Remember Me

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Have you ever lost your keys? Well, that's what happens to Dr. Crusher today, only instead of keys it's her recently widower-ed kindly retiree mentor Dr. Dalen Quaice.

Then all her staff vanish.

Even Dr. Selar?! Old Doctor Dude missing: fine, o.k., that's very sad. Missing Vulcan hottie? TRAGEDY!

Then suddenly, nobody's heard of Mr. Worf. "Big guy? Never smiles? THE KLINGON?!"

With every person who vanishes, their computer records also vanish, and everyone's memories except Dr. Crusher's. It begins to look like Dr. Crusher is the faulty one. To everyone else, a ship built for 1000 people with a crew of 200 (and falling) is quite normal.

A vortex of wind and light twice appears when Beverly is alone and almost swallows her. Is she out of her frickin' mind?

Finally, it's just Picard and Crusher, on a bridge with a lot of empty seats, exploring the galaxy together. And then Picard is no more.

Of course, Wesley WAS tampering with the Kosinski Equations. His warp bubble has trapped his mother in a collapsing continuum based on her idle thoughts of loneliness and mortality.

Back in the real continuum, The Traveller reappears and helps Wesley zen motorcycle his way to a solution. Use the forks, Wes!

Inside the bubble, Bev learns the sobering facts: the stars are going missing.

"If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe."

She calls up a graphic of the universe, which is a dwindling squashed sphere now consuming the front end of the ship. Bafflingly, although the graphic shows the bridge is perilously near that collapsing edge, it takes FOUR SOLID MINUTES before Beverly reaches the conclusion I reached instantly. Get off the bridge, woman! Head for the centre of that bubble- engineering! But it wouldn't have been as dramatic if it hadn't been a race against The Nothing.

The Traveller and Wesley go all phase-y see-through during the exciting recovery sequence.

"Remember Me" is still effectively spooky. 'Honey, You Shrunk Your Mom' proves Wesley is probably never going to stop with the mad science projects. But he's also the guy to save you after he endangers you. Because science is ALL about closing your eyes and FEELING the right answers on keyboards. Trust me on this.

Watch, I'll just type a Kosinski equation: 139r{5oa^*%#*sss0= rbg^2348-097...

Drat. Now I'm in an alternate continuum.

Fortunately, I was thinking about Dr. Selar!