“Power Play” (5×15)
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This episode is centered around a creepy premise that feels more like a “Doctor Who” story than a TNG story. But it gives Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner an opportunity to play some really different notes. And it’s a strong episode for the O’Briens, too, and a classic “O’Brien Must Suffer” story.
The implications, which we don’t see, are even more disturbing: The survivors of the USS Essex, having crash landed on the moon, lived out the remainder of their days with their bodies hijacked by the prisoner consciousnesses, their memories plundered for intel, not even in control of their own movements in the lead ups to their deaths.
Judging by the number of writing credits, this episode had a troubled development process, and some of the seams do show: You’ve got the mystery of the USS Essex, the mystery of the beings inhabiting the bodies of Troi, Data, and O’Brien, Crusher coming up with some sort of containment strategy, LaForge and Ro trying to zap the beings out of their crew mates’ bodies. It’s just a lot to keep track of, and the pieces don’t really build on each other in any sort of additive way. It’s more busy than impactful.
The biggest problem is that the three beings possessing the bodies of Troi, Data, and O’Brien are so self-evidently malevolent that there isn’t really any suspense about them being the senior officers of the lost USS Essex. I think the episode would have been more effective had it been a conspiracy story: The audience knows they’re possessed, but the other characters don’t. We know they’re scheming for something nefarious, but there’s no way for us to warn the crew who aren’t possessed of the danger.
Still, there was enough that worked to balance out the stuff that didn’t. Even though I didn’t feel much suspense, the episode was effective at making it feel like a close call. I would imagine this moon was put under a General Order 7-style quarantine after the events of this story.
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