Original air date: February 28, 1994
The Enterprise is having problems with a warp nacelle, and La Forge announces that someone has locked out the controls. Riker and Worf arrive to find that Lieutenant Kwan is standing in front of the plasma stream and about to jump. Riker tries to talk him down, but Kwan mutters, "They laughed at me," and announces, "I know what I have to do," before flinging himself into the plasma stream and disintegrating.
Picard wants to find out why a member of his crew would commit suicide, so Worf and Troi are on the case. They note that Kwan was a model officer who did not act as if he would soon commit suicide. They also discover that he was half Napean, which means he was likely empathic, and that he helped build the ship on Utopia Planitia before getting stationed on it. After going through his personal logs, they discover that Kwan was in a relationship with Ensign Maddy Calloway. She describes him as a happy person with no reason to kill himself. Meanwhile, Data asks La Forge about the concept of suicide and admits that he considered rebooting himself shortly after being turned on for the first time, when the stress of learning how to function in the world seemed too much.
Troi questions Kwan's superior officer Lieutenant Nara at Kwan's station, but she can offer no additional information. Troi goes to stand in the spot where Kwan was standing when he committed suicide and suddenly feels a rush of negative emotions. After a visit to sick bay, Troi returns to her quarters with Worf, who is clearly considering his romantic options with her after the events of "Parallels." He finds Riker in Ten Forward and tries to circumspectly ask his permission to date Troi, but Riker doesn't get the hint, causing Worf to get flustered and give up.
Troi wants to look into the plasma stream where Kwan killed himself, so Worf goes with her with her and opens the nacelle doors. Troi gets another empathic overload, having visions of a woman fleeing from her perspective and then seeing the face of a man glaring at her. Afterwards she seemingly finds herself transported back in time to when the ship was still under construction on Utopia Planitia. She explores the area and finds the woman from her earlier vision making out with another man. They realize they've been caught at start laughing at her. As she turns away, she bumps into Worf and finds herself back in the real world.
Troi wonders whether Kwan, as a fellow empath, also got the same vision she did before he killed himself. Picard has her look through the ship's personnel files to identify the people in the vision. She soon identifies the glowering man as Lieutenant Pierce, who is stationed on the ship. Troi and Worf question him, but he offers little help. Troi notes that she cannot read him, meaning he has telepathic or empathic abilities of his own. Both she and Worf suspect that he's holding something back. Worf escorts Troi back to her quarters. After a long, sexually charged moment, Worf finally makes a move, and they both embrace.
Worf cooks Troi breakfast the next morning, and they head to sick bay separately so that Troi can get a telepathic inhibitor to allow her to more safely analyze future visions, while Worf is overseeing some medical supply transportation that has been going on in the background. Troi jealously notes how familiar Worf behaves around Ensign Calloway. Returning to the control room, Troi notices a bulkhead where Kwan was working at the day before he died. La Forge discovers a human skeleton inside. It matches to a Marla Finn, whose picture Troi recognizes as the woman in her visions. She also realizes that Kwan was not on the Utopia Planitia before Finn disappeared, so her vision was not from his perspective. Catching sight of her own reflection, she realizes that her vision of Pierce was a reflection. It was his perspective!
On the way to interrogate Pierce, Troi feels guilty about her earlier jealousy and apologizes for not being herself. Worf suggests that he question Pierce alone, so Troi returns to her quarters. But Pierce suddenly arrives in Troi's quarters, claiming that Worf sent him there. Troi calls security and has Pierce escorted away, then locates Worf and confronts him. She finds him making out with Ensign Calloway. Caught, they both start laughing at her just like in her vision. Enraged, Troi kills Worf with a phaser and flees. She passes by Pierce, who tells her, "You know what you have to do." Troi rushes to the warp nacelle control room and is about to jump when Worf suddenly grabs her shoulder.
Overjoyed to see that Worf is alive, Troi realizes that everything that has happened since she went to look at the warp plasma stream has been one long vision that took place in only a second. Back with the senior staff, everyone sums up what happened: Pierce, Finn and a third crewman William Hodges were all stationed on Utopia Planitia eight years ago. Pierce, who was one-quarter Betazoid, caught his girlfriend cheating on him with Hodges and killed them, then committed suicide. His disintegration created a "psychic photograph" that triggered hallucinations in both Kwan and Troi of events similar to those that caused it.
With everything wrapped up, Worf asks why Troi was so happy to see him alive, ignorant to the fact that he and Troi started banging in her vision. Troi abashedly admits that he was killed in her vision. When he asks who killed him, she teasingly says, "Hell hath no fury like a Woman Scorned," before walking away. After a moment, Worf seems to grasp the implications.
Tropes featured:
- All Just a Dream: Everything from when Troi and Worf go to the nacelle control room onward is a vision Troi was experiencing. Interestingly, much of what she sees and learns proves to be true later because it was an "empathic echo" of previous events that had actually happened.
- Arc Words: "I know what I have to do."
- Big "NO!": Marla Finn, as seen in Troi's vision.
- Call-Back:
- Once again, the Enterprise is given permission to exceed the warp speed limit set in "Force of Nature."
- Worf mentions having "sought visions in fire."
- Data recounts his early experiences of how his positronic brain grew more complex to Geordi, explaining how each new pathway increased the likelihood of a cascade failure. In the season three episode "The Offspring", this was the cause of death of Data's daughter.
- Worf considers romancing Troi after discovering that they got married in a parallel universe in "Parallels."
- Captain Obvious: After finding Pierce's personnel file in the ship's logs, Troi announces that she thinks they can find him in Engineering. The personnel file she was just looking at indicates exactly where he works on the ship.
- The Chains of Commanding: Riker smacks the bulkhead out of frustration after Kwan kills himself, mainly because Riker feels he could have done more to stop Kwan.
- Clueless Aesop: The episode is a bizarre and curiously awkward attempt at an anti-suicide PSA, but they botch it by trying to have it both ways. The first act treats the suicide of a Red Shirt completely seriously, exploring it from all angles, explaining how those that kill themselves often show no obvious signs of distress. It's fairly effective and true to life. But then it turns out to be the result of Psychic Powers gone awry. However, the Utopia of Star Trek does not lend itself well to the topic of suicide in the first place.
- Constructive Body Disposal: Played with here. Troi has visions of a murder/suicide and at one point has Geordi scan a bulkhead. His scans show a skeleton embedded in the bulkhead. It was All Just a Dream based on the psychic residue from Daniel Kwan because he was The Empath but there were "traces of cellular residue with a psionic signature" on the bulkhead.
- Death Notification: Picard mentions having done this before, but never involving suicide.
- Driven to Suicide: Both Kwan and Troi. Only Worf's presence prevented Troi from jumping into the plasma stream. Later it's revealed that the memories that Kwan and Troi experienced were of a man who died under the same circumstances they had experienced.
- Driving Question: The driving question is "Why did Kwan commit suicide?"
- Green-Eyed Monster: Troi jealously notices that Worf is getting very cozy with Ensign Calloway. She ultimately confronts him on whether he regrets their dalliance, but then apologizes for not feeling herself.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Daniel Kwan is half-Human, half-Napean, making him The Empath. Similarly, Walter Pierce was one-quarter Betazoid. When he committed suicide, his empathic abilities left an "echo" in the nacelle bulkhead that affected Kwan and Troi.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Said by Troi to Worf during her dream.
- Murderer P.O.V.: Finn's murder is shown from the perspective of her murderer.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Troi's reaction to killing Worf in her vision after she catches him with another woman. All but stated to have been the case with Pierce and Kwan as well.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Riker mentions this trope during Worf's clumsy attempt to find out if he still harbors feelings for Troi. Not that he's at all serious about it.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Troi overhears Worf casually joking (and possibly flirting) with Calloway, something very much unlike the stoic and serious Worf we know. It turns out that this is all a part of Troi's hallucination to drive her into a jealous rage. The real Worf didn't do it. (And, of course, the real Worf definitely wouldn't do something as dishonorable as sleeping with a woman and then casually moving on to someone else the very next day.)
- P.O.V. Cam: Troi realizes that her initial vision of chasing Finn down a hall is from the perspective of someone. It turns out to be from Pierce's perspective, and the blurrier vision of Pierce's face is also from his perspective looking at his reflection.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Anyone with empathic abilities will receive flashbacks of Pierce's last moments, then will be filled with guilt and despair and want to jump into the plasma stream.
- Red Herring: The only clue in the early acts to possible conflict in Kwan's life is not getting along with his superior officer. This ultimately has nothing to do with anything.
- Relationship Upgrade: Between Troi and Worf... in Troi's mind. However, it was already clear from his awkward conversation with Riker earlier that he feels the same way, and by the next episode, it seems to have happened for real.
- Room Full of Crazy: Averted. Troi and Worf visit Kwan's quarters after being assigned to investigate Kwan's suicide. Both expect the quarters to be a complete mess but find Kwan's rooms to be in good order.
- Starts with a Suicide: Of Lt. Daniel Kwan.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Riker tries to get through to Kwan. He fails.
- Woman Scorned: Troi to seeing Worf with another woman, in her vision anyway. It's confirmed that Pierce and Kwan had similar reactions to their girlfriends with other men.
- You Did Everything You Could: Worf says this to Riker after his failure to save Kwan.
