The Doctor Who episode "The God Complex" had the Tivolians, essentially the same race concept as the Mizarians. It actually went deeper into deconstructing their cultural norms. To quote Doctor 11, " 'Your civilisation is one of the oldest in the galaxy. Now I see why. Cowardice isn't quaint. It's sly... aggressive." By refusing to compete, these creatures actually outcompete everybody else. Once you see honour as a defect, you can last forever.
I’m always fascinated by the argument that Starfleet is not a military organization...Of course it’s a military organization. It has military ranks, military training, they use weapons of War, and they participate in armed conflicts. It’s the military branch of the Federation.
I think the idea of the Mizarians is about their will to survive. To have the most of them survive. Now, there's no guarantee that capitulation wouldn't lead to their extermination, but if you're willing to be subjugated. Or to be taken advantage of. It reminds me to a small degree to Tyr Anasazi from Andromeda. If you're a slave, but alive, you can someday not be a slave. If you're dead your dead. The whole "Where there's life, there's hope" mentality. An interesting species idea that they never talk about again. I'm pretty sure this is the only time we see a "Bolian" with hair.
Had a insincere moment, found this episode by chance, watched it and immediately went to your ruminations. Sometimes, you do make a difference. Thanks. Sincerely.
I think Crusher had to know what had happened on the bridge - we've already established she doesn't want a fling with Picard, so she wouldn't be coming onto him now. It's a fun episode, though it doesn't really stand up to close examination. The aliens, as you mentioned, have inconsistent power levels, putting a plant in the prison seems unnecessary and a good way to ruin your own experiment (why not just kidnap a real cadet)? Still, there's a lot of fun moments with the fake captain; I enjoy watching it.
If those aliens are in constant and total telepathic communication with each other, Troy should have been able to sense something really weird in fake Picard's mind.
Good morning. as I write this at about 7am my time. So Lore, my big moment of contemplation out of this one comes as a bit of a strange thing here so please bear with me. The people from the pacifist species having been conquered so many times in the last few centuries sparked in my head a similar race from another sci-fi series, Dr. Who. The species in quest has the dubious honor of being from the most invaded planet in the universe, and the character we are exposed to in the episode where they are brought up is a city planner who was working on putting trees along the roads so invading armies can march in the shade. Anyway what really sparked my thought on this is the guy in Allegiance from the pacifist race and the one from doctor who both have a moment of break from what we would assume the S.O.P. of being like that to expose a different side of their cultural psyches. If you ever get around to Doctor Who new series 6 "The God Complex" I'd like to see your take on and comparison of the two. As always have a great day.
On the ending, I think Crusher knows it is the real Picard and she's teasing him. Picard doesn't know everything the fake him did in his absents so Crusher is just messing with him a little bit.
I found it hilarious how they couldn’t beam out of an internal force field, but they beamed through the shield three, possibly four times. I guess the internal emitters are just stronger or something.
One thing which privately amuses me about this episode - Thaal's headdress is basically identical in shape to the one worn by His Divine Shadow in the Canadian-German sci-fi show "Lexx". Normally His Shadow is all in black, but there's an episode where they do a chess thing and the White pieces are all the show's villains, with a white version of His Shadow as the Bishop. I could believe the props department at Salter Street Productions GMBH could have actually bought Thaal's headdress, copied it in black for His Shadow, and then used the original for that chess episode.
28:27 "There's too many times when someone's acting out of the ordinary in Star Trek and everyone just goes with it." It's the exact opposite. They always seem to almost magically deduce things that could be explained by mood fluctuations or some kind of personal preoccupation they are not aware of.
It’s a good take on the oft tread “invasion of the body snatchers” trope. I would say, finally a good one, compared to the 2 previous times. It’s been done so often it’s hard to keep it fresh. Every franchise does it. Space: 1999 too. Timing is key to prevent the audience from going “oh, please, not again!” The other characters can’t be blind/stupid, they can’t take too long to finally notice and take action. I still think it took just a bit too long. 🔸The abductors got off very easy. After all they almost caused the destruction of the ship. I would’ve put them in the brig sedated. 🔹I’ve always said that it should be a required course at the academy: how to recognize possession. Because it WILL happen sooner or later. Imagine an incompetent crew… How many ships have been lost because the captain got possessed or replaced?
I remember a different Kota Picard - how did you know it was not me then? Riker - I do not remember my Captain singing Shanties to his crew... here (hands him the report) Picard(automatically) - I'll enjoy reading (thinking) or... maybe not (music laughs) - [fades to black] PS: the seen with crusher, I always thought, was her testing, is THIS the real Picard... they could have just sent a "better" imposter this time.
Perhaps this is not the first time they've done this, and so have learned to counter most attempts to escape. As for the forcefield, I don't think it's their reaction was that strange. They were surprised and panicked by it. A perfectly reasonable reaction when you suddenly find yourself in a very small confined space.
One thing I thought of listening to this is why fake Picard acts like he does. We can assume that fake Picard was created using some sort of brain scan of real Picard, as he know who he is and knows Worf by name just after appearing. What if fake Picard is taking all of real Picard’s memories/feelings and acting on them just in a way that real Picard wouldn’t? Like he goes to Riker and Troi and asks about the crew, real Picard is obviously concerned about the people under him. He asks Crusher on a date, because Picard has feelings for her. Real Picard would never act on these feelings or wouldn’t be so direct in asking about things. Getting a medical to show he’s okay goes back to “Samaritan Snare” where he didn’t want his crew to see his weakness. And his singing with the crew is something I could see real Picard wanting to be like, but not being that sort of person, which we see in a way in “All Good Things” when he wanted to join the poker games but never did. Basically Picard has a lot of regrets about who and how he is and that he can’t/doesn’t feel able to do what he wants, and this fake Picard took that and ran with it. I suppose this could be what Picard would have been like had he not had the fight shown in “Tapestry”, had he been able to make captain without it.
That is certainly a reasonable extrapolation on the episode as we see it, but it's not one that I think the episode earns, or that we can credit the writers with.
LMAO Naussicans are just cheap copies of The Predator species - Yautja...with undersized jaws. And sure I might go out with Picard if he asked me out lolz :P
The problem is, that Crusher is under Picard's chain of command. The military doesn't so much prohibit members dating each other, but you can't date someone who is under your chain of command. The reason has to do with consent. If your boss wants to have sex, you can't really consent to that, because you can't *NOT* consent.
This is a common misconception founded in an absolute lack of faith in people's self-discipline, even though military organizations go to great pains to instill discipline into those who serve. The idea that someone can't possibly separate their professional and personal relationships to another person is kinda dumb. Some people probably can't manage that, sure, but some people absolutely can, so instead of a blanket prohibition they should handle this on a case-by-case basis. If your CO knows you and can trust your judgment, they should be able to authorize you to go ahead, or even approve post-hoc of something you started doing in the field because you felt that you were in the right to do it. The mentality of "just say no" in these issues is basically the approach of a weaselly lawyer who doesn't want to risk being exposed to liability.
One of my top 20 actually I always liked this Mizarian when I first saw him, it was one of the more unique make-up jobs they've done. In the Star Trek series I invented in my head (as I'm sure we all have) I have a Mizar Dr. Lonn and that their species reproduce asexually with egg laying. I wonder who's conquered them? Klingons and Andorians come to mind, maybe the Nausicans. The other alien, I thought was a Nausican for the longest time, make-up is so close - until the last time I saw it so close. The Bolian girl, I never thought of them with hair, so her hair stands out as an oddity among Bolians. Throughs me off. Imposter Picard's performance was great, I think Patrick really enjoyed this And Beverley just doesn't know what to think, we all get to imagine the conversation after the episode, I'd like to think she doesn't believe him;)
In terms of how to pronounce Winrich Kolbe hes was a German so the W if i'm not mistaken makes a V sound. as for his last name your guess is as good as mine i'm not trying to be a pretentious ass i just know Germans get pissy when you say there names wrong
Gotta disagree with you on this one, Lore. This is boring, boring, boring and doesn't really make much sense when I stop and think about it. 1.) The A-plot. The whole prison room story-line is just so boring and borderline nonsensical. It an attempt to understand the concept of leadership these aliens bring together three people with different responses to authority. The problem is that the writers seem to have completely misunderstood what these responses should be. A.) Apparently, since Tholl is a pacifist, that means he's a complete coward. That's a really nice message to send, especially for a show that's so set on being non-militaristic. B.) Picard shows no real leadership here. Apparently, leadership means simply barking orders at people. C.) Esoqq is the worst offender. The writers seem to have confused anarchy and chaos. It's beaten into our heads that Esoqq is an anarchist and obeys no rules. No. Anarchy is the absence of 'rulers' not 'rules' (that extra 'r' in that word makes a world of difference). Esoqq is an agent of chaos, not anarchy. I, myself, am not an anarchist but I do know enough about anarchist philosophy to know that just because you don't have someone giving orders it doesn't mean that you don't follow rules. For good examples of anarchy in fiction read Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed" (for a left-wing, or communal, style of anarchism). For a more right-wing (or individualistic) form of anarchy, look no further than the Hobbits in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". In both instances the people have no rulers but still follow a set of society-based rules. 2.) The B-plot. While I agree that it is often infuriating when Trek characters are written to not notice someone acting differently, in this case the writers take it too far in the opposite direction. This crew sure seems ready to mutiny at the slightest provocation all of the sudden. Fake-Picard's first order of business is to order a course change and everyone on the bridge immediately breaks out their Shifty Eyes and offers startled expressions. Fake-Picard starts singing in Ten-Forward and the entire senior crew assembles to discuss the possibility of mutiny. Damn, I'd love to see how these people would react if Picard ever had to go implement the Omega Directive. Their heads would probably collectively explode. 3.) Fake-Picard. You know, it's not good when the the whole point being put across is that the normal Captain we all know and love is really just a stick-in-the-mud who never has any fun. Seriously, Fake-Picard seems like a much more interesting and fun-loving guy that the real Picard. He drinks with his crew, visits the poker game, sings songs, isn't afraid to heavily flirt with beautiful women, etc. Meanwhile, our "hero" likes to bark orders at people and read alone until he falls asleep. Hmm.... I wonder why Patrick Stewart was thinking of leaving the show. 4.)Tholl and Esoqq. What happened to them? No, seriously. What the hell happened to them after they were removed from the cell. Why do we never get a single word about their fates? You would think that Picard would at least be interested in finding out if they're okay. But no! Apparently Picard just thinks... "Ah, screw them. I can't be bothered to care about those losers. After all, we have a rendezvous to keep with the Hood." In my own head-canon they were returned to their planets like Picard was returned to the Enterprise, but a little follow-up would have been nice. 2/10
I'd give it 4/10 since the characters in the prison are interestingly presented, and there's some good chemistry between fake Picard and Crusher. It's a kind of a fun episode, but in a "turn off your brain" way, which is not what I watch Trek for. I think you could improve the episode a lot by switching some scenes with Lonely Among Us, as they have the near-mutiny situation with Riker in this episode which never goes anywhere, and the same thing happened in Lonely but it actually progressed a little farther (to end very stupidly, but still, in this one they just utterly drop the ball instead). Mostly, though, all the stuff on the Enterprise is largely bad, and the prison is only okay.
This episode is appealing on a surface level, but extremely dumb almost all the way through. I would call it a *worse* version of Lonely Among Us (minus the interesting half of that episode), with a fake Picard instead of a possessed one, whose actions make no sense and who basically just wastes time for no reason. The three prisoners in the cell with real Picard are interesting individuals, but the Myzarian species as portrayed here is incredibly stupid - supposedly this race will collaborate with anyone to achieve peace, but 1) that doesn't work if you run into people who just want to kill you and can't be appeased, which describes a lot of bad-guy races in Star Trek, and 2) even if Myzarians in general are these peaceniks, Thaal is incredibly rude and confrontational to Essok as well as the other two, and clearly has no idea how to appease a potential conqueror in order to ensure that he's left alone. Combine that with the aliens' absolute randomness, where "experiments to learn how we react" just means "fling out a bunch of crap and see what happens", with no sense of a plan or goal apparent (even the aliens in Voyager's episode Scientific Method were more coherent than this), and the extremely convenient "we cannot tolerate captivity" at the end....it's just a bad structure which accomplishes almost nothing. Most of season 1 is better than this IMO.
I liked the line, "It's edible, but I wouldn't call it food." So it must be McDonald's then.
The Doctor Who episode "The God Complex" had the Tivolians, essentially the same race concept as the Mizarians. It actually went deeper into deconstructing their cultural norms. To quote Doctor 11, " 'Your civilisation is one of the oldest in the galaxy. Now I see why. Cowardice isn't quaint. It's sly... aggressive." By refusing to compete, these creatures actually outcompete everybody else. Once you see honour as a defect, you can last forever.
The Tivoli from New Doctor Who are like the Mizar. "We're lining the streets with trees so that our conquerors can be in the shade when they arrive".
Their national anthem is "Glory To Insert Name Here."
@@wratched yes, I loved that line 😉
This reminded of TOS Episode. Including the last minute reflecting in a light hearted manner with Picard and Riker and Picard and Dr. Crusher.
I’m always fascinated by the argument that Starfleet is not a military organization...Of course it’s a military organization. It has military ranks, military training, they use weapons of War, and they participate in armed conflicts. It’s the military branch of the Federation.
I think the idea of the Mizarians is about their will to survive. To have the most of them survive. Now, there's no guarantee that capitulation wouldn't lead to their extermination, but if you're willing to be subjugated. Or to be taken advantage of. It reminds me to a small degree to Tyr Anasazi from Andromeda. If you're a slave, but alive, you can someday not be a slave. If you're dead your dead. The whole "Where there's life, there's hope" mentality. An interesting species idea that they never talk about again.
I'm pretty sure this is the only time we see a "Bolian" with hair.
Had a insincere moment, found this episode by chance, watched it and immediately went to your ruminations. Sometimes, you do make a difference. Thanks. Sincerely.
I think Crusher had to know what had happened on the bridge - we've already established she doesn't want a fling with Picard, so she wouldn't be coming onto him now.
It's a fun episode, though it doesn't really stand up to close examination. The aliens, as you mentioned, have inconsistent power levels, putting a plant in the prison seems unnecessary and a good way to ruin your own experiment (why not just kidnap a real cadet)? Still, there's a lot of fun moments with the fake captain; I enjoy watching it.
16:15. In a shuttle in Season 2 Picard told Westley about his bar brawl with the Nausicans and him getting skewered through the heart
If those aliens are in constant and total telepathic communication with each other, Troy should have been able to sense something really weird in fake Picard's mind.
Sometimes I wonder if they even remembered from episode to episode how powerful or powerless Troi is.
Good morning. as I write this at about 7am my time. So Lore, my big moment of contemplation out of this one comes as a bit of a strange thing here so please bear with me. The people from the pacifist species having been conquered so many times in the last few centuries sparked in my head a similar race from another sci-fi series, Dr. Who. The species in quest has the dubious honor of being from the most invaded planet in the universe, and the character we are exposed to in the episode where they are brought up is a city planner who was working on putting trees along the roads so invading armies can march in the shade. Anyway what really sparked my thought on this is the guy in Allegiance from the pacifist race and the one from doctor who both have a moment of break from what we would assume the S.O.P. of being like that to expose a different side of their cultural psyches. If you ever get around to Doctor Who new series 6 "The God Complex" I'd like to see your take on and comparison of the two. As always have a great day.
I think that Crusher was testing Picard to make sure he was him.
On the ending, I think Crusher knows it is the real Picard and she's teasing him. Picard doesn't know everything the fake him did in his absents so Crusher is just messing with him a little bit.
The glance works for me because Picard also moves to physically place the two aliens between him and Riker. It hammers home what the glance means.
I found it hilarious how they couldn’t beam out of an internal force field, but they beamed through the shield three, possibly four times.
I guess the internal emitters are just stronger or something.
One thing which privately amuses me about this episode - Thaal's headdress is basically identical in shape to the one worn by His Divine Shadow in the Canadian-German sci-fi show "Lexx". Normally His Shadow is all in black, but there's an episode where they do a chess thing and the White pieces are all the show's villains, with a white version of His Shadow as the Bishop. I could believe the props department at Salter Street Productions GMBH could have actually bought Thaal's headdress, copied it in black for His Shadow, and then used the original for that chess episode.
28:27 "There's too many times when someone's acting out of the ordinary in Star Trek and everyone just goes with it."
It's the exact opposite. They always seem to almost magically deduce things that could be explained by mood fluctuations or some kind of personal preoccupation they are not aware of.
Patrick Stewart is an amazing actor
It’s a good take on the oft tread “invasion of the body snatchers” trope. I would say, finally a good one, compared to the 2 previous times. It’s been done so often it’s hard to keep it fresh. Every franchise does it. Space: 1999 too.
Timing is key to prevent the audience from going “oh, please, not again!” The other characters can’t be blind/stupid, they can’t take too long to finally notice and take action. I still think it took just a bit too long.
🔸The abductors got off very easy. After all they almost caused the destruction of the ship. I would’ve put them in the brig sedated.
🔹I’ve always said that it should be a required course at the academy: how to recognize possession. Because it WILL happen sooner or later.
Imagine an incompetent crew… How many ships have been lost because the captain got possessed or replaced?
I remember a different Kota
Picard - how did you know it was not me then?
Riker - I do not remember my Captain singing Shanties to his crew... here (hands him the report)
Picard(automatically) - I'll enjoy reading (thinking) or... maybe not (music laughs) - [fades to black]
PS: the seen with crusher, I always thought, was her testing, is THIS the real Picard... they could have just sent a "better" imposter this time.
This is a very good talk.
12:08 in scifi? Most of them!! And the master override procedure is always the same, smash or blast the thing and the door opens.
Perhaps this is not the first time they've done this, and so have learned to counter most attempts to escape. As for the forcefield, I don't think it's their reaction was that strange. They were surprised and panicked by it. A perfectly reasonable reaction when you suddenly find yourself in a very small confined space.
One thing I thought of listening to this is why fake Picard acts like he does. We can assume that fake Picard was created using some sort of brain scan of real Picard, as he know who he is and knows Worf by name just after appearing. What if fake Picard is taking all of real Picard’s memories/feelings and acting on them just in a way that real Picard wouldn’t? Like he goes to Riker and Troi and asks about the crew, real Picard is obviously concerned about the people under him. He asks Crusher on a date, because Picard has feelings for her. Real Picard would never act on these feelings or wouldn’t be so direct in asking about things. Getting a medical to show he’s okay goes back to “Samaritan Snare” where he didn’t want his crew to see his weakness. And his singing with the crew is something I could see real Picard wanting to be like, but not being that sort of person, which we see in a way in “All Good Things” when he wanted to join the poker games but never did. Basically Picard has a lot of regrets about who and how he is and that he can’t/doesn’t feel able to do what he wants, and this fake Picard took that and ran with it. I suppose this could be what Picard would have been like had he not had the fight shown in “Tapestry”, had he been able to make captain without it.
That is certainly a reasonable extrapolation on the episode as we see it, but it's not one that I think the episode earns, or that we can credit the writers with.
I think crusher is the really wise one here
I think she came to check that this Picard is not another fake....
Never dip your pen in the company ink.
the devil is in the details
LMAO Naussicans are just cheap copies of The Predator species - Yautja...with undersized jaws. And sure I might go out with Picard if he asked me out lolz :P
The problem is, that Crusher is under Picard's chain of command.
The military doesn't so much prohibit members dating each other, but you can't date someone who is under your chain of command.
The reason has to do with consent. If your boss wants to have sex, you can't really consent to that, because you can't *NOT* consent.
This is a common misconception founded in an absolute lack of faith in people's self-discipline, even though military organizations go to great pains to instill discipline into those who serve. The idea that someone can't possibly separate their professional and personal relationships to another person is kinda dumb. Some people probably can't manage that, sure, but some people absolutely can, so instead of a blanket prohibition they should handle this on a case-by-case basis. If your CO knows you and can trust your judgment, they should be able to authorize you to go ahead, or even approve post-hoc of something you started doing in the field because you felt that you were in the right to do it. The mentality of "just say no" in these issues is basically the approach of a weaselly lawyer who doesn't want to risk being exposed to liability.
Picard and Fakeard.
One of my top 20 actually
I always liked this Mizarian when I first saw him, it was one of the more unique make-up jobs they've done. In the Star Trek series I invented in my head (as I'm sure we all have) I have a Mizar Dr. Lonn and that their species reproduce asexually with egg laying.
I wonder who's conquered them? Klingons and Andorians come to mind, maybe the Nausicans.
The other alien, I thought was a Nausican for the longest time, make-up is so close - until the last time I saw it so close.
The Bolian girl, I never thought of them with hair, so her hair stands out as an oddity among Bolians. Throughs me off.
Imposter Picard's performance was great, I think Patrick really enjoyed this
And Beverley just doesn't know what to think, we all get to imagine the conversation after the episode, I'd like to think she doesn't believe him;)
Concerning the bullet point rumination: Short content is horrible! Please never do that! If anything, make them much longer!
I always thought the pink puck function as both food and water.
As of dating your coworkers what if you live with them.
Gelatin vitamin / mineral would work.
In terms of how to pronounce Winrich Kolbe hes was a German so the W if i'm not mistaken makes a V sound. as for his last name your guess is as good as mine i'm not trying to be a pretentious ass i just know Germans get pissy when you say there names wrong
the smirk ending just hit it's limits for me with humorous endings. It was just kinda cringe lol
Gotta disagree with you on this one, Lore. This is boring, boring, boring and doesn't really make much sense when I stop and think about it.
1.) The A-plot.
The whole prison room story-line is just so boring and borderline nonsensical. It an attempt to understand the concept of leadership these aliens bring together three people with different responses to authority. The problem is that the writers seem to have completely misunderstood what these responses should be. A.) Apparently, since Tholl is a pacifist, that means he's a complete coward. That's a really nice message to send, especially for a show that's so set on being non-militaristic. B.) Picard shows no real leadership here. Apparently, leadership means simply barking orders at people. C.) Esoqq is the worst offender. The writers seem to have confused anarchy and chaos. It's beaten into our heads that Esoqq is an anarchist and obeys no rules. No. Anarchy is the absence of 'rulers' not 'rules' (that extra 'r' in that word makes a world of difference). Esoqq is an agent of chaos, not anarchy. I, myself, am not an anarchist but I do know enough about anarchist philosophy to know that just because you don't have someone giving orders it doesn't mean that you don't follow rules. For good examples of anarchy in fiction read Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed" (for a left-wing, or communal, style of anarchism). For a more right-wing (or individualistic) form of anarchy, look no further than the Hobbits in Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". In both instances the people have no rulers but still follow a set of society-based rules.
2.) The B-plot.
While I agree that it is often infuriating when Trek characters are written to not notice someone acting differently, in this case the writers take it too far in the opposite direction. This crew sure seems ready to mutiny at the slightest provocation all of the sudden. Fake-Picard's first order of business is to order a course change and everyone on the bridge immediately breaks out their Shifty Eyes and offers startled expressions. Fake-Picard starts singing in Ten-Forward and the entire senior crew assembles to discuss the possibility of mutiny. Damn, I'd love to see how these people would react if Picard ever had to go implement the Omega Directive. Their heads would probably collectively explode.
3.) Fake-Picard.
You know, it's not good when the the whole point being put across is that the normal Captain we all know and love is really just a stick-in-the-mud who never has any fun. Seriously, Fake-Picard seems like a much more interesting and fun-loving guy that the real Picard. He drinks with his crew, visits the poker game, sings songs, isn't afraid to heavily flirt with beautiful women, etc. Meanwhile, our "hero" likes to bark orders at people and read alone until he falls asleep. Hmm.... I wonder why Patrick Stewart was thinking of leaving the show.
4.)Tholl and Esoqq.
What happened to them? No, seriously. What the hell happened to them after they were removed from the cell. Why do we never get a single word about their fates? You would think that Picard would at least be interested in finding out if they're okay. But no! Apparently Picard just thinks... "Ah, screw them. I can't be bothered to care about those losers. After all, we have a rendezvous to keep with the Hood." In my own head-canon they were returned to their planets like Picard was returned to the Enterprise, but a little follow-up would have been nice.
2/10
I'd give it 4/10 since the characters in the prison are interestingly presented, and there's some good chemistry between fake Picard and Crusher. It's a kind of a fun episode, but in a "turn off your brain" way, which is not what I watch Trek for. I think you could improve the episode a lot by switching some scenes with Lonely Among Us, as they have the near-mutiny situation with Riker in this episode which never goes anywhere, and the same thing happened in Lonely but it actually progressed a little farther (to end very stupidly, but still, in this one they just utterly drop the ball instead). Mostly, though, all the stuff on the Enterprise is largely bad, and the prison is only okay.
This episode is appealing on a surface level, but extremely dumb almost all the way through. I would call it a *worse* version of Lonely Among Us (minus the interesting half of that episode), with a fake Picard instead of a possessed one, whose actions make no sense and who basically just wastes time for no reason. The three prisoners in the cell with real Picard are interesting individuals, but the Myzarian species as portrayed here is incredibly stupid - supposedly this race will collaborate with anyone to achieve peace, but 1) that doesn't work if you run into people who just want to kill you and can't be appeased, which describes a lot of bad-guy races in Star Trek, and 2) even if Myzarians in general are these peaceniks, Thaal is incredibly rude and confrontational to Essok as well as the other two, and clearly has no idea how to appease a potential conqueror in order to ensure that he's left alone. Combine that with the aliens' absolute randomness, where "experiments to learn how we react" just means "fling out a bunch of crap and see what happens", with no sense of a plan or goal apparent (even the aliens in Voyager's episode Scientific Method were more coherent than this), and the extremely convenient "we cannot tolerate captivity" at the end....it's just a bad structure which accomplishes almost nothing. Most of season 1 is better than this IMO.