The Host

This Story: Season 4 Episode 23 (production code 197)
TNG Overall: Episode 97
Trek Overall: Story 196, Episode 199
Airdate: 13 May 1991
Written by Michael Horvat and Jeri Taylor (Taylor is uncredited)
Directed by Marvin V. Rush

Notes

• The Trill are introduced here, along with their concept of symbiont and host.  Their outward visual appearance is completely overhauled when we see them again in Deep Space Nine.
• Both Odan (the Trill) & Dr Crusher say transporting a Trill can damage the symbiont.  This is later ignored when introduced as a regular character in Deep Space Nine.
• The shuttlecraft here was named after Professor Stephen Hawking.
• Gates McFadden was seven months pregnant when filming this episode.  She said in interviews that she had wished that her first romantic story didn’t come while she was pregnant.

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