Star Trek The Next Generation in 2021- Home Soil

 It is so funny how you can sort of unexpectedly just start binging a show after watching some random episode. Then another, then another, so on and so forth. I was temporarily watching "Home Soil" on YouTube TV after recently getting a bigger television with Roku finally. I went over to Netflix (I do have the entire Next Gen on DVD) and finished the episode. The first and second seasons of The Next Generation are often sited as less than favorable by Star Trek fans, but I personally enjoy many of the episodes from them, if I must admit. Now don't get me wrong: most of the episodes aren't great. But I think they can be fun. I really like "Home Soil" about an inorganic life form that shines and even hums, soon "relocated" to the Enterprise after a member of a terraforming team is killed by a laser, later determined to have been under the control of the life form (defending itself). What made this discovery incredible is that it challenges what we once considered a life form. Data destroying the laser after it came really close to killing him (the remains of it after Data gets a hold of it is hilarious) shows just how special these life forms actually are. A thin layer of salt water they need to survive being taken from them during the terraforming process and how the life form (soon life forms) had to respond, it takes the Enterprise removing light from the sick bay to negotiate a truce. Terraforming creating life being responsible for nearly causing an inorganic life form to perish is a rather near tragic irony of the episode.

This is a review from 2012:

I think "Home Soil" is what Star Trek is all about. "To seek out new life forms and…" is the mantra for the exploration of space and the desire to discover life. This episode questions "what is life?" and when an inorganic life form, emanating a light (..and, at times, a hum), is discovered after a terraformer is brutally murdered by a reprogrammed laser on a planet declared dead by the Federation (terraformers are special scientists who take a dead world, giving it life, in essence, creating evolution through scientific means; basically man take the place of God), Picard has it transported to the Enterprise Medical Lab for further study. They are trying to determine if this inorganic form is actually a "life form" and if it is, the Velara III terraforming project—responsible for creating life—may very well have been contributors to nearly destroying life. The Enterprise crew, through study and watching the life form evolve before their eyes, determine it is actually a "microbrain", even believing it operates as a computer, eventually even "interconnecting" with the ship's own computer-system. Without the computers of the Enterprise, Picard will have to discover its weakness and exploit that to save the crew aboard her. What I enjoy about this episode is the enthusiasm we see in the cast as they learn slowly of the life form aboard their ship. Right from when it is barely visible, looking like a Christmas tree light, the crew are attempting to verify if it is alive, and I appreciated the performances, how Picard and Crusher, specifically, seem quite passionate about their new discovery. When it is determined that the life form is actually intelligent, trying to communicate with them, this may be an opening to learn more about it. I like how the episode follows this journey of encountering new life for the first time, coming to an agreement after a struggle to halt a declaration of war, and the promising possibility in a future where human life forms and these intelligent inorganic life forms can co-exist together. You know, it wasn't until I started thinking about it tonight, but The Next Gen did a really swell job using the Betazed Deanna Troi as a tool to develop a grab for an audience because she can sense feelings from others, cluing not only Picard in but us as well on possible hidden motives or buried emotions...as was the case with the concerned head Terraformer, leading Picard to send an away team just because of his lack of welcome towards them, and mysterious feelings that seemed to signify he's hiding something from them.