User Reviews

This episode shouldn't exist as it goes straight against Star Trek canon in every way.

First, since the Eugenics Wars, Earth and Federation law strictly bans any genetic experimentation on humans, so the mere existence of Darwin Station is impossible. In a canon episode, if a Starfleet vessel were to find Darwin Station, it would've been immediately shut down, the specimens and the research data destroyed and the personnel arrested.

If we discount this giant plot hole, there are still problems with the episode. When the Enterprise finds the USS Lantree and they gain remote control over the vessel, they just activate it's beacon and leave it floating in space. They don't inform Starfleet Command, they don't request a medical or science vessel to investigate, they don't order it to follow the Enterprise, they just leave a potentially really dangerous ship out in open space. Not to mention Picard leaves the Lantree with the keys in the ignition, so to say (it is totally empty but otherwise in perfect working order), so it's a prime target for any shady creatures happening by.

The story at Darwin Station is also shaky at best. According to the log, the Lantree left the station 3 days prior to the Enterprise finding it derelict in space. By the time the Enterprise reaches the station, the personnel down on the planet is already showing advanced symptoms, yet in 3 days they didn't put out a quarantine warning or distress signal, they didn't inform Starfleet (or anyone else), nothing. They didn't even try to warn the Enterprise away, they wait for the ship to hail them before they say anything at all, saying they "just declared a medical emergency". Really? It's only an emergency after you age 30 years in 3 days? Also, the Enterprise just shows up at the station unannounced, they seem genuinely surprised to see what is happening on the station when they first hail them. What? They didn't try to contact them through subspace? They didn't even try to call ahead, just straight up show up there.

Also, the standing quarantine protocols seem to leave much to be desired. There is ongoing debate about what to do next all throughout the episode, as if there is no real quarantine procedure at all. If there is a standing procedure, the captain, the CMO and the station personnel should follow it to the letter. But instead they all argue every step of the way as if it's up to debate. Even if that were the case, Doctor Pulaski trying to argue her point to Picard is utterly needless, since the CMO outranks the captain in medical matters anyway. Also, the sense of urgency regarding the "child" specimens is utterly forced and goes against even the simplest disease control rules. Why is it so important to beam them to the Enterprise on the double? Admittedly, they are totally isolated on the station, so they are perfectly safe, there is absolutely no need to move them anywhere until the doctors can figure out what's wrong. It's really reckless and dangerous to move anything out of a quarantine area unless absolutely necessary, which is not the case here. In fact, saying that the "children" are not sick doesn't mean anything, since they still could be carriers, which an accomplished disease specialist like Doctor Pulaski should know full well. Going as far as insisting to "breath the same air and touch them" is simply beyond stupid.

Finally, the ending puzzles me to no end. They decide to blow up the Lantree. This is puzzling for many reasons. First, blowing it up with photon torpedoes is reckless. The remaining flying debris could contain small pockets where the "disease" could hide. So unless they outright vaporize the entire ship, it could be even more dangerous to blast it to small pieces that could later contaminate some unsuspecting salvager. Also the Lantree is a fully functional and, I presume, quite "expensive" (in Star Trek terms) space ship. Not only that, but it's a Starfleet vessel. Now, that they finally found the nature of the "disease", it would be quite easy to set the bio-filters on the Lantree to get rid of the antibodies. If not that, just blast it with a huge dose of ionizing radiation or some other form of decontamination should work nicely. Destroying a perfectly good ship when it can be salvaged is pretty dumb.

All in all, this episode was terrible for many reasons and shouldn't even exist.

In "Unnatural Selection" the Enterprise encounters a ship whose entire crew has experienced advance aging to the point that they've all died within days of exposure to whatever disease got them. This encounter leads to the Enterprise to a scientific research outpost dealing with genetics and eugenics where the scientists have also started to rapidly age. Here they have created a race of super-children whose immune system is so strong that it has attacked and mutated a harmless virus they were exposed to by the visiting freighter. The super-children's immune system has rewritten the DNA of all of these normal humans.

After Doc Pulaski is exposed and begins to age, the crew conceives of a way to reset her DNA using a hair sample and filtering her through the transporter. It works and the Enterprise is able to do it for all the scientists as well. They're experimental children however will have to be quarantined for their entire lives or at least until they're able to change their immune system. The Enterprise destroys the freighter full of the infected dead.

This is the most we've gotten of Dr. Pulaski and Transporter Chief O'Brien this far in the series. Both really take center stage at the expense of mostly Worf who doesn't have a lot to do during this one.

TOS has a rapid aging episode as well but this ep comes with the twist that it's not the main cast aging, it's a different group. There's a long of technobabble coming from the doctors and O'Brien in this one. I'm a sucker for some made up jargon though so I was all ears.

We don't get a real B plot here unless you count them mentioning they need to rendezvous with the Star-Station India. That's probably the biggest flaw of this script since it leaves us dealing with these old geezers and empathic teenagers the entire episode.

This episode is pretty middle of the road. Nothing about it really stands out to me but none of its too problematic either. It has a few plot holes and a eugenics station seems super against Federation regulations so I can't rate it much higher than a 6.

ST:TNG:33 - "Unnatural Selection" (Stardate: 42494.8) - this is the 7th episode aired in the second season of The Next Generation. I want to say right off the bat, I really like this episode a lot because it deals with the subject at the very heart of Star Trek - that of the unknown. The episode deals with excelled aging. This episode also shows how stubborn and adamant Dr. Pulaski can be (just like a good ol' Southern Doctor we know very well and as Counselor Troi points out like a familiar captain of the Enterprise-D!). We also get more background on Pulaski - transporter chief O'Brien (who is given more of a role in this episode) she has NEVER used the Enterprise transporter before (just like the aforementioned Southern Doctor). This episode also shows the first real launch from the shuttlebay via the shuttlecraft's perspective. And look out for the great aging makeup effects.

The theme of uncontrollable aging seems to be a favorite of the Star Trek brain trust. In this episode a group of geneticists are playing around with a master-race of children who have aggressive immune systems. The Enterprise quarantines a starship which has on board an entire crew that has died of natural cause due to aging. The ship had been on a planet where the aforementioned engineering was taking place. Now, the same aging process has gone rampant at this facility. These "children" will soon be orphans because those who "parented" them will only last a few days. Dr. Pulaski risks everything by trying to help one of the young men on board a shuttle and is immediately overcome with horrible arthritic pain. She has the condition. She goes to the planet and helps with the research needed to try to figure out what can be done with these test tube tykes (all of whom look like they are in their mid-twenties). It is up to the crew on board to try to solve the problem. Sometimes the accomplishments of these people range beyond the abilities of future scientists. Data again plays a significant role. He, of course, has no worries about the cellular condition that is at the center of all this. It's an interesting episode, but it requires a lot of acceptance from its audience.

For sanity's sake we are just going to ignore that genetic manipulation is taking place in a post Eugenics wars star trek.

The use of the name Darwin for the research station is a bit on the nose but does tie-in with the theme of humanity creating a calamity through playing God.

The goal of this episode seemed to be in softening Dr. Polaski ---- we get a taste of her dedication to helping those in need and dogged approach to getting her way in matters relating to her craft.

Picard is in fine form in this episode. After witnessing Polaski fight for what she wants he gives her permission and a pat on the back for the display of tenacity. To top it off ---- Picard wasn't drifting off during O'Briens technobabble ramble about using transporter magic to rematerialize people without the virus and he ends up saving Polaski's life. This is after he learned that Kate is a member of the Picard fan club.

At some point I expect Part 2 to be released ----- The children in isolation have grown up and they have become demented and seek VENGENCE upon Picard. Nah, let's make a vampire clone of him instead.

The heavy handed message of this episode did not leave much of an impact on me. I have fond memories of Beverly Crusher's hair yet I have no issues with Polaski ---- she was by design meant to create a bit of conflict on the ship.

An average episode containing a blunt message with some solid character development.

Circa 1992 in the Star Trek Timeline there was a war that was based on altering human genetics. This was called the Eugenics War. It was a war between genetically altered humans and natural humans. Natural humans won the war and made genetic tampering illegal at this time as is explained later in Star Trek DS9 when issues of Doctor Julian Bashir's genetic enhancement are brought to light. In that episode Julian's parents arrive on DS9 and his father is forced to serve a 2 year sentence for allowing Julian to be genetically altered as a child and hiding it for so long (something like 22 years). My point is that if genetic alteration is illegal why wasn't the criminality of it brought to light. The Eugenics Wars timeline I am pretty sure was established in the Original Series. My point is that Unnatural Selection is an affront to humanity and peace and the crew doesn't even bat a lash at this concept.

One more plot hole I will point out is that Transporter Chief Miles O'Brien is a commisioned officer in TNG - a lieutenant, having obviously gone to the academy, traversed being a cadet, and gotten his officer's commision as an ensign. Later before the show begins he must have been promoted to Lieutenant. The plot hole is that later on in DS9 then Chief O'Brien makes sure to point out on many occasions that he is a non-commisioned officer Chief on many occasions and that would mean that even an ensign such as Nog could tell Chief what to do. How is it possible that a Commisioned officer somehow lost his commision and became an NCO? Could he have resigned his commision, left starfleet, and returned as an NCO? As is proved by Chief Engineer Argyle(He appears in 2 episodes - Ep 5 - "Where No One Has Gone Before" is one) in the 1st Season of TNG, and Chief Engineer Lt. Geordi La Forge in the 2nd Season you CAN be a commisioned officer and still be the Engineering Chief.

The third and biggest plot hole in this episode is that Dr. Polaski is beamed up in the end and she doesn't carry the "infection" which they were so kind to point out earlier in the episode that the "infection" couldn't be filtered out through the transporter system and they failed twice to do so, resulting in Dr. Polaski's "infection" in the first place. Did something change? Otherwise the whole crew would have been affected by the "infection" and it would be the end of the series since everyone you know would be dead. Because they never fully explain how the disease is passed from one host to another you can't really give it full credence as a plot hole, but it was convenient to the story let's put it like that. It seems to me by the conclusion of the episode, considering they saved Darwin IV, they had mastered this condition so why blow up a perfectly good starship when you can transport their crews corpses into space, give her a scrub and tow the derelict back to a starbase or call in a tug as was done once in Season 1 - surely the immune Data could accomplish this if nothing else. Energy and materials are free in the ST Universe but humanoid labor to assemble the materials is not free and they would have to consider it their greatest asset. To give up all that labor in one photon torpedo burst just doesn't seem prudent to what an actual captain might do, in today's navy or in the navy of the future.

Lastly, they bring to light the fact that Geordi really doesn't need to wear the visor(banana clip), he just wants to. By DS9 a mere 6 years later they completely rebuild Vedek Bareil in Season 3 Episode 13 "Life Support" as he wastes away a piece at a time. When the get to the brain they decide to let him die because he would be nothing but machine at that point. So if they can rebuild an entire human being and prosthetics are in a golden age, then why does Geordi ever start with a visor on this show? It was something that they realized and quickly scrambled to explain later in the series. If I was not correct in this, it would have never been brought up in the show, it would be accepted fact.

In conclusion I found this episode to be poorly written, and a poor fit to the Star Trek Universe and in my personal opinion. It's plot holes are so large you could pilot a Galaxy Class Starship thru them. Although Dr. Polaski has more character than Dr. Beverly Crusher, I find her to be more of a liability to the show(bones has been done before and better thanks), and I will be glad when she is finally gone.

One more thing, the laptop screens are like 4 inches thick on this episode. You tend to see thru the facade when you see things like that. It's really hard to make a show about the future because everything that happens in the world would have to be reflected in the future as well. For example in the first season I recall Cpt. Picard telling Cmdr. Riker to "download that file to sick bay" when he would clearly have to UPLOAD it. Also they don't have bluetooth! When they sit together and talk it's funny because they could've used the internet to look up whatever they wanted and had the computer read it back. Instead they use Data for this function of giving the audience/crew information. It's just kind of funny is all. TNG is a great show, just not so consistent with the lines it predecessors and it's progeny laid out.

A genetic research station, Darwin, has created perfect human telepaths, immune to disease, advanced in intelligence, gifted physically and intellectually, mature, yet they have a system to fight off illness by way of antibodies that affect human dna, causing those infected to age at a rapid rate. Before this was known, Dr. Pulaski decided to risk being exposed to what killed a crew on another ship, by examining one genetically created child on a shuttlecraft, Data operating the controls, becoming infected with the old age disease. Picard and company are in a race against time (in more ways than one) to find a "cure" for the disease or else lose Pulaski and the other Darwin geneticists to certain death. Once again, scientists fooling around with genes/dna, playing God, pay a price for doing so. The very beings they create will have to remain in isolation the rest of their lives because the bunch is "too perfect". Fascinating use of the transporter (and amusingly points out Pulaski's repulsion for the device) as a possible cure due to a bio-filter system that "weeds out" any known diseases that might threaten to harm the crew of the Enterprise. A sample of Pulaski's dna will be detrimental to this experiment's success and salvation of other lives not just hers. This episode is what you might call a Diana Muldaur vehicle as she becomes the Chief Medical Officer replacing Dr. Crusher and her stubbornness and traits similar to Bones obviously intentionally pays homage to the iconic McCoy character; she gets center stage as the story is catered to the Pulaski character. Her disputes and debates with Picard (and the revelation that she jumped at the chance to work on the Enterprise because of the opportunity to serve with Picard) are really what make this episode, Unnatural Selection, such a treat. One could poke and prod at potential scientific flaws that might expose themselves, but ultimately I watch the show for the stories and the characters. This episode would make a nice companion piece to the Star Trek Original Series second season classic, The Deadly Years.

Who would have thought that playing God and genetically engineering telepathic humans would have negative consequences?

Sometimes technobabble is no problem to me ---- this is especially true when LaForge is the one who is saying it ---- he has some charisma superpower that makes me want to believe him. When miles was explaining what they needed to do to the transport, I was like, "What are you talking about miles? You stand behind this station and push up on the transport stick....."

You know, I haven't had much luck with Doctors (but I love nurses). I live in a country with universal healthcare and I have been feeling horrible for a few years and whenever I visit a doctor and attempt to figure out what's wrong with me, I find that they look at me like an $80.00 dollar slab of meat and shove me out the door within 5 minutes to get some tests done. Dr Pulaski is not that type of doctor, she fights hard for her patients. I would have sent Data down to the planet with a medical tricorder but that's that just me.

This was alright ---- Good character work with Pulaski and Picard.

If you want a pretty good overview of the plot holes in this episode, just head on over to the review by IMDb user 'Playbahnosh' for this one. A lot of the points made there crossed my mind as well while watching this story, and dedicated Star Trek fans will probably agree. I had forgotten about the original series episode titled "The Deadly Years" so I acknowledge those reviewers who mentioned it as well. Faced with a conundrum in this one, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) came up with a solution pulled out of left field with all that scientific gobbledy-gook he engaged in with his officer crew. As for character development, there were two notable moments in the story. First when Picard learned that Doctor Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) was a great admirer of his and was the reason she requested assignment aboard the Enterprise. That took some of the sting out of the contentious relationship he had with her starting out. The other was Pulaski's new found respect for Data (Brent Spiner) while facing potential death from the aging disease encountered on the doomed USS Lantree and the Gagarin IV research station. Oddly, the term 'progeria' was never used in the episode which I found kind of odd since it's a known, rare progressive genetic disorder that effects young children due to a mutated gene. How the pre-teens aboard Gagarin IV became carriers of the disease wasn't fully explained, but by the time the story is over, that doesn't make much difference.

I really enjoyed this episode. I get that the science is dodgy at best, and I've seen other reviewers mention that this is apparently a rip-off of an original series episode.

For me, a new Star Trek fan (I've only seen the first 4 films, a handful of Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Voyager episodes, and am currently working my way through TNG for the first time) I really loved the focus on teamwork, problem-solving and self-sacrifice in this episode.

Are the effects incredible? No but why would they be. Is the science credible? No but it doesn't need to be, at least to me. Jurassic Park isn't credible either but we accept it because the characters accept it.

What really hooked me during this episode was the way the characters disagreed, but put all their personal qualms aside and banded together, potentially risking it all, for the possibility of greater good.

I've never liked Dr. Pulaski before now but this episode finally sold me on her character. I half expected her to be killed off, I was in genuine suspense waiting to see if the transporter would save her or not. I also really loved the moment of reverence when the Enterprise bridge all stood before scuttling the derelict ship.

After so many duds in a row, this episode (at least to me, if you disagree that's perfectly fine) was a real breath of fresh air.

When The USS Enterprise intercepts the USS Lantree they are startled to find the crew dead of old age. The Enterprise heads to the Lantree's last stop, the Darwin Genetic Research Station. They find the Staff and Doctors all suffering of premature ageing. They are doing the same old rhetoric of tampering with Humans' dna and genetic structure. The children, the experiment, are super intelligent and mature for their age being the cause of the problem. Without ruining the story too much, the experiment is the result of the premature ageing and the station is quarantined and the Enterprise wistfully departs. Some great make up and storytelling here and the return to the experimenting on Humans to improve the race just does not work. We also learn of Pulaski's hatred for the transporter.....

The Second Season of Star Trek the Next Generation has often been downplayed due to multiple production and writing staff problems, and several major cast changes. Although of mixed quality, it does contain some outstanding and brilliant episodes. Senior Trekker is extremely grateful to all those people who worked so hard under difficult circumstances to keep it on our screens.

Another "ageing" episode, this time with rather better results from the makeup department.

A small group of scientists with a highly questionable set of ethical standards have been experimenting upon a group of children to produce a super genetically superior human. Predictably, it all goes horribly wrong and, only a last minute bit of plot silliness with one of Dr Pulaski's hair follicle can save the day.

Senior Trekker does not want anyone to get the idea that we were alright with such concepts as genetic manipulation in the 1980's, We weren't and this episode left a nasty taste with many viewers. Our crewmember may have been saved but the fate of these rapidly maturing super beings, whose immune system was now so strong it killed any unmodified person they came into contact with, was left uncertain. Nor, to my recollection, do we hear what happened to them in any subsequent episode.

There was some confusing business at the beginning about Captain Picard questioning Dr Pulakski's motives. It seems to have been part of an effort to introduce some conflict now the writers had tired of having her criticise Data. It was unhelpful and may have contributed to the actor's later discomfort with the role.

(Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5)