Skin Of Evil

It is Sunday once again and I look around and think to myself “what the hell happened to this weekend and where did the time go?” But alas it is nearly gone and now I’m on to the week but it is a fun short week so that is ok.

Treadmill: 305 calories and 2.36miles

Skin Of Evil

While Counselor Troi is on her way back from a conference her space shuttle mysteriously crash lands on an uninhabited planet. The Enterprise immediately rushes to the planet and locates the shuttle. Upon beam down Riker, Yar, Data and Crusher run into a mysterious black form that won’t allow them to get to the shuttlecraft in which Troi is stranded. The black form reveals itself to be a creature called Armus who toys with the crew for pure sport and evil reasons. Lt. yar attempts to forcefully get to the shuttlecraft but Armus stuns her and in turn kills her despite the medical efforts of Dr. Crusher. The crew is now faced with trying to outsmart Armus and getting to Counselor Troi. Armus reveals the he was abandoned on the planet centuries ago by a race of people who figured out a way to cast out their evil inner desires and he is the result. Armus is pure evil, anger, and hatred and he intends to get a shuttle from the Enterprise so he can find the people who abandoned him and exact his revenge. The Enterprise discovers that when Armus is angry his powers of control lessen and so Picard provokes him and everyone is transported away from the planet. The planet is then declared off limits for everyone. The episode ends with a memorial service for Tasha Yar which is a pretty heartfelt sequence in which she says goodbye through a holographic recording.

This is the last regular cast appearance of Tasha Yar in the Next Generation. Denise Crosby was irritated that her character was not given much to do on a regular basis so she requested to leave the show. Afterwards she had second thoughts about her decision mainly I think because she A) didn’t get much work and B) the show really took off and people responded to it very well. Later Yar comes back for a guest spot in a flashback episode and then through a clever writing twist she comes back as the half-romulan daughter of Tasha Yar.

Truth be told I was crying at the end of the episode while watching this episode on the treadmill today. Tasha Yar in her final scene says this:

“Death is that state where one lives only in the memory of others, which is why it is not an end. No goodbyes—just good memories”

I can remember coming across that quote when I was preparing to do my grandmother’s eulogy at her funeral and it brought back so many of those memories from that time. My Grandmother was a Star Trek fan and that is something the two always shared and will always share.