Star Trek 3x12 "The Empath"

rating *

Memory Alpha summary

Like Q in The Next Generation, an entire aliens species is tested, although in "The Empath" it's with a single individual.  The results probably would have been better with a better choice as to how to represent that individual.

As the title suggests, the individual is an empath, like Troi in Next Generation (it's easy to assume the episode was considered somewhat heavily in the formative development of the second series, kind of merged with The Motion Picture and Gene Roddenberry's attempts at launching a TV show with a robotic lead character).  But she's also a mute, and therein lies the rub.  The performance falls flat for anyone who doesn't particularly want melodrama inserted into the mix, but there it is and there's very little else to be said about it.

via Tom Taylorville

It's the kind of episode that's just kind of there, reminiscent of "The Cage," the original pilot in concept and execution.  If so much of it hadn't apparently been duplicated to much greater effect, I'd say it should otherwise very easily be stricken from the record, a contender for the distinction of worst episodes in the way "Spock's Brain" is usually much more easily considered.

four quarter analysis

franchise * series * essential * character