10 Most Hated Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes

On a Federation colony modeled after Scotland, Crusher attends her grandmother's funeral where she is drawn into a bizarre relationship with a ghost after she finds out that her ancestral home is being haunted by a phantom named Ronin (called an anaphasic lifeform but clearly a ghost) who has been debauching the women of the Crusher family for generations and cohabiting their bodies.

Sub Rosa tries to mix in some elements from other genres like horror and mild erotica, but only takes the most cliché and laughable components like eerie noises in a dark abandoned mansion, lightning, and thunder jolting the windows, and cheap jump scares where something suddenly appears in the mirror. This makes it nigh impossible to take any of the drama seriously because it all feels so over the top and campy.

The performances throughout also fail to jolt any life into the proceedings. Duncan Regehr goes all out with his facial expressions and delivery which combined with the soap opera dialogue, effectively rips viewers' souls out. Meanwhile, poor Gates McFadden is clearly uncomfortable in this role as she writhes and moans attempting to show horror and pleasure at being seduced by a spirit. Their moments together play like a bad episode of Days of our Lives with their attempts at creating sexual tension not even generating enough energy to power a nightlight. As for the rest of the cast, they seem at a loss with how to approach the material and become trapped in a limbo between going broad or staying subdued.

Sub Rosa does have some “so bad it’s good” moments like an over-the-top graveyard finale straight out of a bad B movie horror feature, but overall, it's dead on arrival.