What an intense episode! I know I have seen it before, the image of the doctor appearing in the audience of the play in particular seemed familiar. I know a lot of people like to rip Jonathan Frakes for not being as good an actor as the rest of the crew, but I think he is really good in this one. This episode is both more and less disturbing than Chain of Command, it is less realistic in the sense that we can't actually do such things to people yet, but more disturbing in how it makes Riker question whether he can ever truly be free from the levels of illusion.
The episode opens with Riker and Data rehearsing a play about a mental patient who can't accept responsibility for his crimes. He doesn't seem confident in the role, but Beverly is very reassuring. When he leaves though he seems distracted and bumps into an alien in a Starfleet uniform he doesn't recognize coming out of a turbo lift. The next day he learns he being put on an assignment to go undercover on a planet that has just fallen into anarchy to try and recover a Federation team trapped in the chaos. He works with Worf to try and learn rituals he will need to know by heart if he is to make it, but he just can't seem to focus and even gets cut on the temple by Worf. In sickbay he is disturbed by an injured man Geordi brings in and talks to Troi who insists he is just stressed out. He again sees the alien but Troi doesn't notice. During the play that night the performance goes great, but as he is coming out to applause he notices the alien from earlier in the front row, and then suddenly he is in the cell from the play and sees a different alien of the same species talking to him as a psychologist in a mental ward.
He finds he is being treated for insanity and he has committed some horrible crime. He insists he is a Starfleet officer but the doctor tells him they contacted Starfleet and confirmed he is not. The doctor insists in is a delusion that is part of his mental illness. He is then taken to a common area for lunch and along the way see many other patients and hears screams coming down the corridors. At the lunch room he encounters another patient who tells him she is a Starfleet officer too and just as his hopes are rising she starts talking into a spoon. A guard comes and takes her spoon and brings Riker his lunch. The guard taunts him about being brought in covered in blood from the guy he stabbed and Riker shows he isn't crazy by jumping up and trying to choke the guard. He is sedated and wakes up in his quarters on the Enterprise.
He prepares for the play but is feeling really out of it from his experience in the actual ward. During the play he sees the first aliens face looking at him through a window on the set and then notices him in the audience again. He grabs the man but everyone is shocked, he is a member of the Enterprise crew. He is really starting to lose it and starts seeing his room in the mental hospital everywhere and hearing voices. He also keeps noticing the same cut on his head from when Worf got him with the knife. He finds himself back in the institution and agrees to go through mental projection therapy. The various parts of his mind show up as the crew of the Enterprise, but the same alien shows up again. Later that day Crusher comes to him in the common area but he refuses to acknowledge her. That night Worf and Data show up to rescue him but he refuses to go with them. They get him back to the ship but he grabs a phaser and shoots himself. Suddenly he is back at the hospital and his head is bleeding. He shoots the aliens and the world literally shatters. Finally he awakens on a hospital bed with a machine connected to his head where he kept bleeding. He stands up and grabs his communicator and gets back to the ship. They explain he was captured on his secret mission and they were trying to get strategic information out of his memories.
Review: The only real weak point is Troi trying to explain the whole thing as just his mind trying to defend itself. It would have been better just assuming it was a side effect of the memory stealing they were doing. Otherwise an amazing episode.
8 out of 10
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