‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Retro Recap – ‘Night Terrors’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Something that is truly fascinating about Star Trek: The Original Series, is how the show genuinely tried hard to integrate elements of horror into its storytelling from time to time. By offering up tales that revolved around the supernatural, just to see if by chance, horror and wholesome science fiction could properly co-exist on the small screen and this is an experiment that quite frankly, ended in disaster. For the episodes that did try this, ended up being quite cheesy in nature since the supernatural just didn’t mix with fact-based science fiction in the slightest and thankfully, these awful attempts at hybrid storytelling were abandoned by Star Trek, well before its cancellation came about.

But that certainly didn’t stop that incredibly unique notion from disappearing from the fabric of the franchise, as evidenced by some of the stories that popped up in Star Trek: The Next Generation from time to time. For the writers of The Next Generation, really wanted to know if such a feat was possible and well, it just so happens that they eventually figured out the proper formula to make this hybrid style of storytelling, work. And it turns out that the trick to making this palatable, was to no longer shoehorn horror into a story and hope for the best, and instead ground the scares in solid science. So that a sense of realism would allow for something compelling and chilling to come to life, and the next episode of this storied and wonderful franchise, served as the perfect moment to trot this new and improved formula out to the masses. 

For ‘Night Terrors’ saw the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise be the ship to locate a missing science vessel named the U.S.S. Brattain and well, its discovery posed quite the mystery for Picard and his crew. In that, everyone aboard the Brattain, save for a Betazoid passenger, was dead, and those that died… died terribly. In fact, it appeared as though the crew outright murdered one another for reasons unknown. But before Picard's crew could figure out what went wrong, strange occurrences and behaviors begin to manifest aboard the 1701-D, the kind that resembled what happened aboard the Brattain. And to make matters worse, the ship was no longer able to move. Which motivated Data and Troi to work hard to finally discover that this whole mess was related to the fact that another ship was trapped alongside them and its crew was using sleep disruption to try and garner attention to their plight and to offer up a solution to this mess. One that Data and Troi made use of to save both crews.

But while that plot seems pretty straight forward and by the Trek numbers… it is the details that make this quite the fascinating horror hybrid. For the presentation of burned bodies and violently murdered Starfleet officers definitely jars the viewer and makes them uncomfortable. As do the sleep deprived hallucinations that the crew experiences. For those prey upon our most primal fears, such as our collective fear of the unknown or the ones that involve gross creepy crawlies. But of all the scares in this particular tale, the one that truly stands out and makes hair stand on end, is the one involving Doctor Beverly Crusher. Because having her be surrounded by corpses that suddenly sit up really is some top-notch horror for certain and the show deserves serious credit for making this type of hybrid palatable.

For the science really does make this work and it really does make for a compelling tale, since you are immediately sucked into the surprise of watching a spooky TNG episode and you're quickly eager to see where it is going to take you next. But while it is refreshing to finally see Trek figure out how to bridge the gap between two storied and iconic genres, this is a type of story, that isn't for everyone. Because a hardcore Sci-Fi fan has no desire to see these two genres mix, and that is likely why this story is reviled to this day, by a great many fans. But while they lament this particular storytelling move, this reviewer outright praises it. Because this decision genuinely made Star Trek accessible to fans from every genre, and that really is a wonderful thing. Until next time.

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