"I would guess that death is no longer sufficient to alleviate its' boredom, therefore Commander Riker is alive." A sick thought isn't it? However that describes our friend Armus perfectly. When I was a kid I never watched this episode with my father because I was so scared of him. Seriously. When I heard him speak, or rise from his puddle, or pull in my main man Will Riker I'd get freaked out and refused to watch it. However I've grown and now it's time to take on this episode for what it really is. A good episode of Trek.

First off I like the top down bridge view we see right before the opening credits. You get to see a clear and full view of the bridge from a cool angle. One thing I must say is that this show really needs a chief engineer right about now. They had two different ones in the course of a few episodes and none of them had parts because they had no personalities!

Now this may make some people mad, but I must say I am not sad to see Yar go in this episode. Although the character wasn't bad, something about her annoyed me. I think Worf did a much better job of security chief. I mean come on! A Klingon as a security chief? Who wouldn't be better for the job of facing all types of intruders than one of the strongest races in the quadrant?

I've been watching Voyager recently and I find it interesting that Crusher is using the old school huge cortical stimulator while the Doctor on Voyager uses something you can fit in your palm.

No matter how evil Armus is you kinda do have to feel sorry for what happened to him. True he is evil and looks like oil, but hey no race is perfect. I for one couldn't even pretend to imagine what it must have been like for him... to be discarded on a planet like a heaping pile of cow manure. When he envelopes Will though, that's going too far! After a while of feeling some pity when he first reveals it you realize he is just pure evil bent on causing suffering and was probably worth his weight in cow crap and deserved the discard after all.

Once again Picard is the man with the plan. It was very clever of Picard to use Troi's information in the way he did to make the creature vulnerable. Forever alone? I'd say I'd go nuts too. Maybe not become a sadistic puddle of evil goo, but I would be a tad miffed.

Tasha's words were very touching and when I was a kid I may have even gotten upset. Anyway I think this is one of the best ways to end an episode such as this. The crew spits in the face of evil and gathers for a beautiful funeral for a beloved comrade. I thought the exchange between Picard and Data was very touching at the end. Data is more human than he every realized. This episode ranks pretty high. I'll give it a four.

RATING:

out of 5