UNCUT - The Next Phase (TNG S5E24) | Star Trek Journey 231
It's Alex's birthday! Set your reminder to join us later today to celebrate - https://youtube.com/live/UbsLlK2dAxE
Comments (106)
The incosistency of these physics interactions depending on orientation would have Emmy Noether rolling in her grave. But still one of my emotional favorites, and a cool concept. S
One quick correction to something you said at the end: this actually wasn't the late 90s, it was the early 90s.
1. I didn't realize until this viewing how perfect the Ro/Geordi pairing was to represent the whole religion vs science viewpoints of death and the afterlife and whatnot. 2. The pool table is what people call that center console in the middle of engineering. 3. Unless Ro and Geordi both held it in for two whole days, there's probably a phased pile of dookie or two permanently living somewhere on the Enterprise LOL.
One comment on the discussion with regard to limitations of the medium and leeway, this wasn't the late '90s. This episode came out in '92, and what's more they turned this from final script review into a final completed episode in almost exactly eight weeks which is pretty nuts (15MAR to 18MAY). Final script revisions, shot, rough edited, VFX sent out for, re-edited with VFX, approved for air all in eight weeks.
Thanks, Alex, I’m glad I’m not the only one who had that thought when Geordi and Ro touched. “So, Ro, as far as you’re concerned, I guess I’m the only guy in the universe….”
Have you guys actually already finished watching Season 5?
Yes
Sketchy seeming physics, but what do I know; I stopped going to physics class first semester. Love this ep!
The only thing that REALLY bothers me in this is if they can breathe air, they are moving air, and they can blow in someone's ear. That and Geordie could have sent a message to data when he was scanning the disruptions and that if Geordie's hand was "partially brought back" and it showed resistance going through, he should now be able to apple SOME force to things to move them.. I figured the not falling through the floor could be gravity plating or something.
Last week Geordie is cold as ice to guinan and puts her in her place. This week he throws a man into outer space. Geordie LaChad has arrived.
Colm Meaney was off doing films during this period.
A happy belated birthday to Alex. And Josh, I think I have that same henley shirt.
For the floor, I'm with the guy who said there is probably a technobabble explanation with the gravity plating. But still, the Romulan was sitting in a chair. Should I accept that chairs have gravity plating? I've watched this episode many times but this time I picked up on something that I hadn't seen before. After Ro and Laforge are phased back to normal and they start embracing, Riker moves to Ro's left, an hand on her arm, and leans in and kisses her just above the ear. A hint of a romance? Or of lingering feelings? It is very brief and right at the edge of the scene.
I figured he was pretending and standing in a sitting position which is why he was so still, it was a lot of focus to do.
A few holes in the plot keep it from being a great episode but a solid one
Happy Birthday Alex! 🥳
Headcanon technobabble explanations for how being "out of phase" works. Things we actually know: they interact weakly with things they pass through, leaving a chroniton field behind. An anyon field, even a weak one, brings them partially back into phase and lets them interact more strongly with things. How do they stand on the floors? The artificial gravity is generated in the floor plating, and the magic sci-fi tech to generate gravity also, as a side effect, generates a strong but extremely thin anyon field on the surface of the floor. So the soles of their feet are brought back in phase enough to not fall through the floor. How do they interact with the air enough to breathe, speak to each other, and hear each other and everyone else, but everyone else can't hear them? We know they interact with things they pass through, enough to leave behind a chroniton field. Perhaps when they pass through an object, it temporarily pulls it slightly out of phase with them. The molecules of a relatively rigid solid object get rapidly pulled back into phase with the rest of the world by their bonds with the other molecules in the object. This violent snapping back into phase generates a chroniton field. But for individual disconnected molecules, like gases such as air, they shift back into phase with the world much more gradually. So since Geordi and Ro are constantly passing through air molecules, they're constantly pulling a small pocket of air out of phase with them, and that allows them to breathe, hear, and speak. And something about the interaction between phased and unphased air molecules makes this a one-way thing: sound in normal air can be transferred into the phased air that Geordi and Ro are breathing, so they can hear everyone else. but sound in their air can't be transferred into the unphased air of the rest of the world, so other people can't hear them.
Seems like a solid explanation (heh). This is now my head canon as well!
the floor is different then a wall. in the floor are the gravitation stabilators (or so).
I know these things may work for you in your head, but just so you know, these explanations are complete rubbish.
Some lovely Bajoran culture mentions, and her rebelling against them. Great analogy of a child rebelling against their parents religion.
Do they need to pee? If Geordi was super hungry, then how much pee was he holding? Great discussion as always.
They can pee through any wall off the ship. Or on any floor and no one will ever know. Maybe someone they hate. Pee in there room itll always be there and they will never know.
These are professionals they dont stand around and cry, Watch nutrek if you want to see constant crying
I mean, they do show emotion, but when appropriate. Even under dire circumstances like crewmate death, they'll keep their decorum and composure and get the job done. I like how serious the show takes the crew's characters, as being part of a legitimate organization. They're friends, yes, but Starfleet is equally important.
This is the perfect example of 'suspension of disbelief' done well Why don't they fall through the floor? How can they breathe? etc etc Every audience has a finite supply of 'disbelief' they can 'suspend' before they check out of a story, and this currency must be carefully spent by the writers. But if the story is compelling enough, an audience will pay that toll to go on the journey. So if the writers do a good job with everything else being believable, and the only cost to pay is one or two small details unrelated to the primary narrative, it doesn't feel like a hard price to pay. Sci-Fi relies on this and Trek is famously good at managing disbelief, be it the transporters, replicators, warp drive or whatever else. If you agree to a teeny bit of hand wavium, they'll make it worth your while because everything else about the story and the characters are grounded, fleshed out, and believably motivated.
My old man didn't like Star Wars because in his mind the hangar bays of the Death Star were open to the vacuum of space yet people could breathe and didn't get sucked out. I commented that the blue perimeter lights at the entrance indicated an active force field tuned only to contain atmosphere. He was having none of it. Some people have a very low tolerance for suspension of disbelief. They aren't so fun at parties either.
I loved the funeral scene. If I ever pass (here's to hoping we hit lifespan escape velocity soon...) I'd want my gathering to be jovial, sure, think of me, who I was, the experiences we had together and all of that, but have good food and drink instead of slouching in silence in a stuffy room. Just because more memories with me can't be formed doesn't mean the old ones have to be soured by grief.
Remember, if you don't die at some point the sun will go red giant and if you are truly immortal you will be within the expansion and pulled into the center of the sun eventually burning for billions of years.
I was hoping you guys would like it. There are some plot holes but the concept is fun sci-fi and the moments between the crew are touching and informative. :)
One thing i'm surprised you didn't laugh at or comment on was in Ten Forward when Ro fired her weapon straight at Riker's head lol.
Or when Riker finally listened to a Worf suggestion
This is my favourite episode of TNG.
More power to you, Jon Bolton! There are plenty of episodes I like more, but I think it depends on what you're looking for, right? This is the episode you pop in if you want a fairly light, fun time. Which is curious to note given that a funeral is involved.
so super random, last night I had a dream with the "Shoot 'em" line. Hard to remember exactly, but there was someone who was like, questioning that for some reason and I was trying to defend the person who said it which was actually me... it was dream logic, but I thought that was kinda funny. I think the guy who was mad about looked like the Federation president from Star Trek 6.
I think the Romulan was phased by the explosion. I don't have a problem with them standing on things, gravity is a different force then electromagnetism so it makes sense they could be affected by gravity. What bothered me was- ok do they breathe? Or see? or Hear? You have to come up with some kind of "oh, the particles are interacting but just very lightly but then they should be out of breath. Also if it was two days.... well, I guess they had some cleanup to do. Gross. The thing with Ro touching her chair was weird, I guess I would say she didnt actually touch it exactly, just moved her hand like she was touching it?
Yeah, not a lot to add that wasn't covered in the discussion and patron takes. This one is just a really solid, fun episode that made good use of a whacky scifi concept. The phase cloak seems like it could be pretty OP as a weapon. Put one of these devices in a torpedo, have it pass right through an enemy ship's shields and then return to normal phase and detonate inside the ship. Then again they presented both a means to detect and neutralize the effect here, so countermeasures are possible. Pretty cool to get 2 solid(or not so solid in this case) Geordi episodes in a Ro😉. The team up also worked quite well. Ro hasn't had a ton to do this season outside her debut and Disaster, so it's nice to see them making more use of the character. I agree it's not quite at the level of S tier, but it's one I'm always down to watch.
I don't really have a problem with Rikers little smile to Worf. You see people have those reactions all the time after someone dies...human grieving is a funny thing. Riker knows Picard never listens to Worf that's why he smiled. Lol
Now if he is floating and still alive...Geordi and Ro know and they know they shoved him out at a certain room and they could probably guesstimate what speed he was going (looked like maybe 5 to 10 mph) so even hours later they would probably be with 100 kilometers. Id imagine Data and Geordi could figure out a way to more accurately detect him.
I'm pretty confident he died, given they were just out of phase, their bodies still operated within physics, needing oxygen, water, food, etc... I think the fact Geordi was shown to be so hungry was meant to imply the Romulan died within seconds after being pushed out.
I can accept some kind of artificial gravity explanation for not falling through the floor. But how are they breathing? (This is an idle nitpick; I love this episode even though the concept doesn't really hold up under scrutiny).
Yeah breathing requires the oxygen to interact and be absorbed. If you are passing through everything the oxygen would pass through as well. But...ehhhh...I just try to turn my brain off
I’m always like if gravity works on ghosts so does artificial gravity. 🤷♂️ Maybe it’s like a mind over matter thing? If you believe you can can still walk you can.. some ghosts float..
The repeated references to a Chad will always sound so bizarre and weird to me. Like why not just say a guy or dude. 🤷♂️
Why not say human male specimen
The romulan was very much dead. No reason at all to think the phasing included a portable artificial atmosphere and life support system
I think, in this situation, Chief is rank, not position. Like Chief Petty Officer
That’s exactly correct
Hey, we love when Geordi gets some time to shine. And the Geordi and Ro team-up in particular feels really fresh. They're such different characters with complementary strengths. All that plus some deceptively emotional moments. Great stuff.
Congratulations on another year Alex! Remember, any day you wake up is a good day! Love this episode, good premise, good acting not an obvious ending. Hmmm, did I say A on this one or S?
Alex jokingly said that the transporter chief should have been busted back to ensign. Just want to point out that chiefs are enlisted and don't start out as ensigns.
Yep. Ensign would be a promotion. So Chief O'brien definitely had to call Wesley "Sir" at some point.
This was a good one, but Ro tends to do that to the show.
More horror for the Romulan in space. It seems in their phased state the don't need to eat. We don't see them sleep so we can assume they don't. They just...exist. So it is possible that Romulan will drift through space....alone...for eternity. Brrrr.
Being hungry would have proven to Ro she’s not a ghost.
Thought you were going to immediately post the next episode The Inner Light, one of my favorite episodes of the series
“Not this time” - Jonathan Frakes
Suspension Of Disbelief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief#:~:text=Suspension%20of%20disbelief%20is%20the,actions%20and%20experiences%20of%20characters.
I always figured they don’t fall through the floor out of habit. If they thought about it, maybe they could walk on the air or step down to the deck below
I love the Ro character so much. I feel like she elevates just about every episode she's in.
She’s always been great and looks great at 60! Or whatever age she is?
One thing made clear is Captain Picard thinks very highly of Ro Laren.
One of my favorite episodes, I love a good phase-shift scifi story
I love the story of Picard handpicking Geordie for his next command. It makes me wonder why no other Captain is poaching officers from the Enterprise.
Ensign is the lowest commissioned officer rank, so it is actually a higher rank than Chief Petty Officer.
No, because he is an acting lieutenant on the Enterprise
This was fun. I love seeing where Ensign Ro is in her arc on the show. How she's gone from sulky teen to someone who opens up to people with just a little nudge, and that her peers know her well enough to nudge her to open up, like Geordi in that last scene. I also love the father figure thing with Picard. I have to say, I'm glad the writers were comfortable keeping the Romulans as irredeemable mustache-twirling-tie-the-enterprise-to-the-train-tracks villains. And yeah, that dephased Romulan was such a perfect "Oh shit" our characters are in danger moment. And yeah, if the conversation was: Picard: "Beverly, Geordi's dead." Crusher: "Ugh, the paperwork." Well, that's some interesting character development for the crew....
I wonder how much satisfaction Ro got firing that disrupter through Riker's head. On another note, when they set that disrupter on overload. They ducked for cover behind a bench. Would that really have protected them? Just another useless plot hole to bring up. BTW happy birthday, Alex.
Funny enough, I was thinking the same thing when watching it here and hadn't thought of it before. I was like "ugh, what cover are you taking guys?"
I was imagining while watching the funeral scene that there's at least one person on the ship who actually hated Ro's guts and was unironically celebrating, only to get really bummed out when she rephased lol
My headcanon on this one has always been that the gravity plating in the floors was the one thing that "phased out" matter still can't pass through. Because gravity involves bending space itself... etc, etc technobabble.
Yes that has been my head cannon as well, it always bothered me I can remember when I saw the episode when it first came out and sure enough that's what was killing me. I wish Georgie would have just said something like what you said would have taken 2 seconds
Glad you loved this fun episode. I just hope the next one knocked your socks off... One non-episode related question. There have been a several posts about what it does to your numbers if someone stops watching and resumes later. Does that include if someone pauses? Many times I have paused right after the episode to get a few things done before "unpausing" and finishing up with the discussion. Does that make a difference since I'm still technically in it?
None of matters here on Patreon, but for YouTube only leaving the video would matter
For reference, the "Pool table" is the colloquial term for that engineering console in the middle of the room Data was using. It's actually a prop they built for Star Trek IV in the Starfleet Command centre where Sarek was chillin'
Happy birthday Alex! What a banger of an episode, one of my favourites, just ignore the whole floor thing…
The phased Romulan is the dead captain that Mirok referenced. He’s sitting in the captain’s chair when we first see him.
Interesting. Didn’t catch that.
A great deal of suspension of basic physics and science is required for this episode. When you do that, it’s a very enjoyable and fun episode.
So what do you think Riker was going to say about Ro at her funeral?
“She was a firecracker in bed!”
Happy Birthday, Alex. Welcome to the big Three-Oh!
The look of shock on Riker's face always makes me laugh.
34:35 Yeah, he'd die from cold and no air.
21:00 The smile on Josh's face. haha 😀
19:50 Well why not? Geordi sat on the Transporter platform. And now Ro can touch things she wants to? hah
Remind me again why they don't fall through the floor...??
Plot convenience ;)
Chief is short for Chief Petty Officer, an enlisted rank. A Chief has never been to the Academy, and is a lower rank than any commissioned officer, including the lowest of which, an ensign. The enlisted command structure isn't fleshed out well in Trek, but you'll notice the Chief has a single pip, but not a solid one, as an ensign has.
And Chief Brossmer is wearing a single hollow pip, which is what they settled on for NCOs for a while.
7:05 "I remember that sound! That's a BAD SOUND!"
Happy birthday to Alex and thanks for our gift of more TNG! This is a easy A episode, maybe even S since it’s one of my personal favorites. Even the cheesy laugh ending gets a pass because the rest of the episode is cool. Watching them launch a Romulan into space never gets old.
It wasn’t cheesy to me, unlike some of the awkward TOS laughing on the bridge at the very end, this one was more authentic and believable
3:48 She can't go back to being an Ensign because she's not a commissioned officer. The address "Chief" probably means she's a Chief Petty Officer, like O'Brien, which is a non-commissioned (non-officer) rank.
What a nice birthday treat, Forbes & Burton.
This is an excellent character episode, and they both carried it really well!
My wife and I were dating when this episode was first aired. I told her that I wanted my funeral someday to be like Geordi’s & Ro’s - no funeral just everyone getting together and having a good time. I haven’t changed my mind since then. Still going with this.
A for me. Finally a Geordi episode where he isn’t being a creep around a woman!
They don't fall through the floor because of the sub space wake given off by the gravity plating. Don't ask me how they are breathing.
How are they breathing? “I just said don’t a-“
Aaaaaa!
They’re alive. No reason to warn the dead in Sto’vo’kor that they are coming
Really great episode! But I really hope you guys can upload the next one! That would mean a lot to me! 😃🖖
Sunday
Solid A+ from me. Not revolutionary, but just a really solid scifi episode with an unconventional pairing and some good character moments
And a terrible hairstyle.