star trek bags of mostly water

Home Soil (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 1.7 Log entries
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Production history
• 3.2 Story and production
• 3.3 Cast and characters
• 3.4 Continuity
• 3.5 Sets, props, and costumes
• 3.6 Reception
• 3.7 Video and DVD releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Also starring
• 4.3 Guest stars
• 4.4 Co-stars
• 4.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.6 Stand-ins
• 4.7.1 Unused production references
• 4.8 External links

Summary [ ]

The USS Enterprise -D is on a mission to catalog young planets in the Pleiades Cluster . Along the way, they have been instructed by the Federation to check on the terraforming colony on Velara III , as they were behind schedule. Captain Picard calls down to the station, and after a minute or two of no answers from the planet, Director Kurt Mandl finally responds. On the viewscreen , the director insists there is no need for them to pay a visit as they are back on schedule. Counselor Troi senses that he is extremely nervous about something, especially when Picard insists that an away team be sent down to have a look around. Troi, Commander Riker , Lieutenant Yar , Lieutenant Commander Data , and Lieutenant La Forge beam to the facility.

Act One [ ]

" We don't get many visitors here. "

They are greeted by hydraulics specialist Arthur Malencon , biosphere designer Luisa Kim , and Chief Engineer Bjorn Bensen . Outside the complex is Velara III's dark, windswept desert, a hostile place, which Kim tells them to remember; in a couple of decades, she plans for it to look like a Garden of Eden . Kim apologizes for their director's rudeness. She points out that they don't get many visitors and mentions that Dr. Mandl has been under a great deal of stress lately.

Kim offers a look around, proudly explaining their amazing procedure of taking a lifeless planet and converting it into a class M environment. Afterwards, La Forge and Data can't help but go to Malencon at the controls for the hydraulic probes. He mentions he has been having problems with the erratic power surges in the servos that control the probes. La Forge offers assistance, wondering if the high saline content of the soil is disrupting conductivity. Mandl finally enters, appearing gruff and moody. He reminds Malencon of their tight schedule and sends the reluctant tech off to work in the laser drilling room. Mandl directs the away team's attention to a schematic diagram of their planning; everything is specific and exacting.

Laser blasted

Suddenly, Troi senses terror and announces that Malencon is in serious trouble. A warning siren sounds and the group runs to the hydraulic station. As they approach, they hear the blasting of a drilling laser and cries of pain. The door to the room is sealed; they try to force the hatch when the laser blasts and screams abruptly stop. Upon opening the door, they find the room is a complete mess and spot Malencon, so badly injured he probably cannot be saved. In the center of the room a large drilling laser hangs from a control arm, still pointing down at him.

Act Two [ ]

Quick like an android

Riker has Malencon transported to the Enterprise -D sickbay, but indeed Crusher cannot save him. In the meantime, they have the power to the hydraulics room shut down. Kim, Mandl, Troi, and Riker head to the ship as well; the rest stay to survey the damage. Data finds it interesting that the laser drill seemed to stop at the moment Malencon stopped screaming. He reactivates power to the room and reruns the drilling program. Data watches the drill run its cycle as it blasts down into each of the bore holes. As he turns away for a moment to check the readouts, the drill suddenly pivots toward him from behind and the door closes by itself. Fortunately, Data is saved by his android reflexes and quickly dodges the drill's beam as it blasts past him. Hearing the drill firing repeatedly, La Forge and Bensen come to the rescue but find the door is sealed again. Beyond it, they hear a horrendous crash and the smashing of equipment. La Forge screams Data's name but receives no answer. They finally get the hatch open, and find that Data has ripped the drilling machine down from its mounting. The whole device lies mangled on the floor, and Bensen laments that a year's work has been destroyed. Data simply tells Bensen he had no choice.

A flash in the dark

In Picard's ready room , he tells Mandl he is shutting down operations until the matter is investigated; Mandl is outraged, stating that Picard is overstepping his authority. Picard says a member of his crew has been attacked, which gives him the right to intervene. Mandl reminds him that he has a delicate schedule to maintain, but Picard says it is on hold until he has answers. Yar escorts Mandl to his temporary quarters and now La Forge and Data inform him the drilling laser was somehow reprogrammed to kill anyone who entered the room. The three remaining terraformers seem to be the only possible suspects. Picard instructs La Forge and Data to return to the planet to look for any sabotage or tampering. He also tells Yar to dig up the service records of all the terraformers for himself, and Counselor Troi to review and look for a possible motive.

" Speculation. Could it be alive? " " How could it be alive? It's inorganic. "

Data and La Forge return to the station. Data notices a strange flicker of light down at the far end of one of the bore shafts. He makes sure it isn't a reflection, then scans it with his tricorder . He gets no readings, so he asks La Forge to look at it with his VISOR . Using its various visual modes, La Forge scans the object. It's inorganic , yet the pulses of light and color are unexplainable. Data wonders if it could be alive; it might be what the terraformers are trying to cover up… and why someone killed Malencon.

Act Three [ ]

The object is beamed to the Enterprise -D, where Dr. Crusher has it placed inside a glass bell jar for analysis in a medical lab . The computer makes scans and verifies that it contains no organic molecules . Crusher enhances the scan on the wall display, which shows a complex pattern of crystalline forms. Energy patterns flow throughout a beautiful network of structures. It begins to emanate an audible hum. Crusher asks the computer what is causing the flashes and noise, but it is uncertain, since it is theoretically impossible for the substance to produce such an effect. However, it gets louder as they approach the object. She asks the computer for a hypothesis, to which it replies: " Life ".

Picard relays the findings to Mandl and his staff. Mandl reiterates that the Federation verified Velara III to be lifeless, but Picard says this was an understandable mistake given the novel nature of the lifeform. Regardless, Picard mentions his suspicions that Mandl knew there was life down there; if so, he was in direct violation of the Prime Directive . Mandl makes it clear that he is in the business of creating life, not taking it. He leaves, and now Troi and Yar make it clear he suspected the truth but did not intend to commit murder. Furthermore, only he and Malencon would have necessary skills to program the drill in the manner it behaved.

Microbrain, macro problems

Back in the medical lab, Crusher calls for Picard for new information. Picard arrives, and La Forge indicates he has detected a shift in the infrared spectrum; its internal structure is somehow changing. Suddenly, the small flicker of light brightens, nearly blinding everyone in the room. The hum grows louder as well. The hum and light subside, revealing two points of light inside the bell jar. Data points out that only life can replicate itself. As a precaution, Crusher activates a containment field around the bell jar, but the computer has trouble maintaining the field. The computer indicates that a "translation request" is being made; the glowing objects are trying to communicate with the computer. Power is increased to the containment field, but the fight for control continues. It looks as if Data is right; it's a lifeform, and also intelligent, with the power to access the computer. Everyone evacuates the lab.

Act Four [ ]

In the observation lounge , Picard now directly confronts Mandl, asking if he knew there was life on Velara III. He admits he knew of random energy patterns that disrupted their drilling, but that hardly indicated life by anything he is aware of. He adds they're meaningless silicon crystals that rebroadcast sunlight. Picard tells him they are hardly meaningless; they are clearly alive and intelligent, and are trying to communicate.

Growing in the lab

By now, the bell jar contains a cluster of several points of light. Data, La Forge and Worf further the analysis and confirm its structure and properties. From engineering , however, an ensign reports that the power fluctuations are increasing, causing numerous systems around the ship to go haywire; something is taking over. Soon, the universal translator comes online by itself, saying " Ugly giant bags of mostly water. " Picard is confused, and Data indicates it is an accurate description of Human physiology ; he points out that Humans are 90% water surrounded by a flexible container. The crystals speak, saying they had asked the Humans to leave, but they did not listen. It has driven them to kill. Picard tries to reassure the crystals that they come in peace; they didn't understand the message, and were unaware there was life on the planet. The crystals object, stating the "bags" at the station knew. They tried peaceful contact, but were ignored, and some were killed. They have no choice now but to declare war. Before Picard can respond, the crystals end communication. At this point the whole ship is jarred by a force. Data indicates that the crystals have joined together into a kind of living computer he calls a " microbrain "; the more there are, the stronger they become.

Act Five [ ]

Data identifies the flashes of light they emit appear to be program instructions allowing them to interface with the ship's computers. Additionally, it is intelligent enough to interface faster than the crew can. After a quick flare up of energy and more disturbances in the ship, the crystals seem to power down. Crusher indicates that with single-celled organic life, replication is followed by a resting state; perhaps it is the same for the microbrain. Picard orders Yar to beam the entity back to the planet. She tries to energize the beam, but the beam is redirected. Picard is agitated; lifeform or not, the safety of the ship is at stake. He tells Data to remove the atmosphere from the medical lab. Data tries, but again, the controls are locked out.

Game over on Velara III

Picard meets with the terraformers, explaining that the entity said it has tried to contact them before, but they ignored it. Mandl claims that if it tried communicating, they didn't understand it; how were they to know? Picard wants to know what the terraformers did to cause the crystals to fight back. Kim indicates Malencon was siphoning off a layer of saline water on the surface of the sand. Crusher suggests that life needs water; perhaps it was sustaining them. Data suggests that as saline water conducts electricity, it might have been what linked them together; individually, a single brain cell is not intelligent, but when linked to others, intelligence is formidable. To prevent the loss of the saline, which would have destroyed them, it understandably drove them to kill. Any one would declare war after such action against them, notes Picard.

" Come back three centuries. "

The image of the medical lab shows the mass in the bell jar growing brighter. Suddenly, the glass shatters and now the crystal is large enough to see. Data and La Forge come up with an idea; they had detected cadmium salts, which create electrical current under infrared light. Perhaps the crystals are photoelectric in nature. Picard orders the lights in the medical lab killed, but again the controls do not work. Picard sends Riker, who opens an access panel outside the lab, and disables the lighting that way. Kim realizes now that the species must have evolved within the thin layer where light penetrated the sand enough to reach the saline water; if the water level dropped even one centimeter beyond the light, the lifeforms would have starved to death. Now in total darkness, the glow of the microbrain begins to soften, and the crystals communicate, begging for more light. They reluctantly declare the war to be over if they are returned to the "wet sand". Picard has Riker bring the lights back up, just a bit, to relieve them of their torment. He expresses his apologies for having caused them harm, it was not intentional and asks if the microbrain believes him: they do. However when he says it's important that the beings trust them, they opine that they can't yet, as they believe Humans to be too arrogant and primitive, and ask that they return no earlier than three centuries ; perhaps by then, Humanity can be trusted. Picard replies that he understands, and agrees to leave after sending them home. After Riker check up on the microbrain in the medical lab, he has the transporter chief lock on to its coordinates and reports to Picard that the transporter is ready, at which Picard has the entity beamed back to the sand layer on Velara III.

Data is disappointed that they couldn't learn more about the strange lifeform, to which Picard says that they will in time, when they're better prepared. Afterward, Picard places an indefinite quarantine on the planet. They set course to the nearest starbase to drop off the surviving terraformers, Picard noting in his log that he hopes the lessons they learned at Velara III will prevent it from happening elsewhere.

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2364
• First officer's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Someone that tense could be very unpredictable. Stay on your toes, Number One. "

" Ugly giant bags of mostly water. "

" I sense deliberate concealment, sir. " " Of what? " " I don't know, but it's intense. "

" I'm Luisa Kim, gardener of Edens. "

" She is as open as she seems. "

" I create life… I don't take it! "

" A year's work… destroyed! "

" Terraformers are often obsessive. It frequently goes with the career profile. "

" …But is it alive? " " Probability: positive. " " I wasn't asking you. "

" Terraforming makes you feel almost God-like. "

" Agreed. We will send you home, to your wet sand. "

Background information [ ]

Production history [ ].

• Second draft story outline ( titled "The Sandy Soils of Home"): 27 October 1987
• Two-page memo of story notes from Gene Roddenberry : 4 November 1987
• Preliminary script draft: 23 November 1987
• Four-page memo of script notes from Gene Roddenberry: 25 November 1987
• Third revised final draft script: 2 December 1987 [1]
• Filmed: 3 December 1987 – 14 December 1987
• Premiere airdate: 22 February 1988
• UK premiere airdate: 30 January 1991

Story and production [ ]

• This was the final episode of the series on which Gene Roddenberry acted as head writer. Maurice Hurley took over control of the writing staff starting with the following episode, " Coming of Age ". ( William Shatner Presents: Chaos on the Bridge )
• According to Hurley, the production was troubled. " An interesting idea, but the execution fell apart. I thought it was a wonderful idea. If you could think of all the problems you could possibly put together in one episode, we had it in that one. Casting, sets, location, time, the fact that the director was getting pages the day before we had to shoot … that was a real tough show to do. " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 164)
• Director Corey Allen noted, " I think we struggled with that script for a very long time. The 'Q' in that one was, 'Do I recognize that there could be other life forms than the kind of life I'm used to?' To ask that question was okay, but I don't feel it was asked as strongly as it was in " Encounter at Farpoint ". " ( Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , p. 164)

Cast and characters [ ]

• This episode was the second time on Star Trek for Carolyne Barry . Twenty-one years earlier she appeared as a Metron in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode " Arena " under the name Carole Shelyne.

Continuity [ ]

• Like TOS : " The Devil in the Dark ", this episode also has people with good intentions unwittingly killing and being attacked by creatures that wish to continue to exist.

Sets, props, and costumes [ ]

• Among the items and costumes from this episode which were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay was a distressed costume worn by Mario Roccuzzo . [2]

Reception [ ]

• A mission report by Robert Greenberger for this episode was published in The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 5 , pp. 46-47.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 9 , catalog number VHR 2438, 4 February 1991
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment ): Volume 1.6, catalog number VHR 4647, 10 August 1998
• As part of the TNG Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of the TNG Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker

Also starring [ ]

• LeVar Burton as Lt. Geordi La Forge
• Denise Crosby as Lt. Tasha Yar
• Michael Dorn as Lt. Worf
• Gates McFadden as Doctor Beverly Crusher
• Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
• Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
• Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher

Guest stars [ ]

• Walter Gotell as Kurt Mandl
• Elizabeth Lindsey as Luisa Kim
• Gerard Prendergast as Bjorn Bensen

Co-stars [ ]

• Mario Roccuzzo as Arthur Malencon
• Carolyne Barry as Female Engineer

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Majel Barrett as Computer Voice
• James G. Becker as Youngblood
• Darrell Burris as operations officer
• Dan Campise as operations officer
• Dexter Clay as operations officer
• Susan Duchow as operations officer
• David Eum as Wright
• Nora Leonhardt as sciences officer
• Tim McCormack as Bennett
• James McElroy as operations officer
• Lorine Mendell as Diana Giddings
• Susan Raborn as operations officer
• Command crewmember
• Command officer
• Female sciences officer
• Female sciences crewmember
• Female tactical officer
• Five operations crewmembers
• Transporter chief (voice)
• Two command crewmembers
• Velara III lifeform (voice)

Stand-ins [ ]

• James G. Becker – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
• Darrell Burris – stand-in for LeVar Burton
• Dexter Clay – stand-in for Michael Dorn
• Jeffrey Deacon – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
• Susan Duchow – stand-in for Denise Crosby
• Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
• Tim McCormack – stand-in for Brent Spiner
• Lorine Mendell – stand-in for Gates McFadden
• Guy Vardaman – stand-in for Wil Wheaton

References [ ]

2360 ; 2363 ; 2395 ; 28th century ; ability ; accusation ; achievement ; air ; alien lifeform ; amount ; analysis ; android ; announcement ; apology ; apprehension ; aquarium ; area ; artificial intelligence ; assimilation ; atmosphere ; attack ; attention ; authority ; away team ; bag ; base drilling program ; basin ; bell jar ; biomed research unit scanner ; biosphere ; biosphere designer ; body ; brain cell ; cadmium selenide ; " calm before the storm "; carbon ; career profile ; carbon ; career profile ; cell ; cell division ; centimeter ; certainty ; channel ; chief engineer ; choice ; class M ; colony ; color ; communication ; computer ; computer console ; computer program ; computer science ; concept ; conclusion ; conductivity ; conductor ; conduit ; conference room ; container ; Constellation -class ; contact ; containment field ; control console ; coordinates ; damage ; data ; darkness ; day ; death ; debate ; decade ; definition ; degree ; diameter ; desalinization ; desktop monitor ; desolation ; detective ; director ; discovery ; discussion ; dome ; door ; drilling system ; Earth ; Eden ; effect ; efficiency ; electricity ; element ; Emergency Manual Override station ; emergency power ; energy field ; energy level ; energy pattern ; energy surge ; environment ; environmental systems ; excretion ; existence ; expertise ; explanation ; facility ; fantasy ; fear ; Federation ; feeding ; file ; firing program ; fish ; fixed program ; gallium arsenide ; gardener ; geometric shape ; germanium ; god-like ; gravity ; growth and development ; guest ; hailing frequency ; harm ; hearing ; Henry V ; holodeck ; home ; hum ; hydraulic chamber ; hydraulic landscaping ; hydraulic probe ; hydraulics ; hydraulics engineer ; hydraulics room ; hydraulics specialist ; idea ; image ; imager ; infrared ; initial contact ; injury ; inorganic life ( inorganic lifeform ); input ; inspection ; instruction ; intelligence ; intelligent life ; intent ; ion ; job ; knowledge ; laser drill ; lesson ; life force ; lifeform ( life ); life support system ; light (artificial); light (natural); Livingston ; location ; magnification ; main viewer ; malfunction ; mass ; master servomotor drive system ; master subsurface pump ; medical lab ; memory bank ; microbrain ; microorganism ; mind ; miracle ; mistake ; mister ; model ; month ; motive ; MSD ; murder ; nature ; negligence ; newcomer ; night ; non-essential personnel ; number one ; nursery ; observation lounge ; obsession ; ocean ; opportunity ; organic life ; overload ; painting ; panic ; pattern ; peace ; percent ; permission ; person ; personnel record ; phenomenon ; photoelectric ; photosynthesis ; place ; planet ; Pleiades Cluster ; power ; power drain ; power surge ; Prime Directive ; probability ; problem ; programmer ; psych profile ; quarantine ; quarantine field ; quarantine seal ; quarters ; question ; rapport ; rate of rotation ; ready room ; reality ; reason ; recon expedition ; recon scout ; refraction ; report ; reproduction ; reproductive cycle ; respiration ; resting state ; rest room ; rhythm ; ribbon ; right ; rock ; room ; sabotage ; saline fluid ; saline water ; salt ; sand ; scanner ; schedule ; science laboratory ; scientific method ; sea ; secretion ; section ; sensor ; series ; servo-mechanism ; shipboard video feed ; shock ; silicon ; single-celled lifeform ; situation report ; size ; skant ; snow ; social graces ; sodium salt ; speculation ; spectral analysis ; staff ; standard orbit ; state of war ; starvation ; status ; storm ; subject ; substance ; subsurface ; sulfide ; sunlight ; surface ; tactics ; talent ; tear ; Terraform Command ; Terraform Command uniform ; terraformer ; terraforming ; terraforming site ; terraforming station ; theory ; thing ; third-in-command ; thought ; time ; timetable ; topsoil ; trace ; training ; transistor ; translation ; translator circuit ; transporter power ; transporter room ; tricorder ; truth ; tunnel ; turbolift ; type 1 phaser ; universal translator ; universe ; unnamed plants ; unnamed starbase ; utility uniform ; vacuum ; Velara III ; Velara Base ; vegetation graph ; victim ; viewscreen ; vision ; visionary ; visitor ; VISOR ; visual contact ; war ; water ; water table ; will ; window ; work ; wound ; year

Unused production references [ ]

Velara system

External links [ ]

• "Home Soil" at StarTrek.com
• " Home Soil " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Home Soil " at Wikipedia
• " Home Soil " at the Internet Movie Database
• " "Home Soil" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• "Home Soil" script  at Star Trek Minutiae
• 1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein

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Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Home Soil”

Season 1, Episode 18 Original air date: February 22, 1988 Star date: 41463.9

Mission summary

The Enterprise pays a visit to Velara III, a Tattooine-like planet chosen by the Federation for terraforming. The leader of the terraforming team, Mandl, looks nervous and tries to discourage the Enterprise from stopping by. Picard knows something’s up (who wouldn’t want a hello from the inspectors?) and sends Riker, Yar, Data, and La Forge down to check things out. The rest of the terraforming team–Malencon, the hydraulics specialist; Luisa Kim, the biosphere designer; and chief engineer Bjorn Bensen–don’t seem to have any secrets. But when Mandl tells Malencon to get back to work, the specialist disappears into a room only to start screaming moments later. The crew finds him too late, badly burned by a ceiling-mounted laser drill.  Though they beam him to sickbay, he’s dead, Jean-Luc. Everyone but Data and La Forge return to the ship while Data re-runs the drilling program to find out what went wrong. Unsurprisingly, the laser starts shooting at Data. La Forge is able to shut it down, but only just barely. With no explanation, but lots of opportunities to be burned into Swiss cheese, the terraforming crew winds up beaming to the ship for safety. Mandl is outraged–they’re already behind schedule–and Picard begins to suspect that Mandl killed his specialist to protect some secret. He sends La Forge and Data back down to the planet, where they discover some kind of blinking light…thingy. They beam it to the Enterprise ‘s lab. It’s fully inorganic, but its light flashes have no pattern, it hums when people are near it, and it seems to harness energy. Dr. Crusher asks the computer to hypothesize as to what this is, and the computer responds: “Life.”

Picard confronts Mandl, who eventually admits his team had discovered some… anomalies… on the planet, but since the Federation certified the planet lifeless he didn’t think much of it. Meanwhile, the blinky thing is reproducing, and its new clone army starts interfacing with the Enterprise ‘s computers.  It rejects attempts to contain it in a quarantine area and finally gets through to the universal translator, addressing the bridge crew as “Ugly bags of mostly water.” It–or they?–declare that they tried to make peace with the humans on their planet, but no one would listen, and now it’s about to get real . They declare war on the humans and start to screw with the ship’s systems.

Eventually our heroes put 2 and 3 and 8 together and discover that the terraforming technique of siphoning off the layer of saline water below the sand would kill these crystal energy…blinky…things. They need water (and a conductor) in order to link together in what Data calls a microbrain. Whoops. The crystal things are  in control of the ship by now, shutting down systems left and right. La Forge hypothesizes that they might be photoelectric, and so Picard orders a shutdown of the lights in the room. In moments, the crystal blinkies beg for more light or they’ll die. Picard grants them just enough for them to surrender, apologizes for that particularly dick move, and beams them back to their “wet sand.”

Now that we’ve heard the ugly bags of mostly water joke, we can all go home until season 3, right?

As a whole, I liked the idea of the blinkie sandy wossnames. A subterranean layer of water is entirely believable (just ask Europa ), and saline water operating as a large-scale conductor for brain-like electric activity is notionally pretty neat. But gosh, science is just so hard, isn’t it? I’m not sure what I loved more: that this “microscopic” and “single-celled” organism is at least the size of a ladybug, or that they take “photoelectric” to mean “photovoltaic.” I’m really not a stickler for scientific accuracy–I can enjoy handwaving as much as the next ignorant once-upon-a-time humanities major–but this was too much even for me.

I appreciated that Mandl (or any of his crewmembers) weren’t actually evil or bad people. Mandl never argues that his terraforming project is more important than these life forms. He and Bensen didn’t understand what they were looking for because they would have never guessed the answer. It’s a mistake–a terrible mistake, but an honest one, and I’m glad the episode didn’t vilify them for it. I’m still not clear on how it takes only four people and a single station to terraform a planet, but I suppose my only frame of reference is Red Mars.

But the thing that really grates on me is the resolution. First of all, if a single-celled organism can take over your ship, you need to seriously do another round of QC before putting that software live. Secondly, once again we have a life form that can read the ship’s memory banks and yet doesn’t know the first thing about humans or the Federation or its (peaceful!) mission. And thirdly, Picard essentially starves these things to death, forcing them to surrender or die. I don’t see how that’s diplomatic or, frankly, even ethical, considering the worst they’ve done is pout, lock the door to their bedroom, and hook up some Christmas lights, with maybe a minor electrical inconvenience here or there against the people who were going to wipe them off the map.

Ultimately, there’s really only about 20 minutes of story here and the rest is filled with pointless asides and investigations. Why does Troi send Riker to squeeze information out of a crying lady scientist? Does that serve any purpose whatsoever aside from creeping me out? (And why is she crying anyway? There are other desert planets out there…) Then there are the, like, six meetings called to try and bully a confession out of Mandl. The only thing more boring than sitting through a meeting yourself is having to watch other people do it.

Torie’s Rating: Warp 2 (on a scale of 1-6)

Best Line: LIFEFORM: Ugly giant bags of mostly water!

But a close second:

LA FORGE: La Forge to Enterprise , we have a problem. PICARD: Be specific!

Trivia/Other Notes: Walter Gotell, who plays Mandl, is probably most famous as Russian General Gogol in five James Bond movies.

Previous episode: Season 1, Episode 17 – “ When the Bough Breaks .”

Next episode: Season 1, Episode 19 – “ Coming of Age .”

About Torie Atkinson

13 comments.

Warp 2 sounds about right, and at least half of that is for “ugly bags of mostly water”. The broad outlines of the initial idea are also decent, but the execution just doesn’t work. On top of all the stuff Torie points out, if the saline layer that these things live in is subterranean, why do they need light to survive?

My guess is that the writers figured that since these things are silicon life, then naturally they can interface with the computer. The writing supervisors have already demonstrated that they have no understanding of how computers work, so why not? I also guess that the crying lady is crying because of the death of her coworker. Either they had an unstated thing going on or she is just being an emotional woman. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not sure I can.

Aaaaand it has just occurred to me that this is really just a rehash of “The Devil in the Dark”, isn’t it? Their utter failure to properly handle a theme already covered by TOS might actually be enough to knock this down to a 1.

Weird. I know I’ve seen this episode at least twice but I have virtually no memory of it.

I was amused that they went back to the TOS method of asking the computer to solve the problem. It’s particularly odd, though, that it was Crusher who did the asking. It’s appropriate in the sense that the answer turned out to be life, but there’s no way she could have known that, so why would she be asking?

Now I kind of want to use “Ugly bag of mostly water” as a signature.

Wait…if the blinky glowy things need water to live, then how does the crystal under its (very dry-looking) dome grow so enormously, to the point that it can speak intelligently and control large sections of the ship?

“Ugly bags of mostly water” (did the really put “giant” in there? It ruins the scansion TOTALLY!) is one of the single best lines of NuTrek (a.o.t. Trek Classic).

Otherwise, yes, “NO KILL I” indeed.

Completely irrelevantly, I remember voting a number of times on the pay lines against New Coke, and quite literally scrambling around the various nearby stores, stockpiling Classic in case they were serious about stopping its production.

I could have sworn I’d read the “ugly bag of mostly water” line somewhere else before this episode, and it was supposed to be a call-out to whatever story that was. I can’t find any trace of what it might have been, though.

I remember that when this aired it was the first – unbelievably – episode I couldn’t defend at all. A dismal “Devil In The Dark” retread. No real tension, poor acting, cheap looking sets and props and a dull resolution.

I especially hated the overly theatrical moment before the commercial fade out when Geordi and Data first discover the crystal whatchamacallits, where Geordi makes some pronouncement about the life form, and the light in his face starts dramatically BLINKING FASTER!! A cheap dramatic effect…up there with zooming in and out on the red alert light in “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”

I’d make a ‘raspberry’ sound if I knew how to spell it.

Why are the silly things able to take over the ship? Easy because the only drama these producers know is ‘ship in danger!’ A drama of purely human scale events is simply not enough, so something must always be a major threat. Of course by making everything a major threat, then majro threats become minor ones andwe get a run away effect of silly stakes for escalating situations. I agree this is a retelling of The Devil In The Dark, but done in crayon.

Not much to say about this ep, but I suppose I am in the minority in feeling it is defensible. Remember one of the primary (mostly forgotten in later seasons) tropes is the “seeking out of new life and new civilizations,” and this is TNG’s take on the trope.

Sure, sure, “Devil In The Dark” crawls to mind, but there you had a very entitled humanity ultimately being shamed into regretting its actions against a sentient lifeform. The OS episode was very much a product of its era. Recall, Kirk’s first instinct was to kill the creature. Everyone involved, even Spock going in, had a narrow, tightly confined definition of life and intelligence.

This episode is infused with the more circumspect TNG values. No one here did a calculation that the creatures weren’t worth as much as the resources their existence prevented or slowed from extraction. The scientists weren’t the “then we’ll use clubs!” Neanderthals of the earlier series (was there any doubt that if the Horta had not been accommodating of the miners’ goals its continuance as a species would have been tolerated; it was useful, therefore it was exploited). Here, the notion this was life deserving of respect and even deference on its own merits was a given going in.

So… fresh spices to an old recipe.

I find it interesting that TOS’s concept of advanced metahuman life was generally disembodied “pure energy,” while these early TNG eps seem to posit that life as being crystalline in form (crystals being a big thing in the 80s, recall).

One forgiveness I am willing to extend is that there was some kind of writers strike in and around this period, which probably accounts for at least some of the lassitude and meandering slowness, and amateur feel, of a lot of these episodes. Then you had bourbon-soaked Papa Gene-O and his attorney life partner mauling these scripts with their greasy pawprints, oy vey. So…

I guess what I am saying is I credit this episode for at least TRYING to grapple with a difficult SF task, thinking about and portraying how new life forms might operate and how sentient intelligence might express itself. Even Asimov confessed it was a nigh-impossible task.

It’s a focus that gets totally lost in a decade of “aliens” with putty on their noses and So-Cal accents. I give it points just for trying.

I liked that it was a life form in a place where they didn’t expect to find one. That, if I remember correctly, was about the time that they had discovered all that unexpected life around the volcanic vents at the bottom of the oceans. I liked the “Ugly bags of mostly water” line and I liked that the crystals had been trying to communicate. The admission of having seen the forms in the sand but not making anything of them didn’t sit with me. I’m not saying that the team should have been made out as bad guys for this. I think there should have been was more in the discussion about the communication attempts to make it clear that the differences in world-views between the two species led to patterns the crystals thought should stand out still looking random to the Humans because of their complexity.

Had they any idea of where the series would be going, they could have used this episode as a set up for some interesting episodes down the line. Imagine the Federation offering to help correct the damage and, offer accepted or not, this set the diplomatic stage allowing the crystals to become allied with the Federation during the Borg Crisis. What stories could have been told following that trail.

#8, @Lemnoc: You make compelling points, and I sympathize. There are hints in this episode of issues that would be handled later, in more compelling episodes. (One must later episode comes to mind: “The Quality of Life”, I think it’s called, in which Data ends up defending the case of sentience for a group of artificially-intelligent probes that have begun to act up in odd ways.)

But there’s not enough here to like. “20 minutes of story” indeed–once LaForge and Data find the blinky inorganic life form and transport it to the ship, the mystery’s basically over. A few pointed questions to the shipboard computer and it’s solved: the blinky crystals are alive, and all debate about that question more or less dies. One of two things should have happened.

First possibility: Enterprise drops by the terraforming colony earlier on, only when the first hints of trouble were cropping up. In this case the mystery could have been prolonged.

Second possibility: there’s more of a fight over whether the crystals are actually sentient or not. There’s a lot that *could* be disputed that was not disputed in the episode. OK, so the crystals are producing complex emissions of some kind; there’s precedent for that. Radio emissions from Jupiter are quite complicated but certainly not regarded as evidence for sentience.

And you could have made the character of Mandl far more of an obsessive than he was shown to be, if you felt the story needed a villain who didn’t *care* whether the terraforming effort was destroying another lifeform or not.

Basically, after a reasonably strong start, the episode just sort of conks out.

@ 1 DemetriosX If they’re subterranean why do they need light to survive, and if they need water then how can they survive in a bell jar for so long, as etomlins @3 points out?

@ 2 Toryx Maybe scientists of the future aren’t trained to find answers, but just to ask the right questions.

@ 4 CaitieCat I should note that “No Kill I” is a stock phrase in my apartment, for everything from drinking the last of the milk to leaving dishes in the sink.

@ 5 S. Hutson Blount I was thinking that, too, but couldn’t find any evidence of a prior instance.

@ 6 dep1701 This got me looking up raspberry, which apparently is also known as a “Bronx cheer.” Well, that was more interesting than this episode, so yay!

@ 7 bobsandiego The problem with the ship in danger being constantly used is that there’s no tension. At least on away missions, there’s an implication that something could go wrong and that you couldn’t get back to your base.

@ 8 Lemnoc Hence our first instance of the term “Spock-blocking”!

You have an interesting point about how we envisioned aliens. Pure energy became malevolent crystals (this was seriously an 80s thing) and has now, in contemporary media, become clones/robots. Perhaps it’s because I’m mostly a product of the 90s, but I gravitate toward the clones/robots model a lot more easily. Once the line between “us” and “them” blurs, you can tell much more interesting stories about how we define ourselves and what makes us unique, if anything. With crystals and energy, any story ultimately becomes a disposal problem. Why does it take as long as it does for Picard to beam the crystals back to their homes anyway? Take out the trash, Captain!

@ 9 Ludon I didn’t get that, either. These people are scientists. Science is about predictability. If something is happening that is outside the scope of normal parameters, why aren’t you looking into it?? If the sand is actually making shapes, isn’t that, you know, weird ?

The Borg offered such storytelling opportunities. It’s a shame it takes so long to get to them.

@ 10 etomlins I would have liked it more if the crystals hadn’t hijacked the computer systems to speak in English. If there had been an ongoing question of sentience and intelligence, and confusion over whether there was indeed communication happening, that could have been interesting. It also could have been more boring, so I don’t know there was any way to save this episode.

@11 torie – Oh I wasn’t saying the ‘ship in peril’ is a good cructh it isn’t. Instead of doing real dram we have tachnobabble and false danger. We know the ship isn’t going to get crunched — this isn;t Blake’s 7 after all — and beacuse the solution is always some slight fo hand the audience doesn’t know about — not something organically from character like the Corbonite ploy — it’s limp and tasteless storytelling,

So sorry to be sounding off on this one so late. I’ve been sort of busy lately, and it was tough to muster up the enthusiasm to comment on this one.

I think everyone has already covered the several issues with this episode. I also got the “Devil in the Dark” vibe, but I was more bothered that they didn’t even reference the other silicon lifeforms they’ve encountered, such as the Horta and that giant crystalline entity from a few episodes back. Perhaps they had already decided that acknowledging TOS wasn’t doing them any favors and pulled back on that, while continuing to freely rip off their stories.

I could have sworn the “bags of mostly water” line came later in the series, but it makes sense that it was the only memorable aspect of this episode. At least it had that much. Overall, I was intrigued by the setup and like the idea of them discovering a new, radically different life form, but the implementation was crippled by hefty exposition and ridiculous plot developments. But at first, this episode reminded me a lot of those classic Doctor Who episodes, and I could imagine Tom Baker blundering onto the terraforming station and forcing his help on them. Heck, for all I know, there was an episode just like this.

This one had some big, if not entirely fresh, ideas, but it failed to capture my interest. I’m not blaming sleep deprivation entirely for the fact that I kept dozing off while re-watching this, and I had no inclination to go back to see what I had missed. (Not much, it turns out.)

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Den of Geek

Revisiting Star Trek TNG: Home Soil

James' weekly return to Star Trek: TNG's first season comes to an episode that's Star Trekky at its core...

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This review contains spoilers.

1.18 Home Soil

The Enterprise arrives at Velara III to check on the progress of a terraforming colony (if you can call four people a colony) and are surprised to find that the leader, Kurt Mandl, is far from pleased to see them. Troi helpfully informs everyone of this fact about nine times in the first ten minutes, just in case you missed it, although she once again declines to explain how her empathic abilities work over videophone.

An away team beams down to the planet and meets the rest of the crew: Hydraulics Specialist Arthur Malencon, Biosphere Designer Luisa Kim, and chief Engineer Bjorn Bensen. Bensen, on meeting Data, is surprised to be talking to an android and asks “Where were you made? Are there more like you?” to which Data replies “Both matters are subjects of protracted discussion,” even though both questions were answered quite definitively five episodes ago ( Datalore ).

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Once they’ve exchanged pleasantries, Luisa apologises for her boss’s rudeness, and “treats” the away team to an explanation of how terraforming works, given in unusually punishing detail. The away team stand around waiting politely for her to be quiet, but you can practically see their eyes glazing over. Mendl arrives and apologises for being rude, then tells Malencon to go do his job instead of standing around chatting.

Suddenly, Troi screams! She senses terror! And then everyone hears Malencon screaming for his life as he’s sliced up by a laser drill from behind an unexpectedly-locked door. Soon, the screaming stops and the door opens, but it’s too late for Malencon. Oh no! Who will specialise in hydraulics now?

Most of the team head to the Enterprise to discuss this terrible tragedy, while Geordi and Data poke around on the planet. Data is attacked by the laser drill in exactly the same was as Malencon, but luckily he’s quick enough to smash it to bits with his android powers. Off camera, of course. While they try to decide whether it was programmed to kill or somehow alive, they discover a minute and highly unusual flashing crystal. It looks like it could be alive, so reasoning that this is why the terraformers were being so secretive, they transport it back to the Enterprise for further study.

In sickbay, they put the crystal in a bell jar and do science to it, which consists of Dr. Crusher shouting abstract instructions to the computer. Apparently, in the future, all you have to do is tell your computer to “Theorise!” and it’ll come up with all sorts of unlikely nonsense. Eventually, they decide they have got inorganic life, and Picard gives Mandl a telling off for not mentioning this fact. Mandl maintains an air of plausible deniability, claiming at various points “I didn’t know”, “you can’t prove that I knew” and “you’ll never make the charges stick, you Federation stooges!” (probably).

The crystal thingy in sickbay freaks out, and suddenly it divides! There are now two of them! They try to quarantine it (er, possibly a bit late) but it resists, and keeps replicating until it’s formed a little computer-like structure. During an advert break, they all agree to call it a “microbrain” (no wonder it’s upset). It quickly takes over the Enterprise (with frankly embarrassing ease) at which point Picard starts to get shouty. It’s too late, though. The crystal microbrain patches into the computer and declares war on the “ugly bags of mostly water” that have been killing them down on the planet. For that is what the terraformers had been accidentally doing.

Eventually, they discover that the crystal gets its power from light, but unfortunately it has control of the computer’s dimmer switch. Picard sends Riker to sickbay to operate the dimmer manually. Presumably, no-one closer is capable of the task. The microbrain, apparently scared of the dark, immediately gives in the moment Riker turns off the lights. Picard assures it they aren’t trying to kill it (even as they are LITERALLY doing the very thing that will kill it. Good diplomacy tactic, I DON’T THINK.) Luckily, the microbrain lives up to its name and is dumb enough to accept their word. The crew beams it down to the planet, and just before they do the microbrain tells them to come back in three hundred years when they’re less primitive.

Picard declares indefinite quarantine, and the episodes ends with a voiceover Captain’s Log where he declares that “perhaps the lesson we’ve learned from this near-tragedy can prevent it from happening elsewhere.” Which is a terrible way to end a Star Trek episode. Seriously?! A Captain’s Log where all he’s got to say is “Well, that sure happened.” Okay, maybe he doesn’t have to be on top philosophical form all the time, but at least TRY.

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Also, one can only speculate as to how Malencon’s family would feel about this entire episode being described as a “near” tragedy:

Starfleet Grief Officer: “Mrs. Malencon, I’m afraid your husband has been involved in a near-tragedy.”Mrs. Malencon: “Is he okay?”Starfleet Grief Officer: “No, he’s dead. Sorry, was that not clear?”Mrs. Malencon: “You said NEAR-tragedy!”Starfleet Grief Officer: “Well, we did stop some crystalline lifeforms from being destroyed.”Mrs. Malencon: “Are they friendly?”Starfleet Grief Officer: “Not really. And also we can’t speak to them again for three years.”Mrs. Malencon: “Oh. Still, it’s what he would’ve wanted.”Starfleet Grief Officer: “Really?”Mrs. Malencon: “No.”

TNG WTF: Okay, so everyone in this episode seems really jazzed about the prospect of non-organic life (except the terraformers: “Yeah, geometric shapes kept spontaneously appearing, we just thought it was nothing, really.”) – only… didn’t the Enterprise just have a big fight with a GIANT CRYSTALLINE ENTITY TM that was a lot more impressive than these crystal microbrains? Okay, it wouldn’t talk to them, but nor did it die the moment someone switched the frickin’ lights off.

Admittedly we’ve already established that this episode was written by someone who hadn’t even read the script for Datalore , but you think it might have come up on some point. “Oh, hey, we’ve got two episodes this series which involve the Enterprise crew being threatened by living crystals, maybe we should acknowledge that.” Or, y’know, don’t.

TNG LOL: So… Malencon gets locked in a room with a violent laser. It shoots him up. Riker and the others discover him. Then it cuts to ad-break, and when we come back, Riker has MADE A PERSONAL LOG ENTRY and is in the middle of a chat with Picard about the situation. Then he tells his captain “We’ll beam him up to sickbay, but from the look of his wounds, it’s probably hopeless.” Great! Er, maybe you could’ve been a LITTLE quicker about it, Riker!?

Cut dialogue following this exchange probably includes:Picard: “Well, is he breathing?”Riker: “I dunno, I don’t want to touch him. He’s really messed up and the whole room smells like bacon. Tasha, you go in there instead, you’re used to this sort of horrible scene.”Troi: “I’m sensing something… like deep sorrow… for the lack of ketchup.”Geordi: “Sorry, that’s me, I’ve not eaten.”

Who’s That Face? Walter Gotell, who plays Kurt Mandl (the surly guy in charge of terraforming) played General Gogol, the head of the KGB in six James Bond films.

Time Until Meeting: 15:03. Uncharacteristically, it’s a stand-up in the captain’s Ready Room, rather than the conference room. Good to know this horrible type of meeting will survive for another three hundred years at least.

Captain’s Log: Well, it wasn’t awful. Whoever wrote this episode clearly cared about the hard science behind what they were writing about, which makes it a definite change from… well, most of Star Trek , to be honest. Although it’s hard to get too excited about the overly-detailed descriptions of both terraforming techniques AND the basis for non-organic life.

On one hand, it’s straight down the line, completely generic Star Trek . But on the other, that’s only about the second or third time they’ve managed to do that competently this series. The mystery is interesting, and although the guest cast is hamming it up terribly, their characters are fairly well developed and far from one-note. In that they all have two notes. There’s actually a decidedly TOS vibe to it, from the dodgy sets to the weirdly disembodied alien voice, so that might even push some nostalgia buttons for you.

Watch or Skip? You can skip it, but it’s good enough to at least consider watching. Unlike last week’s episode, this is very Star Trekky at its core, in that they’re actually seeking out new life, and it’s at least got that what-happens-next charm. Watch.

Read James’ review of the previous episode, When The Bough Breaks, here .

Follow our  Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here . And be our  Facebook chum here .

Star Trek: The Rewatch

A podcast companion to rewatching star trek: the next generation, s01e18 home soil.

“Ugly bags of mostly water” is a memorable line from an early TNG episode that hits some great science fiction notes, whilst also giving us a solid ensemble piece for the series. Astronomer and TV presenter Chris Lintott joins us for this podcast.

Picard wonders if he should have had the ceiling heightened in sickbay, instead of soundproofing Wesley.

Episode synopsis:   22nd February 1988.

Quote:   “I’m Luisa Kim, gardener of Eden.”

MP3 can be downloaded here. More episode info on  IMDB ,  Memory Alpha , and  Wikipedia

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E17HomeSoil

Recap / Star Trek: The Next Generation S1E17 "Home Soil"

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Original air date: February 22, 1988

The crew of the Enterprise discovers a crystalline lifeform with murderous intelligence after it kills one of the scientists on a terraforming project.

Tropes in this episode:

• Arbitrary Skepticism : The way the crew treat an inorganic life form as so unexpected and astonishing is odd considering they (and the original series) have previously encountered living beings made of Pure Energy or even more unorthodox things.
• Artistic License – Biology : No, Data. Humans are composed of 60% water not 90%. For reference, that's as much water as there is in a watermelon. This is a carryover from the Original Series episode “The Omega Glory,” in which McCoy says the human body is 96% water.
• Call a Human a "Meatbag" : Or rather, an "ugly giant bag of mostly water." Data points out that it's a fairly accurate description, from a crystal's perspective.
• Captain Obvious : Troi is a particularly bad example of this, even by her standards, in this episode. Notably, she insists on pointing out that Director Mandl and the lab techs are being secretive and suspicious early in the episode, even though one would need to be Captain Oblivious not to notice that.
• Dodge the Bullet : When Data is trapped in the room with the laser drill firing at him, his android reflexes allow him to repeatedly dodge the attacks until he disables the drill.
• When Picard mutes his end of the conversation with Mandl, the computer says "channel closed," something it has never said before or since.
• Data speaks and poses in a way that suggests visible urgency when he's informing Picard of his discovery about how the microbrain works. While one could maybe justify this as him trying to imitate human behavior, it still comes across as kinda jarring.
• End of an Era : The last episode of the series — and by extension, Star Trek in general — where Gene Roddenberry was the showrunner. After this episode he stepped back into more of a supervisory role and let Maurice Hurley take over the writing staff, which is noticeable in that this is one of the last episodes of the show to essentially just be a repackaged TOS episode.
• Family-Unfriendly Death : Malencon is burned to death by a laser...and we hear it happening .
• Hostile Terraforming : The episode features a Federation terraforming project that is doing this by accident, and the locals don't like the "Ugly Bags of Mostly Water" mucking up their planet.
• Humans Are Ugly : Humans Are Ugly Bags of Mostly Water. Troi assures the crystalline "microbrain" that they find it beautiful.
• It's a Long Story : When Bensen asks Data where he was manufactured and if there are others like him, Data replies that both matters are subjects of protracted discussion .
• The Main Characters Do Everything : After the crew gets the idea to starve out the microbrain by turning down the lights in the lab, instead of getting an engineer to do the job, Picard sends Riker to do it.
• My God, What Have I Done? : When it becomes clear that, in attempting to create a life-bearing world, the terraformers nearly wiped out an intelligent civilization , they're all clearly horrified. Luisa Kim, who was established early on as the most idealistic of them, takes it especially hard.
• No OSHA Compliance : The laser drill is operated from a console inside an enclosed room that contains the laser itself. The operator must face away from the laser in order to use the console. The laser is clearly meant to fire into two boreholes in order to drill deeper into the planet's surface, but instead of being limited to this function, the laser is mounted on an arm capable of rotating to fire in any direction.
• Red Shirt : Malencon's sole purpose in the story is to get sliced-and-diced by the microbrain-controlled laser drill.
• Say My Name : When Data is trapped in the lab with the active laser, Geordi starts screaming his name.
• Skewed Priorities : After Data is forced to destroy the laser drill in order to avoid Malencon's fate, Bensen's only reaction is to gripe about the drill being broken, even though it subjected his colleague to a gruesome death and nearly also destroyed the (almost) one-of-a-kind android he seemed so fascinated by.
• Whodunnit : Picard mentions that they are becoming detectives due to the sheer amount of mysteries they seem to be given.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S1E16 "When the Bough Breaks"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: The Next Generation S1E18 "Coming of Age"

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Eric Andeen (Self) Alan Anderson (Self) Corey Anderson (Self) Roger Cheesbro (Self) Michael Dorn (Self) Heather Myers (Self) Michael Oetting (Self) Marc Okrand (Self) Lawrence M. Schoen (Self) Mark Shoulson (Self)

Alexandre O. Philippe

Earthlings boldly goes where no documentary has gone before and investigates one of the most intriguing groups of individuals on this, or any other planet: the Klingons and Star Trek fans. Featuring Worf (aka Michael Dorn), this film was released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Star Trek

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Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water (2004)

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Earthlings: ugly bags of mostly water.

2004 Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe

Earthlings boldly goes where no documentary has gone before and investigates one of the most intriguing groups of individuals on this, or any other planet: the Klingons and Star Trek fans. Featuring Worf (aka Michael Dorn), this film was released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Star Trek

Michael Dorn

Director Director

Alexandre O. Philippe

Science Fiction Documentary

Releases by Date

17 oct 2004, releases by country.

70 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Ian Lindsey

I'm always down for a doc about a niche subculture and a bunch of people getting together to speak Klingon qualifies as that. The people run a range of harmless to irritating. There's a guy who tried to raise his son to be bilingual in English and Klingon and only spoke to him in that language for his first three years. Another spends some time talking about his zen focus and how that makes him basically invisible and really good at paintball. Yet another person talks about how fun it is to go to restaurants and refuse to order in anything but Klingon.

Michael Dorn is interviewed and tries to be nice about the whole thing.

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