Starship Nomadic, Northern Ireland STARSHIP NOMADICA NORTHERN IRELAND STAR TREK FAN GROUP
TNG · SEASON 77×14

Sub Rosa

NOMADIC PICK · SO BAD IT'S FUNTNG tries a gothic ghost story.
FIRST SHOWN (US)
31 January 1994
ON
First-run syndication
STARDATE
None given
DIRECTED BY
Jonathan Frakes
PRODUCTION NO.
266

WRITTEN BYTeleplay by Brannon Braga; story by Jeri Taylor

The end credits add “based upon material by Jeanna F. Gallo”.

IN BRIEF

SPOILER-FREE

At her grandmother's funeral on the colony world Caldos IV, Dr Crusher discovers diaries describing a passionate secret romance, and soon finds herself drawn into the same strange affair.

SYNOPSIS

SPOILERS
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSISHIDE SYNOPSIS

The Enterprise visits Caldos IV so that Dr Crusher can attend the funeral of her grandmother, Felisa Howard. In the old family house Beverly finds diaries revealing that Felisa, at a hundred years old, had a young lover called Ronin. The groundskeeper Ned Quint warns her the house is haunted and that she must leave an old family candle alone. Ronin soon appears to Beverly, claiming to be a ghost who loved her grandmother and now loves her. Under his influence she decides to leave the Enterprise and stay on the planet. Meanwhile the colony's weather control system malfunctions, and Quint dies trying to stop the repairs. Data and La Forge trace a strange energy reading to Felisa's grave, where Ronin is animating her body. Beverly learns he is an anaphasic alien that has attached itself to the women of her family through the candle. She destroys the candle and the creature with it.

DID YOU KNOW?

  1. 01Felisa Howard was named after Brannon Braga's grandmother, who had died shortly before the episode was written.
  2. 02The names Quint and Jessel are a nod to Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and its film version, The Innocents.
  3. 03Duncan Regehr, who plays Ronin, later appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Shakaar Edon.
SOURCES WE CHECKED