Allegiance

[TrekToday]

Plot Summary: Picard is abducted from his quarters with an energy beam and replaced immediately with a double. While the real Picard finds himself imprisoned with three others - Bolian Starfleet cadet Haro, Mizarian pacifist Tholl and aggressive Chalnoth Esoqq, the fake Picard orders the ship to abandon its mission and follow a new heading. The crew becomes concerned when the captain plays poker with the senior officers and buys a round of drinks for the crewmembers in Ten-Forward, singing drinking songs. He also makes a pass at Beverly Crusher, though when she performs a medical exam on him, she finds that his readings match those of his last physical. A suspicious Riker orders an investigation and learns that alien technology has been used in the captain's quarters. When the captain orders the ship into an area with dangerously high levels of radiation, Riker overrides his command and the crew refuses to follow the strangely detached Picard's orders. Meanwhile, the real Picard tries to get his fellow captives to work together, but they all suspect one another of collaborating. Though Haro defends Picard when Esoqq and Tholl challenge him, Picard realizes that she knows far too much for a cadet and accuses her of being behind their imprisonment. Haro vanishes and is replaced by three telepathic aliens who explain that they were conducting an experiment to study leadership qualities. They return Picard to the Enterprise, but when the false Picard turns into an alien before their eyes, the crew traps him in a force field along with one of his fellow aliens and Picard makes them understand why such experiments are wrong.

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To read the full reviews, please click here.

[Pioneer]

...passive and easily led...

Just the way I like 'em!

[Evil_Kirkneivel]

Michelle Erica Green writes beautiful prose, and I often agree with her opinion...but not this time. I had fond memories of this episode from when I saw it when it originally aired, and subsequent viewings did not disappoint me. The writing is clever and funny, which makes up for some of Michelle's criticisms of the crew reactions, which perhaps are not dynamic or enlightened enough. But you can't blame ship personnel from treading carefully when faced with the captain behaving strangely. After all, unlike us, they are not privy to the fact that it's not the captain; in their eyes he at least appears to be the same man. The concept of this type of episode is that we are supposed to feel more cluey than the crew; we are given all the information, and they are given none.

It's not a great episode, just an entertaining little one, with two parallel mysteries: when are the crew going to figure out that Picard is not Picard, and when is Picard going to figure out why and who is holding him captive? Plus, Patrick Stewart gets heaps of lines and screen time, and that makes the episode a little better than it could have been - after all, he is the best actor in the cast, IMHO.