The Next Phase

When Ensign Ro and Geordi LaForge are beamed back from a damaged Romulan ship, a transporter accident leaves them missing and presumed dead. The rest of the crew are organizing a memorial service, but Ro and Geordi are trapped out of phase and desperate to get back among the living. They may need a lot more memorials, though. The Romulans are planning to blow up the Enterprise! New wave, dance craze, anyways, “The Next Phase” is next on Mission Log. Grav plating. Something about the grav plating stops them going through the floor. That’s my head canon. Should’ve been written into it. I don’t know that that’s true. I mean it’s pretty much all nonsense anyway but a brief line about the grav plating would have helped me suspend disbelief I think. Then there’s the breathing thing, but I’ve got nothing there. If Geordi and Ro are “trapped between two worlds” (as per the syndication synopsis here), where is that one Romulan? Doing endless somersaults between ten or twelve others? Idle minds want to know! Oh yeah, that one with the flute solo’s coming up, isn’t it? yes it is VHS taping friend…lol. I actually goof around w the recorder/English flute. Just for the past year, to intro my kids to music. Life goal :play “Inner Light” tune…. Floor headcanon time: I propose that the artificial gravity of the ship works across all kinds of phases and whatnot. But yeah, they could have been more consistent. Doesn’t answer how they can breathe though. Speaking of breathing: I always found the demise of the phased romulan pretty cruel, because I could never figure out if he actually died or floated there until starving. That would be great, a little post-credits scene as he keeps tumbling through space. “Hey guys? Guys? Anybody? I’m…uh…still here…um. Say…can someone phase a cheeseburger for me? Hello…?” And on he goes, across the galaxy, until he floats past Voyager, completely unnoticed, sometime in the 1998 season. Man, it’s looking like it’s a requirement to submit a Floor Theory in this week’s comments, so here’s an exclusive you won’t see anywhere else: creamy nougat. The Enterprise’s decks are filled with creamy nougat, whose matter for some reason resists changes to its phase state, therefore they can’t fall through the floors. Packed with peanuts and chroniton particles, the Enterprise really satisfies. Okay, I doubt that’s the explanation. Here’s the thing: the writers would’ve gotten away with it (if not for us meddling kids) if they’d disposed of that Romulan by some other, almost any other means. He could’ve accidentally run through a wall and straight into the warp core, or drowned in the dolphin tank, or…something. Anything. The moment he goes through the outer hull, you have to ask why everyone’s not slipping through the floors. Then you have to ask why they can breathe non-phased nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere. Then you have to curl up into a fetal position, rock back and forth, and just ask why….why?? Or maybe that’s just me. It’s a fun little episode, but you really have to check your brain at the door. I think that’s where we get this intrinsic feeling of disappointment here: since when did Star Trek, of all shows, ask us to check our brains at the door? Even “fluff” episodes like Shore Leave pay off some sort of high-concept idea (the planet’s reading your mind and deploying robots or holograms or something to make your thoughts real)…even Star Trek V has an interesting high-concept notion or two buried beneath an avalanche of forced humor…and The Next Phase could’ve done the same thing but for one gag that becomes its fatal flaw because it demands that question be asked of the plot point that underpins the entire story. The viewers shouldn’t have to plug a hole in the writers’ dam for the show to work. I’ll never look at Picard sitting in the ready room staring at his monitor the same way again, thinking deep, solemn thoughts about Nyan Cat. We imagine the floors and walls are just teeming with creamy nougat now. A