Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 159: Dark Page (1987) Review

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(More customer reviews)Counselor Troi's mother, Lwaxana (Majel Barrett-Roddenberry), visits the Enterprise with several representatives of the Cairn. No, not Cairn Terriers - this is a humanoid species that just happens to share the name of the quadraped canines from earth. The Cairn would like to join the Federation, but they do not have their own spoken language. This telepathic species communicates with jumbles of images, not with words. Lwaxana has spent months with the Cairn, teaching them Federation English. The Cairn aboard the Enterprise have vocal subprocessors implanted in their throats to better enable them to speak, as speech was previously unknown to them.
Lwaxana has a hidden agenda, as always - it's either to somehow get Picard into her pants or to get Deanna married. Mercifully, she keeps her paws and thoughts away from Jean-Luc in this episode. One of the Cairn delegation, Maques (pronounced "may-kweese"), is a widower raising a child, Hedril, by himself. Hedril is played by a very young Kirsten Dunst. Lwaxana has given Maques the notion that Deanna is desperately looking for a husband, which ends up embarrassing both Deanna & Maques.
When Deanna confronts her mother about her behavior, her mother isn't as flighty and argumentative as usual. She seems almost melancholy and clutches her head as in pain. When she finally goes to Sickbay, Dr. Crusher announces that her telepathic brain chemicals are low - and that she should avoid telepathy for a few days. Working with the Cairn has been exhausting - trying to figure out their unique way of telepathy and how to communicate with them has been a true challenge, as well as being professionally challenging for her.
Maques tries to tell Deanna that her mother has parts of her thoughts that are "dark" and Deanna misinterprets his comments as referring to her mother's private thoughts. Maques, new to English and speaking in general, does not have the vocabulary to explain what he truly senses within Lwaxana.
During a tour of the arboretum with the Cairn, Lwaxana collapses and ends up in a coma. When Maques communicates with Deanna telepathically, she gets a better idea of what he was referring to as her "dark" areas. Deanna explains to Crusher & Picard that empaths have a metaconscious - an additional layer of trauma protection int he brain, unknown to non-telepaths. Maques serves as a mental bridge between Deanna and Lwaxana as Deanna must enter her mother's mind to find the source of the trauma.
Lwaxana's metaconscious throws up all sorts of barriers to Deanna - a vicious wolf, Picard, and other imagery to distract her from seeing the darkness in her past. Deanna pushes through to save her mother and finally sees the horrible event unfold before her eyes and understands why her mother has such self-loathing and why she is so over-protective of Deanna, her "little one."
Facing this imagery with her daughter and finding acceptance instead of condemnation is healing for both of them. A very interesting method of character development and insight into the psyche of each person.

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