Eye of the Beholder (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
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| Star Trek: TNG episode | |
| "Eye of the Beholder" | |
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| Episode no. | 170 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 270 |
| Airdate | the week of February 28, 1994 |
| Writer(s) | René Echevarria (teleplay) Brannon Braga (story) |
| Director | Cliff Bole |
| Guest star(s) | Mark Rolston as Walter Pierce Nancy Harewood as Lt. Nara Tim Lounibos as Lt. Kwan Johanna McCloy as Calloway |
| Year | 2370 |
| Stardate | 47622.1 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "Masks" |
| Next | "Genesis" |
"Eye of the Beholder" is an episode from the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
[edit] Plot
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The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. |
The entire Enterprise crew is shocked when Lieutenant Daniel Kwan commits suicide. He opens up the warp nacelle tube, seemingly to do normal procedures on it but then stands in front of it and starts talking without anybody knowing what he is talking about. Kwan goes on and on for a while saying things like, "I didn't want to do it, but they were laughing at me." And then he says, "I know what I have to do." Riker tries to ask Kwan what is wrong and he offers to help but Kwan ignores him, and then jumps into the plasma discharge in the nacelle tube, killing himself. Picard demands an explanation for this, since nobody thought that Kwan would do anything like this. Worf and Troi get right to work on it.
Troi and Worf search in Kwan's quarters and even look at his personal logs, but do not see that he was in any way unhappy with anything. On the contrary, he appears to be excited about his next several days, spending some time with his girlfriend, Ensign Calloway. Troi decides to go and talk to Calloway, to see if she has anything to say on the matter. Calloway is as shocked as anybody about Kwan's actions, and can think of no reason for him to do what he did. The only thing that Kwan seemed to be at all unhappy about was that he felt that his superior officer, Lieutenant Nara, felt threatened by him. Troi then goes and talks to Nara, but Nara shows no noticeable dislike of Kwan at all.
A real surprise arises when Troi stands on the platform where Kwan killed himself, knowing that he was partially telepathic. She is all of a sudden overcome by nasty emotions from rage to hatred and can barely even walk away and leave the room. Troi is completely confused by what happened; the feelings, "were just there." Since Troi's empathic sense is overloaded, Dr. Crusher suggests that she not go back to the platform for a few more hours. Troi goes to her quarters to rest where she is soon visited by Worf and the two of them ponder the possibilty that Troi was viewing an empathic "echo" left by Kwan. Worf agrees that it may be possible as well. He then leaves to let Troi rest.
Worf and Troi return to the nacelle tube where this time, Troi has a vision of a woman backing off and yelling "no" and an image of a menacing looking, red haired man. The two people fade, and Troi finds images of equipment with the markings of Utopia Planitia, (where the Enterprise was constructed) and then sees the woman again laughing in a sinister manner with another man, when the two of them are found in a closet.
Worf snaps her back to the present, and the two of them leave immediately. It is then suggested that Troi was going through an event from eight years ago, which Kwan possibly saw as well since he himself was at Utopia Planitia. Crusher applies a neutral inhibitor to Troi for the sake of blocking out sensation, but says that it will take sixteen hours to go into effect. Meanwhile, Troi says that she recognizes the red haired man, and she and Worf search personnel files. They find the red haired man to be Lieutenant Walter Pierce, currently serving on the Enterprise as an engineering officer. They also find out that Pierce happened to be Kwan's supervisor, but when they go talk to him, he says to have no knowledge of anything out of the ordinary happening in the nacelle tube. Troi notes in her mind that she could not read Pierce at all, meaning that he too must be partially telepathic. The two of them pick of up logs from Utopia Planitia but the logs will take some time to arrive. Worf says good night to Troi and begins to leave, but does not. In that moment, Troi and Worf hold hands and then they kiss.
Worf then wakes Troi for breakfast but the two of them are interrupted by Crusher to help with a job. Troi gets her neutral inhibitor with Worf arriving shortly after. However, Worf cannot accompany Troi to the nacelle tube like she wants, needing to take care of some things with Calloway. Troi starts to ponder.
Troi, Data and Geordi look at a plasma conduit that Kwan repaired shortly before he killed himself. Despite her inhibitor, Troi sees another vision of Pierce and the unknown woman. She is positive that something is behind the wall and it is found out to be a skeleton. A long decomposed skeleton.
Calloway searches through personnel files and finds the skeleton to be that of Ensign Marla Finn, who happens to be the woman that Troi has seen in her visions. Once it is found out that Kwan arrived at Utopia Planitia well after Finn disappeared, Troi comes to the conclusion that the image of Pierce that she saw was a reflection, and that she was seeing things through his eyes. She and Worf go to have another word with Pierce, but Troi starts to wonder again when Worf seems to be behaving very attentively towards Calloway.
Troi asks Worf if he is unhappy about where their relationship has come and Worf is adamant that he does not. Troi, tired and stressed, goes to her quarters to rest letting Worf go about this on his own. However, Pierce soon enters Troi's quarters, alone, and gives her a long and unnerving stare. Troi immediately calls security and asks them to hold Pierce in his quarters, but Pierce says that Worf, "had to go somewhere." This leaves Troi even more suspicious. She asks the computer to locate Worf and the computer says that he is in Calloway's quarters. Troi rushes there, only to find Worf and Calloway hugging each other romantically. The two of them laugh at her, just like Finn and the other man did in her vision.
In a fit of rage, Troi picks up a phaser and kills Worf. Shocked and disturbed at what she just did, she runs about the ship when she comes across Pierce who says, "you know what you have to do." Troi agrees saying, "I know what I have to do," and then gets ready to jump into the plasma discharge and kill herself exactly the way that Kwan did-
-when all of a sudden, a very much alive Worf turns her around. As it turns out, it has only been a few seconds since Troi first went up to the nacelle tube; she was imagining everything that happened afterwards. What seemed like a few days was only a couple short seconds. Later, it gets found out that both Pierce, Finn and the man with Finn were all killed at Utopia Planitia years ago in a plasma discharge. Troi however, is convinced that Pierce was dating Finn and caught Finn cheating on him. He then killed Finn and the other man and then killed himself while in a disturbed state of mind. Because he was partially telepathic, he left behind a residue when he killed himself causing any other telepathic person who opened the nacelle tube to experience a vision of what he experienced, only altered to suit their reality. All is well, but after Worf asks Troi why she was so surprised to see him alive, she is forced to tell him that in her vision, she had been killed. When Worf asks how he was killed, Troi merely says, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" and then walks away, leaving Worf rather confused
