Wait a minute, what am I missing here? When Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the rest of the bridge crew first see Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) in her surgically altered appearance as Romulan Major Rakal of the Tal Shiar they express surprise. Well, why? Didn't they know she was missing from the Enterprise? And if she was kidnapped as Sub-Commander N'vek stated, why wasn't the Enterprise on high alert to find out where she was and rescue her? Also, as important as this mission to bring Romulan dissidents to Federation sanctuary was, why wouldn't Ambassador Spock have clued in the Captain on the plan? Or even Starfleet Command to take it a step further? All of this didn't make sense to me.
Casting all that aside, I did enjoy the turn of character for Counselor Troi, but I would have to note that here again, the sudden transformation of her usual empath personality into that of an uncompromising Romulan general didn't square with her prior history. When you consider how she virtually fell apart in the fourth season episode "The Loss" when her empathic powers were temporarily gone, you have to ask yourself where the sudden ability to face down Romulan Commander Toreth (Carolyn Seymour) came from. That along with the free reign given to Ensign DeSeve (Barry Lynch) aboard the Enterprise after he was arrested as a Federation defector just added to my bewilderment.
So all in all, I'm not willing to give this episode such high marks as others do, despite the excellent performance of Marina Sirtis. The change of pace for her was good, but needed a much better plotted story to give it any kind of credibility. Oh yeah, and one more thing. If she was surgically altered as stated early in the episode, how did Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) return her normal features in a matter of minutes once she was beamed back to the Enterprise? See what I mean?
Casting all that aside, I did enjoy the turn of character for Counselor Troi, but I would have to note that here again, the sudden transformation of her usual empath personality into that of an uncompromising Romulan general didn't square with her prior history. When you consider how she virtually fell apart in the fourth season episode "The Loss" when her empathic powers were temporarily gone, you have to ask yourself where the sudden ability to face down Romulan Commander Toreth (Carolyn Seymour) came from. That along with the free reign given to Ensign DeSeve (Barry Lynch) aboard the Enterprise after he was arrested as a Federation defector just added to my bewilderment.
So all in all, I'm not willing to give this episode such high marks as others do, despite the excellent performance of Marina Sirtis. The change of pace for her was good, but needed a much better plotted story to give it any kind of credibility. Oh yeah, and one more thing. If she was surgically altered as stated early in the episode, how did Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) return her normal features in a matter of minutes once she was beamed back to the Enterprise? See what I mean?