Who is Dr. Leah Brahms in Star Trek: TNG and why was Geordi infatuated?
Following her studies at the Daystrom Institute of Technology, Dr. Leah Brahms began working for the Institute finally rising to become a design engineer. Brahms supervised the USS Enterprise-D's engine enhancements in this role; she subsequently taught theoretical physics at the Daystrom Institute. Though the Enterprise computer creates a hologram based on Brahms' personality profile and several public appearances, the actual Leah Brahms does not show up in "Booby Trap." Though La Forge had never met the actual Leah Brahms, he started to feel something for her while working with the hologram of Brahms.
Brahms's engineering ability and overall intelligence clearly wow Geordi, and the two click as they try to save the Enterprise. Geordi strikes out with a woman in the first scene of "Booby Trap," then talks about his dating problems with Ten Forward waitress Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg). She is on a date. Reversing the sting of rejection, La Forge connects with Holo-Brahms fast. La Forge makes since he would fall in love with one of the brains who helped create the Enterprise as he hardly meets individuals who know as much about its engines as he does.
Why Was Geordi's Most Famous Star Trek: TNG Romance So Problematic?
For several reasons, Geordi La Forge's "romance" with Leah Brahms seems dubious. While La Forge goes even beyond by producing emotions for the holographic Leah, creating a convincing hologram of a still-living real person is already dubious. Leah Brahms is a real person with real emotions, as La Forge later finds, hence reproducing her on the holodeck in this manner is not just an infringement of privacy but also rather eerie. La Forge had a whole engineering team at his disposal, hence he didn't have to make a hologram of Brahms considering he was supposed to be working.
The very embarrassing line from Holo-Brahms is "Every time you look at this engine, you're looking at me. It's me every time you touch it," the actual Leah rightly notes.
What Happened When Geordi Meets Star Trek: TNG's Real Brahms?
In Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Galaxy's Child," Dr. Brahms visits the USS Enterprise-D to check the engine upgrades La Forge has done. Brahms finds La Forge's changes to her engine design generally uninteresting, and she soon becomes tired of his too nice approach toward her. Geordi's experience with her hologram makes him feel as though he knows Brahms, although she clearly knows nothing about that interaction. Brahms tells La Forge she is married when he gets somewhat too forward, which shocks him.
Leah is naturally offended when she later finds out about Geordi's hologram program from "Booby Trap," saying: "I'm outraged by this. I was invaded. Defined as violated How dare you treat me such-wise?" La Forge then gets enraged at her for the manner she has been handling him, charging her of "badgering" him, which is not a nice impression of the Enterprise Chief Engineer. Ultimately, though, La Forge and Brahms set aside their disagreements to save the Enterprise from a newborn space monster sazzering ship power.
Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Fixed Geordi's Problematic TNG Romance
Fortunately, Commodore Geordi La Forge had become a family man with two adult daughters by the time Star Trek: Picard season 3 rolled along. Both Lt. Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) and Ensign Alandra La Forge (Mica Burton) joined Starfleet following in their father's footsteps, although Sidney became a pilot instead of an engineer. LeVar Burton's plea led Geordi's family to come around in piece. Burton discussed La Forge's famed "romance" with Leah Brahms in an interview with IndieWire, noting: "That little stalkerish episode with Dr. Brahms never sat well with me."
Though La Forge's TNG romance narrative is dubious, the character never suffered any repercussions since he and Brahms eventually became friends. Even in the alternate future of TNG's series finale "All Good Things..." a phrase hints La Forge and Brahms might have finally wedded. Star Trek: Picard wisely chose to highlight his bond with his daughters instead of Geordi's with Leah Brahms. Though we didn't meet his wife, Geordi seems to be a committed father who has obviously moved on from his obsession with the holographic Leah Brahms from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
On Star Trek: The Next Generation, LeVar Burton's (Geordi La Forge) romance with Susan Gibney's Dr. Leah Brahms was particularly difficult.
Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) had bad luck with romance on Star Trek: The Next Generation; his relationship with Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney) was especially difficult. TNG focused mostly on the exploits of the Enterprise and her crew, but it also regularly followed the personal lives of the members. From Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) down, every crew member had at least a few relationships throughout the seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation; La Forge's main love was the spaceship, and he often battled to establish meaningful relationships with actual women.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, episode 6, "Booby Trap," the Enterprise gets caught in a centuries-old booby trap and Geordi has to find a way to free the ship. La Forge asks the computer's variation of Dr. Leah Brahms, one of the original Enterprise warp drive developers, for help in better understanding the complexities of the engines. La Forge brings a holographic variation of Dr. Brahms to the holodeck, and at last the two find a way to free the Enterprise from the trap. This also revealed Geordi's affections for Dr. Brahms, still controversial decades later.
The Evolution of Star Trek's Chief Engineers
From 2155 to 2401, a brief overview of the eminent Starfleet Chief Engineers who have kept the USS Enterprise running for more than 200 years.
Though they have maintained the USS Enterprise operational since the original Star Trek: Enterprise voyages, the Chief Engineer history of Starfleet is rich. Among the well-known Chief Engineers of Star Trek are Chief Engineer Tripp, who served on Enterprise, and Chief Engineer Scott, who worked on the original Star Trek series.
In Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3, episode 3, "Mining The Mind's Mines," an illusion of Dr. Brahms surfaced offering to construct warp core with Ensign Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero).
Patrick Stewart returns as Jean-Luc Picard following seven seasons of leading Star Trek: The Next Generation and other Star Trek ventures. Star Trek: Picard battles to terms with Data's death and Romulus's destruction while following a retired Picard residing on his family vineyard. But Picard is quickly enough pulled back into action. Along with beloved Star Trek franchise characters such Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), Worf (Michael Dorn), and William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), the show also featured
Third in the science fiction series, Star Trek: The Next Generation chronicles the exploits of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise crew members. About a hundred years after the first series, Picard and his team cruise the galaxy in mostly self-contained episodes examining crew dynamics and their own political dialogue. With four films published concurrently with the series to deepen some of these story components, the show also featured numerous overall plots that would evolve throughout the course of the separate episodes.
