Star Trek: The Next Generation — 1x25 — Conspiracy

Aired 1988-05-09

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:6.05

Synopsis

Picard suspects conspiracy in Starfleet.

Remarkable scenes

Data attempting to laugh.
Data: "One can swim in moonlight?"
Worf: "Swimming is too much like bathing." Apparently Worf hates being clean.
Data: "In a manner of speaking, it is nothing but a lifeless hunk of rock. A useless ball of mud. A worthless chunk of--" Riker: "Thank you Data."
Picard: "Relay those coordinates to the transporter room. I'm beaming down." Riker: "Alone, captain?" Picard: "Alone, number one!" Picard didn't want to hear any crap from Riker today! Way to assert yourself Picard!
Data talking to himself and the computer interrupting his rambling much like Riker did earlier.
Quinn kicking Riker's ass and laughing at unbelievable blows he receives.
Riker and Picard shoot the last admiral in the ass at once point!
Remmick's death was so wonderfully gory.

Review

This episode features nice continuity with TNG: Coming of Age and a valued look into a bit of the rest of the Federation. We get to meet three other starship captains and we get to see Earth as it exists in this century for the first time. Besides this novelty there is little else to redeem this episode. The actual plot is painful to watch, as conspiracy plots usually are. Regardless of the fact that this conspiracy does indeed pan out, I almost would rather it didn't as the level of gory shock value in this episode is too much, with the maggot eating scene stepping a bit over the line. I did enjoy the interesting humor at the beginning of the episode, with lines like "one can swim in moonlight?" and "swimming is too much like bathing" becoming absolute classic quotes in my opinion. However, again, aside from simple trivia, I find this episode nowhere near as profound as it tries to be and the apparent risk of the parasites some day mounting a full scale invasion at the end distinctly not menacing.

11 reader comments

according to Memory-alpha.org:
[did you know]…that the original version of the script for Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Conspiracy" did not feature alien parasites? The 'conspiracy' in question was simply a military coup within Starfleet, but Gene Roddenberry vehemently opposed such an idea, since he believed Starfleet would never stoop to such methods; thus the alien angle was introduced at his insistence.
Interesting.
by a | 09/07/2006 at 3:43 pm

During the "Code 47" transmission, Keel tells Picard to trust no one. Later, after their covert meeting on the planet, Keel says, "This meeting never took place as far as Starfleet is concerned." Then, just as Picard is leaving, Keel says, "Tell Beverly 'hello' for me." How is he supposed to tell Dr. Crusher that he saw Keel if the meeting never happened and he isn't supposed to trust anyone?
When Riker is attacked by Admiral Quinn, Riker calls Security. In the next scene, Geordi and Worf are running down the corridor. What happened to the rest of the security force? I realize that "extras" cost money, but sending both Worf and La Forge from the bridge is a bit much.
When Data reviews all Starfleet command decisions for the past six months, the information rapidly flashes across his display screen. One of the graphics shown is a parrot! What does a parrot have to do with command decisions?
by DSOmo | 06/08/2007 at 8:29 am

Don't listen to the lame review on this one. This episode rocks! Finally, a 1st season episode with some testicles.
by thaibites | 12/03/2009 at 1:49 am

The idea of an alien conspiracy was interesting, but really suffered from compression into one episode. Imagine how much a show with more continuity, such as DS9, could have done with this concept!
Perhaps this is why the aliens seem rather inept. Quinn beams over alone, then decides to have fun beating up Riker in hand-to-hand combat. He should have known Riker would call security; in fact, Riker is rather tardy about doing so. Basically, the Enterprise crew don't do anything clever, Quinn/Alien just hands them the victory on a silver platter. And the other aliens aren't much better.
DSOmo's comments are spot-on as far as Keel's comment and the security team are concerned. It was just silly when the "security team" consists of Worf and Geordi. Geordi?
by Christopher Alexander | 03/13/2011 at 2:52 pm

Why can't Data simply download the information instead of having to painstakingly read it on the computer screen?
by Nicolas | 03/28/2011 at 8:43 am

Response to Nicolas: This is consistent with many other episodes. Data doesn’t have the ability to download data directly from the computer. His positronic brain is a unique technology quite different from that used by the Enterprise computers.
by Christopher Alexander | 04/07/2011 at 3:57 pm

This is a good episode with one or two wrinkles, the main one being the awful acting by most of the support cast. It's also pretty clear that money was running out, hence the lack of extras in the Enterprise security team and in Star Fleet HQ. It really detracts from the believability when the captain of the fleet's flagship is greeted by a total of four or five people.
I don't understand the comments in the main review about the conspiracy. I thought it was fairly well done, and I imagine we would have seen the parasites again had somebody not come up with the idea of The Borg.
by Rob Herbert | 06/03/2011 at 8:42 am

Wow. This was a rather shocking episode. There were quite a few uncharacteristic elements - not bad, not necessarily great, just rather surprising. I'm thinking here of the utter GORE, SHOCK and AWE, when Picard and Riker violently decapitate an investigator from Starfleet's inspector general's office. I did not see that coming.
As Picard himself admits, it was counter-intuitive and uncharacteristic for him. I don't know that I entirely agree that it was absolutely necessary (they didn't really try anything else, just went for the exploding head approach), but at the same time, I'm not prone to complain about or question the decision. I mean, somehow, in the strangeness of this episode, it seems appropriate. These was a rather insidious threat and the solution was rather ballsy…and apparently successful…
Though here we're left with a bit of a question mark and the eerie soundtrack playing over the credits. This is another uncharacteristic aspect for Star Trek - an ominous cliffhanger… This like a number of other things about this episode reminds one of a Hollywood horror flick rather than the show we're used to…
(The worms dinner scene and some of the writing in general is also sort of Hollywood, or almost Stephen King or something…as I mentioned, this is not necessarily good or bad, its just different and surprising, and I commend the writers for mixing it up a bit.)
I must also commend the special effects guys, because that's another thing that was very Hollywood here, in a definitively good way - the effects when Remmick's head explodes and the "mother creature" emerges were absolutely stunning. Imaginative, gory, detailed, disturbing and quite convincing.
So hats off for this bizarre shocker of an episode. (My jaw dropped at least once, which doesn't happen much.)
by a2a | 02/12/2012 at 11:53 pm

Not only do Worf and Geordi(?) Show up when Riker calls security but … Unarmed?!? However Crusher (a medical officer) IS armed? Ok I just didn't get that one? It is like a joke, a medical, science, and security officer walk into a bar and…
I hate to say it but I enjoyed seeing Riker get his butt kicked by grandpa, I think it was priceless. I do like Riker however, especially in later seasons.
The sound effect used at the end of the episode to indicate a disturbance in the force. (i.e. the communication from the bug things to their home world) sounded very similar to the sound effect (used more rhythmically) in the film Contact (Carl Sagan's not ST) when the transport plans are sent to earth from the Vega system.
Anyhow this episode for me was to full of plot holes to really be enjoyable. But I did like Data laughing and chatting with the computer.
by Omcn7 | 02/19/2012 at 2:26 am

Very disappointing episode considering the buildup to it. Yes it had plot holes, stupidity. I just can't forgive one scene when admiral decided to go onto enterprise( he was a poor choice for this kind of thing considering the history Picard and he has ) anyway then starts a fist fight with Riker, not like it was unavoidable, geordi and worf was alredy mentioned but riker reported an emergency and it seems they bought the "he slipped explanation". For the the love of god, if you tell a story of them being sneaky be consistent, blown up star ship and altered orders were a great buildup for nothing, tail hanging out again watered it down and a single guy dying ended it.
2-3/10 ( just for the first part ) I am rewatching tng picking only the above average episodes based on rating, this was misleading.
by Nadrac | 05/07/2012 at 12:07 am

Good episode, they cut the gory bit at the end on SyFy though, had to watch it on YouTube.
by mattymjp | 07/23/2013 at 9:27 pm