Summary

The Enterprise is bringing two difficult alien species to a peace conference. They encounter a strange space phenomenon that “infects” the crew and ship systems. It eventually takes control of Picard who orders the ship to return to the phenomenon. The entity got trapped in the ship and now seeks to go home, but the only way to do that is to take Picard with him. Picard vanishes into the transporter and is presumed lost, but his energy sneaks into the ship the same way the original entity did and they re-create him in the transporter. Also it’s implied one of the alien delegates eats another one.

Observations

First time we see the dress uniforms

Geordi is doing engineering work, this time on the sensors, with Worf, who seems annoyed

Worf goes down like a bitch, maybe the first use of this trope? I don’t recall the Ferengi getting the clear better of him in Episode 4

Episode written by the great D.C. Fontana

Riker “We no longer enslave animals for food purposes”. There’s some heavy connotations here. Not just that the Federation don’t eat fresh meat (only synthetic), but that they recognize animals as having rights.

Crusher wearing a cool video game console accessory hat while examining Worf.

First time we see the TNG laptop?

Did Crusher exit the captain’s ready room to come onto the bridge? What was she doing in there?

Science stations not very ergonomic, you must learn over to type on them.

Ok, so this junior Lieutenant Singh is the “department head” that is reporting from engineering on the system malfunction, but he’s not the chief engineer because Picard asks him “Did you consult with Chief Engineer Argyle?” Argyle is the doughy man with the beard from the previous episode. Why isn’t he the one reporting here? Later call to engineer when they lose warp power is Singh again, and not “Argyle”.

This B-plot of the two alien races used as a red herring for who might be sabotaging the ship. Kind of falls flat for the audience since we know it’s a space thingy.

Data: “Subspace radio is out.” Radio???

Picard shares his love for mysteries and private eye work for the first time.

Ok, well my joke that something bad keeps happening to engineers turned out to be true. Singh sang his last song.

Geordi and Worf are investigating the issues in engineering. WHERE IS ARGYLE???

Data is acting like Sherlock Holmes. Smoking a pipe and all. Very weird. And Riker is all on board with this bizarre behavior. The whole Sherlock Holmes thing has no bearing on the plot. It’s just a weird thing Data does.

Troi uses hypnosis to try and find Crusher and Worf’s missing memories. Hypnosis? How has that not been debunked by the 24^th century?

Troi: “How did you feel as you leaned over to take Worf’s specimen?” Hey-o. Get the kids outta the room.

O’Brien makes his return, this time in a gold tunic. He appears to be acting as security chasing one of the aliens down. I don’t think I mentioned he was the helmsman in the first episode, wearing a red tunic.

Cool model of an original Enterprise Class F shuttlecraft in whatever room the crew is in discussing mutiny. There also appears to be an original configuration Constitution class model in the background. Is this Riker’s quarters?

Picard/Entity using its powers on the crew… “UNLIMITED POWER!!!”

Picard gets back into the ship the same way as the entity did originally. He makes a “P” appear on the console. “P for Picard?” someone asks. Missed opportunity for a joke. “Actually, knowing him it’s probably P for peni—never mind.”

Tasha: “Security team reports that they found blood outside one of the delegate’s quarters and—” Riker “This couldn’t have waited a moment?” Uhm, no, jackass. Someone might have been MURDERED on this ship, completely tanking any chance these two species can make peace. IT CAN’T WAIT!!! This is followed by an explanation that one of the aliens may have cannibalized another. JESUS! What a thing to lay on someone whose just been cloned in the transporter.

Nitpicks

Picard’s pattern is in the transporter and they can basically just re-create him. The Picard that steps off is “from when he beamed out”, so he has no memory of anything that happened since, while he was pure energy floating around the cloud. So… what did they need the energy or anything for? Are they implying that the “energy” was Picard’s soul?