User Reviews

I actually like the way the writers wrote the death of Tasha Yar. I would have honestly expected Tasha to go out jumping on a grenade to save Picard's life. Actually --- wait a second ---- write an episode where she sacrifices herself to save an orphan.... yeah... maybe that would be the way to go.

I like the design of Armus ---- You get that truly alien vibe from it. What's up with the other life form who existed on the planet just leaving this poor entity to suffering in eternity? What kind of evolution is that?

My read on this episode is that Armus is meant to represent a potential outcome to rage/hate you can find in some sad human beings at times. If you keep yourself in a constant state of rage/hate one day you too could turn into a tar monster.

It's a good thing Picard is captain. This man was 20 years ahead of his time in adopting the policy of not feeding the troll.

The eulogy scene makes an solid attempt to pull on my heart strings but we had so little Tasha Yar in this season that it didn't leave an emotional impact for me. I know my dad was heartbroken about her leaving the show but that was because he thought she was drop dead gorgeous. I wonder if they could have made the Tasha character work if she stayed on?

When we evolve to a form of pure energy, I suggest we do not cast off our rage/hate into an organic form and abandon it.

My takeaway is that you should guard against being a miserable SOB or else everyone good in your life will eventually leave you and you'll end up yelling in agony at the sky.

You can easily say this is crucial turning point in first season of TNG, where we have death of one of the main characters of the series. I know many people will refer to this episode as the "one where Tasha left" and the subplot won't matter that much. Though many will argue this episode is here just to justify Denise Crosby leaving the series, somehow I found that without it, the "Skin of Evil" wouldn't have the impact it carries now.

First and foremost - this is a great portrait of evil in it's core, a result of what happens when all of the sadness, rage, anger, disappointment have been suppressed long enough to kill all the goodness inside. Armus is the essence of a "scorned castaway" who turns to pure evil after being eaten away by desire for revenge in probably eons that he was left behind. And even though he is nothing but evil entity that toys with Enterprise crew just as he was toyed with by those who left him behind, and even though he kills a someone of the crew that became so dear to us, we cannot but feel sorry for what he's gone through and what has made him what he is now. By the time Enterprise leaves you wish they somehow found the way to kill him just to release him from this dreadful state. This is exactly the dramatical and emotional climax this episode delivers.

The end sequence in holodeck of memorial for Tasha, with almost heavenly feel in image of green grassy slope and clear blue skies with fluffy clouds is simply breathtaking. That image was stuck in my head ever since I watched this episode as kid, and reflecting on it now - I'm sorry they didn't make more emotional highpoints in the series as this. Yes, Tasha may have died, but you feel she didn't die in vain, and all the time they spent together won't be forgotten.

To start off, I quickly want to talk about the plot. It's kind of bad. I'd go as far to say it's one of the weaker ones of season 1. A silly angry pile of raw oil is angry because he's lonely. There's pretty much nothing more to it.

But where this one really shines is how it undertakes death. It's sudden, swift and completely without meaning. Most media tries to face death far more poetically. A character might sacrifice themselves to save others. There might be a long build up to one's final moments in which they try to better themselves. But unfortunately, reality is far harsher. And I appreciate that it tries to stick to that.

Normally when it comes to death in films, I rarely break down into tears. That pretty much comes from how it's portrayed in the ways that I've talked about. A good example would be the MCU. Not everything about that franchise is good, but one thing I really liked is the long-term story they told leading up to End Game. I'm not gonna spoil anything from that but we all know who dies. And by the time of their funeral I couldn't help but feel melancholy. Sadness to see this beloved fictional person gone, but joy in the way they went down. It was poetic, especially after everything they've been through.

But here, in this episode? I didn't feel melancholy. I didn't feel an ounce of poetic joy. Just sadness. And honestly, I liked that. It's not often that I can be moved in such a way by film. But how they treated Lt Yar's death? It felt like someone I've gotten to know actually died. And I commend the writers of this episode for that.

TL;DR: Plot bad, amazing portrayal of death, referred to MCU for some reason, episode actually kind of good and made me cry, go watch again in two years or so.

ST:TNG:22 - "Skin Of Evil" (Stardate: 41601.3) - this is the 22nd episode to go into production but the 23rd episode to air on TV. This is a pivotal episode for the series because of a death of one of the main characters. Though I won't give away who, let's just say it was a meaningless death, as will be noted later on in the series. Of course the main reason a main character died is because that person wanted out of their contract and was granted that. Also, it should be noted that Lt. Worf is also made acting chief of security, a position he will hold for the rest of the series, and that Troi mentions the word "Imzadi" again. All in all, this is really one of the sadder of the TNG episodes.

I always thought this was quite good. As Roddenberry believed, a likely fate of a security chief would indeed be something like this.

Granted, it does seem like a rather contrived situation to kill off a character, but still Armus is a fascinating creature that you actually feel bad for.

The attempts to resuscitate Tasha were tense and felt real without overly dramatizing it. It's notable that PICARD turns away when he realizes the way this has going.

I also liked the splotch on Tasha's face. It's very strange and fake looking and yet that strangeness works because in death situations like this people often focus on weird things like that as a mental excuse for "this can't be happening."

The worst part is Armus, when he's standing up like a person. It's a dreadfully obvious effect.

Tasha and Worf chemistry is strong. Too bad this is the first and only time we see it on screen. Troi is on her way back from a conference until her shuttle gets in trouble, so we need to call on yet another chief engineer to help us go and get her. Aligning Dilithium crystals by hand is faster than letting the computer do it. I'm sure it is more accurate too. After all, all they do is regulate a matter anti-matter reaction so how dangerous could it really be? Make it so engineer of the week Lt Cmdr Lynch.

Once we catch up with Troi, we learn that she is being held captive by an oil slick is named Armus. Riker spouts some federation propaganda about respect for all living things, but Armus isn't buying it, so he kills Tasha by putting a birth mark on her face.

While the away team heads back to the ship to see if they can save Tasha with micro volts, Armus goes back to Troi to get some therapy. Sounds like he's had a hard life. Either that or he is just really bored.

Shenanigans ensue, Riker goes for a swim, Picard joins the party, and Armus gets more therapy. Eventually he lets Picard visit with Troi who promptly breaks doctor patient confidentiality and spills the beans on Armus's trauma.

Picard philosophizes with Armus while Worf and Wesley figure out how to beam everyone up. Picard condemns Armus to a lonely life of pain and suffering by declaring his home planet off limits to all other travelers in accordance with federation protocol. That'll show him.

Tasha's memorial hologram has lots of nice things to say about her crew, including the twerp who flies the ship. Too bad the audience never got to see any of the things she reflects on. It's more like the writers are using her memorial to explain to the audience who they want their characters to be in an outstanding demonstration of that old axiom, tell don't show. Data has a "what is it be human" moment and were off to our next adventure.

Overall, this episode is pretty good. Picard is diplomatic, Worf gets promoted, and Wesley only has one or two lines. The crew works together as a team and is starting to feel like a family.

Verdict: Watch

Other thoughts:

Its only now dawned on me that the purpose of the captain's log is to remind the audience what was happening before the commercial break.

I remember vividly the first time I watched this episode on Sky One when they thankfully did reruns of TNG when I was 11 years old in 1992. I had been watching TNG but had never seen early seasons.

This was the first time I experienced the loss of a character I had come to know and love. The list of atrocities is endless of how badly her character was handled and in many ways this episode makes it worse. Mainly because of two things 1) she still in her final episode had very little dialogue and 2) it showed the wasted potential of her character. That very brief scene between her and Worf on the bridge showed chemistry and a spark that could have been worth investigating. Tasha could have been his original Dax.

I loved how cold this episode was and how 1 dimensional Armus was because they're are people out there who are just evil to the core. People we love can be taken away at the hands of others for no reason whatsoever.

As I said at the beginning this episode of TNG will always be impactful to me and will forever remain one of my top ten episodes of TV ever.

This episode ends up being an ensemble episode with the primary focus going towards Troi/Picard but clearly centered around Tasha and her death.

I actually liked the death of Tasha. It would be so cliche for her to go out saving the Captain or doing something heroic. Having her be killed to 'amuse' an evil entity hits harder in my opinion.

At this point, I ponder if having Tasha stay on TNG would elevate or diminish where the tv show ended up going? We all know that Michael Dorn is a deep well of classic star trek moments and episode and perhaps he would not have received prominence without Tasha's death?

I view Armus as the physical representation of the 'Phandom Menace" ---- It totally fits. This is the creature who would be bemoaning the 'woke' agenda of (gasp) providing actual positive representation for women and people of differing backgrounds. You must adopt the Picard approach and ignore the Armus in your life ---- there is no person there, no redeemable quality, just an angry ball of self hatred manifested into someone who manufacturers outrage.

Troi put in a good performance in this one. Patrick Stewarts extensive "british actor" experience manages to inject emotion into his stone faced response to Tasha's "you are like the dad I never had" speech. There was even a memorable musical score!

In "Skin of Evil" the Enterprise is rendezvousing with a shuttle transporting Troi from a conference. The shuttle breaks down and crash lands on a nearby unexplored planet. Unable to beam them up, an away team heads down to try and locate the craft. They come across a sentient oil slick who blocks their path. Armus the oil slick kills Yar when she tries to rescue Troi. Crusher tries and fails to save Yar's life. The away team heads back down to reason with Armus and negotiate Yar's release. Troi is able to feel this being's pain and tries to psychologically evaluate it.

Riker is eventually pulled into the ooze by Armus, forcing Picard to head down and tell Armus what's what. Newly promoted Word (and Wesley) realize that when Troi makes Armus confront its feelings that the electronic field preventing them from beaming out Troi is temporarily weakened. Picard basically negs Armus into a rage and the remaining away team beam up and blast off, quarantining the planet from future exploration. The group gathers in the holodeck and watches a pre-recorded message from Yar in the event of her death.

This would be nothing more than a sub-par Season 1 episode if it weren't for Yar's death. I think people sometimes equate importance with excellence. This isn't a good episode of television. If you remove Yar's death from this it's completely forgettable and honestly pretty bad. The only reason I'm giving it a 5 is its importance to everyone's character arcs. Armus is laughable as the cartoonish villain. He's like the embodiment of an edgy 14 year old on the internet. Do you really expect me to believe he's made of 100% pure, unfiltered evil?

This could be just me, but I like to believe he was lying about his back story to everyone. He made up an alter ego to sound cool in front of these new people. In actuality he's just an evolved tar pit or something. The claim that he's sentient evil is straight up ridiculous.

I knew Yar's demise was coming but I expected more from this episode... It's honestly a pretty bad send-off for an underdeveloped character. I did find it interesting that they killed her 5 minutes in when the classic Hollywood move would be to have that be the finale.

Joseph Stefano has written some of the best science fiction ever seen on TV, and he's created a masterpiece here. "Skin of "Evil" is a fascinating story, with a creepy, intelligent, sadistic "villain" (Armus) and the rule-breaking death of a main character. It includes some of the best dialogue in TV history. When the crew tells Armus that they try to protect life, he asks "Why?" Simple, yet brilliant. He somehow knows Data is an android and sarcastically calls him "robot" and "Tin Man." He taunts Geordi by shuffling his visor around on the ground out of arm's reach (I couldn't help but let out a belly-laugh at that). Only Stefano could fully realize a creature so convincingly evil -- yet human (which is ironic since Armus is actually the worst part of, and was discarded by, a "race of titans"). To those who find Armus "silly"and the episode "weak," I suggest you revisit it when you've matured -- probably around age 50.

When Troi's shuttle is found to be missing the Enterprise locates it crashed on a planet known as Vagra 2. A team beams down and their path to the crashed shuttle is blocked by a black tar type goo. It eventually identifies itself as Armus and refuses to let anyone near the shuttle. When Tasha protests and moves toward the shuttle Armus zaps her with an energy blast and kills her. The Enterprise medical staff try to revive her to no avail. Armus claims to be the skin of evil a race of titans shed to rid themselves of all bad things. Picard eventually outwits Armus and the shuttle crew are rescued. A touching message is later delivers a touching message to each of her friends on the holodeck in a previously recorded message. Trivia, Armus actor Mart McChesney later played the Sheliak delegate in 'The Ensigns Of Command'

Wow, that sucked.

Not only because of Tasha's death which was completely pointless, the episode as a whole just isn't very good. The villain wasn't at all interesting and annoyed me more than it intimidated me and I felt Tasha's send off at the end of the episode was very poor. Ignoring the fact that the backdrop looks like a default Windows screensaver, I don't think they adaquately honoured this character. Now, Lt. Yar was never a very good character and she lacked development but she had been there since the very beginning and, up until this point, was one of the show's main characters, seeing her be so pointlessly killed off, and later very poorly sent off, seems like a disservice to the character and the fans and a serious oversight by the writers. Her death held no meaning, the puddle monster even says that he only killed Tasha because he felt like doing so, it's such a sloppy way of writing a character out of a show. Why not have her die trying to save the Enterprise? Or sacrifice herself to save her crewmates? Something along these lines would make her death more meaningful and, therefore, more impactful and appealing to the audience.

I will say that the interaction between Picard and Data in the episode's closing moments (which has earned it an extra star) was solid, but then I have to ask: why wasn't the whole episode written that well? I suppose we'll never know.

This episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was a hard one to do both physically and emotionally. It was emotionally straining for the cast and crew because of the death of main character Natasha "Tasha" Yar (Denise Crosby), and it was physically straining do to it being hard to create the creature of Armus (the late Ron Gans) and make him believable. Why do I bring both of these points up? Well, this was an episode that had everything running against it, yet it still succeeded.

After Counselor Tori's (Marina Sirtis) shuttle crashes on a planet and the crew cannot beam her and the pilot out, an away-team is dispatched to rescue them. Upon their arrival the away-team is met by a stream of black goo that keeps moving to block their access to the shuttle and its survivors. The black goo turns out to be a creature by the name of Armus, who wants to watch people suffer for his amusement. Lieutenant Yar becomes fed up with the creature and tries to pass it, only for Armus to quickly kill her. The creature proceeds to torment the crew, swallowing Riker (Jonathan Frakes), and taking control of Data (Brent Spiner) to attempt to make him kill a fellow crew mate. When the crew is gone, he is confronted by Troi and we learn the reasons behind why Armus is the way he is. He was left behind by people and now he just wants to witness torment.

The episode has received harsh criticism towards it, mainly from the death of Lieutenant Yar and the creature of Armus himself. As I said earlier, this episode had a lot going against it, and it managed to pull through.

While a main character, I felt Lieutenant Yar's death was a fitting end to her character as she died in a similar manner as the red shirts from "Star Trek: The Original Series". The only difference here is that Lieutenant Yar was a main character that we had grown to know while the red shirts were cannon fodder to begin with.

The creature of Armus was a tricky creature to create, but when it was all done, I feel that all the work payed off. Armus looked real had a menacing appearance. The scenes with him and Troi were nice because we actually got to see why he was making the crew of the 'Enterprise' suffer for his pleasure of viewing it. The only problem is that for a character who did something as big as kill off a main character, he is not all that memorable considering some of the other characters who did less that the 'Enterprise' crew encountered, such as Admiral Jameson (Clayton Rohner) who had been taking medication to become younger.

The ending of the episode with Yar's funeral was emotional and well executed. You can argue that it makes no sense how Yar knew where each member of the crew was going to be ahead of time so she could look at them when she said how they meant to her, but it all works to set the mood. When everything is over, this is probably the most emotional scene in "Star Trek" I have ever watched.

"Skin of Evil" is a thrilling and emotional episode of "Star Trek", with good looking effects for the villain. While the episode is a bit bogged down by the fact that Armus is not too memorable considering what he does in the episode, it is still a good episode.

Having read other reviewers' comments regarding the exit of Denise Crosby from the series, I was prepared for it in this episode. However, I didn't know it would be done by killing off her character, Lieutenant Natasha 'Tasha' Yar. Not a total surprise, but it seemed to be done summarily with little regard for the character, except for the affecting eulogy at the finale. I wasn't totally impressed by the shapeshifting oil slick named Armus, and felt a creature demonstrating that kind of power could have found a way off the planet without being so rage filled and destructive. It led to its own undoing by weakening its hold on the force field around the downed shuttlecraft with Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) held hostage. I have to credit Jonathan Frakes for allowing himself to be covered with all that black goo; that couldn't have been much fun. With the various high and low points in the episode, I was left with only one question when it was over. Seeing as how Lieutenant Ben Prieto (Raymond Forchion) was badly injured and still alive aboard the downed Shuttlecraft 13, how was it that he was left stranded when Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Troi got beamed back aboard the Enterprise?

Yar had to either die, or be tried in a Starfleet court. After all, she conspired against Starfleet: As head of security, she failed to report Captain Picard to Starfleet's high command. In the Pilot episode 'Encounter at Farpoint,' an omnipotent alien named Q judges Picard 'guilty.' Granted, Picard tells Yar that 'humanity' was judged, not just him. It's a like a watching its parents getting arrested over a failed mortgage payment. The kid don't know how to react. Yar didn't react, at all. Higher justice it is then. 3 seasons later, unscaved Picard gets milliins of Starfleet staff killed in a Borg massacre. Not her fault. Any more. Put a German general ... I mean Klingon security in charge then.

I don't think the writing here is at its strongest. Armus is almost childlike in his anger and the other characters never seem to notice that. Yar's death is sudden and somewhat meaningless. Overall it just doesn't work well for me as a concept. I understand Crosby wanted out of the show but surely they could've had Yar die saving another one of them or in a phaser fight, not something as pointless as this.

That said, I know there are some reasons to her having a pointless death as that affects the characters. That's where I'll stop talking about writing.

I think the directing here is some of the best in Star Trek. The cinematography and score during Yar's whole death scene both on the planet and sick bay is tense and thrilling. The whole episode is full of interesting camera angles and musical choices and for me makes this episode stand out in the season. A lot of episodes in season one and two are just a rebranded TOS. Even the camera angles of the Enterprise D is usually the same as ones used in TOS which to me makes it feel cheap. This episode shows a more unique direction, and is one of the first episodes that for me shows that TNG is differentiating itself from TOS.

I'm writing this after watching a multi part doco on Star Trek and this episode was mentioned. The actor playing Yar quit the show because she didn't have a more prominent role so they killed her off in this episode.

The basics of this episode have been described in other reviews but a gooey black creature that is incredibly cruel hood the crew captive and kills off Yar which made me so happy. Her character was so boring and I found the actor herself is boring after being invited to appear in a later episode where she pays her own daughter raised by Romulans but she's just as boring in that episode so her acting range is one dimensional..

Yar dying benefited the show because her boring personality didn't drag the rest of the character down anymore..

This episode was troubled from the get-go and many re-writes were made before the final one, which allowed Denise Crosby to make her early exit from the series. In doing so, she did the series and its fans a huge favor by removing her one-dimensional character and one-dimensional acting from the series. This allowed Michael Dorn's character of Worf to assume her role and greatly expand it and the series's potential.

Other than giving us a baddie to boo/hiss, this episode had no definitive plot and existed for no reason other than to show Tasha Yar the door, for which I and many others were grateful.

I never like Tasha so I was elated to see her killed off. She was completely unbelievable as Chief of Security. Her character and acting were by far the worst of any regular crew member. She had no real confidence and constantly overcompensated while still trying to play the victim of her past. Getting ballsy with Q and then crying when she got put in a penalty box? Asking Picard if he could still trust Data because of Lore? Puh-lease! What a yutz! Her death was a perfect mirror of her character, minor and 1 dimensional, very fitting.

This is the first and only time we see Armus, a very unique character, or even anything like him. For him to kill Tasha was nothing more than us swatting away a gnat. His ability to capture Riker was also something we've never seen before from an alien. I wish we could have learned more about him and his backstory.

Overall it's a great episode, I just fast forward through the cheesy memorial at the end.

Enterprise attempts to rescue Deanna Troi from a shuttle crash.

Thanks to some fairly uninspired writing and production values, this episode feels to me like a rather bizarre kick in the teeth to one of the regular characters of Star Trek: TNG.

Tasha Yar's death is a fairly meaningless part of a generally weak plot. These days if a regular character is being written out, you would expect a powerful story or at least a memorable reason behind the event. To add insult, the sequence of her attempted resuscitation is one of the least cinematic of its nature I have witnessed.

I enjoyed the holodeck memorial where she says goodbye to the other characters, but everything else, for me, aside from the acting, is on par with the infamous Star Trek: Enterprise episode 'These Are The Voyages'.

Creature design is fairly poor, particularly the voice and the oil-slick animation. It's difficult to take seriously the creature's dramatic exchanges with certain characters due to the caricature type voice. In fact as Troi becomes emotional it almost becomes unintentionally funny.

Most performances are pretty solid. Marina Sirtis puts a lot of heart into the emotional scenes, Brent Spiner is especially good in the final scene and Patrick Stewart handles everything with class.

It's frustrating to see the demise of a character played out this way and as Dr Crusher says it just sucked the life right out me.

There's some undeniable nerve at the heart of 'Skin of Evil'. Denise Crosby wanted off the Enterprise (dissatisfied with her character's development), to which the producers respond by killing her off. So Tasha Yar gets blasted not ten minutes in by a black sludge monster. I dunno, that just sounds like an overt statement. A character can be killed off with purpose - saving the crew, the ship - but no. One minute, she's standing there with the rest of the away team, the next she's killed off like a red shirt. It's meaningless. Even that guy Ben on the shuttle survived and we *never* see him again!

And it'd help if a decent episode resulted from this, but it's pretty lame. I can see they were going for a simple good-vs-evil story here, but there's no substance to it. And then it's off to the holodeck for Yar's funeral . . . where she has a pre-recorded sugary speech prepared. Yeah, that's not weird. The whole damn scene is awkward, and the only good thing that comes out of this is that it indirectly paves the way for 'Yesterday's Enterprise'.

4/10

Star Trek TNG is often cited as re-igniting the franchise, taking it onto new plains without losing the core values that Roddenberry worked to create in The Original Series. While in later seasons the writing would improve and finally match the strong abilities of the main cast, the first season is routinely derided for being weak; a mere rehash of old ideas and extraneous plots introduced to waste time. This episode is somewhere between those points, with the added embarrassment of a needless death.

The premise of the show is standard Trek fare; a shuttlecraft carrying Ensign Ricky Redshirt and a main cast member - in this case the voluptuous Deanna Troi - crash lands on a planet and requires rescue. The attempt is then impeded by an indigenous lifeform. Rather than an interesting villain of some description, the main cast spend most of their time on a poorly designed 'Planet Hell' set talking to a poorly-animated tar pit with an ugly duckling complex.

Even this terrible concept could have been enlivened by some cracking dialogue, but no, the writers were more than happy to stick to hapless cliché and stilted exposition here. Plot holes are obvious - how did Troi survive for the amount of time depicted in the episode stranded on a shuttle with no replicator, for example? The few redeeming moments of the whole sorry proceeding are within the Yar's eulogy scene, where Denise Crosby speaks for Yar and describes her love and respect for the remaining cast and Brent Spiner has the opportunity to develop Data's character. It is partly this closeness between the cast that led to the 'classic' episodes later on in the show's run.

The shuttlecraft crashes on a remote planet. However, when the rescue party arrives, a real jerk of a creature that looks like an oil slick torments the team for the entire episode. It's very long-winded and slow, though seeing the thing killing Tasha Yar is good for a laugh. I say this because I found her to be the most annoying of all the cast regulars. I have no idea why they killed her off...but it was a good thing for the show because her character was so one-dimensional and I was tired about hearing about the rape gangs (this actually seemed to trivialize rape). So, on the positive side, this episode signals the death of Tasha Yar...at least for a while. On the bad, she does return (of sorts) and the episode itself very, very talky and schmaltzy at the end. So, on balance it's an iffy episode.