History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E23TheHost

* TooMuchInformation: When Odan starts chatting about his relationship with 'Dr. Beverly' in an attempt to check if she might be willing to resign Starfleet and marry him, Picard is clearly uncomfortable.

* TooMuchInformation: When Odan starts chatting about his relationship with 'Dr. Beverly,' Picard is clearly uncomfortable.

** The Trill here, as a species, seem to be almost completely unfamiliar to the Federation, to the point that no one even knows they are two creatures conjoined. In fact, in spite of his later claims, Odan seems to be deliberately trying to hide his true nature given that he initially lies about his real reason for avoiding transport. In [=DS9=], they remain fairly uncommon but are far from unknown, are even implied to be Federation members, given that there seem to be a reasonable number of Trills in Starfleet and the [=DS9=] crew can visit Trill outright without issue (though it's never ''stated'' as such), and Curzon was definitely having Mad Klingon Adventures and whatnot dating back to at ''least'' the timeframe of ''[[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry The Undiscovered Country]]''. [[note]]It's later implied that the Federation as a whole was largely ignorant of this as the Trill worked hard to keep their joined nature secret all the way back to first contact, not sure how the Federation would react to their deepest secret.
** The appearance of the Trill host species is completely different. In this, they're RubberForeheadAliens. In [=DS9=], Trill hosts have spots instead. This is because producers didn't like the appearance of the forehead ridges on Terry Farrell ([=DS9=]'s Dax) and decided to replace them with those used in TNG season 5's [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E21ThePerfectMate "The Perfect Mate."]] [[note]]The novel [[Literature/StarTrekForgedInFire Forged in Fire]] explains a small number of Trill were inadvertently infected with a Klingon virus that caused them to lose their spots and develop forehead ridges. [[/note]]

** The appearance of the Trill host species is completely different. In this, they're RubberForeheadAliens. In [=DS9=], Trill hosts have spots instead. This is because producers didn't like the appearance of the forehead ridges on Terry Farrell ([=DS9=]'s Dax) and decided to replace them with those used in TNG season 5's [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E21ThePerfectMate "The Perfect Mate."]][[note]]The novel [[Literature/StarTrekForgedInFire Forged in Fire]] explains a small number of Trill were inadvertently infected with a Klingon virus that caused them to lose their spots and develop forehead ridges.[[/note]]

** The Trill here, as a species, seem to be almost completely unfamiliar to the Federation, to the point that no one even knows they are two creatures conjoined. In fact, in spite of his later claims, Odan seems to be deliberately trying to hide his true nature given that he initially lies about his real reason for avoiding transport. In [=DS9=], they remain fairly uncommon but are far from unknown, are even implied to be Federation members, given that there seem to be a reasonable number of Trills in Starfleet and the [=DS9=] crew can visit Trill outright without issue (though it's never ''stated'' as such), and Curzon was definitely having Mad Klingon Adventures and whatnot dating back to at ''least'' the timeframe of ''[[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry The Undiscovered Country]]''.

* GrandTheftMe: A rare voluntary example: When Odan's new host body is delayed, Riker offers to be a stopgap host, despite everyone's misgivings. The Trills' own standard host bodies would count as well.

** The appearance of the Trill host species is completely different. In this, they're RubberForeheadAliens. In [=DS9=], Trill hosts have spots instead. This is because producers didn't like the appearance of the forehead ridges on Terry Farrell ([=DS9=]'s Dax) and decided to replace them with those used in TNG season 5's [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E21ThePerfectMate "The Perfect Mate."]]

** They cannot use transporters, which can kill the symbiont because the system's biofilters would detect the symbiont as a parasite and try to remove it (since the Federation is not aware of the host/symbiont relationship). Once the secret gets out in this episode, it would be very easy to adjust the biofilter to ignore them, which explains why they can use the transporter in [=DS9=]. The thing is, though, this adjustment is never even brought up in [=DS9=] and some of Sisko's stories about Curzon and whatnot would imply he'd been using transporters and the like for ''decades'' prior to this episode's stardate.

* WorthIt: After concluding the negotiations at great risk to his/their own life, Riker!Odan says "It was worth it" right before collapsing.

Troi catches Crusher at the ship's spa and commends her for finding someone special. Picard is less enthusiastic when Odan asks him whether Crusher is really all that committed to staying in Starfleet. But Odan has a job to do on Peliar Zel before their relationship can progress any further. He insists on taking a shuttlecraft down to the surface in spite of the danger, and Riker offers to be his pilot. When their shuttle is attacked, Odan is seriously injured, but he still insists that he cannot be beamed to safety. Riker manages to return them to the ''Enterprise'' by the skin of their teeth.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This episode is our first look at The Trill, and they're significantly different from the version that receives so much attention in the later ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]''series:

** It's implied that Trill typically inhabit the bodies of a single host species, given that both whom we see are the same type of RubberForeheadAliens. In [=DS9=], Trill can join with just about anyone, and they cause distinctive markings on the host's body. These actually originated in in season 5's [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E21ThePerfectMate "The Perfect Mate."]]

** Because there's no synthesis of personalities, there's no hint that Trill change their names when they transition to a new host. Thus, Odan is never called something like "John Odan" in his first body and then "Kareel Odan" in his second.

** The Trill here, as a species, seem to be almost completely unfamiliar to the Federation, to the point that no one even knows they are two creatures conjoined. In fact, in spite of his later claims, Onan seems to be deliberately trying to hide his true nature given that he initially lies about his real reason for avoiding transport. In [=DS9=], they remain fairly uncommon but are far from unknown, are even implied to be Federation members, given that there seem to be a reasonable number of Trills in Starfleet and the [=DS9=] crew can visit Trill outright without issue (though it's never ''stated'' as such), and Curzon was definitely having Mad Klingon Adventures and whatnot dating back to at ''least'' the timeframe of ''[[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry The Undiscovered Country]]''.

** Because there's no synthesis of personalities, there's no hint that Trill change their names when they transition to a new host. Thus, Onan is never called something like "John Odan" in his first body and then "Kareel Odan" in his second.

** The fact that Onan starts talking a bit like Riker seems to be a side-effect of Riker's body's rejection of the Trill.