Star Trek: Sub Rosa

Episode: "Sub Rosa"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 7, Episode 14

Original Air Date: January 31, 1994

via Memory Beta

Beverly Howard Crusher's grandmother has died.  The doctor and the rest of the crew attend the funeral at the Caldos colony, a terraformed community designed to look like a village in the Scottish Highlands.  A mysterious young man is in attendance.  Beverly soon learns the man was her grandmother's longtime lover, Ronin.  Our good doctor soon falls in love with him, too.  Sadly, this is Star Trek so he is not what he appears to be.  He is a corporeal entity who has been kept alive by multiple generations of the Howard family with the help of a special candle.

"Sub Rosa" is TNG's attempt to appeal to the romance novel fans.  The story was inspired by the film The Innocents, in turn based on Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw.  The episode is much panned, even by the cast.  Gates McFadden's own reflection is the funniest: "I was basically in love with a lamp! This woman is a doctor and falls in love with a lamp! How the hell does that work?"  

I'm not going to pretend it's a good episode - it isn't.  But I have no issue with the idea.  There's plenty of room under the franchise tent for a woman's sexual and sensual fantasies.  "Sub Rosa" definitely pushes the eroticism limit for a family show time slot and that was a big part of what bothered the faithful at the time.  You know, women aren't supposed to be like that, especially one of our women.  It doesn't bother me.  Honestly, TNG doesn't handle intimate relationships well in general.  Much of the problem is the confined box in which the characters are allowed to play.  Let them be real people with lusts and vulnerabilities and maybe stories like this won't always feel so awkward.

Acting Notes

via Memory Alpha

Duncan Regehr (Ronin) was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, October 5, 1952.  Show biz started early.  He was the host of a teen talk show on the CBC at age 14.  He also did figure skating in high school.  He received theatrical training at the Bastion Theater School in Victoria, British Columbia.  Eventually, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. 

His best-known role was the lead in The Family Channel production Zorro.  "Sub Rosa" was the first of four Star Trek appearances.  Other guest appearances include The Greatest American Hero, Murder, She Wrote and V.

Regehr is also an accomplished artist.  Painting and drawing are his media.  He had his first public exhibition in 1974 and he has works featured in collections as far flung as China, Denmark and Scotland.  In 2000, he was granted the appellation Royal Canadian Artist by The Royal Canadian Academy of Art.  Check out his work here.