Who doesn't love a mystery? Picard loves them so much that he creates them in his spare time in the form of Dixon Hill stories on the holodeck. This time his recreation is cut short with a deep space mystery -- a class M planet where none should be. When the Enterprise investigates, a wormhole knocks everyone unconscious...all except Data, who tells the captain they were out for 30 seconds.
Strangely, though, circumstances start popping up that point to a much longer period of unaccounted activity -- a full day to be exact. Crusher's seed experiment shows unexplained growth. Troi is going insane. Worf is whining about his broken wrist (when did that happen?). The ship's chronometer has been reset. And so on. Data sends out a probe to prove that there is nothing amiss, but his tale is unraveling quickly.
As it becomes clear that Data is lying, Picard decides that he would rather risk the crew's safety than to let Data face a court martial. (Sure, it's the writers' fault, but it's decisions like this that make me realize I would much rather serve under Kirk than Picard, but I digress...) It's all a very fascinating mystery with higher stakes than one might have expected at the beginning. Then, like those lettered candies that are so colorful to look at, it completely dissolves when you actually try to savor it.
The Enterprise crew returns to the site of the wormhole and we discover that logic has departed this outing completely. You see, this all came about because there were energy aliens who live on or near that class M planet. And they like their privacy, so when their attempt to knock everyone unconscious failed, they decided to kill everyone on board the Enterprise. For some reason they possessed Troi to explain all this to Picard. And just to prove they are superior, they demonstrated that Troi's body is much stronger when possessed. But Picard talked them out of the "kill everybody" plan, and instead the crew agreed to get their memories erased, and then they hatched a plan to fool themselves into believing none of it ever happened. But Data remembered, so he had to promise to keep it all a secret.
Say what?!
Oh, but it gets better! Of course, it didn't work, so now the aliens again want to kill them. No, wait! Picard convinces (???) the aliens that they'll get it right this time. He promises. The first time was a rehearsal. The mistake the crew made was leaving clues behind. This time, they won't question a missing 2+ days' time (apparently wormholes just do that kind of thing). This time Troi won't go crazy (even though she just got possessed for a second time). This time they'll replant Crusher's seeds and somehow won't notice any are missing. I suppose they'll restock the probe, too. But it doesn't really matter because if they get it wrong Picard will just talk his way out of it again.
Don't get me wrong: I absolutely LOVED this episode -- until the end. The end was a cop-out. It was obvious the writers had put themselves in a position they couldn't get out of. I think they must have realized it, too, because they gloss over everything that's wrong at that point. Most telling is that Guinan, after appearing at the beginning, is not even mentioned in the main part of the episode, which is especially interesting since we know (from "Yesterday's Enterprise") that she can sense time disturbances that humans can't.
Oh well, it's only a problem if you want your puzzles to have a logical solution. If you can live with a fun mystery that only fails to add up in the end, you can have a pretty good time with this one.
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