With the Trill, in the form of Adira Tal, having a prominent role on Star Trek: Discovery this season I thought it would be appropriate to review the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Trill made their first appearance. So let's talk about Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, Episode 23 "The Host".
"The Host" is one of those episodes of TNG that I remember watching when I was a kid, but only remember seeing it once or twice, but don't remember much of the plot, aside from Odan being a Trill, being in love with Doctor Crusher, and Riker volunteering to be a temporary host for Odan. I didn't own this episode on VHS and we didn't have it taped off the TV either, so it wasn't an episode I got to watch all that often.
One of the things that I like about this episode is that it isn't about Odan's efforts to negotiate between two warring factions. It's about Doctor Crusher and her struggle to come to terms with Odan being a joined Trill and the symbiont being in Riker's body, and then being in a female Trill host. It's also about asking the question, "Does our love for someone come from physical desire or from something besides that?" Like any good Star Trek episode, "The Host" never gives us an answer to that question. Instead, it only presents the question to us, the audience, and lets us come up with an answer on our own without nudging us in one direction or another.
Doctor Crusher is such a relatable character in this episode. As I already mentioned, she struggles to figure out if she can still love Odan even though he hid that part of himself from her. It becomes even more difficult for her when the Odan Symbiont is placed into Riker's body, making him William T. Odan, if we go by the Trill naming convention laid out on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She knows she's not physically attracted to Riker, think of him like a brother (much to Troi's relief I'm sure), but because the symbiont has taken control of Riker's body, he is, in effect, the man that Beverly fell in love with, despite his face and physique belonging to her friend, Will Riker.
My favourite scene in this episode is the opening one, where Odan and Beverly are making out in the turbolift, the doors open and Data enters the lift and proceeds to talk about the preparations the three of them are making for Odan's mission. A fairly mundane scene, but what I like about it is that Data is not picking up on Beverly's hints that she and Odan were busy and that moment was not a good time for Data to be working with them. As someone who is autistic, I can relate to Data, because, especially when I was in my teens and my twenties, this is something that I have difficulty with. Unless somebody tells me straight out that something is inconvenient, I'm not going to get it from facial cues or body language. Of course Beverly is too nice to just outright tell Data that that moment was not a good time.
By the way, Riker really goes through the ringer in this episode. I mean he has an alien lifeform surgically implanted inside his body, has to function as that being for a day or two, and it all culminates in Riker nearly dying because Humans are unable to be suitable hosts for a Trill symbiont. Actually I'm sort of surprised that Riker did survive having the symbiont in his body just because it's only been eight episodes since Doctor Crusher healed his wounds from being beaten to near death, and operated on in an alien hospital, where he was also beaten to near death by the hospital staff when he tried to escape in Season 4, Episode 15 "First Contact" and only six episodes since he and the rest of the crew were sleep deprived in "Night Terrors".
Also in the scene where the Odan Symbiont is being placed into Riker is kind of weird. Not because it's disturbing or anything, but I'm pretty sure Doctor Crusher and Nurse Ogawa broke several medical protocols in the scene. Riker is properly prepped for the operation, but Crusher and Ogawa aren't wearing the proper surgical scrubs that we saw in the season 2 episode "Samaritan Snare" when Picard has having his heart operation, and they're in the main Sickbay area, not the surgical unit that we'd later see in the season 5 episode, "Ethics" when Worf is having experimental back surgery. As someone who has had many operations over the years, it didn't make sense to me that Beverly would be so lax in procedure when it comes to prepping for surgery of any kind.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall "The Host" is an amazing episode of the show. It's also one of the more underrated episodes of the series as well. I don't see it on a lot of people's Top 10 Favourite Episodes lists and not a lot of people talk about it online very much either. I don't know if that's because it's overlooked since the Trill are introduced here but are better developed on Deep Space Nine or what. I really like it though. It's thought provoking, relatable, and entertaining. I'm giving Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, Episode 23, "The Host" 9/10 stars.
Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Host_(episode)
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