Night Terrors

*** (2 Eyes in the Dark and a Circling Moon out of 5)

Missing for almost a month, U.S.S. Brittain is found in a binary system with 34 crew dead by each other's hands. Another empty Miranda-class ship to hose out and add to the pile!

Betazoid scientist Andrus Hagen is found alive but nearly catatonic. Crusher has only seen results like this before in viewers of 'Terra Nova' marathons.

Troi has a creepy flying dream amid bilious clouds while a disembodied voice whispers: "See the eyes in the dark. One moon circles."

For once, it is not Troi's moon the eyes are focused on.

Crusher believes no one is reaching REM sleep except Hagen and Troi. Insanity and death will be the inevitable result. The Betazoids will have to repopulate the ship themselves... from their comas.

O'Brien is jealous of the attention Keiko pays Tom Corbin (presumably a Space Cadet?). Gillespie tells the Chief that Kenicki is seeing ghosts and sending hickeys like Hallmark greeting cards.

O'Brien scoffs. "I have more things to worry about than shades and spirits." And hickeys.

Picard hears his door chime when no one is there. Ensign Rager cries at her post.

They are caught in an energy absorbing Tyken's Rift. Unable to emulate Tyken's explosive escape, their power is too drained to fire torpedos or replicate explosive compounds. And apparently they are too tired to push a torpedo on a timer out of an airlock.

Ten days in, and Picard hallucinates he's being crushed by a turbolift. Riker sees snakes in his bed. Ashamed of his terror, Worf is suicidal. Crusher cowers before a Cavalcade of Cargo Bay Corpses!

The expensive-looking deflector dish blast that didn't work against the Borg is tried here: it doesn't work.

Troi determines that her recurring nightmare is a telepathic message. With Crusher's help, Deanna must use directed dreaming to save the night from heebies and possibly jeebies.

"Night Terrors" scared me more the first couple of times around. If you can, see it as an impressionable youth who avoided other scary movies. Most people don't find it spooky. I still think it exudes menace, though, and the performances are good. I like the weird synth music, the minimal effects, and the jeopardy of being your own worst enemy when you're exhausted.