Eye of the Beholder

I enjoyed the Enterprise not being under threat of destruction for once and having Deanna and Worf taking time to investigate a mysterious suicide. The deepening romance between the two plays out well and while the ending seemed a bit slapdash, it was a fun and interesting journey.

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.

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.

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

This is a so-so offering. It involves a suicide by a man who had shown no suicidal tendencies. This brings in the expertise of Deanna Troi, who uses her empathic powers to try to feel the events leading up to the taking of life. In the process, she witnesses what appears to be a rape/murder and she seems to see this from the rapist's perspective. Worf is paired with Deanna and during this time a romantic relationship develops between them. It seems that something happened at the time the Enterprise was being constructed. The problem with the episode is that there are some issues with what is real and how the characters ultimately react to those implications. Deanna has a more substantial part here and does a decent job with it.