Plot Synopsis: Troi is captured and forced to masquerade as a Romulan intelligence officer in a plot to aid the defection of several high-ranking Romulan officials.
Plot A and B Analysis: The teaser is super-brief and it doesn’t mess around. We’re in a darkened room decorated with a Romulan logo. We hear Troi’s voice, who slowly makes her way to a mirror to find, to her shock, she has a Romulan face and is wearing a Romulan uniform! Plot A is about Troi masquerading as a Romulan, plot B is everyone else on the Enterprise. Sub-Commander N’Vek enters, starts giving her instructions and doesn’t answer any of her questions. Troi is thrown into the lion’s den having to order the intimidating Commander of a Romulan ship to obey her orders. Plot B starts with the Enterprise taking on DeSeve, a man who defected to the Romulans 20 years ago and has returned. He tells Picard Spock has sent him for some more ‘cowboy diplomacy’, and asks him to take the ship to the same sector Troi ordered the Romulans to. Back with Troi, we learn she is part of a plot, initiated by Spock, to transport a high-ranking senator and his aides, disguised as cargo, to Starfleet. If successful Spock will be a kind of Harriet Tubman, establishing a route to safety for Romulan dissidents. The plan to transport the senator and his aides goes awry when the mercenaries N’Vek hired as middlemen can’t be trusted and he kills them. The success of the mission is now solely up to Deanna, and how she pulls it off is clever, resolving the plot in a satisfying fashion.
Favorite Scenes: Troi has some of her best scenes in the entire series this episode, all of my favorite scenes are hers. Virtually everything, from when she first manages to order Commander Toreth to the right sector to actually taking command of the Warbird is terrific. There’s a scene where she is eating with the senior officers and Toreth asks her to sample a dish and Troi has no idea which dish it is, so she picks the wrong one at random:
Toreth: I realize it’s nothing compared to what you’re accustomed to on Romulus, but you could at least try the viinerine.
Troi: I’ve smelled better viinerine on prison ships.
I absolutely love in the 20th minute when the Romulans meet the transport ship and Troi tells N’Vek the mercenaries they’re meeting with are lying to them, he just blows up the ship and then blames her! By the 30th minute everything has gone wrong and Troi has had enough. When N’Vek refuses to do what she asks she explodes:
Troi: Yes you will. We’re not playing it your way anymore, N’Vek. I’ve been kidnapped, surgically altered, put in danger. I’ve gone along with all your plans, now you are going to listen to me! You find a way to let the Enterprise track us or I will go to Toreth and tell here I’ve discovered you’re a traitor! I’ll have you ejected into space, is that clear Sub-commander!
Use of Cast/Characters: This is Troi’s episode, and it’s the best one she ever has. This is where Troi really grows some balls, and by the 31st minute they’re so big and hairy she even spooks me! She gets some great character development here as she has to take command for the first time in the series, which will ripple forward in subsequent episodes. Picard, Riker, Data, Worf are all place holders here, their job is to deal with DeSeve and transport Troi off the Romulan ship. Beverly and Geordi have the least, only a couple of lines each. Scott McDonald does a good job as N’Vek. Carolyn Seymour is excellent as Toreth, and the audience has some sympathy for her as we realize she’s not an “evil Romulan”, just a very competent Commander who doesn’t like her ship being taken over. If you recognize her it’s because she’s played a Romulan Commander before, as I explain below. Barry Lynch plays DeSeve, and is OK.
Blu Ray Version: Some of the effects were cleaned up or punched up, and a visual mistake was fixed. There is a deleted scene involving DeSeve. It’s just him failing to successfully replicate a Romulan drink and settling for coffee, which is why he’s holding it when Picard enters his quarters. Not worth watching.
Nitpicks: Only one. If Deanna’s ‘Major Rakal of the Tal Shiar’ has only been with them for a few months, how is she already a Major? It’s not really a nitpick, because Deanna made it up and we can chalk it up to the fact her head was still spinning.
Overall Impression: This isn’t just the best Deanna Troi episode, it’s probably also the single best Romulan episode I’ve ever seen. It is just terrific from the shocking start to the satisfying conclusion. There is significant tension as we imagine how frightened Deanna must be on the inside, and watching her have to think on her feet and truly rise to the occasion really makes this episode memorable. I rate this episode 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Behind the Scenes/Trivia: Marina Sirtis has said this is probably her favorite episode, and it’s easy to see why. This is also where Worf debuted his new ponytail! He’ll have it for the rest of the series and into DS9 and the films as well. Evidently Michael Dorn and his hair stylist had wanted the change for quite a while. There were two wigs he wore and they were made of hair sold by Russian children, each costing $5000! Originally it was Beverly that was kidnapped, but it was changed because having an empath would be better for espionage. Toreth was originally going to be a man, and when they changed her gender not one line of her dialogue was changed.
This is where the Tal Shiar organization began in Star Trek canon. They won’t be featured on TNG again but they do show up in four DS9 episodes, and in the new Star Trek: Picard. Carolyn Seymour was seen as a Romulan Commander previously in the episode Contagion, and as Mirasta in First Contact. It makes no sense to me that they didn’t make her the same character from Contagion, and this episode works better if you imagine she is that character. We also establish the Romulans’ shields go down when they cloak, previously we only knew they couldn’t fire while cloaked.
Missable/Unmissable? Unmissable, you need to see this episode. The next episode is even better.