Eye of the Beholder

The quality of this episode can be summed up by this actual dialog ...

"Something terrible must have happened to him. It's not like Dan to take his own life"

By this point in the series some people weren't even trying any more

Counsellor Troi experiences visions associated with the death of another crew member.

This is a mostly good episode with a fair story and decent performances, but some aspects feel slightly ropey and a bit pointless.

Although it's not told in a very compelling way to me personally, the mystery is good and has an interesting sci-fi concept. When the reveal comes it is mostly by technobabble but feels like a well thought-out idea.

The downsides are the dramatic hysteria, which Marina Sirtis and the other cast do very well, considering how laughably over the top certain scenes are written. Plus the romance, which feels pointless when you know the eventual outcome for the characters. Michael Dorn is also good.

I like the art direction and set design. The numerous scenes set in engineering are very well done.

This is one of the poorer episodes from the 7th season. The plots revolves around telepathic abilities, one of my least favorite aspects of the Star Trek universe. I like my science fiction at least somewhat grounded in science rather than pseudo-science. I grudgingly accept Troi's abilities when presented as extremely sharp intuition but when presented more like a true psychic ability I can't help but be skeptical. The plot is something of a who-done-it. I don't want to discuss the details because they aren't very interesting. But I can say that the ending is poorly scripted. The first time I saw the episode I didn't even fully understand how much of the episode the "reveal" covered... almost the whole thing.

I found myself looking at my phone during this slow, uninteresting "mystery". Only one Troi centered episode works for me. This isn't it.

A young ensign walks into a plasma stream and soon after it seems the ship itself is sending messages. The most obvious recipient is the ship's best telepath Counselor Troi and they get wierder and wierder for her.

It all has to do with when the Enterprise was being first constructed and a long suppressed incident from that period. Some truths that were buried were revealed though poor Marina Sirtis really goes through it. Being a telepath can have its drawbacks.

In the meantime Troi and Worf begin a romantic relationship and Michael Dorn helps Sirtis over the rough spots in this telepathic crisis.

Plot was a bit confusing here though.