Genesis (TNG episode)

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Star Trek: TNG episode
"Genesis"

Episode no.	171
Prod. code	271
Airdate	March 21, 1994
Writer(s)	Brannon Braga
Director	Gates McFadden
Guest star(s)	Patti Yasutake Dwight Schultz Carlos Ferro Rusty McLennon
Year	2370
Stardate	47653.2
Episode chronology
Previous	"Eye of the Beholder"
Next	"Journey's End"

"Genesis" is a seventh-season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Worf fires a torpedo that veers off course, and Captain Picard and Data go off to retrieve it from space. Data leaves his pregnant cat, Spot with Barclay. Meanwhile, Barclay begins to feel sick, so Dr. Crusher gives him a synthetic T-cell to activate one of his dormant genes. Unfortunately, it activates all of them.

People on the ship begin to feel fatigued and either hot or cold. Worf begins to act especially strange. While Deanna Troi feels cold, Worf feels hot. Worf ends up attacking Dr. Crusher.

When they have retrieved the torpedo from space, Captain Picard and Data return to find the ship adrift, with the main power offline. One of the conn officers is dead, torn open in his seat. Most of the crew are devolving. Worf has turned into a monstrous creature capable of destroying doors. Riker is now caveman-like. Troi has become an amphibian that has been extinct for millions of years and needs to stay in her bathtub to survive. Barclay himself has become spider-like. Picard is overcome by irrational emotions of fear and anxiety, indicating that he has been infected and will soon devolve into a primate similar to a lemur. On the run from Worf, they end up finding Spot and her kittens. Spot herself has changed into an iguana. The kittens are normal, indicating it is the process of pregnancy which might be a cure. In the end, Data releases a substance into the air which returns everyone to their original state. The virus is named after Barclay (Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome, see Spot).

[edit] Trivia

This was the only Next Generation episode directed by Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher).

In Sickbay, Worf sprays Dr. Crusher with venom in his newly de-evolved state. In the next scene, Nurse Ogawa states that she was able to put Dr. Crusher into stasis to prevent further degradation in her condition. One of the main reasons for this plot development was so that Gates McFadden would have less screen time and more time directing the episode.

In the scene where Picard and Data find Troi in the bath in her quarters, Data states that Troi "...is no longer human..." This is inaccurate as Troi is half Betazoid.