December 11, 2023

Gabbing Geek

Your online community for all things geeky.

Weekend Trek “Imaginary Friend”

A little girl's imaginary friend may be a little too real.

Sometimes, Jimmy and I get an episode where there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with it, but it also doesn’t seem to have a lot going on to talk about.

That may more or less summarize “Imaginary Friend” very well.

“Imaginary Friend”

A little girl’s imaginary friend may be a little too real.

jimmy:  I remember when my first imaginary friend from a nebula went bad.

tomk:  What happened?

jimmy:  I can’t really say. But if you find an energy being buried in my back yard, I don’t know anything about it.

tomk:  I assumed that was your second imaginary friend from a nebula.

jimmy:  No, she’s still around.

tomk:  She?

jimmy:  If Guinan can have a razorbeast, I can have a she.

tomk:  Fair enough.

I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t the Moose or something like that.

jimmy:  He has his own imaginary friend. It’s a squirrel.

tomk:  Well, this seems to be getting us nowhere.  Can I just point out Worf was the first one to see Isabella because even she knew she couldn’t hide from the MVP?

jimmy:  That’s true…though he just let her go.

tomk:  Well, he didn’t have any evidence on her doing anything wrong.

Who was Worf going to listen to on that?  Alexander?

jimmy:  He doesn’t believe in invisible people.

tomk:  But he saw her.

jimmy:  Alexander I mean.

tomk:  Oh.  Well, who listens to that kid?

Lwaxana left again.

jimmy:  Is it ironic that Troi tries to make…I can’t even remember her name…be friends with Alexander…the only person in the class not working with someone else?

tomk:  Alexander needs friends too, and Cute Moppet #3 is as good as any.

jimmy:  That kid did look familiar though.

tomk:  Was she Cousin Minka?

jimmy:  I don’t think so.

tomk:  Good. She wasn’t. She was a child actress that bounced around a lot. She also did an episode of Deep Space Nine.

jimmy:  Looking at her filmography, I guess I saw her in a few things here and there back in the day.

tomk:  Also, probably haunting your shed.

jimmy:  Is she dead?

tomk:  She may be asking questions about energy-based nebula-born corpses in your backyard.

jimmy:  That explains the eerie orange glow out there.

tomk:  Is your property haunted, Jimmy?

jimmy:  Well, it is built on that old Indian burial ground.

tomk:  Jimmy, that glow might not be a dead imaginary friend from a strange nebula.

jimmy:  Should I take down the homemade “Welcome Visitors” sign from the window?

tomk:  Eh. They might get what they deserve.

jimmy:  I’ll get the tachyon burst ready.

tomk:  Make sure you don’t rescue any jerks with that burst.

jimmy:  Jerks or not, hopefully they just feed on the energy and go on their way. It’s almost like intergalactic bullies trying to take the Enterprise’s lunch money.

tomk:  What?  Like that parasite turning the ship to goo in the Lwaxana/Alexander episode?

jimmy:  Man…there are a lot of space bullies.

tomk:  And those are just the ones that try to drain the ship.

jimmy:  Luckily that guy who seems to have been an ensign for 10 years was there to help Geordi figure out what they needed to do.

tomk:  It was his kid. He had to act before Isabella robbed Alexander of his Klingon milk money. And that would just disappoint Worf.

jimmy:  I’m going to assume Picard had him and his kid transferred off the Enterprise after this as I doubt they are ever seen again.

tomk:  Well, it’s a big ship. They might just be going on wacky adventures with the first contact alien woman. Or the father joined the Night Crew.

jimmy:  Both plausible.  I just always find it funny when a character shows up, seems to be integral to the crew, has a hand in solving the problem at the heart of that week’s wacky adventure, and then is never seen again.

tomk:  Well, my answers seem more pleasant than the father joined Worf for his workout and died fighting Skeletor at Level One and then his kid had to go into the Federation Foster System only to be adopted by, let’s say, Moe.

jimmy:  Also plausible. At least he didn’t die on “Level Troi”.

tomk:  But you raise a good point: this was basically an episode focused on a child character we will never see again.

jimmy:  Yeah, at least Alexander pops up occasionally.

tomk:  He’s the son of the MVP. He has a contractual obligation.

jimmy:  And MVP that ensign is not.

tomk:  Yeah. He probably got transferred to DS9 in n time for the Dominion War.

jimmy:  I assume the girl wasn’t the same character on DS9?

tomk:  No.

jimmy:  And different invisible friend?

tomk:  On DS9, she might have been the invisible friend.

jimmy:

tomk:  Is your mind sufficiently blown?

jimmy:  It is.

tomk:  Then you understand rules better than imaginary nebula friends.

jimmy:  They understand rules, they’re just jerks.

tomk:  Isabella wanted to go places Clara wasn’t allowed to go. Even Clara understood that.

This episode doesn’t seem to be drawing much conversation. Perhaps we need to move on. We haven’t seen the Borg in a while.

jimmy:

tomk:  No, the other Borg.

jimmy:

tomk:  The other other Borg.

jimmy:

tomk:  Close enough.

So, Jimmy, what if Picard met another Borg?

jimmy:  He probably wouldn’t be happy about it.

tomk:  Well, Borg are people too.

Or, it might be better to look at one of the more memorable episodes from this season.

Ready to move on and find out what happens when a single Borg shows up?

jimmy:  I, ready.

tomk:  You, Jimmy.

Next:  “I, Borg”