“Dark Page” is episode seven of season seven of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The Enterprise is hosting a delegation from the Cairn, a telepathic species with no concept of the spoken language. Lwaxana Troi has been instructing them in speaking and is in Ten Forward talking to Captain Picard about it. When she says that with the Cairn the conversation would have been finished minutes ago, he seems wistful. Data and Geordi are talking to a girl about Geordi’s VISOR; she says it sounds similar to her vocal enhancer. Lwaxana comes over and asks where Deanna is. She asks the girl, Hedril, to find her father. Then holds her head; she says she’s a little tired.
Lwaxana speaks to Worf and Riker, calling Worf Mr Woof. He considers objecting then decides it’s not worth it. Worf says telepaths make him uneasy. Lwaxana says they couldn’t read his thoughts if they tried; his brain is not sophisticated enough. Riker is enjoying the exchange until Lwaxana says his isn’t either.
Lwaxana asks about Troi again, who turns up at that moment. He mother takes her to meet the senior diplomat Maques, then leaves them together. Maques, who has problems finding words, says Lwaxana told him of her daughter’s need. For a husband. He needs a wife. Troi looks at her mother with murder clearly in mind.
The next day, Lwaxana wants to talk to Troi about Maques. This leads to awkwardness in a turbolift but afterwards Lwaxana holds her head, then gets emotional, saying how precious Deanna is to her. If something happened, she doesn’t know what she’d do. Lwaxana says she’s just tired; it’s making her emotional.
Troi finds Maques in her office, who wants to apologise. Troi says it’s her mother’s fault. Maques says Lwaxana is the first non-Cairn to learn their telepathy. With the Cairn, nothing is hidden; Maques says there’s always a part of Lwaxana that is dark, that cannot be seen. Troi isn’t sure she understands. Lwaxana said it was called privacy and Troi explains the concept. Maques is stunned, and relieved that is all that was wrong.
Troi is talking to Riker in Ten Forward about how her mother fell apart. Troi is sensing erratic emotions and even her clothes are unusual; so subdued. Then Lwaxana comes in and has a go at Riker, telling him to leave Troi alone because without him she’d be married now.
Dr Crusher checks Lwaxana out as Lwaxana tells Troi to apologise to Riker. The doctor says that Lwaxana’s telepathic neurotransmitter is depleted; she needs to avoid telepathy for a while. She’s eventually convinced to do this and Troi says she will help, verbally.
Lwaxana, Troi and the Cairn head to the arboretum. Troi is explaining concepts, then Lwaxana, who looks awful, uses her telepathy to explain heave to Maques. Troi says her mother doesn’t look well. She says she’s just tired; maybe she’ll sit. Troi tells the other her mother will be fine. Then Hedril falls into the pool. And Lwaxana has collapsed.
Lwaxana is in a coma and Dr Crusher tells the captain and Troi she doesn’t know what to do. She can’t find a physiological cause. Lwaxana’s brain, except for the perocortex, has shut down; there, activity is off the scale. Troi explains that this is the Betazed temporal lobe. The captain wonders if this is a side-effect of communicating with the Cairn. He wants to talk to Maques.
Maques says it’s the bad thoughts inside Lwaxana that hurt her. He has difficulty explaining and manages to communicate telepathically with Troi. Troi returns to the sickbay and tells the doctor and the captain that she understood better what Maques was getting at. Something has happened to her mother’s metaconscious mind, which protects a Betazed’s mind from psychic trauma. It seems Lwaxana has trauma her metaconscious can’t tolerate.
Lwaxana seems to be trapped inside her mind and Troi needs to go inside. Maques, despite a creepy moment, will help. Data ends up talking about his experience with dreams in the previous episode, “Phantasms”. There’s something clearly wrong with Lwaxana and it seems she’s been keeping it hidden for a long time.