“Schisms” is episode five of season six of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The Enterprise is charting an unusually dense globular cluster. Commander Riker wakes in his quarters after what looks like a restless night. He meets Data and Geordi in engineering and apologises for being late; he overslept again. Geordi says it will take three days to map a tenth of the cluster, but he’s had an idea for enhancing the long-range sensors. Riker authorises it. Before Data leaves, he reminds the commander about his poetry reading. The poetry is very much in rhyme. Riker tells Troi he’s struggling to stay awake; she has to wake him up at one point and he still falls asleep.
Riker heads to see the doctor and explains his problems; she says it might be down to a lack of REM sleep. She gives him a recipe for a hot milk toddy; it’s the captain’s Aunt Adele’s. If he still has problems, see her tomorrow.
In engineering, the modifications to improve the sensors are working. Data asks Geordi about his poetry reading, as many spectators seemed distracted. Was his poetry uninteresting? Geordi replies that it was very well constructed; a virtual tribute to form. Data asks about the emotional response, and tells Geordi he doesn’t need to try to spare his feelings as he had none. Well, no. Don’t concentrate on rhyme and meter; concentrate on what Data wants to say. They then get a warning of an EPS explosion in cargo bay 4, where they’d modified a relay for the sensor enhancements; Geordi has three people in there.
The doctor and Worf lead teams to the cargo bay and meet Data and Geordi there. The door is opened; inside looks very un-explodey. Geordi tells Riker later that there’s no evidence of an explosion; he thinks it’s a sensor glitch caused by his modification. Riker wants to pick this up in the morning and asks Geordi to stop by at 0700; he’s having problems waking up. In his quarters, Riker makes his toddy and gets into bed. Geordi arrives outside and Riker tells him to come in. It’s 0700. Riker feels he only just got into bed.
Worf arrives at the barbers. Mr Mott is chattering away when suddenly Worf grabs his arm and stares at the scissors before leaving.
Geordi and Riker are in cargo bay 4; Geordi is also feeling tired. He speaks to Data about running a scan when his VISOR cuts out; the second time today. He decides to head to sickbay. In sickbay, Dr Crusher says Geordi has a slight bacterial infection around his neural implants; that might be interfering. It’s not a bacterial strain on record. She’ll sterilise the area, then run another scan.
Geordi returns to the cargo bay and asks Data how the scan is going. Data has just started it; did Geordi not go to sickbay? Geordi says he was there for over an hour and a half. Data’s internal chronometer says he’s been gone 1 minute 15 seconds. Data checks the time with the ship’s computer. He’s lost an hour and a half and has no idea what he was doing. With several strange events int eh cargo bay, Geordi wants a scan running.
On the bridge, Riker is showing Ensign Rager how to navigate in a globular cluster when the console leaves him feeling uneasy. In the cargo bay, Data and Geordi have found subspace particle emissions within it; the captain is called. The emissions are coming from the same EPS junction. There’s a subspace particle stream coming from it. Coming from deep in subspace.
Riker tells Troi about his reaction to the console. She says he’s the third person today to have come to her with such problems. She decides to get everyone affected to see what they can remember. In the holodeck, what they come up with is disturbingly like some sort of surgical table.
It seems someone is abducting people from the Enterprise and carrying out experiments on them. Not very pleasant experiments at that.
There’s a sequel hook at the end, but it was never followed up. This is one of the creepier TNG episodes, a series not known for such, yet the creators apparently didn’t feel it was scary enough.