Why was Geordi La Forge so unlucky in love? He came close again in "Aquiel", a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This time it was with an actress with whom the production staff felt Levar Burton had no chemistry. They were quite right but at least she wasn't a Holodeck simulation.
The episode has a dog, a pet of the title character, Aquiel (Renee Jones). It made me wonder if there were Holodeck programmes just for dogs. Like maybe every morning a Starfleet officer drops their dog off to run around a meadow and chase--and possibly even kill--phantom cats and rabbits.
The episode has a decent enough murder mystery. Aquiel and her dog apparently survived a mysterious attack on a subspace relay station near the Klingon border. It's strange how Federation relations with the Klingons are dealt with in this episode. Picard (Patrick Stewart) has to deal with a belligerent local official and a Klingon attack on the station is considered a real possibility yet such was the state of peace between the two intergalactic powers that the relay station apparently only had light defences.
The point of the station is to boost communication signals. Sounds like kind of a boring job and one for which it seems like the computer could do most of the work. Maybe that's why there was so much drama between Aquiel and the only other humanoid occupant of the station. Did Aquiel kill him? Was it a Klingon who, it turns out, also appeared on the station?
Aquiel seems to be dead at the beginning of the episode so Geordi watches all her personal logs to look for clues. It was an idea apparently inspired by Laura, the classic film noir. It kind of sets up a pattern for Geordi, though. The most prominent romantic plot he has in the series is with Leah Brahms, the woman whose holographic representation he fell in love with before actually meeting her. As that hologram was based on personal files and even psychological profiles of the real person, it was pretty voyeuristic in an interesting way, and you can hardly blame the real Brahms for being upset. Aquiel is similarly upset when she discovers Geordi had gone through her personal logs though at least he had a good excuse this time.
Before long, they're touching the crystal, if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge. Aquiel's an alien whose species keep a special super-intimacy crystal that partners touch to be closer than you or I can imagine, though it all looks conveniently chaste. They don't even rumple their Starfleet uniforms. Interestingly, Demolition Man also came out in 1993. It was a time when people were dreaming of escaping from the messy necessity of physical love, I guess, though "Aquiel" only lightly touches on it, so to speak. There's some unintentional comedy when Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) bursts in and interrupts them.
Not a terrible episode, though it seems to be ranked low on many lists.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
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