I just wanted to say I loved this episode. I
liked the way that bridge/main engineering security actually worked and I liked the way Troi could to chew scenery-also this ep showed how her psychological/empathic knowledge could be useful, to its ill in this case.

Something struck me when watching TNG episode Power Play the other day. Hundreds of the spirits are in the cargo at the end and are trapped by an energy field. When Picard points out to the three spirits in Troi, Data and O'Brien there is no escape, they fly out of the bodies and join the other spirits.
How? The energy field traps hundreds of spirits - they can't get out or they would possess the entire crew. So how do the three spirits manage to get through the containment field? Bit too convenient...

Troi says at the end that the prisoners had tried escaping from the moon onboard the Essex 200 years earlier. My question is why would the Essex fly into that atmosphere? Or why they would investigate it at all since Enterprise only responded to the Essex's distress signal

This had been one of my favourite episodes, but after watching it again I was very unpressed by the way the hostage situation was treated. When the hostage swap with Picard was first arranged, Picard and the Medical Team entered, Picard was taken prisoner but the aliens allowed the Meds to take away all the wounded. Why didn't they take them hostage as well, they had plently of time to (and the motivation). The most unbelieveable thing happened at the end of the episode though when they and 3 hostages were in Cargo Bay 4. Picard said that if they didn't surrender the bodies he'd blow the hatch. If I had been in that situation I'd have a security team with phasers set to kill, storm the area. The hostages were all grouped together as were the aliens. Most likely at least one of the 3 hostages could've been saved.
Oh well, I guess I'm just picking nits. I just saw a really great hostage scene on the prison-drama Oz and I guess I'm unfavorably conparing them.

Riker, Data, and Troi respond to the distress signal with an itsty-bitsy, puny, cramped shuttlepod, that's smaller than today's Volkswagon! Does this make sense? There would barely be room for a fourth person to be transported (Let alone how Troi had room in there, when shuttlepods are long established as 2-person craft), and certainly no room for a fifth. A bigger shuttle might have ridden the storm easier. When they crawled out of the shuttlepod I thought I was watching people exit a big-screen tv box, because the pods are sooooo puny.
A bigger shuttle would have also made sense, so someone, oh, I don't know, like, oh, DOCTOR Crusher could have been sent down to tend to any wounded on the surface.
Of course, that would have changed the story somewhat.

At least one promo on TNN seems to use a lot of clips from this episode.

In Up The Long Ladder, Riker identified an old distress signal, but in this episode he has to ask Data if he can identify what turns out to be a more recent distress signal. Also Data thinks he has heard it before and must verify, but Data is an android and has a computer memory, if he had heard it before he would know it.

So in the two centuries that the Essex has been missing no one thought to send a search party after them? Let's face it, if a search party had come to this moon wouldn't they have picked up the distress signal.

Wouldn't a manual release of the usual shuttle door be wiser than explosively blasting off the back hatch? At least with a manual door opening one could close the door for protection.

On page 324 of the NextGen Guide II, Phil wondered how Riker knew Troi was part of the group when he was unconscious when she left the Ready Room. Elementary, my dear Watson. Riker knew Troi was with the Captain in the Ready Room, but Picard comes out of the Ready Room alone, so Riker deduces that Troi must be part of the group.

Since, three of the four members of the Away Team are acting funny, wouldn't it be logical to suspect Riker of also being under the influence? True, he didn't act suspiciously, but Picard doesn't know that his broken arm prevented that spirit from taking him over.
For that matter, wasn't it lucky that the leader of the prisoners chose to enter Troi instead of Riker. (I wonder what the leader's crime was? Cross dressing?)

Why did Crusher have to come to the Bridge for Picard to tell her to study the biofilters? Couldn't he have told her that over the communication system so that she could study them in Sick Bay? (And if Sick Bay can't access the Transporter Biofilter records then someone made a tremendous design flaw.)

So why did the spirits return to Troi and O'Brien's bodies instead of taking over the Captain and Worf?

Why was the Enterprise orbiting the moon upside down?

On page 323 of the NextGen Guide, Phil assumes that the lack of oxygen will kill the spirits, but that is not the only hypothesis. Presumably this moon was used as a prison because it would allow the disembodied spirits to survive for centuries, but the conditions in space are quite different from the surface of the moon, so that could kill them. (It must be assumed that they could survive long enough on the Enterprise to takeover crew members.)
In the book Alternative Realities in the section on Plasma, it talks about chemist David Turner's theory of how Ball Lightning could stay intact for several minutes where other forms of free floating plasma dissipate in seconds. He believed that the ions of nitrites, nitrates and positive hydrogen were stable enough to form a spherical skin around more unstable ions thereby causing what we call Ball Lightning. The 24th centuries knowledge of plasma is presumably greater than ours, so Picard may have suspected that space would tear apart whatever makes up the spirit balls of light.

These Ux-Malians are certainly inconsiderate. There was absolutely no warning that the moon was a prison. No transmitted messages, no satellites, or marker buoys, no orbiting ships saying, "Stay away, or else!" Any passing ship could have allowed the prisoners to escape.

>Why was the Enterprise orbiting the moon upside down? <

I don't think there is an upside-down in space.

Really good nits, Keith.

But on the last one, this is one of those unanswered questions that could be explained in a number of ways. The Ux-Malians managed the prison planet, but were killed off, or some disaster occurred that left unable to keep caring for it. Maybe scavengers or pirates stole the buoys. Maybe they didn't know everything about the spirits, and thought they would die after a while.

There may not be an upside-down in space, Margie, but the gravity generators do create an up & down on the Enterprise. Also they are orbiting a gravity source & the top of the ship is facing the moon. (I have a mental image of the ship's gravity generators shutting off & the crew falling toward the ceiling.)

Also they are orbiting a gravity source & the top of the ship is facing the moon.

This goes along with my recurring nit from TOS (and possibly TNG as well)... Generally, the Enterprise is shown orbiting a planet, with the planet to the ship's portside. Yet the viewscreen shows the planet on the bottom, as if the ship's keel is towards the planet.

Also they are orbiting a gravity source & the top of the ship is facing the moon.

It's like when the space shuttle orbits the Earth, the astronauts don't feel the pull of Earth's gravity even though that gravity is what is keeping the ship from floating off into space. BTW the space shutle orbits the Earth upsidedown most of the time.

For the Enterprise the gravity generators are generating all the gravity that they feel on the ship because the ship's movement around the planet negates all the gravity that they would feel from the planet.

Watched this episode for the 1st time in ages tonight- and picked a detail for the 1st time.
Shuttle hurtles down thro' stormy atmosphere, passing camera with what looks like the (stripey original) 'Apple Computer' logo plastered over rear hull bulkhead! Attitude control lost due to failure to upgrade to G4 processor & OSX, never mind the weather! Wrecked shuttle on planets surface seems to still bear the Apple logo, yet when the hatch is blown, it's just a circular, rimmed plate. Well, there goes the sponsorhip deal.

Why didn't "Psycho O'Brien" threaten to kill Molly? Surely, that'd had been a better "bargaining chip" than Keiko.

GREAT SCENE: "Psycho Troi" clobbering Picard.

NANJAO: This episode vaguely resembles "The Lights of Zetar" (TOS)

If O`Brien had been threatening sexual or other assault, that point re: Molly-or-Keiko might`ve had validity...but the situation here involves far more basic ethical considerations.

In other words, I seriously doubt the crew - any human being for that matter - would consider saving one life more important than any other.

Was watching this and wondered, why didn't Riker call for a red alert as soon as he recovered?General quarters would have made sense under the circumstances, especially when you think of all the time in st a red alert is called for almost no reason. Of course, if he had then there would have been no hostages, etc, etc.

Why Ux-Mal criminals shouldn't use Windows.

That's funny!

In other words, I seriously doubt the crew - any human being for that matter - would consider saving one life more important than any other.

I'm not sure that's true. We have sayings like "Women and Children first" as an example.

In general, in a lot of emergency situations, the lives of children are considered the most important to save.

Although yes, there are ethical and logical reasons for that.

Then again, in one episode (perhaps even this one?) they said the crew considers the Captain's life is considered above all else (or words to that effect).

However, aren't the lives of the Crew the Captain's responsibility? Captain Picard was the type that would put himself in danger to save any member of his crew, no matter who it was.

Hello, I am just going through all of the seasons of Next Gen. Already in some later fourth season episode (unfortunately, I cannot remember which) there is some guy in ten forward dressed in a 1990s style pink shirt and white trousers. Nobody else in TNG dresses like that. That guy appears AGAIN in this episode at the beginning, when the security teams chase the "psychos" in one of the corridors. Surely this guy must be someone of the production crew. What do you say?

I thought it was pretty cool when the Ux-Mal Entity-controlled O'Brien shoves Worf and then knocks him over the Tactical console. Holy Moley, that sure took some strength!

Also, I thought it was funny when the power to the Ops console was cut and the Entity-controlled Data pounds his fist on it in anger. But why didn't he totally wreck the console, seeing as how Data by himself is incredibly strong?

And, when Entity-Data chokes Picard and lifts him up off the floor, Picard should NOT have been able to speak, considering both his weight and the grip Entity-Data had around his throat!

Now THOSE were some real nits!

It's established that pain forces an entity to avoid a body (Riker and his broken arm) or leave a body (Troi and O'Brien getting shocked by LaForge and Ro). So why doesn't a point-blank phaser hit hurt Troi, Data, and O'Brien? Shouldn't such a phaser strike really, really hurt and force an entity to leave? Did the entities create somekinda force field around their people? Because I don't care how powerful a creature you are, Troi and O'Brien are still flesh and blood that can be stunned or burned, and Data can still have a high-enough phaser hit burn right through him.