History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E17EyeOfTheBeholder

* HilariousOuttakes: In this [[https://youtu.be/PPHkeQ58_pQ clip]], the turbolift doors close on Michael Dorn too soon and he walks into them, leading to Marina Sirtis giving a genuine "Oh my God!"

* CluelessAesop: The episode is a bizarre and curiously awkward attempt at an anti-suicide PSA, but they botch it by trying to have it both ways. The first act treats the suicide of a RedShirt completely seriously, exploring it from all angles, explaining how those that kill themselves often show no obvious signs of distress. It's fairly effective and true to life. But then it turns out to be the result of PsychicPowers gone awry. However, the MarySueTopia of ''Star Trek'' does not lend itself well to the topic of suicide in the first place.

* ConstructiveBodyDisposal: [[PlayingWithATrope played with here]], Troi has visions of a murder/suicide and at one point has Geordi scan a bulkhead. His scans show a skeleton embedded in the bulkhead. It was AllJustADream based on the psychic residue from Daniel Kwan because he was TheEmpath but there were "traces of cellular residue with a psionic signature" on the bulkhead.

With everything wrapped up, Work asks why Troi was so happy to see him alive, ignorant to the fact that he and Troi started banging in her vision. Troi abashedly admits that he was killed in her vision. When he asks who killed him, she teasingly says, "Hell hath no fury like a WomanScorned," before walking away. After a moment, Worf seems to grasp the implications.

* ConstructiveBodyDisposal: [[PlayingWithATrope played with here]], Troi has visions of a murder/suicide and at one point has Geordi scan a bulkhead. His scans show a skeleton embedded in the bulkhead. It was AllJustADream based on the psychic residue from a Daniel Kwan because he was TheEmpath but there were "traces of cellular residue with a psionic signature" on the bulkhead.

* OutOfCharacterMoment: Troi overhears Worf casually joking (and possibly flirting) with Calloway, something very much unlike the stoic and serious Worf we know. It turns out that this is all a part of Troi's hallucination to drive her into a jealous rage. The real Worf didn't do it.

** Worf considers romancing Troi after discovering that they got married in an parallel universe in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E10Parallels Parallels]]."

** Data recounts his early experiences of how his positronic brain grew more complex to Geordi, explaining how each new pathway increased the likelihood of a cascade failure. In the season three episode [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E16TheOffspring "The Offspring"]], [[TearJerker this was the cause of death of Data's daughter]].

Troi wants to look into the plasma stream where Kwan killed himself. Worf goes with her with her and opens the nacelle doors. Troi gets another empathic overload, having visions of a woman fleeing from her perspective and then seeing the face of a man glaring at her. Afterwards she seemingly finds herself transported back in time to when the ship was still under construction on Utopia Planitia. She explores the area and finds the woman from her earlier vision making out with another man. They realize they've been caught at start laughing at her. As she turns away, she bumps into Worf finds herself back in the real world.

Troi wonders whether Kwan, as a fellow empath, also got the same vision she did, which is somehow why he killed himself. Picard has her look through the ship's personnel files to identify the people in the vision. She soon identifies the glowering man as Lieutenant Pierce, who is stationed on the ship. Troi and Worf question him, but he offers little help. Troi notes that she cannot read him, meaning he has telepathic or empathic abilities of his own. Both she and Worf suspect that he's holding something back. Worf escorts Troi back to her quarters. After a long, sexually charged moment, Worf finally makes a move, and they both embrace.

The next morning, Troi and Worf both head to sick bay (arriving separately), so that Troi can get a telepathic inhibitor to allow her to more safely analyze future visions, while Worf is overseeing some medical supply transportation that has been going on in the background. Troi jealously notes how familiar Worf behaves around Ensign Calloway. Returning to the control room, Troi notices a bulkhead where Kwan was working at the day before he died. La Forge discovers human DNA in it. It matches to a Marla Finn, whose picture Troi recognizes as the woman in her visions. She also realizes that Kwan was not on the Utopia Planitia before Finn disappeared, so her vision was not from his perspective. Catching sight of her own reflection, she realizes that her vision of Pierce was a reflection. It was his perspective!

On the way to interrogate Pierce, Troi feels guilty about her earlier jealousy and apologizes for not being herself. Worf suggests that he question Pierce alone, and Troi returns to her quarters. But Pierce suddenly arrives in Troi's quarters, claiming that Worf sent him there. Troi calls security and has Pierce escorted away, then locates Worf and confronts him. She finds him making out with Ensign Calloway. Caught, they both start laughing at her just like in her vision. Enraged, Troi kills Worf with a phaser and flees. She passes by Pierce, who tells her, "You know what you have to do." Troi rushes to the warp nacelle control room and is about to jump when Worf suddenly grabs her shoulder.

Overjoyed to see that she's alive, she realizes that everything that has happened since she went to look at the warp plasma stream has been one long vision that took place in only a second. Back with the senior staff, everyone sums up what happened: Pierce, Finn and a third crewman William Hodges were all stationed on Utopia Planitia eight years ago. Pierce, who was one-quarter Betazoid, caught his girlfriend cheating on him with Hodges and killed them, then committed suicide. His disintegration created a "psychic photograph" that triggered hallucinations in both Kwan and Troi of events similar to those that caused it.

With everything wrapped up, Work asks why Troi was so happy to see him alive, ignorant to the fact that he and Troi started banging in her vision. Troi abashedly admits that he was killed in her vision. When he asks who killed him, she teasingly says, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," before walking away. After a moment, Worf seems to grasp the implications.

* AllJustADream: Everything from when Troi and Worf go to the nacelle control room onward is a vision Troi was experiencing. Interestingly, everything she sees and learns proves to be true later...because it was an "empathic echo" of previous events that had actually happened.

* CluelessAesop: The episode is a bizarre and curiously awkward attempt at an anti-suicide PSA, but they botch it by trying to have it both ways. The first act treats the suicide of a RedShirt completely seriously, exploring it from all angles, explaining how those that kill themselves often show no obvious signs of distress. It's fairly effective, sort of a forerunner of the subject's similar treatment on an episode of ''Series/HouseMD''. And then they completely botch it by HandWaving the uncharacteristic suicide as being the result of PsychicPowers gone awry, using it as another pitstop in the Worf/Troi ShipTease. One wonders if the writers held the opinion that no one would seriously want to kill themselves in the MarySueTopia that is the 24th Century (given Gene Roddenberry's idealization of it, he at least likely ''did'' think that).
* ConstructiveBodyDisposal - [[PlayingWithATrope played with here]], Troi has visions of a murder/suicide and at one point has Geordi scan a bulkhead. His scans show a skeleton embedded in the bulkhead. It was AllJustADream based on the psychic residue from a Daniel Kwan because he was TheEmpath but there were "traces of cellular residue with a psionic signature" on the bulkhead.

* HalfHumanHybrid: In addition to Troi, Daniel Kwan is half-Human, half-Napean, making him TheEmpath.
** Similarly, Walter Pierce was one-quarter Betazoid. When he committed suicide, his empathic abilities left an "echo" in the nacelle bulkhead that affected Kwan and Troi.