace.

Riker certainly got the best line with his retort to that bloody irritating traveller. And that little prick shouldn't be allowed anywhere near an "experiment"- he had form with fuck ups as it was. Instead of a hug at the end he should've got his ass whupped for putting her through that shit.

Dr. Poodle Crusher doesnt have the acting ability for this show. She comes off as stupid and shrill

One of my very favourite TNG episodes.

It's a brilliant depiction of mental fortitude, trusting one's own instincts and memory, and the quiet power of staying calm and holding out when under great pressure from confusion, facing implicit doubt from others and a context that is suddenly shifting around you beyond your control.

Crusher's absolute tenacious refusal to give in to the universe (!) shrinking inexorably to just 705 metres enveloped around her, and her persistent, valiant attempts to persevere through reason and theorise her way out of that dread fate - with only the computer as a final, dispassionate companion dependent on the right questions being asked the right way as the clock nevertheless ticks urgently down - shows (quite optimistically in my view) the spirited ingenuity at the core of us all as human beings. It is a fine metaphor for our stubborn struggle against the inevitability of our own passing.

The slow, dwindling disappearance of the crew is eerie, and made all the more vividly unsettling by them being portrayed as never having existed at all. There's something deeply, deeply moving about Crusher's strident determination to remember everyone she's lost; it strikes right to the heart of being human, of the human condition and the passage of time. That urge to never forget and to thereby save and honour a little of what went before. Because if no one remembers us, have we really existed at all? What if you are the very last person alive in existence?

I personally find 'Remember Me' to be an exquisite episode. Not only does it address some intriguing and unusual issues, but it's also a very engaging and well-packed hour while doing so, with some clever twists (such as the flash of light being Wesley, La Forge and the Traveller trying to fetch Beverly back), and an imaginative use of the computer as a scientific sounding board for heightened suspense. The way in which the crew begin by pointedly helping and trusting Beverly rather than by simply dismissing her as insane is also refreshing. I also love the graphics of the bubble slowly consuming the Enterprise-D and the link to Where No One Has Gone Before - and that Beverly is actually brilliantly centre stage for once (all too underused and misused as a character).

Bravo. Classic TNG and classic Trek.

Bok's comment reminded me that I hadn't watched this one in a while. It's a good one. Peter G's theories make me think that this might be a more profound story than I had previously given it credit.


P.S. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" < We could have used Tom Ryker onboard the Voyager for the times that the technobabble got a little too thick.

@ Bob (a different one)

Yes, Peter G's comments - about 'Remember Me' being an essay on loss, and on the (positive) effect our existence has on others (and the positive effect others have upon us), all of which we consistently under-estimate - are spot on.

Peter G and William B also rightly point out that 'Remember Me' is a lovely companion episode in tone and topic to the far more famous 'All Good Things'. (Indeed, in a very interesting decision, the original roles of Crusher and Picard here are actually inverted in the later episode, but 'Remember Me' came first!) Two outstanding hours.

Riker's palpable frustration is fun too.

Almost three years since I watched it. This time from insida a Corona Bubble. You will need to google it after 2099 perhaps.

I Still enjoy the first 29 minutes and 30 seconds approximatively and if you could cut it the Beverly sceenes until she jumps into the vortex.

What strikes me this time is the fact that Picard (first) as in Episode Yesterdays Enterprise completely trust a crew member when she present such absurd "feeling". Also Beverly resisting to accept the she is mad. Per definition, at least the simple one, you cannot realise yourself that you are psycotic and hallucinating.
Beverly, until the end tries to find the solution in the laws of star trek physics and natural science.

Estethically I also liked the scenes from the bridge when only she and Picard was thera and later she alone. You could then really feel the emptiness.

I recently watched the "Remember Me" episode again after having carried my DVD copies of TNG with me through the years. They have become like old videos or photos that help me to remember a favored period in my life, to recall beloved friendships. I watched Remember Me as someone would who had grieved the loss of all those special and sacred friends and loved ones; people,pets, plants, trees, my dearest memories of places and experiences all gone now and everything else that had once existed as part of my reality and that had comforted me. All of my personal world that had eventually been removed to exist elsewhere now came back into focus again as part of the Great Beyond (or next life maybe).

As I watched this amazing episode and the content sank into my pores and then as my skin began to crawl...but in new and better way. I had suddenly realized the allegory between this TNG episode and the progression life on Earth, in this galaxy and universe; ultimately what is contained within my personal and individual encounters while in this life. I was having an encounter with death and my own mortality. I sat realizing again that all things in their present form must eventually come to an end.

My family, many of whom are now on the other side, well perhaps it helps me to imagine them waiting there and hoping now and then that when the time is right, when the pathway is established again, that I'll find the strength to come willingly and join every other vanishing life form, every other facet of my past or present experience, all that it was my utmost joy to experience, to know of and to accompany while on this fantastic voyage.

By my finally letting go and mustering the good faith to eventually engage the vortex myself, as I willingly let go and surrender to that which eventually transports each of us forward to the Next Big Adventure (NBA), I will have finally found my way home again and hopefully to an everlasting end to all of this paiful loss.

This creative and complex episode of TNG seemed to work every bit of its magic on me in an ethereal and other worldly instance having opened my mind to another interpretation, a passage if you will, just as any really good science fiction should. An uplifting TNG wonderment had brought me into full view of these never fully understood possibilities, areas of our lives that our normal waking experience misses or those pieces of our experience that we would otherwise want to desperately avoid.

I had no idea that this epic series would deliver future gifts and wonders decades after I was a much younger person and first entertained by it. I tip my hat to Lee Sheldon (Writer of 'Remember Me') and the rest of the TNG cast and crew for having paved the way to an otherwise frightening transition, an encounter with my own mortality that once it eventually returns will be welcomed and appreciated for what it might actually be and not what I had feared. Maybe a part of the master plan, death, my own personal ending in this sense becomes nothing less than a loving transition and safe delivery to the NBA.

Hope this helps.

@ Sole S. Survivor:
You eloquently put moving words to many of my own feelings about 'Remember Me'. Thank you for posting this.

It is a testament to the abilities and scope of the writer, cast and production team that this episode can still evoke such complex emotion.

So far this is easily the best Bev episode. It plays to her few strengths as an actor quite well. She's just really sort of a one-note performer unable to convincingly display anything other than compassion for her patients and her trademark "Deer in headlights" type of performance. Once you get outside of confusion or compassion she rapidly drops to bottom of the cast in terms of performance. I almost never believe her scenes with Wesley, for instance, and rapidly become aware that I'm watching Gates McFadden trying to act.

I can't remember any other episode that focused on her that I enjoyed this much. The writing of the alternate reality's crew gets pretty absurd but that's ok given the whole scenario. I enjoyed the callback to the Traveler, I wish he had become a bigger piece of the Trek universe. Maybe he does and I've simply forgotten?

Interesting seeing the discussion since i last saw this show. This episode continues to be well liked. I guess I'm the only one. I really just cannot get past how bad the central performance is. I suppose the other characters and main plot can carry the show well enough. But to have the "centric" character turning in such an amateurish performance doesn't cut it

My god Beverly Crusher is an idiot. What a frustrating episode to watch. “It must be everybody else that’s the problem!” she runs around screaming while everybody else disappears. Hey dumb dumb, given you’re the constant here maybe it’s you? Hmmmmmmmm? Moron.

And agreed, Gates McFadden is an atrocious actress and this episode just nails the fact home.

For some reason I misremembered what this episode was about - I thought it was the one where Crusher and Picard are stranded on a planet and start reminiscing about their mutual past (which episode was that??)

This is a brilliant piece of sci-fi dealing with the nature of reality, the question of “how do I know if I am mad?”, and the slowly unfolding mystery at the episode’s heart. It was therefore satisfying that we only see Crusher’s world until halfway through, when we finally understand what the problem is. Nice also to see the Traveler again (though in my own alternate universe, he’s the Traveller…).

I’m tempted to deduct half a star for Gates McFadden’s acting limitations but that would be unfair on everyone else associated with it.
4 stars.

@Tidd

I believe you're thinking of TNG S7E08, 'Attached'.

@Bok R’Mor

That sounds like the one! Thanks.

This episode gives new meaning to the phrase "living in a bubble"!

Even with the smaller ship compliment, it's bonkers that Beverly would be the only medical officer aboard...what if *she* needs medical or surgical care?

Picard, to Beverly: "Your word has always been good enough for me."

Picard, to Guinan: "Not good enough, dammit! Not good enough!"

Then again, it was Beverly's fantasy.

"If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the Universe!"

Best line ever.

I love this episode. For several reasons...mostly honorable ones 😉, I'm a big fan of Beverly crusher but as I'm sure WE ALL know...she rarely gets great storylines or much to do. This is one of only a handful of crusher episodes and it's a great one imo. I always found it frustrating that she had virtually nothing meaningful to do in the tng movies

@Jammer question HOW can you say the twist should not have been played for surprise. DIDNT EVERYONE find the TWIST SURPRISING when it's revealed she's trapped in a warp bubble made of her own thoughts? Wouldn't you agree Jammer it's very surprising and original and thoughtful??

I enjoyed this one... - although I do wish ol' Bev would've stayed on the other side, whatever/wherever that is, permanently! Seriously though, a different, novel pickle for our Enterprise "family" to find itself in and find its way out of. Beverly did a good job figuring things out. To get more mileage out of the episode, it helps to put oneself in a similar situation and try to imagine how you'd feel, think, react...

The "traveler" though? Oh my dear good gods, what a bland, nondescript, soporific, one-dimensional character. Having trouble sleeping? One sentence out of him will knock you right out.

The "we have four minutes before the whole thing [im/ex]plodes!" bit? So overdone and predictable that you start rooting for them to somehow fail.

The quasi-spiritual mumbo-jumbo? Yeah, could've done very nicely without that, too.

Jammer or anyone else didn't anyone else thinkthe twist or revelation of the warp bubble was surprising..I don't get why youbsaid the twist was not or should not have been played for surprise or suspense..hope to hear from you

One emotional appeal is that it not only caughtt the sense of loss of one's comrades as life passes but also the aggravation of the losses by others around not being able to appreciate the extent of your loss of that person or memory.
In that sense, thr episode hit well.
The Traveler reminds me of insufferable health rehab therapists who insist with psychobabble that any challenge can be oveercome.

Rewatching TNG in 2023, I found that it has one of the funniest moments of involuntary comedy in the franchise.

Wesley is phasing out of existence with Picard behind him when Dr. Crusher comes out of the vortex. Wesley collapses, and the captain passes next to him to hold Beverly, without even giving a glimpse to the boy.

Then, the captain welcomes the Traveller while Wesley is still on his knees, and not even his mother asks if he's okay.

What pishposh! Why, in my day and that rapscallion James Tincan Kirk, he would have solved the disappearance of that lovely Doctor himself! There'd have been some fight music and Mr Spock would have raised his eyebrow and given us a logical solution.

This episode is highly illogical!

For some reason this is one of my favourite episodes in Star Trek. Definitely one of the TNG episodes I've rewatched the most. It's just a blast seeing Crusher and her utter bewilderment at what's happening. Quite possibly Gates McFadden's finest hour in TNG.

The scene with Wesley and Beverly nuzzling up against each other like that at the end was very inappropriate, both looked like they were getting aroused at that point, I'm starting to think that those two have some weird covert sexual relationship going on (I forgot if in other episodes where Jack was mentioned if one of the parents was adopted, so unsure if Beverly is his biological or adoptive mother), but they are WAY to touchy-feely, constantly hugging and her always "wanting to spend time around him. Borderline incest.

I enjoy this episode but I agree with Phil about "the Traveler."

He shows up with magical powers just to give the episode a way to end "happily ever after" by making Wesley into a God.

It doesn't need all that.

The first time I saw this episode, I thought the thing Beverly wanted to say to Picard would be some form of "Wesley is your son." Or, "I’m in love with you." After "Attached" and "Picard" season 3 we know canonically that neither statement would have been true. From the very first episode I was thinking, maybe because of the "chemistry" I perceived between Picard and Crusher (or between Stewart and McFadden), that the two of them had a mutually romantic past. If the writers were indeed going to reveal that Wesley was Picard's son, this would have been kind of a cool way to do it: Beverly tells a fake Picard the truth, thinking she is telling the real Picard, then shortly thereafter escapes from the bubble. Nothing would change in their "real world," i.e. for the characters, but the audience would know. The show could proceed without the truth's affecting anyone, or any present or future storylines. And if the audience knew, the writers could have made use of the information, say by writing (not too often) some clever/cute lines that would seem innocent to the characters but would actually be subtle nods to the audience. I’m not saying any of this should have been "made so," but it could have been an interesting, novel way of storytelling.