High Secretary Paul Kohler and his staff have just been in a plane crash.  And by staff, I mean alien slaves wearing electronic collars.  Humans in the future apparently decided to return to a slave economy having seen how peacefully it worked out for all parties in the past.

It’s OK, the Grell are from a far away land accessible only by ships, less technically advanced, and do not look like their masters, so it is completely different this time.

Ep suggests this might be the perfect opportunity to escape.  Jesha still feels loyalty to his master, though, and wants to rescue Kohler and his kids.  After Jesha frees them, Ep starts to run.  Kohler kills him with a prolonged electric charge to his security collar.  Kohler won’t even permit Jesha to bury his friend before they move on.

While trekking through the woods looking for a Marriott, the Kohler family and Jesha stumble across a Grell camp.  When the kids say they are hungry,  Ma Kohler instructs Jesha to mash up some apples, then puke on them.  This serves the dual purposes of 1) his alien saliva cleansing the radiation from the apples, and 2) stopping the kids from ever bitching about being hungry again.  Before Jesha can shit on a cracker and call it dessert, young Sara quite reasonably runs off.

She comes across a Grell who is not as enamored of the whole slave-chic thing as Jesha.  He yells to Kohler that he has his daughter.  Jesha comes between them and Sara runs off.  I appreciate that, even with the alien make-up, this new Grell looks more fierce than the subservient Jesha.  The other Grell offers to cut his collar off if he will join their clan.

When Jesha hears Sara screaming, he runs to help her.  He finds that Kohler has been shot.  The first aid is not enough, so Jesha pukes on the wound to seal it.  Man, is there anything Grell vomit can’t do?  Ma Kohler still is not satisfied and yaps at Jesha; he calmly reminds her of her promise to free him when they get back to the city.

When Kohler wakes up, he is furious to see that he has been saved by Grell puke.  Not only is his best tunic ruined, his chest has begun to look like Grell skin.  He says soon it will be in his DNA and he won’t even be able to play tennis at the club.  It quickly spreads and begins to transform his face.

When Jesha asks Kohler to honor the agreement to let him go free, Kohler refuses.  Jesha chases him through the woods.  Yada yada, Kohler is nearly killed by humans who think he is a Grell.  However, he has had a change of heart.  He convinces the humans he is the High freakin’ Secretary and things are going to change.

I’ve never thought of Ted Shackleford as a great actor or, frankly, at all.  But he was great here as the cruel master who became the thing he hated.  Marina Sirtis was supposed to also be a cruel hater, but she was only given a couple of scenes to create her character.  Of course, she was in 176 episodes of ST:TNG and didn’t develop her character much more there.

Special praise is due for the actors playing the Grell.  All were excellent in making me see different personalities within their species, and not making me just think I was watching barista with latex on his or her face.  Which is also more than I got from TNG a lot of the time.

Other Stuff:

• I guess I had thought of Ted Shackleford before as he was in TZ’s The Crossing.
• Maybe I’m unloading on Star Trek because I just tried to rewatch Voyager.  Even skipping ahead to the 7 of 9 years, it is unwatchable.  And I went in really wanting to like it.