Original air date: November 2, 1987
The Enterprise is looking to admit two species, the Anticans and Selay, into the Federation, however, both species hate each other. Thus, the Enterprise is trying to take the aliens to a planet where they can settle their beef. After beaming the Selay on board, Data discovers a moving space cloud which piques his curiosity, so they scan the cloud. While Geordi and Worf run tests, Worf, while investigating a noise, gets zapped with blue energy, knocking him out.
Dr. Crusher and a medic arrive to examine Worf, but he wakes up and attacks the medic. Geordi holds Worf down, then Dr. Crusher sedates him and takes him to sickbay. Geordi tells Picard about the situation, while Tasha and Riker try to arrange live meat to be brought to the Anticans to eat.
Crusher examines Worf, but the energy goes from his body into hers. Troi enters to ask how Worf is doing, but notices that Crusher seems a bit off, though she claims she and Worf are both fine. Worf wakes up and can't remember anything, and the energy-possessed Crusher walks into her quarters and expresses uncharacteristic curiosity about Wesley's physics project. She asks if it would affect navigation, and when he responds in the negative, saying that it doesn't have to do with helm control, she leaves, noting that helm is on the bridge.
She goes to the bridge and walks over to the helm control, where Picard demands to know how Worf is doing. Crusher doesn't answer at first, but then she claims she will have to run some medical cross references... but she uses the science station to allegedly do so. The energy goes out of her body and into the computer, and she walks off in a daze. Suddenly, systems all over the Enterprise start glitching out, despite Data saying that the chances of so many malfunctions are nearly nil.
Picard, Riker, Data, and several others, including the chief engineer Lt. Singh, discuss what could be causing the malfunctions. Singh wonders if it's an "electronic short", but usually they only affect connected systems. While Riker and Tasha confiscate the Anticans' weapons and tell them violence isn't allowed, the warp drive drops out, and when they try to contact Starfleet, but the communications systems are down too.
Riker and Data wonder if there is a saboteur onboard, and Picard likens Data to a private eye, citing Sherlock Holmes as an example of one. After working to find the cause of the malfunctions with Singh, Wesley goes home to find his mother reading off a padd. He tells her about the theory he mentioned to her earlier, but she can't remember it.
In engineering, Singh is zapped by the energy, killing him, but on the bright side, the warp core is somehow fixed. As they resume course, Tasha questions the Anticans, and Troi considers using hypnosis to determine what caused the gaps in Worf and Crusher's memories. Data, now emulating Sherlock Holmes, explains that he doesn't think that the Anticans or the Selay could have killed Singh or sabotaged the Enterprise, since he believes they're too distracted by their hatred of the other species.
Troi uses her hypnosis, and Worf and Crusher report seeing a "presence", causing Troi to conclude that something invaded their bodies. The warp core wonks out again, and Picard enters the bridge, where the energy enters his body. The possessed Picard orders the Enterprise back to the "cloud", claiming he wants another look at it. While O'Brien gets caught in the middle of a fight between a Selay and Antican delegate, Troi senses that Picard is hiding something. She and Dr. Crusher find him and Crusher tries to examine him to see if he's medically unfit for duty, but he refuses the scan and accuses the women of being overworked and hallucinating. Later, Crusher shows test results to Picard, who admits that there is "more" within him, and states that soon, both of them will be "home".
When they arrive at the cloud, the entity, still in possession of Picard, explains that it didn't mean to kill Singh, and that it was just curious. It then expresses a desire to beam itself and Picard into the cloud, and, after incapacitating the transporter chief, it does. They scan for Picard but can't find him, yet when they're ready to give up, Troi senses him.
They go into the cloud, where some circuits on a console form a "P". Using his physical profile they have on file in the transporter, they beam Picard back, and life returns to normal.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder: After taking control of Picard, the entity (speaking through Picard) clarifies that it had no intention of killing Lt. Singh through the surging console and regrets the lieutenant's death.
- Anti-Mutiny: After the entity takes over Picard, Riker meets with the senior staff to discuss his odd orders. When they try to relieve him of command, the entity immobilizes them.
- Big Eater: The Anticans spend hours eating a large animal.
- Bittersweet Ending: Picard is tired, one of the Selay delegates is missing, and the situation with them and the Anticans is unsolved... but at least the problem with the noncorporeal entity has been solved.
- Body Surf: The Energy Being jumps from one crew member to another (and, for a while, the ship's computer) as it tries to find a way to return home.
- Bottle Episode: TNG's first. The episode takes place entirely aboard ship, with no planetary landfall or use of the holodeck, and includes no major guest stars. The blue lightning that represents the Energy Being is a relatively simple special effect.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: When Picard is in his noncorporeal form, he writes a "P" in circuits on a console.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Tasha refers to the "ship's cook" in this episode. However, by this point in the series, it has already been established that the standard source of food on a starship (and throughout the Federation in general) is replicators, so much so that the mere idea of handling raw meat is repulsive to some people. It seems unlikely that the ship would have a cook assigned to it. However, there are those in the Federation who do prefer hand-made food, including Miles O'Brien, Captain Sisko and his father, and some members of the Maquis, so while unlikely, it is not outside the realms of possibility.
- This episode features the Enterprise apparently trying to simulate the time of day by lowering the lighting levels throughout the deck during the night. With only one or two exceptions, future episodes would have the decks permanently lit at fullbright levels.
- Establishing Character Moment: This is the episode in which Data is introduced to Sherlock Holmes, and throws himself into the character to investigate the odd occurrences aboard.
- Fantastic Racism: The Anticans and Selay hate each other.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The Selay delegates go hunting for "food", and capture Riker instead. Later Yar reports that the ship's cook has been asked to broil "reptile" for the Anticans, while at the same time one of the Selay delegates has gone missing.
- Last-Second Joke Problem: A weird example where — after the crew have been distracted from the two enemy alien races they're transporting by the Energy Being of the week — the "joke" problem is that one alien faction has possibly killed a member of the other group and wants the crew to cook it for them. And this is completely Played for Laughs, with Picard dumping the situation on Riker, and everyone acting like this is a complicated situation, but not a serious one.
- Mauve Shirt: O'Brien is back (but still unnamed).
- Meta Twist: The warring ambassadors have absolutely nothing to do with the entity.
- Negative Space Wedgie: A swirling cloud of energy that the Enterprise just has to investigate on their way to Parliament spits out an Energy Being that seeks to return home at all costs.
- Not Himself: When the entity takes control of someone. Afterwards, whoever was controlled has no memory of the event.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A sign that Dr. Crusher isn't herself is when she expresses interest in Wesley's project, even though it has to do with warp theory, which she is usually apathetic about.
- Poor Communication Kills: The entity mentions that it tried to communicate the moment it was accidentally caught by the Enterprise, but found it impossible. That still doesn't explain why it didn't try whenever it possessed members of the crew.
- Power Echoes: The being possessing Picard, when it makes itself known to Crusher.
- Red Shirt: Poor Lt. Singh, he's the only one the alien entity kills outright, as well as being the first Enterprise crewmember and the first named character in the series to die (the only prior casualties had been the crew of the USS Tsiolkovsky in "The Naked Now", and a random Ligonian in "Code of Honor", none of whom got named on-screen).
- Snake People: The cobra-headed Selay delegation speak in hisses; the English-speaking leader appears to have an artificial-voice translator. The Selay do have legs rather than a snake-tail.
- Stink Snub: The Selay claim the Anticans stink and want quarters upwind from them.
- Truce Zone: The planet Parliament, no doubt reminiscent of planet Babel. Why Babel wasn't used is anyone's guess.
- Wake Up Fighting: Worf wrestles the air and attacks a medic after getting zapped, forcing Crusher to give him some Instant Sedation.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: At the end, one of the Selay delegates traveling on board the Enterprise is apparently murdered by the Anticans, who want the victim cooked for their dinner. None of the officers, save Tasha, seem remotely bothered by this. Riker suggests it could have waited a moment (being more focused on everything happening with Picard at the time). Picard just comments that he needs a rest and assigns Riker to deal with it.
