Contagion
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 20 March 1989
- ON
- First-run syndication
- STARDATE
- 42609.1
- DIRECTED BY
- Joseph L. Scanlan
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 137
WRITTEN BYWritten by Steve Gerber & Beth Woods
The Enterprise races into the Neutral Zone to answer a distress call from its sister ship, the Yamato, and stumbles on the remains of a legendary ancient civilisation.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
The Enterprise answers a distress call from the USS Yamato inside the Romulan Neutral Zone, only to see the ship explode before it can help. Its captain, Donald Varley, had been searching for Iconia, home of a legendary ancient race, fearing that the Romulans would seize its advanced technology. His logs show that an Iconian probe scanned the Yamato and planted a program that crippled it. Now the Enterprise suffers the same spreading system failures, while a Romulan warbird commanded by Taris watches closely. Picard, Data and Worf beam down to Iconia and find a gateway able to open doorways to distant places. Data is infected and shuts down, but restarts free of the program, showing La Forge how to save the Enterprise: wipe its systems and reload them. Picard destroys the Iconian control centre and escapes through the gateway, then is beamed home. Riker shares the cure with the stricken Romulans, and both ships part peacefully.
- 01The episode introduces two of Picard's defining traits: his love of archaeology and his taste for Earl Grey tea.
- 02Co-writer Steve Gerber created Howard the Duck. Beth Woods, a computer consultant at Paramount, reportedly had to explain computer viruses to Gene Roddenberry.
- 03The USS Yamato is seen for real for the first time, having appeared only as an illusion in “Where Silence Has Lease”.