The Hunted

While assessing the viability of a colony on Angosha III for Federation membership, a violent and cunning prisoner escapes from a maximum security facility. After eventually being captured by the Enterprise, the prisoner's dangerous nature soon becomes apparent which gives Picard some pause for thought.

Another action-orientated episode with McCarthy's super soldier proving to be a fantastic presence in the show. But instead of mindless phaser fire for the sake of it, the show makes some powerful points about the psychological effects of serving in the military and the mistreatment many veterans face when they return. It's full of drama, suspense, new areas of the ship we hadn't seen before and oh yes, lots of phasers! Great stuff!

The Angosians are applying for membership in the Federation and so the Enterprise is approaching their planet. However, an escaped prisoner escapes and the Enterprise is asked to help capture him. The guy turns out to be EXTREMELY tricky and it's obvious he's not just some ordinary being. When captured by the Enterprise, they soon learn that he's undergone a lot of bio- engineering in order to make him the perfect soldier. Interestingly, they soon learn that the man hadn't actually committed crimes but was a soldier who has deliberately been made into this dangerous being. And, instead of trying to deprogram the man, the Angosians simply have banished him and their other soldiers to a penal colony!

Like many episodes of "Star Trek", this one is obviously intended as a parallel to today. It's obvious that it's intended as a lesson about PTSD and society's need to fix these broken warriors. It does have a great point to make and is very effective overall. One of the better season two episodes.

The SENIOR senior Trekker writes.

This character would have been ideal to inject into deep space nine's Dominion war.

I am surprised that they didn't do it. Or at least used the prisoners/soldiers from this episode to fight in that war. That would have been interesting to see, how well would these soldiers stand up against the genetically enhanced Jem'Hadar? How many Jem'Hadar could Roga beat silly? It would have been great to see.

This is just another missed opportunity of Star Trek in a galaxy of missed opportunities and ideas that were dropped, but then never again picked up. The third season of Star Trek Picard gathered a lot of these dropped ideas and storylines and put it all into one big 10 episode story. That was the best that we have gotten in the last 20 years. But even there they had more wasted opportunities.

Jeff McCarthy (who was also the original doctor of the USS Voyager in the first episode) does a great job of convincing us that he is Roga Danar and that he could easily whoop Worf's byuttox, or 5 whole security guards, or even a transporter beam.

This is one of James Cromwell's first Star Trek appearances, this time as a stuffy bean counting pencil necked administrator with awful clothes. He gives us all of the traditional political excuses for not undoing damage he was partially responsible for causing. He blames his own constituents for not coming up with a good solution in the form of "they didn't want to pay for it/voted against it".

Hopefully the Federation was able to help the Angosians deal with this little hiccup after they became members. But, this was just another "the cloud minders", when the Federation, through one of their starships, discovered a problem, but was not allowed to actually fix that problem within the scope of the episode. But just like the cloud minders and the city of Stratos and the mines below, the whole story was not told and we never got to see whatever happened after the episodes in question. Deep space nine would have been the best place to capitalize on the subject that was introduced here. But like I said, a wasted opportunity in a Gamma Quadrant of wasted opportunities.

Danar's story seems to follow a similar arc of Rambo in First Blood albeit without all the death and destruction.

After not being welcomed back to society, a former soldier relies on his military training and reflexes to survive in a world where they feel unwelcome.

A problem recognized long ago in earth's history. A nation mobilizes for war and wins. Now what do we do with these suddenly unemployed soldiers?

The planet Angosia with its prime minister James Cromwell is applying for membership and they've sent Captain Jean-Luc Picard to look the place over. While doing so Jeff McCarthy escapes from a lunar penal colony. The Enterprise with some bit of doing subdues him and he's held in there security cell to get his story.

McCarthy gives a lot of mixed signals to Counselor Troi. He's a cultivated but violence can spring from him in an instant. His fighting skills are enhanced, programmed right into his DNA. He's a super soldier no doubt.

The best example in earth history is the Roman Empire who when they reached their zenith did not know what to do with all their trained fighting men except maybe make them gladiators. The USA had a GI Bill of Rights which is the best answer humankind has devised. The Angosians weren't that clever.

It's a good episode and you can only imagine the report Patrick Stewart gives the Federation.