Summary[]
Riker, Troi and Data are going to investigate an old-fashioned distress call from a moon of Mab-Bu VI, but their shuttle crashes. After O'Brien has beamed down to rescue them, all but the injured Riker start to behave strangely. After a failed attempt to take over the bridge, they take hostages in Ten Forward.
Troi's, Data's and O'Brien's bodies have been taken over by entities who claim to be the spirits of the crew of the USS Essex that was lost at the moon over two hundred years ago. Their violent behavior, however, belies this story. The three are actually possessed by aliens who have been condemned to living in a penal colony.
They finally coerce Picard into beaming up the remaining criminals. But Picard threatens to blow them all, including his three officers and himself, out of the airlock, whereupon the entities leave their host bodies and return to their prison.
Errors and Explanations[]
The Nitpicker's Guide
Next Generation Trekkers
Volume 2[]
Plot Oversights[]
- Troi leaning back in the chair just before the shuttle crash. She is ensuring there is enough space for her head to move forward without hitting the console.
- Riker knowing that Troi was involved in the attempt to taks control of the ship, despite being rendered unconsious while Troi was still in the captain's ready room. Riker noticed that Picard was on his own when he entered the bridge, and that Troi was absent along with Data and O'Brien, who had already attacked him.
Nit Central[]
- Chris Thomas on Tuesday, June 22, 1999 - 3:56 am: 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...It could be a one way field, designed to stop them getting out.
- ltdodd on Thursday, August 02, 2001 - 2:25 am: 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 They may have detected something that warranted further investigation, and somehow got caught in the gravitational field.
- Makgraf on Tuesday, February 12, 2002 - 10:09 pm: 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 plenty of time to (and the motivation). They couldn't risk being overpowered by the medical team.
- 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. Too risky – use of phasers in that situation could have resulted in the situation getting worse.
- Will on Monday, March 18, 2002 - 10:20 am: 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. The shuttlepod may have been regarded as more manoeuvrable.
- Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Wednesday, April 10, 2002 - 5:51 am: 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. The signal is probably being distorted by the magnetic storms.
- 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. Their last reported position may have been inacurately recorded.
- 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. The manual release may have been damaged in the crash.
- 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.If he had been under the influence of the aliens, he woulld have joined the others in attempting to seize control of the ship.
- 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. LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, April 10, 2002 - 8:10 pm: 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.
- rich on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 6:37 pm: 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 Star Trek a red alert is called for almost no reason. Of course, if he had then there would have been no hostages, etc, etc. He didn't have enough information to justify Red Alert.
Ex Astris Scientia[]
- How could these aliens know any details on the USS Essex? They must have possessed survivors from the crew of the Essex.