In The First Duty cadets wore a rank, or year, insignia on their uniforms, but the "cadet" in this episode is not wearing one.

If faux Picard is an alien then why wasn't Troi suspicious of him?

On page 234 of the NextGen Guide, Phil wondered why everyone cheers when Picard orders ales for everybody, because he thought all the drinks were free. Well, maybe everybody was sick and tired of that •••• synthahol and were glad to finally get some real drinks? Maybe some crew members were late for duty and they loved the thought of telling their superior that they were having drinks with the captain? Or maybe, everybody was just sucking up to the captain? (`I hate ale, but if the captain sees me cheering it could be good for my career.')

These creatures have a lot of knowledge about many things, so why don't they understand morality and even need to conduct this study to understand authority? If you had no understanding of authority and were sent to impersonate an authority figure, wouldn't it be obvious you were an impostor? Perhaps the creatures were not studying authority, but were actually seeing how far they could go before the crew would try to stop them?

The cadet is wearing what would become the DS9 and Voyager uniforms; collar (with pips) to be added later.

And it would again be seen as the cadet uniform in The First Duty(TNG), right?

(With the collar, of course.)

What I'd like to know is HOW did that transporter grid approached the Enterprise without being detected?

Again, an alien race kidnaps a valued member of Starfleet and goes unpunished...like a declaration of an act of war. No wonder the Borg attack in the season finale!

Uh, no.
As in 'The Most Toys', the aliens' actions here give no indication at all that they're any kind of threat to the greater Federation (or even that more than a few members of the species were involved).

How to rescue Picard in one easy lesson:
General Order 24.
(See "A Taste of Armegeddon"--TOS)

NANJAO: The transporter grid reminded me of the obelisk from "2001: A Space Odyssey".

If the abduction of Picard was only "temporary", why was the faux-Picard trying to take the Enterprise towards a deadly radioactive pulsar?

They wanted to test what the crew's reaction would be.

I get it---the entire crew was being tested.

Is Mitanna Haro the only female Bolian we've ever seen? If so, it's good to see one with hair -- not including the DS9 Bolian who wore a Vulcan toupee -- even though her hair wasn't all that flattering. It's good to see female Bolians have a head of hair whereas female Ferengi do not. Even if Haro doesn't really exist -- that she was a camouflaged alien -- but Picard didn't show any suspicion of Haro at the time.
Another thing, Haro and Captain Rixx seem to be the only two Bolians with a duller shade of blue skin. It's better than the bright blue Bolians that followed. Those Bolians are shocking, somewhat neon, and they probably glow in the dark.

I’ve heard of sleepwalking, but sleepreading? And sleepdrinking?
I wonder what happened at the end of the opening teaser, after Worf told Picard about the unusual energy readings, and asked him why he didn’t answer the pages for him. If the faux Picard suggested that something was wrong with the comm system, what would have happened after diagnostics revealed that it was working fine? The alien masquerading as Picard could have said that he was sleeping, or something, but when Worf arrives, the faux Picard is walking around, with a drink in one hand, and reading a book in the other!
Hey, buddy, why so blue? (And bald, for that matter?)
After this episode, the look of the Bolians changes. Their skin becomes a bright blue, as opposed to the greenish look of the false Mitena Haro in this episode, and both male and females are bald, as seen in the form of Quark’s frequent patron on DS9, and Voyager’s ensign Golwatt, who first appeared in Hunters(VOY).
As long as you’re not wearing acid wash jeans
In Act 1, when Picard tries tapping out prime numbers on the cell’s lock mechanism, Tholl asks Picard what he’s doing, and Picard tells him he’s trying to let the captors know that they’re intelligent; that they comprehend mathematics. Tholl points out that the captors should already know this, because if they’re observing them, they can see that they’re talking to one another, and he’s right. In addition, doesn’t Picard think that the captors can see they’re wearing clothing? Doesn’t wearing clothing prove that they’re members of intelligent, industrious civilizations?
That little speck of dirt made him go nuts? Geez, this guy’s worse than Monica on Friends!
When Esoqq appears in the cell at the end of Act 1, he reacts defensively, and Picard tries to calm him. As Picard walks toward the camera in this shot, you can see someone forgot to clean the camera. A white speck of dirt appears on the right side of Picard’s upper torso that remains still as he moves.
So, um, who made this mistake? Picard’s memories, or the aliens who copied them and got this wrong?
The fake Picard walks into Ten Forward toward the end of Act 3and orders drinks for everyone, to the startled looks and mumblings of the other patrons. Whoa, BIG spender, Picard! Aren’t Ten Forward drinks and food free? I’ve never heard of sailors paying for their food in a gallery on an aircraft carrier, and I’ve never noticed anyone pay for their food in Ten Forward.
. confusing This me very to was
The sequence of events at the end of the episode, wherein Picard correctly guesses that the cell is a laboratory, and that Haro is not a Starfleet cadet, is a bit odd. The faux cadet Haro slips up, revealing knowledge of Enterprise missions that she shouldn’t have. Picard tests her, and confirms his suspicions. They then try to pry open the door and fail. Picard then unmasks the cadet as a fraud. Huh? Why didn’t Picard reveal the truth the moment Haro failed his test? Why the attempt with the door again?
Makes Crimson Tide look plausible by comparison
The episode Lonely Among Us established that in order to relieve a captain of his duties, one needs proof from a medical exam that he is unfit for command. Personally, I thought this was an absurd a rule, given all the 24th century situations in which the reason why a captain may become unfit for command that may not show up on a medical exam, such as endangering the crew, or breaking the law. The creators get it right by this episode, when they have Riker take over because the fake Picard is disregarding the crew’s safety. Of course, by doing this, they’re creating a changed premise with respect to the prior episode. In it, the Beta Renna cloud entity revealed itself to Riker and Crusher, and the two of them said they couldn’t take command!
Or is there some 24th century union rule regarding full use of all bridge crew during emergency situations?
Why did it take Picard, Riker, Data, and Worf to activate the forcefield to contain the aliens at the end of the episode? Why doesn’t the captain’s chair have this function by itself? And excluding that, shouldn’t the first person Picard gave the signal to been able to do this? (The reason, of course, is that the creators wanted Picard to make a spiteful point to the aliens, who mocked their “primitive linguistic communication.”)
They replicated someone’s memories perfectly, but …forgot to use them all?
If the aliens were able to replicate the dendritic connections that contained Picard’s memories, and knew of the Enterprise’s recent aide in wiping out the Phyrox plague on Cor Caroli V, shouldn’t they have just as well known about the limits on a cadet’s knowledge, and that Starfleet classified that mission a secret?

>Why doesn’t the captain’s chair have this function by itself?<

Umm..umm...I had a witty comeback, but my cold medicine stole it from my brain before I could type it. Darn! It was something about furniture and functions, but..dang, I can't remember. Oh, well!

Well, if it comes back to you, margie, you let us know.

(And of course, I direct you to the second part of that passage that begins "And excluding that...")

The Bolian Captain Rixx appeared in the episode "Conspiracy" back in season one. He was blue and bald.

True, but he was male. Mitena was female.

Who knows? Maybe the Bolians are grey and hairy in their youth and become blue and bald later in their life? Ok, just one blue Bolian child with locks would negate this hypothesis but then maybe just the Bolians from the polar regions are grey and need a fur.

It's also possible that Bolians come in several colors of skin, like humans do. Also, maybe their men prefer to shave their heads and their women do not.

OK, I haven't seen this one stated at all in the books, or on here, but I'm sure someone else has caught this as well.

Did anyone notice that the alien changed the wrong Picard into an alien at the end of the episode? Watch closely. When the real Picard and his alien captor beam onto the bridge, real Picard orders no one to make any moves against the aliens. He then walks towards the fake Picard and stands, facing him, with his back towards his ready room and the turbo lift beside it. Thus, the fake Picard is standing with his back towards the Captain's chair. BUT, when the alien walks up to the two Picards, and does his little finger magic to change the fake Picard back into an alien, it is the Picard with his back towards the ready room that changes! NOT the one with his back towards the Captain's chair. SO, it is the real Picard that is changed into an alien. What the??!!

Sorry for adding this so late. It looks like this episode hasn't had any action in it since 2003.

Luigi : "The sequence of events at the end of the episode, wherein Picard correctly guesses that the cell is a laboratory, and that Haro is not a Starfleet cadet, is a bit odd. The faux cadet Haro slips up, revealing knowledge of Enterprise missions that she shouldn’t have. Picard tests her, and confirms his suspicions. They then try to pry open the door and fail. Picard then unmasks the cadet as a fraud. Huh? Why didn’t Picard reveal the truth the moment Haro failed his test? Why the attempt with the door again?"

Why not? Picard doesn't know how the aliens are gonna react to being found out. So he tries to get the door open, hoping to have a chance to escape. It fails and the chance of escape looks minimal now, so he decides to go for the reveal. Why not?

Possibe Nit:

is Esoqq the same species that Tam A in "Tin Man" TNG said were peaceful and had a 3 day greeting or something? I'd have to rewatch Tin Man and compare the species names, but they sounded similar.

The thing is, male Bolians are bald, and female Bolians have hair. Even ones artificially created by telepathic alien kidnappers for experiments in morality.

My favorite dialogue:

Esoqq: My given name is Esoqq. It means "fighter"!
Kova Tholl: I'll bet half the names in the Chalna language mean fighter!
Esoqq: (scoffs) Mizarian! All your names mean SURRENDER!

Wow, just like the French! (Joke.)

Also, the crew should have first suspected the imposter when he led the Ten-Forward extras in a drinking song. That was definetly NOT Picard's style.

As for the non-verbal body language that led to the unnamed alien kidnappers being trapped in a force field, I wonder the same thing Phil did, which was, why didnt this sort of this happen more often? Of course, the real-life answer would be that it wasn't in the script for that kind of thing to happen in those episodes where intruders try to take over the bridge!

Like I said before, the Enterprise has too many ways to avoid problems. It all depends on who the writers are!

When the two aliens on the bridge get trapped in the forcefield, their brethren should immediately have known about it and come rushing to the rescue. Forcefields do not block telephatic communications.

In the opening scene, Picard is dozing off on a chair with a book in his hands. He gets transported to the alien's cellblock. When he reappears there, the book is not with him. And the last shot of him being energized, doesn't show the book falling down on the chair if it didn't get transported with him.

In one scene, Kova Tholl describes his merits of extreme intelligence and intellect in relating to why the Romulans might be interested to have him as a captive. Towards the end of that exchange, the Bolian alien chimes in; describing him as being also "the least modest". First off, what does being least modest have to do with the conversation? ... What's the difference if he's least modest or not? ... Second, under the premises that this is a Bolian, how would she know that particular characteristic trait about him anyhow? ... Wouldn't Tholl be suspicious at that point about this person knowing personal details about himself?

Throughout the episode, Tholl's people including himself are described as being highly intellectual and smart. Then how come Tholl didn't figure out the ruse with the aliens first? ... Granted he wouldn't have known that perhaps Haro in particular was the alien, because he's not familiar with Starfleet missions, but why didn't he figure out the concept of the scam before Picard? ... Why did Picard beat him to the punch?

There is a much bigger reason why a Starfleet cadet would not have known about the Cor Caroli V plague other than it being classified. It's because it just occurred moments earlier! In the beginning of the episode, minutes before Picard is transported off the Enterprise, the Cor Caroli V incident was just finishing up. How would a cadet in Starfleet studying at the Academy learn about a mission or have knowledge about it if it just occurred a few hours in the past. That's the most obvious reason a cadet would not have known about it. Not just because it was classified.

In the bar scene when Picard starts singing, he approaches LaForge and Worf for them to join in. Why would Worf even attempt to start singing a song like that? The song is a British hymn called "Heart of Oak" which in this time frame, would be around 600 years old. How would a Klingon know the words to a Human British song being that old? Shouldn't Worf have just stayed silent and given his mean look if Picard encouraged him to try to do that?

Also in the bar scene, when Picard offers ales to everyone, people have noted as to why the officers are cheering as if they're getting free drinks. It doesn't appear as if the crowd is Roaring in Applause or Cheering. There's a light exuberance, and you can hear a "thank you, Captain" in the background. But it doesn't appear to be the same concept as in today's time when people are a getting a free drink. The atmosphere is a lot less muted. The crew knows all the drinks are free, but they're just complementing their Captain for being upbeat and polite.

In response to "Torque, Son of Keplar", the species name is not a nit. In the episode 'Tin Man', the character Tam refers to the alien race from the planet Chandra V. In this episode, Allegiance, the planet which Esoqq is from is called Chalnoth. Also, I believe "Dave Johnston" is incorrect with his nit regarding the aliens beaming off the wrong Captain Picard. If you look closely, the fake Captain Picard is facing Riker with his back toward the viewscreen and Wesley Crusher. Then, that Picard is the one that's beamed off. It was filmed correctly. It's not a nit.

Towards the end of the episode, Riker confronts Picard in the captain's ready room to demand answers for their mission. In the middle of the verbal exchange, Riker exclaims, "Your behavior has been erratic". Wouldn't it have been more appropriate if Riker asked his superior officer for 'Permission to Speak Freely' before making such a statement? He's making the comment as if he's talking down to a lower-ranking officer.