Original air date: May 13, 1991
The Enterprise is en route to Peliar Zel to negotiate a dispute between the Alpha and Beta Moons. On board is the veteran diplomat Odan, who is somewhat distracted from his impending negotiations as he sucks face with Dr. Crusher in the turbolift. Crusher and Odan are seriously in love, and everyone except Data can see it. But after kissing Crusher's hand goodbye and returning to his quarters, his stomach becomes distended as if something is moving around inside. Uh oh...
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's console explodes and seriously injures him, 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.
It turns out that Odan is a Trill. The humanoid body he inhabits is just a host. The real Odan is a small symbiont inside. His host body is dying, and he needs to get into another host, or he too will die. The crew contact the Trill home world to send a new host body, but Odan needs somewhere to live in the mean time. Riker volunteers even though no human has ever hosted a Trill.
The surgery goes smoothly, and suddenly Odan is looking out of Riker's eyes. Crusher struggles to come to grips with the fact that her lover is jumping from body to body. Can she really separate the person from the form? Troi relates how much she can still feel the warmth of her love for her father even though he is gone, so if Crusher can still feel her love for Odan, then she should go to him no matter what body he's in. Crusher and Odan gaze longingly at each other from across Ten Forward.
But Odan is having a lot more problems than just matters of the heart. Riker is not a good host, and his body quickly starts to reject the symbiont . In spite of his great pain, Odan is committed to brokering the peace deal on Peliar Zel. The Pelians are distrustful that this new man is really Odan, but Odan recalls specific details of his previous dealings on Peliar Zel to convince them that he is who he says he is. When the Pelians leave, Odan clutches his head in agony.
Time is running out for Odan. With the new Trill host still hours away, he soldiers on and manages to hammer out a peace treaty for the Pelians, but it's cost him the last of his willpower. He collapses, and Crusher is forced to remove Odan from Riker's body. She puts Odan in suspended animation until the new host body arrives. Crusher is barely holding herself together, and Picard offers her his sympathy and support.
The Trill host finally arrives, and... surprise! It's a woman! The stone-faced Crusher does her duty to implant Odan into his new host. But this new host is the last straw for her. Although she still loves Odan, and Odan in this new body still loves her, Crusher confesses that she cannot keep up with Odan's Body Surfing. Maybe in a more perfect time, people's ability to love won't be so limited by their physical forms. Odan kisses Crusher's hand one last time and bids her goodbye.
Tropes featured in this episode include:
- Ambiguously Bi: Crusher claims in the final scene that the fact that Odan's new body is female isn't a dealbreaker for her, but the mortified look she gives the female host body makes that claim a bit dubious.
- Bittersweet Ending: Odan survives the episode, but the relationship with Beverly does not.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The symbiont occasionally moves around, causing Odan's abdomen to bulge out unnervingly.
- Body Surf: Turns out to be the Trill's hat, as the symbiont outlives the host(s). In the case of the Trill, at least, the bodies are willing.
- Cartwright Curse: The idea of Odan constantly changing bodies is just too much for Beverly.
- Closest Thing We Got: Even though the human anatomy is not entirely compatible with the Trill symbiont, Riker serves as temporary host for Odan while waiting for his replacement body. He manages to hold out until the new body arrives, but it's a near thing.
- Continuity Nod: Odan suggests that he's not the first to express reluctance over being disassembled by a transporter. He should have a sit-down with Leonard McCoy and Kate Pulaski so they can air their respective grievances on the subject. (And then Reg Barclay can join them.)
- Early-Installment Weirdness: 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 Deep Space Nine series:
- 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 The Undiscovered Country. note
- The appearance of the Trill host species is completely different. In this, they're Rubber-Forehead Aliens. 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 "The Perfect Mate." note
- The relationship between the host and symbiont seems to be completely different. Here, the Trill is simply a Puppeteer Parasite and always the same person no matter what body it's in. The host body's personality is completely replaced. In fact, the host body we see behaves in a robotic fashion before the conjunction, suggesting that they're effectively empty shells. In DS9, Trills form a unified personality with its host, becoming a new person. Each time a Trill moves to a new host, it keeps the accumulated wisdom and experience from all its previous lives. Thus, Trill hosts actually do benefit from the symbiosis.
- 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. In DS9, Trills keep their given name and replace the family name with the name of the symbiont: Curzon Dax is succeeded by Jadzia Dax.
- The Trill is occasionally called a "parasite" rather than a "symbiont," and indeed its life cycle is much more similar to a parasite in this version.
- The taboo of a Trill maintaining a romantic relationship after switching hosts is never mentioned, and Odan is more than happy to hit on Beverly no matter what body it's in.
- 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.note
- Everyone Can See It: Deanna doesn't need her empathic powers to tell how Beverly and Odan feel about each other.
- Gender Bender: The Trill symbiote Odan's host was male. When the Trill ship arrives with a new host, the new host turns out to be female, a factor of no concern to Trill symbiotes.
- Grand Theft Me: A rare voluntary example: When Odan's new host body is delayed, Data asks if he could serve as a temporary host before being informed that Odan needs a biological host. Riker then offers to be a stopgap host, despite everyone's misgivings. The Trills' own standard host bodies would count as well.
- Green Aesop: Downplayed, as it's not the focus of the episode but it's still there. The Alpha Moon is drawing energy from the primary planet's magnetic fields, in the process unleashing global warming effects on the Beta Moon. The Alphans don't want to give up their free power source; the Betans accuse them of genocidal intentions.
- Hide Your Pregnancy: One of TNG's most Crusher-centered episodes was made while Gates McFadden was heavily pregnant. While it may seem relatively simple, since this episode involves a romance with a lot of on-screen physical contact, it's actually quite challenging to do while not showing her pregnancy. The writer, interviewed later, said it made the episode even better, saying that there is a "glow" to women in love and certainly a "glow" on pregnant women.
- I Kiss Your Hand: Odan likes to kiss Beverly's palm, and this is how Kareel Odan says goodbye.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: At the beginning, Data unwittingly interrupts a tender moment between Crusher and Odan, wanting to tell them all about some work he's been doing relating to the mission. Naturally, they immediately start trying to excuse themselves.Data: I could go over it with you now. It would not require more than two hours.
Crusher: We do appreciate that, Data, but the Ambassador and I have set aside this time to analyse the incidence of the lung disease on the moon's inhabitants.
Data: Then it is perfect timing, Doctor. What better occasion to integrate my results into your study?
Odan: Now that I think about it, you're absolutely right, Commander. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling very well. Perhaps Doctor Crusher could get you started inputting your information. I myself must return to my quarters.
Crusher: Ambassador, are you still having those awful headaches? I'd better bring you a hypospray to take care of it. - Incompatible Orientation: Bev simply can't bring herself to have a sexual relationship with Odan after he becomes a woman. In the end, she claims that her rejection isn't actually about him now being a woman, but about the larger problem of Odan constantly changing bodies and Crusher not being able to "keep up." However, the stony expression she fires at Kareel when she realizes that Odan is about to become a woman makes her claims a bit dubious.
- Innocently Insensitive: Odan keeps making sexual/romantic advances toward Beverly while in Riker's body, completely unaware of (or ignoring) her very obvious discomfort with the situation.
- Les Yay: Invoked by the ultimately female Odan, who is still totally in love with Beverly. However, it's defied by Beverly herself, telling Odan she cannot adapt to his/her constantly changing forms, although she does acknowledge it as a human shortcoming.
- Like Brother and Sister: Beverly sees Riker in this way (and says as such to Deanna), which is a major reason why she is uncomfortable continuing her romance while he is serving as Odan's host-for-a-day.
- Notable Non Sequitur: Odan gives a very Riker-esque Badass Boast. When Picard tells Riker!Odan that he 'sounds just like Riker', it could be an early indicator that the "stopgap host" plan is beginning to unravel.
- Possession Burnout: Having Odan implanted in Riker's body causes serious damage to Riker's body, to the point that Odan insists that even if a new host has not arrived Odan has to be removed from Riker at the conclusion of the negotiations, even if it costs Odan its life.
- Puppeteer Parasite: In this early version, Trill seem to be an example. They completely replace the personality of their host body with their own.
- Race Against the Clock: Without a proper host, the symbiont can only survive for a few hours.
- Something Only They Would Say:
- Odan's pet name for 'Dr. Beverly'. Curiously, this does not convince Beverly to rekindle the romance with Odan while he's inside Riker, but a rose previously given to her by Odan does.
- The fact that Odan starts talking a bit like Riker seems to be a side-effect of Riker's body's rejection of the Trill.
- Starship Luxurious: The Enterprise has its own spa.
- Too Much Information: When Odan starts chatting about his relationship with 'Dr. Beverly' in an attempt to check if she might be willing to resign from Starfleet and marry him, Picard is clearly uncomfortable.
- Trust Password: Odan proves who he is to the delegates by remembering incidents that happened in his previous mediations between Alpha and Beta Moon (at least two hosts ago), such as the fact that one of them had to foil an assassination attempt instigated by his own side.
- Wham Line: Odan, dying on the operating table, tells Beverly that the humanoid body she's operating on is expendable, that it is the apparent parasite inside his body which is Odan and which must survive, thus revealing the true physiological nature of the Trill. Although it happens early in the episode, this moment basically serves as the 'point of no return' in their relationship.
- Worth It: After concluding the negotiations at great risk to his life (and Riker's), Odan says "It was worth it" right before collapsing.
