You know, it would have helped if Doe actually told everyone his real name once he got his memory back.

To the reason why the crew on Sunad's ship didn't move when he was transported, I think it was the end of the season and the producers just got lazy.

Just saw a re-run of this episode, and I noticed that after the alien "heals" the entire crew from suffocating, the shot switches to the bridge where Data is getting up like the rest of them, as if he could breathe again. Hmmm....

Evidently medicine has gotten rid of the hospital gown with the open back and replaced it with the nearly skin tight one piece outfit.

This and many other episodes of Star Trek show a remarkable instance of parallel starship design. For some reason races like the Zalkonians in this episode, the Tarellians in Haven and the hunter race in DS9's Captive Pursuit all have similar looking starships.

On pages 128 & 129 of the NextGen Guide II, in the Updated Damage Tote Board Phil listed the Zalkonian choking weapon as a possible life support shutter offer. (I thought I would use the technical language. I hope you can follow along. ;-) Since the crew starts choking immediately, it would seem to affect only living creatures. If all it did was shut off the life support the crew would have to wait until the oxygen was depleted before they started choking. More than enough time to blast the Zalkonian spaceship to Kingdom Come. (A small planet near the Lesser Magellenic Cloud. ;-)

So what happened to Data when the Zalkonian choking ray was turned on? They never show us Data when the rest of the crew is choking. The only time we see him is when Picard gets up afterward and we see Data kneeling over him.
Does this indicate that Data was affected or was he kneeling to check on the Captain? If Data was not affected by the beam then why didn't he fire on the Zalkonian ship?

This episode reminds me alot like "The Empath" (TOS)...of course...it alludes everyone that "John Doe" is an empath..for they never refer him as such.

FUNNY THOUGHT:

With the alien forgetting his name, maybe he should've been called "John D'OH"!

The end of this episode reminds me of "Errand of Mercy" (TOS)

How come there are no VULCANS on the Enterprise to do a mind meld with John Doe to establish his identity?

The music used in this episode's closing was also uaed in the last scene of "All Good Things," as we dissolve from the interior to the exterior of the Enterprise-D for the last time.

The voice of John is familiar somehow. Who plays him?

Actor Mark La Mura as John Doe

How come nobody suggested that John Doe see Counselor Troi to find out more about John Doe...even if it was just a sliver of information? I find it all but too convenient that she wasn't seen until the final chapter of the episode.

I find it odd that John Doe...a man from another planet...knows how to operate the panel in the Shuttlebay.

(They REALLY need to get rid of the "alien friendly" equipment on the Enterprise)

How would Troi be able to find out more about John Doe? He has no memory.

She could've said, "I sense he is telling the truth. His memories are blocked due to the traumatic accident" or something like that.

(Actually, ANY additonal scene with D. Troi would've been nice)

Luigi Novi: How would Troi be able to find out more about John Doe? He has no memory.

Dan Gunther: I always just assumed that when someone has amenesia, consulting a therapist would be a possible course of action. Why would it be any different in the future?

The therapist doesn't get paid.

I always just assumed that when someone has amenesia, consulting a therapist would be a possible course of action. - Dan Gunther

And in fact, they do that very thing when Geordi's mind is wiped by the Romulans in The Mind's Eye.

But to answer John's question.... it's possible it was suggested and even tried off-screen, but Troi found nothing... thus, it would be pointless to dramatize it.

Also, consulting a therapist would only be useful if the amnesia were psychologically induced. If it were induced by physical trauma (which could've been the case, given John Doe's injuries), therapy wouldn't have helped. I'm guessing from the injuries John suffered that Crusher determined that it was physiological.

Shhhhhhhhh!

You'll ruin the scam!!!

And if they had had John talk to Troi right off the bat, and she had found out something, it would have been a very short episode.

Not necesarily. What could she have found out? Just that he was running from his people? Enterprise could still have had a confrontation with those people if they had been searching for John and come across Enterprise.

This was one of my very favorite third season epsiodes. I really liked John Doe, he was a good and kind-hearted character who was undergoing a fundamental change that would ultimately affect his entire species, but he still cared about helping others when they were in danger.

Case in point, when John brings Worf back to life after he fell over the balcony, which was caused by John's increasing energy output which accompanying his transfiguration. Just like John could heal O'Brien's dislocated shoulder with a touch, he was able to heal Worf's broken neck! And of course, as we are aware, this is not the only time Worf would become critically injured and then come back to life, but that was in another episode.

I also thought it was really cool when John helped the entire Enterprise crew when a Zalkonian ship arrives and demands that he be handed over to them for "being a bad influence and spreading dissent" in their society. Sunad, the Zalkonian captain then activated what I call their "choking device" towards the Enterprise, and John touched a computer panel and was able to spread his healing powers throughout the whole ship.

Also, I wonder what would have happened if John had not raised his hand and transported Sunad from his ship to the Enterprise in an instant. After all, Sunad had just given the order to fire all weapons on them, and I wonder how powerful the Zalkonian vessel really was, if the Enterprise could have withstood their firepower.

Anyway, John then took the final step in the Zalkonian evolutionary progress and became a being of energy, bid the crew farewell, and departed into space, but not before he transported Sunad back to his ship. Presumably, the Federation had no more contact with the Zalkonians after this episode. They were a non-aligned race with powerful technology, and Sunad stated outright that they did not want to have any kind of relationship with the Federation. So they left them alone after that, simple enough.

I wonder though, how many other races did the Federation contact that said they wanted to be left alone? I'm sure there were quite a few in both TOS and TNG. But of course when DS9 came along, Starfleet Command ordered Cmmdr. Sisko to go through the wormhole to explore the Gamma Quadrant, and therefore bring the wrath of the Dominion upon them. But of course, that was the premise of that particular Trek show, and I shall not dispute it.

As for the subplot of Geordi and Christi, the mindlink from John's storage capsule increased his confidence and self-esteem, and that's why she found him more attractive then she did before. Too bad it was only temporary, huh?

Sunad gives the order to fire on the Enterprise, and THEN John transport him on the Enterprise's bridge. Why didn't Sunad's crew fire? They had their backs turned to him and didn't seem to notice that he was gone, at least not right away, so why didn't they obey his direct order and open fire?

As you can see in my above post Francois, I wondered the same thing almost three years ago. Maybe his crew was so shocked that their commander was transported away by a mere hand motion from John Doe that they were temporarily disoriented and forgot about the order to fire all weapons.

At least that's what I think happened. And I still wonder just how powerful the Zalkonian ship's weapons were. They already had access to a "choking device", so perhaps they really were more than a match for the Enterprise. Good thing it didn't come to that, huh?

I've always wondered why his crew never reacted to their captain disappearing off the bridge! Do you notice that they just stand there, not affected at all by the fact that their captain has just been teleported off the ship? (I've long noticed that a lot of the extras and non-speaking characters seemed to suffer from Mannequin Syndrome on the various Trek shows.)

Was this the first time Miles hurt himself dislocating his shoulder kayaking in the Holodeck? He never learns, does he? ;)