Barclay Spider

One of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation is on. It's the one where some manner of virus is infecting the crew, and the result is not cough, nor cold, nor even bumps on the sex organs.

Two words: Barclay Spider.

See, this virus causes its victims to de-evolve. Into Apes. Or Lemurs, in Picard's case. Or Mer-People, like Troi. Or weird giant bony venom spitters. Like Worf.

Or spiders. Lt. Barclay (played excellently by Dwight "H.M. Murdoch" Schultz), who is human, somehow devolves into a spider-creature. Complete with webspinners and multiple eyeballs.

What I came to dislike about Star Trek, even in the days of The Next Generation, is that it gets caught up and bogged down in its own created history, its own mythology, and its own pseudo-science, that it becomes a series that repeats itself over and over again.

And in the sea of Star Trek's own pseudo-history and science, many good S.F. stories drown.

Which is why I like a story like this. Because it's a neat story (complete with Worf eating like mad and spraying Dr. Crusher with his venom sacs). And I like it because it came from so far out out of left field when it came to Star Trek's writers, who were (and are) faithful to a fault to its created science. And I like it because it is, ultimately, of little consequence to the series, which is outlandish in and of itself.

I tend to think de-evolving into a monkey, or a lemur, or especially a spider, for the already neurotic Barclay, would be something of a traumatic life event. Something that would come up in conversation later.

Riker: This was a bad day.

Data: Sir, would you say it was as bad a day as the day you de-volved into a proto-human? Or was it worse?

And what's more, I tend to think Starfleet would want to examine almost EVERYBODY on the ship, from children up to Captain Picard, just to make sure they're fit for duty, physically and psychologically.

And more than that....since there were predators, who get territorial, I'm sure somebody had to have died. I'm sure somebody would want to have an investigation into that. Can't just mark "killed by devolved crewmember ape thing" on the form, and just move on. Even in the 24th century.

But it's never brought up again. And I like that. Shows that the writers can still go out there and have fun.