When Riker's head is bleeding during the last scene in the asylum, you can clearly see the round capsule underneath the wound.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I really wanted to see the whole play. (Perhaps Frakes and Spiner could do it as a project together.)

GREAT LINES: "How do you feel?"
"Like an actor."

Phil, in his NextGen Guide, in his Ruminations: While rescuing Riker, Worf hits a hospital staffperson with a fist, whereas he normally uses the base of his open palm.
It is quite common for fight experts to learn to use more than one type of fighting technique. Many people, for example, learn more than one type of martial arts, and in fact, there are numerous disciplines that involve the use of many different striking techniques. Wing-chung karate, for example, involves an entire array of different striking methods modeled after different animals forms, such as the monkey, the duck, the praying mantis, the snake, the eagle claw, tiger claw, etc. (Am I right, Paul? Help me out here!) I don’t see why you are so eager to conclude that, because someone on the show does something one way, that any deviation from that constitutes a plot hole or inconsistency. What you have to ask yourself is, Would not someone used to punching in one way in real life not use a different method at another time? Obviously, they would, and they do. Worf further demonstrates his martial versatility when he shows Riker how to use the Tilonian knife (his accidentally cutting Riker notwithstanding.)

Phil, in his NextGen Guide; PO#1: When Riker wakes up on the surgical table toward the end of the episode, his makeup is wrong. He should be surgically altered to look like a Tilonian.
Phil, how do you know the Tilonians didn’t remove his surgical prosthetics after they captured him?

I hear Klingon drugstores sell them right next to the condoms
After Worf accidentally cuts Riker with the dagger in Act 1, Crusher heals the cut with a dermal regenerator in sickbay. Curiously, not only does the device heal the cut, but causes the blood that ran down the side of his face to disappear!
Then again, Riker is missing a few french fries from his Happy Meal in this episode…
In Riker’s "delusion," Crusher comes to him in the eating area, saying she’s posing as a health official. If Riker imagined this, wouldn’t Crusher be disguised as a Tilonian?

Does anyone know if the script Riker is performing from is available anywhere?

Considering his comments in the TNG Companion, I doubt Braga bothered to write more of the play than actually appears in the show (i.e., the last scene). That task is left to the fan-fiction writers and versatile holograms.

Why are they sending the Second in Command of the ship on a rescue mission?

Why would the rescuer need to be disguised as a Tilonian merchant? Why not just beam him down to the research team's
headquarters? For that matter, why even send anyone down at all? Can't they just beam the research team up? If the research team
has already been captured, then why not scan the planet or non-Tilonian life signs?

Why would a health inspection even be allowed during a political upheaval?

Crusher mentions that she and the stage crew were going to take down the set the next day. First of all, the play had been performed before Riker went down to the planet and apparently no more performances were planned. So why didn't Crusher and the stage crew take the set down when Riker was on Tilonus? Secondly, is Stage Crew a genuine position for someone serving aboard a starship or were they just volunteers?

I imagine the stage crew were people from many and various walks on the Enterprise who were helping out on the play, given that that's simply the title given to the various non-director non-actor people on a stage production. (Same as Dr Crusher here was the director, but obviously that's not her appointed Starfleet position!)

This episode bears a striking resemblence to "Dagger of the Mind" (TOS)

The shattering effect was indeed cool, but it is inconsistent with real life. When one wakes from a dream, it's usually in a flash...like in "Night Terrors".

"47" ALERT!

Riker was admitted to Ward 47.

Data uses contractions in the play. For example, one of his lines is, "You're becoming agitated." What does this mean? Maybe he is physically CAPABLE of using a contraction, but would just not use it in ordinary speech. However, this seems to contradict his statement about Lal (something to the effect of, "She can use contractions. I cannot.")

I like when the series plays it dark and surreal, and there's some great momements in this episode.

Two things that I found: In the last round of shatterings, when he appears on the stage, I'm not sure, but I think Riker's phaser disappears. (Then again, it's in his mind)

Secondly, when Riker is having a bad day, they usually show his woes by giving him a bad hair day as well. THis time, it's a lot less convincing, however. . .it looks like he's growing out a mohawk.

We have seen data use contractions in a couple other places. For example, in "In Theory," Data says "Honey, I'm home." The impression I always got is that data is capable of using contraction if he's quoting something he got from someone else, he's just not capable of figuring out how to construct his own sentences using them. I cannot see any reason why Data's mouth would be physically incapable of forming the words.

for Joel: Data said Im Data to Sarjenko in Pen Pals, instead of I am Data!

guess he is pretending to be Lore

During the last of Riker's delusions, when he had a phaser and made that shattering effect, he was supposedly increasing intensity but was pressing both increase and decrease buttons, including the trigger and another button that doesn't exist I believe.

How could he be pushing a botton that doesn't exist?????

That was the point. I haven't watched this ep since I last posted but I believe his thumb was pressing random areas on the phaser, one of which did not contain a button but still made a sound as if it did.

You said that he pushed a botton that didn't exist, not an area that didn't have a botton, thats why I was confused.

for Joel: Data said Im Data to Sarjenko in Pen Pals, instead of I am Data!

True, so perhaps on occasion Data simply forgot that he couldn't use contractions, the point is, we have never heard Data substitute a contraction for its non-contracted equivalent when quoting something, and all precedent would seem to establish that he can use contraction in quotes.

In the briefing at the start of the episode Picard says that the factions are looking for weapons technology. While this occurs in Riker's mind this does make sense, since Federation weapons would provide a significant advantage being more advanced/powerful. At the end however Picard says the factions were after strategic information. What kind of strategic information is Riker going to have that would be of any use to the factions? Wasn't one of the main reasons he was down there the lack of information about the factions? What use would knowing where Starfleet has ships or bases help any of the factions?

Having watched carefully I can confirm that when Riker is apparently setting his phaser to wide beam full power setting he hits the trigger three times. Phasers have three buttons, the top two are for intensity and beam width. The larger one at the bottom is the trigger. In order to change to full power wide beam Riker only needs to touch the top two buttons followed by the trigger to fire.

So, you find an enemy agent, subdue them, take them to a hidden compound then hook them up to a machine to try and get information out of them. Does it seem reasonable to decide to place all their equipment on a table next to them so when they wake up that instantly have access to a weapon and communications?

I think the phaser design is a little screwy to have the two adjustment buttons set right next to the really big trigger button. "Let's see, I'll just set this to stu- ah ••••, what did I vaporize?"

The three main Tilonians, Syrus, Suna, and Mavek, seemed real at first, but then apparently only Suna was real at the end. Syrus seemed like he was good and that he wanted to help Riker, but the other two were not as nice!

Mavek was taller than Riker and Worf (they're both 6'4"), but not necessarily more muscular. Interesting that they were able to find a good sci-fi actor that would make even Riker look small. I thought he was funny when he talked to Jaya about her "talking to her starship again". Heh heh!

Also, the spiny lobefish that Mavek served to Riker, he did not eat much of it. I don't think he liked it.

Anyway, this is definetly one of my favorite sixth-season eps, even though Brannon Braga wrote it. The same goes for "Timescape", that one was really good too.

One more thing. The silver-looking ceremonial dagger that Worf accidently cut Riker with looked a lot like a Sai dagger that has been used by many fictional ninjas, such as:

Raphael, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
Elektra, an assassin in the Marvel Comics Universe.
And Mileena, a character from the Mortal Kombat video games.

And Raphael and Elektra both wear red, but Mileena wears purple. But they all wield the sais quite effeciently!