1.22 Skin of Evil

Rating: 2.5

Counselor Troi’s shuttle crash-lands on a supposedly uninhabited planet, trapping her with a black sludge – a being of pure evil.

Comments

The concept of a purely evil being created from distilled evil is an interesting one.

Having a regular cast member (Tasha Yar) die – and not be brought back to life by Borg nanoprobes – adds tremendous drama and shock value to this episode.

Riker certainly has been having some tough days at the office. In Arsenal of Freedom he was frozen in a beam of light and had to be freed by Data. In Symbiosis T’jon gave him a 20 second, almost fatal shock, and once again he was frozen in place. And now in this episode, he is dragged into a vat of evil sludge.

Memorable Moments

•    Riker getting dragged beneath the slime surface, and then just his face appearing in the slime, is scary.

•    In some of the low-light scenes in the shuttlecraft, Troi is strikingly beautiful.

Quotable Quotes

Data: Curious. You are capable of great sadism and cruelty. Interesting - no redeemable qualities.
Armus: So what do you think?
Data: I think you should be destroyed.