"The Perfect Mate" is the 21st episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the 121st overall.

In this episode, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) develops feelings for Kamala (Famke Janssen), a woman destined from childhood for an arranged marriage which hopefully might end a war between two planets.

The episode was the second acting job for former model Janssen, and she would subsequently turn down the offer to join the main cast in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Kriosian ambassador Briam (Tim O'Connor) comes on board the Enterprise with some cargo, ready for a peace ceremony with the Valtian.

Briam tells Kamala to stay in her quarters, but Captain Picard allows her to travel throughout the ship, with the unaffected Lt.

They meet with the Valtian ambassador, Chancellor Alrik (Mickey Cottrell), who is uninterested in the marriage and wants to pursue trade agreements.

When asked how he resisted Kamala, Picard's face remains expressionless as he wishes the ambassador a safe trip home.

[1][2] A great deal of edits were made to the script by a number of staff members, and Piller felt that it was a difficult one due to the subject matter.

As Piller explained to Echevarria in a memo, he felt that Kamala had to be a well-rounded character which would be loved by the viewer in order for the episode to work.

[3] Fellow executive producer Rick Berman recalled heated discussions over the content of the script,[3] and following re-writes to the draft, Leder elected to be credited only under the pseudonym Gary Percante.

Piller subsequently praised the episode, saying: "We have Beverly argue the point that Kamala's mission amounts to prostitution, and we have Picard taking the other tack; that whether or not we approve, we can't change or interfere with the way these people are.

Grodénchik then portrayed "Ferengi Pit Boss" in the pilot of Deep Space Nine, "Emissary", who was subsequently written to become the brother of Quark, Rom.

She explained that the premise of a perfect mate had been seen elsewhere in science fiction, such as in The Stepford Wives, and said that she found it disturbing when works of the genre depicted this as a role model for women.

[18] Starlog reported in 1993 that the reception from female fans of Star Trek was mostly negative due to the manner in which Kamala was presented,[5] while some reviewers offered a similar opinion.

She questioned that if Kamala's gender was switched about whether the arguments presented in the episode would have remained, and felt it was a missed opportunity to tackle social issues.

He opined that he would "expect a storyline rooted in tiresomely traditional gender roles from a show airing in the late 1960s.

He said that Janssen was one of the reasons why it worked, with the evolution of Kamala through "The Perfect Mate" showing "a sense of someone coming into their own as a sexually aware, potentially powerful individual."

Handlen compared the situation to the "Elaan of Troyius", and found the imprinting of Kamala on Picard an unexpected twist.

[23] In 2019, Screen Rant included this episode on a list of bad one-off romances on the show; in part they were confused by the pair later being cast as Professor X and Jean Grey in the X-Men franchise.