Young Clara Sutter has recently come aboard the Enterprise with her father who is part of the engineering crew. He is a bit concerned that rather than making real friends she only interacts with an imaginary friend named Isabella. Counsellor Troi doesn't seem too concerned though. Then, shortly after entering a nebula, a small glowing ball of energy enters the ship, approaches Clara and suddenly becomes Isabella. Clara is a little surprised but not too perturbed that she can now see Isabella. Soon Clara starts getting into trouble as Isabella encourages her to go to parts of the ship where children aren't allowed; each time they are in an area with other people Isabella disappears. Wanting to avoid trouble Clara starts doing things away from Isabella and this leads to unpleasant threats.
Like many child centred episodes this one is a bit of a disappointment; the final message of the episode is that adults set rules about what children can do to protect them but if that is the case why are they allowed to live on a star ship that encounters danger on such a regular basis?! Even though Shay Astar is suitably creepy as Isabella she isn't really scary and Clara seems far too ready to accept that her imaginary friend just became real. The threat from the other entities in the nebula is perhaps appropriately nebulous there was little real sense of danger even after Isabella told Clara that they would kill everybody on board. Overall a fairly weak episode for Star Trek.
Like many child centred episodes this one is a bit of a disappointment; the final message of the episode is that adults set rules about what children can do to protect them but if that is the case why are they allowed to live on a star ship that encounters danger on such a regular basis?! Even though Shay Astar is suitably creepy as Isabella she isn't really scary and Clara seems far too ready to accept that her imaginary friend just became real. The threat from the other entities in the nebula is perhaps appropriately nebulous there was little real sense of danger even after Isabella told Clara that they would kill everybody on board. Overall a fairly weak episode for Star Trek.