This is kind of a "meh" episode for me. Almost all of their murder mystery stories fall a little flat for me and an empathic murder mystery does the same. I liked the teasing of a relationship between Worf and Troi at the time, but it wasn't really the best setting for it. So, I'll throw this one in the hopper of episodes that indicated how the series was starting to run out of steam in its last season.
It begins with an emergency situation. They're losing containment in a nacelle tube. This is the first time we get to see a nacelle tube from the inside and it's really cool looking. Someone has locked out the controls and Riker and Worf are dispatched to help via the Jeffries Tubes. When they get there they see another crewman up by the nacelle tube getting ready to jump in. Lt. Nara, who is in charge, tells them that he locked out the controls. Riker puts Worf on trying to stabilize things while he tries to talk to the crewman, Lt. Kwan. He tries to calm him down but Kwan can only give cryptic remarks about people laughing at him. Worf and Nara release the controls and try to shut things down but they don't have time. Kwan tells Riker he knows what he has to do and jumps into the plasma flow in the nacelle, vaporizing immediately. Everyone is horrified. When they're talking about him later, Troi notes that during crew evaluations he seemed to be a normal and positive person who liked his new post to the nacelle area. Riker concurs and Worf wonders if he'd left a note or explanation behind. Picard has never had to notify a family about a suicide before so he assigns Worf and Troi to investigate giving them permission to search Kwan's quarters. This is a logical pairing. Worf is like the cop and Troi the forensic psychologist in this case so it makes sense for them to work together. Their assignment to get medical supplies to a distant colony is urgent and we move to Geordi assuring Picard that he can have them going in an hour. He and Data have a brief and poignant conversation about suicide. One of the best parts of Data is that he was observational of human behavior and his questions about survival instincts being in conflict with suicide is good food for thought. Then he relates his own story of how he'd toyed with the notion of shutting himself down while his neural net was still forming because with every new pathway formed to replace others the chance of having complete cascade failure increased. But he decided to look at it as a challenge to overcome. It's a much better conversation when you hear it in real time and one of the best parts of the episode. Back in Kwan's quarters, Worf and Troi are puzzled with how normal everything seems. He has a picture of his girlfriend Ensign Calloway who works in Sickbay, on his table and his last log entry is cheerful like that of someone looking forward to the rest of his life.
Troi then talks to Ensign Calloway about Kwan. She had no reason to think he'd commit suicide either. She tells Troi that he'd mentioned Lt. Nara, but only that he sensed that she felt threatened by him; that she felt he was after her job. Troi is not surprised since Kwan's race was partially telepathic. But they agree that something went horribly wrong to make him commit suicide. So Troi goes to the nacelle tube to question Nara. From her we learn that Kwan worked on the Enterpise when it was being built at Utopia Planitia. Nara admits things were shaky between them at first because he was so ambitious, but that they got along fine once he was settled in. She can't think of anything that would've made him snap either. When Nara is called away, Troi goes to look at Kwan's work station and ventures up the ladder to the opening of the nacelle tube. She's immediately overwhelmed with emotions to the point of nausea and hurries back down the ladder. In Sickbay she describes the emotions that she was hit with as fear, rage, and panic which are more consistent with a suicide. The feelings weren't coming from anyone because she was there alone. She doesn't think it's likely that it had anything to do with Kwan being partially empathic and finds the idea of him having left an "empathic echo" unlikely as well. She wants to go back, but Crusher forbids it for a few hours until the levels of a neurotransmitter in her brain involved with telepathy return to normal. Riker orders Worf to go with her next time. So while she's resting up Worf comes to see her to ask if she's found out anything more about Kwan. She hasn't and they discuss her telepathy. She tells him that there was a person present for every empathic experience that she was sure of. The exception is that of her grandfather who used to speak only telepathically to her by the fire. Now the only time she can remember his stories is by the fire at her home. It's a sentimental thing of course, but Worf tells her that he's also sought visions in fire. You can see that he's attracted to her and now that they have something so intimate in common, he is interested in pursuing her. So he goes to Riker intending to ask his permission to see her. It's an awkward, funny conversation because he never just comes right out with the subject of Troi specifically. Riker finds his tense behavior humorous and Worf, embarrassed and frustrated, just decides to leave rather than press the issue.
So since the hours have passed. Worf takes Troi back to the nacelle area. She walks up to the tube again and asks Worf to open the door. He wants to know why but she doesn't know why herself. He opens the door and the computer begins a countdown until the plasma venting will begin. After a few seconds she starts to see visions. A dark haired woman is backing away from her screaming and begging her, "don't." She looks to the side and sees a strange man staring at her. She turns away from the tube so see the nacelle area abandoned and unfinished. She calls for Worf but he's not there. There's a toolbox marked Utopia Planitia. She hears noises coming from a junction room. She opens the door to see the dark haired woman and another man kissing. They look at her and start laughing. At that point Worf loudly asks Troi if she's alright and she comes out of her vision looking around disoriented as she sees that everything is back to normal. She reports what she saw to Picard, saying that everyone was looking at her but she was seeing through someone else's eyes. Picard assumes that she was seeing something Lt. Kwan saw eight years prior on Utopia Planitia while the nacelles were being built, but Troi is still not convinced that it's possible. He asks her if she recognized anyone in the vision. She says she never saw the woman or the man she was with at all, but the other strange man that was looking at her seemed familiar. So Picard tells her to go searching the crew files of people that built the Enterprise back then. She wants to go back to the nacelle without being overloaded with emotions so Crusher promises to make an inhibitor to block the neurotransmitter that is being affected. While waiting on that, she and Worf look over the manifest for Utopia Planitia. With thousands of people to sift through, Troi narrows it down to people who had served there and on the Enterprise. They come across the strange man. His name is Lt. Pierce and she now remembers that he'd transferred to the Enterprise six months ago so they go talk to him in Engineering. She questions him pretty harshly about having perhaps witnessed any fighting going on while Worf looks on. She tries to intimidate him by telling him that because she's empathic she can tell if he's lying, but later admits to Worf that she actually felt nothing from him at all, blaming the neuro inhibitor.
But Worf is impressed with her bluff and they talk all the way back to her quarters. They talk about taking a break from the investigation until the next day but instead of leaving Worf takes the initiative and he stays the night as they embrace passionately. But, looking back on it, not too passionately. It was great at the time, but it kind of went against everything that had been written on Klingon mating practices and how rough they are in the sack. Anyway, when they awake the next morning flush with happiness and wondering why they hadn't gotten together sooner, they are each called away. Troi for her inhibitor and Worf to help deliver medical supplies to the transporter room to be sent on to the colony. Crusher tells Troi the inhibitor will go into effect immediately and that she can always give her more. Worf enters the room with Ensign Calloway having helped her with the quarantine field in the transporter room. He has a very friendly manner with her that makes Troi tense, but she brushes it off when he turns his attention to her and they prepare to go to the nacelle room. But Calloway calls to Worf for help again and he tells Troi to go on without him. His demeanor with Calloway is very casual, much like that of Commander Riker's when he's around women and it makes Troi uneasy as she leaves. In the nacelle area she mentions to Geordi that she didn't remember seeing some of the panels when she had her UP vision. He affirms that they haven't been there long. She points to one that was a plasma conduit in her vision and Geordi tells her what is behind it. Nara says that Kwan was working there the day before he died but the only thing unusual about it was that this was the first time that panel had been opened since the ship was built. Geordi opens it for Troi and she immediately gets a flash of the dark haired woman screaming and begging again as well as the vision of Pierce in his workman's overalls. She's sure there's something in there. Data finds organic remains and they flash a beam inside to reveal part of a skeleton. Crusher confirms that the remains are human and gives Troi another dose of the inhibitor to prevent further visions. Worf goes to look at the UP files with Calloway. They find a picture of the frightened woman. She's listed as having disappeared and they begin to speculate as to whether it was an accident or murder. But Troi asks to see when Kwan was transferred to UP and it wasn't until after the woman disappeared so she now knows she wasn't seeing the events through Kwan's eyes. After thinking for a second she realizes that the image of Pierce that she saw was a reflection in a console and that he must have been seeing events from his point of view. Worf suggests talking to pierce again and thanks Calloway in a personal way that upsets Troi again. So she asks him if he regrets their time together the previous night and is worried about ruining their friendship. Worf assures her that he doesn't regret getting together with her, offers to talk to Pierce alone, and says he'll meet her in her quarters later. She agrees thinking that her feelings are flustered due to the inhibitor still. But later in her quarters when she hears the doorbell she turns to see Pierce. She calls security. He acts confused, telling her that Worf had told him that she wanted to talk to him. She asks him where Worf is as security arrives and he tells her that he's in Ensign Calloway's quarters. He has a malicious smile on his face as she leaves after telling security to hold him in his quarters.
She rushes to Calloway's quarters and instead of ringing her doorbell she overrides the lock and walks in on Calloway and Worf kissing. They look at Troi and begin laughing. Shocked and enraged she demands that they stop but they don't so she goes to a drawer, picks up a phaser, and shoots Worf dead. She panics and backs out of the room and runs into Pierce who tells her that she knows what she has to do. So she runs to the nacelle tube, opens the door, and climbs the ladder ready to throw herself in. Like Kwan, she too utters the phrase, "I know what I have to do," but as she getting ready to jump she's pulled back by Worf. Her clothes have changed, we once more hear the computer counting down for the plasma venting, and we see that everything that had happened since they went back to the nacelle tube the second time was a hallucination beginning at the point where
she had the first visions of Utopia Planitia. She's so happy to see that he's alive she rushes into his arms while he stands there a little confused.
She reports that she was having empathic hallucinations to Picard, her mind substituting elements from her own life to recreate what happened to Pierce. Data confirms that Pierce was a quarter Betazoid and that he and the other two that Troi saw were killed in a plasma discharge eight years prior. Troi suspects she knows what really happened - that Pierce's girlfriend was cheating on him and he killed them both before killing himself. Geordi also confirms that the discharge would eliminate all evidence of murder. They didn't find a body behind the panel that Troi told them about but they did find cellular residue with en empathic signature. It was the psychic photograph that triggered the hallucination in both her and Kwan. Troi is grateful that Worf pulled her back when he did, admitting that she would've jumped just like him. As they return to the bridge Worf asks her why she seemed surprised that he was alive and she tells him that he died in her hallucination. When he asks how, she gives him a flirty and enigmatic answer about a woman scorned which leaves him, once again, confused but also intrigued.
So, it all works out. The story is okay. Since telepathy isn't a real thing you can't find any real flaws. It just wasn't that cool of a mystery I think. A lot of people probably get mad when a series of events turns out to be only a "dream" or a hallucination in this case. I didn't mind it. The only thing that bothered me is that Troi knows Worf well enough to know that he's not a ladies man like Riker and therefore she should've been more aware that something was wrong with the way things were playing out during her hallucination. That's also why I say this wasn't the best environment to tease the Troi-Worf romance. Seeing Worf behaving like a smooth operator is a little too absurd to be believable. It's still and enjoyable episode. But I'll go three and a half stars on it as well.
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