Lwaxana Troi returns to the Enterprise, this time as the teacher of an alien race, the Cairn, who are learning to speak.
The Cairn's native form of communication is telepathy, but they want to learn spoken language in order to interact with other races.
Beverly tells Lwaxana that her interaction with the aliens is more taxing on her telepathic ability than she is used to, and is asked to refrain from contact with the Cairn until she can recover.
With no signs of physical trauma, Crusher deduces that her telepathic abilities have caused her mind to collapse in on itself from overuse.
Deanna urges Lwaxana to relive what happened, and she tearfully remembers a tragedy when Kestra ran after the puppy when it got away, though it was unclear what had caused her death.
As Lwaxana recalls happier memories of Kestra, Deanna tells her to share them so she can learn about the sister she never knew.
[5] The hardest part for Bader in writing this episode was brainstorming the source of Lwaxana Troi's trauma that did not portray her unsympathetically.
"[2] A SyFy review praised the episode's portrayal of Lwaxana and Deanna Troi's relationship, saying, "I will defend 'Dark Page' forever because there aren't a lot of times Star Trek boldly tries to deal with a mother losing a child ... Lwaxana loses a daughter.
[10][11] She gained widespread acclaim one year later in her breakout role in Interview with the Vampire and later starred in the blockbuster Spider-Man film series in the 2000s.
[10][12] "Dark Page" was released as part of TNG Season 7 collections on DVD and Blu-Ray formats.