I sure hope that wreck that Picard is locked inside has some kind of air conditioning, or at least a hole in the roof; that fire is burning pretty nicely, and where there's fire, there's smoke, which would make it hard to breath inside the ship, let alone the way it'll eat up all the oxygen.

In retrospect, this seems like a Voyager story, although it would have been even worse in that case.

This was just broadcast again last night in the NY area. Not particularly worth staying up to 1 am for. Oh well.

My copy of the guide is on loan so maybe Phil already pointed this out but what the heck does "Brace for impact" mean anyway?!! You would think that Picard and the Ambassador would have at the very least strapped themselves in, but no. They're lying on the floor when Picard comes to.

Then again, this is more of a continuing nit from TOS days.

On page 8 of the NextGen Guide II, in Phil's Ruminations, he mentions the number of men who kiss Picard. We have no idea what the sexual make up of the Lyaarans is, so referring to Voval as a man is just a guess.

Also on page 8, he comments on the Worf saying the ambassadors will be around for three days whereas Byleth says seven. Maybe Lyaaran days are only 10.29 hours long?

Troi is eating a Ktarian chocolate puff. Weren't the Ktarians the race that tried to take over the Federation in The Game? (Ah ha! The Ktarians were upset that the Federation was eating all their chocolate!)

Was I the only one who thought that the mother of the child who was being manhandled by Loqal showed extraordinary patience in letting a stranger touch her child?

Why didn't Picard realize that Voval was lying just prior to the crash? Voval says that there has been a system-wide power loss, but there are lights on and glancing at the instrument panels tells Picard that they have entered a power dampening field. If there is no power, how can the instruments determine this?

Before the crash it looked like Voval was wearing the necklace that Anna later wore. At the end of the episode, Anna touches the necklace and turns into Voval, but earlier she lost the necklace 'wrestling' with Picard, ran out of the ship without it and moments later Voval showed up. So did she/he need the necklace to change appearance or was grabbing the necklace just a reflex action?

Looking for Anna, Picard and Voval come to a precipice. Voval says that it runs several kilometers in either direction, but after a few steps Picard turns around and sees Anna standing by the edge and a rock wall is behind her, which would make it extremely difficult for anyone to travel along it for a kilometer. (And if you look at the cracks in the ground you can see that she stands less than a hundred yards from where Voval made that statement. Perhaps even closer, judging distances is not my specialty.)

At the end of the episode Voval says that he now understands, but didn't his mission fail? Did Picard explain everything Voval wanted to know about Intimacy, or did Picard and 'Anna' explore it on the way back? Picard did say he found their way of trying to understand things "Nice."

Byleth seems to have a thorough understanding of Antagonism, what he seems to want to understand is Violence.

During the poker game it looked like Byleth took three chips, but Worf accuses him of taking two. Did I miscount or did Worf?

I can't help but wonder how Picard felt after learning that "Anna" was really Voval...especially after kissing him.

Picard: I can't believe I kissed you...!
Shape-shifting Picard: Must've been your life long ambition!

Eric Pierpoint (Voval) was the star of the short-lived TV spinoff of Alien Nation. He has appeared in DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise as well.

And later appeared as Captain Sanders in For the Uniform(DS9) Kortar in Barge of the Dead(VOY), and Shiraht in Rogue Planet(ENT).

In the first act there's a scene where Troi tells the ambassador about the chocolate puff. She then actually feeds him a piece with her own fork! This seems to be highly inappropriate in this particular circumstance. Then again, maybe Troi sensed that he's an easy-going guy who wouldn't mind...

Since he didn't say anything about it then you can conclude that he didn't mind.

unless of course, he's in shock about it, and speechless.

He didn't looked shocked or speechless to me.

Byleth: "Let's fight, Worf! I want to learn about antagonism!"
Voval: "Let me kiss you, Picard. I want to learn about love."
"Troi: Here's some dessert, Ambasador Loquel."
Loquel: "With your own fork? Ewwwwwww!"
The episode made it pretty clear that these guys want to absorb lots of Federation culture, and in a really first-hand, hands-on manner. Between the other two guys getting into a fight with Worf to learn about antagonism, and staging the act of falling in love with Picard to learn about love, somehow I don't think being fed with Troi's fork when learning about pleasure is something that they'd mind.

When Ambassador Loquel (finally) leaves 10-Forward, he has a huge sugary drink in his hands. However, after he's done talking with the little boy, the sugary drink is no where in sight.

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When Picard leaves Ambassador Voval's crashed shuttle, he pushes a button to make the door open. However, Picard has to close the same door manually. Does this make any sense?