Geordi becomes Lawnmower Man, except that instead of entering the net, he is actually simply controlling a probe. But to him, it feels just like walking around in his own body. The amount of sensory input that he receives is on a scale of percent of tolerance, which becomes pretty annoying right away. He's at 56% tolerance. Can we safely move him to 80% of tolerance? Of course, 98% of tolerance is the max, but perhaps he can go to FULL TOLERANCE. In the end, he winds up OVER TOLERANCE, which I guess means that he just can't tolerate it any more, and neither can I. They determine that he can go over 100% tolerance, if they bring him back slowly like a diver. Whatever, man.
The reason for the use of the probe is to investigate a ship that has gotten trapped when it veered too close to a gas giant. When LaForge checks out the scene on the ship, everyone is dead. But he does find something interesting, his dead mother is there speaking to him. Well, to be fair, we don't know for sure that she's dead, just that her ship has gone missing. Did we know that Geordi's mom is a Star Fleet captain? I didn't. Also, did we know that his dad is Ben Vereen?
LaForge has trouble accepting that his mom is gone, and that what he saw on the ship couldn't have been her. For his own physical and mental well-being, he is forbidden from suiting up again. He seeks counsel in Troi, who of course is useless. He talks to Riker, who tells him a charming story about how he came to accept his own mother's death. But LaForge makes a good argument that this is quite different, because there is no confirmation that his mother is in fact dead. Next he goes to see Data, who asks him if he needs "comforted" in such a direct manner that LaForge denies it, and they play a bit of cat and mouse over the nature of the visit. LaForge opts to just come out and talk about it rather than be tortured with 47 minutes of silence between poetry prose, which is apparently what Data is into now. Somehow, LaForge convinces Data that if there is any chance that his mom is communicating with him through the other ship and the probe, that it is worth the risk to possibly rescue her and her crew. Data starts with the attitude that he's just there to keep LaForge safe, but ends up throwing that out the window as he goes ahead and cranks the system up to eleven.As Picard, Riker, and Crusher come to crash the party, LaForge figures out what is really going on, and it has nothing to do with his mother. When the ship dipped too low, they picked up some low-orbit aliens. The aliens "accidentally" killed the crew when they attempted to communicate with them. The aliens were able to communicate with LaForge, manifested as his mom, and tried to persuade him to descend the ship again so that they could get back off. He does, and they do. For some reason, the alien tries to suck out his brain when he gets close to their orbit. When he returns, he receives a not-too-stern talking to by the captain for acting against orders, and of course this will go in his record. We are left to assume that his mother is actually dead. So, happy ending!
"Interface" is merely a Meh episode of Trek. The whole virtual reality thing was not even novel back when this originally aired. The LaForge character is advanced only a little bit, as we learn some information about his family. But the whole story isn't even wrapped up, as we don't see him grieving. He spends the entirety of the episode in denial, and then in the end says that he felt like he had a chance to say goodbye. But he didn't. In reality, he never got back to his mom when she reached out to him, and he never went to visit her. That makes a person feel crummy, and saying goodbye to an alien that mind-fucked you into thinking they were your mom does not help.
The far more interesting story here is Data. I know this was an attempt at a 100% LaForge-centric episode, but can we just talk for a second about Data disobeying direct orders to help his friend pursue a wild goose chase? How does his programming allow this? And was it even the right decision for a friend to make? He allows LaForge to be put in extreme physical peril. He also jeopardizes whatever plan they had for the stranded ship, and both of their careers are at risk as well for the disobedience. All this to pursue a cause that Data has flat-out said he doesn't believe in. While he tried to soften his language to protect his friend's feelings at first, when pressed, he said that it was "virtually impossible" for Captain LaForge to be reaching out to them. LaForge's motivation is clear, but what drove Data to go along with this? Is his desire to have a true friend so overwhelming that he can lose all objectivity? Most frustrating is that we don't even get to see how Data's misconduct is handled by the captain, we are only told that he will be dealt with at another time. So unsatisfying....Published Feb 3, 2018
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