When trying to reignite the star, Geordi refers to the temperature approaching "sixty million degrees Kelvin." The Kelvin scale doesn't use "degrees"; you would simply say "sixty million Kelvin."
Also, Michelle Forbes makes her first Star Trek appearence in this episode before returning later on in the series as Ensign Ro Laren.
Matters are complicated by the presence of Lwaxana Troi on the ship. She insists on joining Picard to welcome Timicin aboard, appointing herself as the "entertainment director" for his visit and clearly quite taken with him.
Timicin's plan is to modify some of the ship's photon torpedoes to reinitiate the fusion process within the Kaelon star. They intend to test the process on a virtually identical star nearby. However the experiment fails, provoking the star into a supernova. Timicin is especially crushed by the failure since he is approaching 60 - by the customs of his world he is expected to return home and engage in voluntary euthanasia, something all Kaelons do at that age in order not to burden the younger generations. Lwaxana is devastated by the news; she demands that Captain Picard intervene to save Timicin, although he has no legal grounds to do so. She argues the barbarity of the practice to Timicin himself, using an example from Betazoid history in which women wore ridiculous wigs containing small caged animals. The practice stopped when one woman finally took a stand and refused to follow the custom, prompting other women to join her until the custom itself faded away. Although reluctant, Timicin has a revelation when he realises that the data from his failed experiment could be used to correct the scientific model he used, ironing out the flaws and creating a working method - but the catch is, he is probably the only man who could do it, and the process will take considerable time.
This revelation prompts him to request asylum aboard the Enterprise. The planetary government is furious - at first the suspect that Timicin has been coerced, or at the very least influenced. They even threaten the Enterprise with warships. When Timicin tries to transmit his data to the planet, they refuse all communication - even if he has the answer, they will not accept it from him.
After a tense standoff, Timicin's daughter comes aboard to plead with her father to see sense. Although he is torn, ultimately he changes his mind and returns with her to end his life. A sad Lwaxana chooses to go with him, stating that according to the tradition his loved ones should be "celebrating" this custom with him, and she counts herself amongst them.
| © Graham & Ian Kennedy | Page views : 32,217 | Last updated : 2 Jul 2018 |