[Allison] Heya folks! If you set the clock back to one year ago,
you might remember my truly groundbreaking video on Star Trek Enterprise's "A night in sickbay".
Of course I don't need to remind you as surely I've been racking in hundreds of thousands of views.
And you'll no doubt remember me starting things off by clarifying
that I am not a trekkie but a humble Scott Bakula fan.
And that's not because I had anything against Star Trek.
I just hadn't dipped my toe in that well yet.
Anyway, that's changed. Because now, my friends,
I have dived deep into the franchise and binge my way through a good chunk of it.
And my dudes, I was missing out on a ton of the cultural zeitgeist.
Truly the darkest of times.
But now I've seen the world of Klingons, Vulcans, those stupid cabbage heads from Voyager...
Yes, I can trek with the worst of them.
And let me tell you guys, coming from someone who watched all of Enterprise first, it's like night and day.
That sound you're hearing right now is the shrieks of a thousand trekkies, horrified by my watching order.
Anyway, Star Trek has provided some of the best and some of the hilariously worst sci-fi has to offer.
And so I'm gonna do a Star Trek Manic Episodes triple feature.
We've got three videos coming up covering the best worst episodes of Next Generation, Deep Space 9 and Voyager.
And we're getting the ball rolling with this masterpiece from one of the biggies.
Strap yourselves in for a tale of romance, intrigue... and ghosts? It's "Sub Rosa".
When it comes to Next Generation I had a buffet of choices from the first two seasons,
as it was quite a journey to get them to the classic television series it became.
But just because an episode is bad doesn't necessarily make it funny,
and there's a bevy of snoozefest in those first couple years.
I'm looking for real hilarity, folks, and I didn't expect things to get to those loaves in season 7,
but lo and behold, I was gifted "Sub Rosa".
People warned me, but I had no idea it could be this wondrously off-the-mark by their last season.
It blew all the other bad episodes out of the water.
I'm telling you, this is the hardest I ever laughed at the show. I was crying.
Can I just say poor Beverly Crusher? While she did get some solid episodes,
it was very few and far between that she got plots of her own.
Usually she was just relegated to Wesley's mom, or medical exposition dump.
And hey, it's cool we get to find out more about her family after seven years, but uh...
this is what they gave us? It's a story that makes you wish you knew less.
Appropriately we start things off at a funeral. Beverly's grandmother, who raised her since her parents died,
has passed away in this Federation space colony that models itself after Scotland.
And that's something you're just gonna have to accept.
So already everything looks and feels nothing like Star Trek at all.
Thirteen seconds in and Picard instantly wants out of this.
It's really not so bad for Nana when you think about it,
she gets to share a cemetery with Marty McFly and Darth Vader.
-Well as you know...
Bad writing, next.
Yeah, yeah, this is all very sad. Hey, wait a minute. Who's this handsome devil?
-He gave me a remarkable look.
[Snifs] Remarkable.
Crusher and Troy visit grandma's house, an old-fashioned cottage
lit by lamplight almost straight out of the 1800s.
Sure, the Federation comes from a world where technology is at its peak and people want for nothing,
but wouldn't you rather live by lamplight in a recreation of old Scotland in the far-off reaches of space?
Hell, I know that's how I want to live now.
I loved a time when people died of pneumonia regularly. It's retrochic.
While she's reminiscing, Beverly shows Deanna the sweet candle her grandma had,
a family heirloom meant to symbolize their enduring spirit.
Her grandmother used to tell her ghost stories by this candle light,
because as you will come to find out, grandma got off on some spooky stuff.
-I'm going to head back to the ship.
-You don't have to leave.
"Uh, but I want to."
Oh well, nothing left to do but read grandma's journal and get all the juicy deets.
I hope the worst thing in the world doesn't happen while she's upstairs.
[Dramatic chord]
[Explosion noise]
My God, the stakes have never been higher.
Naturally, Beverly's pissed this stranger is going around
barging into houses and blowing out candles, and demands an explanation.
The man introduces himself as Ned Quint, manager for grandmother's affairs for the past five years.
-That candle has brought nithin but misery and bad luck to yer grandmother.
-That candle has been a curse in yer family for generations.
[Repeats 'candle' several times]
-That damned candle!
"Ye're damned. Daaaaamned."
"Dinnae licht that candle."
-Ye stay on in this hoose, and ye keep that damned candle.
-I have not been responsible for what happens.
"I could just tell you exactly what it is instead of speaking cryptically, but then I'd actually be useful."
"Sorry about the rubbish accent."
"According to these readings the transition from old Scotland to this spaceship
is as jarring as our inclusion in events is useless."
I'm sorry, but the fact the Enterprise has a rolling chair is hilarious to me.
Just imagining Geordi trying to get shit done while the ship is taking heavy damage
and this chair is just rolling around all over the place really makes me chuckle.
Anyhoo, I wasn't paying enough attention to know this guy's name.
Let's just call him the governor of Scotland town.
And he asked the good folks on the Enterprise to take a look at their outdated weather control system.
As you can see this is an integral part of the plot that uses the rest of our characters wisely,
and definitely isn't just an excuse for them to have something to do.
-Our weather control has been working perfectly for the last 22 years.
"Which is why I asked you to take a look at it."
Whoa guys, this is fascinating talk about atmospheric humidity,
power distribution patterns, climatic flow arrayzzzz... [Allison snoozes]
-Don't worry, governor. We'll keep it dry.
-I certainly hope so, there's a caber toss scheduled for tomorrow afternoon,
-and I'd hate to see it spoiled by an unexpected downpour.
No, not the- not the caber toss!
No! Rain, ruining the caber toss?! Fuck!
Meanwhile Beverly's got all sorts of steamy details on her grandmother's love life thanks to her journals.
Despite being 100 years old she had a hot young lover in his 30s.
Picard's reaction noise is amazing.
-Mmmmmm.
"Ridiculous. Well, I'm going to travel back in time
and sleep with my roommate at the academy while in my old body again."
Speaking of creepy, I didn't realize ghosts groping was a genre in the 90s,
but apparently that's some sort of go-to for people who write women badly.
And I think if this was written as it is, a frightening violation by an entity you cannot see or fight off,
it would work in a horror context, but you see, this episode isn't horror.
It is straight up out of a cheesy romance novel.
No, Beverly Crusher, who works on a spaceship where things regularly possess, transform,
kill and maim people, finds this fondling terribly romantic.
-The sensations were very real and extremely arousing.
-Frankly I'm envious.
"It's been ages since something violated me and the show sugar-coated over it.
Just like the chocolates I love so much. Nom nom nom nom."
-Mmmmmm.
Apparently Beverly thinks this is a dream, but I still question her
finding her grandmother's journal so erotic she has wet dreams after reading it.
-I did fall asleep reading a particularly erotic chapter in my grandmother's journal.
-I'd read two chapters.
-Mmmmmm.
Well, time for Beverly to dress like she always does,
in a Cryptkeeper shawl, as she wanders in the fake Scotland fog.
My God, could it be true? Could it really rain on the caber toss?
[Technobabbling Lullaby]
Anyway, back to "dinnae licht that candle!"
Seeing as how breaking into her house and flying off the handle
with all that candle blowing wasn't really very helpful,
Ned tries to clarify what he meant. See, he's pretty reasonable, it's just that the candle is haunted.
"Ye're damned. Daaaaamned."
"Dinnae licht that candle."
Beverly is a woman of science, but hey, just hypothetically,
what if her grandmother's candle is haunted by a ghost?
And what if said candle ghost was causing all this green lightning,
messing with the weather controls and planting a bunch of magic flowers everywhere?
What if that ghost was her grandmother's lover?
I do love that she threatens to call the Enterprise security guards on the ghost. That's pretty good.
She tries to skeptic him but in the end she can't resist the ghost with the most.
-Mmmmmm.
-Nice fucking model! *honking*
Now they gotta include another scene of Crusher and Troi dishing about boys.
Although I don't know how I can tell they're girlfriends if they aren't doing aerobics in front of a butt mirror.
The weird part of this is that Troi comes off less like she's trying to get her to spill and more like she's jealous.
-Beverly, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were seeing someone.
-Now I know you're seeing someone.
"Kind of like I see the replicator every morning and have it make me something chocolate.
What else do girls like?"
When Beverly tells her she's falling for her grandmother's lover she reacts appropriately disturbed.
After all, who wants their grandparents sloppy seconds?
-What the hell is going on?
"Will this ruin the caber toss?"
[More sleep-inducing technobabble]
-I'll go get my jacket.
"Dinnae licht that candle. Ye're damned. Daaaaamned.
I love being a useless sack of crap."
-He's dead.
Good engineer work, guys. They couldn't figure out why the weather control system was going wack.
Could it be the fake Scottish man like 5 feet behind them who's ripping out power conduits?
"I'm beginning to think we'll never have our caber toss now."
Suspecting grandma lover ghost might have some answers to this mysterious death,
Beverly visits him and he makes a physical appearance.
"Yes Beverly, I have all the answers you need, but first,
you know that scene in Ghostbusters with Dan Aykroyd from that montage? Well, let's do that but in reverse."
By now things are getting a bit unhinged for Beverly.
She's dressing like a porcelain doll, acting out of character and getting the Casper shakes.
He's got her in his big old fart cloud of deceit.
[Farts]
So imagine Picard's surprise when Beverly abruptly resigns from Starfleet
and says she's going to live in her grandmother's house in fake Scotland.
"You can't leave, Beverly. You remember what happened last time.
Do you want Pulaski to come back? Are you that heartless?"
[Music: Unchained Melody]
"Beverly, are you done with those journals? Whatever Deanna says, I called dibs first."
Detecting some energy readings matching the spike that killed Ned Quint,
Data and Geordi beam down to the surface to do some good old-fashioned cemetery snooping.
Finding the source of the energy in Nana Beverly's grave,
they ask Picard for permission to exhume the body.
Picard in turn asks for the governor of Scotland town's permission, all while staring right at Beverly,
the person who, you know, should be the one who determines who digs up her grandmother's corpse.
This makes Ghost Fabio non too pleased with Picard's actions.
Heheh... Incredible. I think we all knew this is how Jean-Luc Picard was gonna go out.
Lit flat on his ass by an 800 year old candle ghost.
This is where the episode just goes completely off the rails and I lose it.
Data and Geordi exhume Beverly's dead grandmother,
who proceeds to reanimate and take them out with her lightning fingers.
Beverly's there and naturally, this is quite a shock to her, pun entirely intended.
I never expected to see a Star Trek where Dr. Crusher faces her zombie grandma, but lordie, am I glad I did.
I should be horrified but I can't stop laughing.
"Werthers..."
-You're not Nana. Nana's dead.
-LEAVE HER ALONE!
[Allison chef-kisses] Delicious.
She's chewing that scenery like dead grandma chewing down on some tasty brains.
"Hey mom. I'm back from the Academy. What'd I miss?"
"Ehmmmmmmm..."
Now the truth comes out.
As Beverly dramatically explains and fails to naturally infuse into the scene,
ghost lover is really an an aphasic life-form,
who must use an organic host to keep molecular cohesion, or he'll die.
I don't know how this gives him the ability to make flowers magically appear but whatever.
Get a load of this bit of science.
The candle was plasma-based, and he was using it as a receptacle to, uh,
get to her and then they could like, merge and stuff and...
I don't know, whatever, look, to make a long story short,
he's been using the women in her family for centuries,
meaning her family lines since at least the 1600s has at their lives wasted
and sucked dry by this lame-ass ghost candle man. Hi-larious.
-No, no...
"Yes, yes... oh wait, I forgot I'm dead again.
[Farts]
-NOOOO!
"Come on, we can still work this out."
"Damn, forgot busting makes you feel good."
"That's the last caber toss you'll ruin, you son of a bitch."
"Captain's Log supplemental: Uhhh... pfft...
Well this one's a doozy. Where do I even begin?"
-I reread the entries in my grandmother's journals.
-Whatever else he might have done, he made her very happy.
No. Credits.
[Next Generation ending]
"Sub Rosa" is terribly good.
The whole romance novel vibe just doesn't fit anything we saw before or since in this show.
The story is nonsense, and does a lot of horrifying things to Beverly's character and her entire family.
And that might mean something more if there was any weight to it,
but it's disturbingly dismissive of the violating nature of the whole ordeal.
It's sexist at worst, clumsy at best, but if you want a bad episode that's a lot of fun I'd recommend it.
Otherwise this will be one ghost that stays in the grave.
[Next Generation ending]