My main overall reaction to this episode is that it’s a fundamentally forgettable one. While not entirely without merits, it needed a lot of work before it could qualify as particularly good—but most of all, it just never really grabs me. To be sure, it has several strikes against it from the outset: First, it involves both a medical condition that causes rapid aging and a genetic-engineering-gone-wrong scenario, both of which are pretty tired ideas. Second, as in “Lonely Among Us,” it once again uses the transporter in a way that removes any doubt about the best-ignored fact that said device has the ability to make everyone immortal. The episode makes a respectable attempt at doing something worthwhile on a character level, but I wouldn’t call that attempt particularly successful, unfortunately. Also, since the featured character is Dr. Pulaski—who is, of course, not going to be around for very long—it’s a tad difficult, in retrospect, to get too invested in character development material involving her (although judging the episode on this basis is not really fair).
While not exactly first-seasonish, per se, quite a bit about the details of scene-by-scene execution in this episode just seems off; the writing seems like it just needed a lot of tightening up. For starters, the teaser is lame and nonsensical. It opens with Captain Picard all but turning to face the camera and announcing “Audience, this is going to be an episode focusing on Pulaksi!” But then, after the opening log entry establishes that the Enterprise is en route to some station with some medical problem or other (which will give the captain a chance to “more fully evaluate” the new doctor), the ship receives a distress call that diverts it from that original destination—but (conveniently?) ends up getting them into an entirely different situation calling for a prominent role to be played by the doctor! Also, of course, the captain’s concerns about the doctor seem out of nowhere, and the scene where he consults Troi about her feels forced and artificial. Then, throughout the episode, there seems to be a lot of clunky, time-consuming, procedural hoop-jumping. The sequence in which Pulaski and Data use a shuttlecraft to isolate the superkid from the ship while the doctor checks him out, for example, eats up a lot of time without doing much, and strikes me as unskillful. There’s no need to show us all the mundane steps along the way; we could have cut straight to the beaming of the kid onto the already-out-in-space shuttle as soon as Pulaski’s plan was established. I don’t necessarily get the sense that this is fundamentally about using up time, though; rather, it just seems like a lack of sophistication in structuring the story. Other scenes similarly fail to skip over the mundane moments in between the meat. Then, of course, the fact that none of the superkids (not even the one with whom Pulaski interacts!) ever open their mouths to utter a single word also hurts the episode. Not only is it unrealistic, but it squanders any chance of making them come alive in a way that might prompt the audience to feel anything for them. (I read in Nemecek’s ST:TNG Companion that the one kid was supposed to have dialog, but it was cut to save money.) Since the actual plot of the episode is nothing special, the right thing to do would have been to use it as more of a backdrop for the character stuff; instead, the episode seems to feel a need to show us every moment of every event, even when (as in the case of the mute kid) it can’t do justice to some of those moments.
The attempt to more fully address the addition of Dr. Pulaski to the show here was, if overdue, nevertheless well-intentioned, and I do respect what this episode tries to do on a character level between her and both Data and Picard. With Data, we see actual progress in her attitude; while she still seems less than totally comfortable with him, she does seek out his help, and she has thawed noticeably toward him since earlier episodes. With Picard, the ideas of there being friction between them due to mutual stubbornness, and of Picard learning that she has been a long-time admirer who sought a transfer to the Enterprise because of him, are worthwhile material, but it just doesn’t quite come to life. I’m not entirely certain if my problem is with the acting, or if it has more to do with the episode’s heavy emphasis on procedural detail tending to sideline the character material (rather than the episode actually being structured around the character arcs), or what, exactly; I just feel like what the episode is trying to do, though worthwhile, is (at best) very imperfectly realized. Certainly, the way-too-explicit teaser doesn’t help, as already noted—and I suppose, too, that the lack of much precedent in prior episodes for the idea that Picard and Pulaski “tend to butt heads” makes it difficult for this episode to plausibly establish this premise. Also, even putting aside the deeper problems with the transporter-and-DNA solution to the episode’s plot, it doesn’t seem at all right for Picard to be the one who dreams up the idea. This is presumably supposed to dramatize his emotional investment, but it simply doesn’t ring true.
I could certainly nitpick the plot a bit more, if I chose to do so. It’s pretty lame that the scientists at the Darwin station are portrayed as having no clue what’s going on (and as absolutely positive that it’s unrelated to their research), but Pulaski and Data manage to piece the whole thing together in about five seconds once they arrive. Also, Data’s whole involvement makes little sense (and is clearly just a contrivance to put him and Pulaski together). Pulaski brings him along to pilot the shuttle; in later seasons, we usually get the sense that routine shuttle-operating skills are pretty much universal among twenty-fourth century denizens, but okay—they weren’t thinking that way at this point. Even so, as one other commentator of whom I’m aware points out, surely the shuttle could have been operated remotely (like the Lantree was)? It’s a minor issue, though, and would scarcely register with me if this were a great episode in general.
Two final comments: First, the final scene, with the Enterprise returning to the quarantined Lantree to destroy it (with voiceover log entry from Pulaski) is surprisingly affecting, is executed with aplomb, and brings a nice sense of closure to the episode; kudos. Second, Chief O’Brien’s name is mentioned for the first time in this episode, and he plays, in general, more of a role here than he ever has before; basically, he begins the transition from recurring extra to secondary character in this episode. (Unaccountably, the ST:TNG Companion incorrectly says that his name is first mentioned in the episode after this one (and differences between production vs. airing order can’t explain the discrepancy)—but in actual fact, it happens in this one.)