During an Away Team mission, Counselor Troi, Data, and Chief O'Brien all become possessed by alien consciousnesses. After they try and fail to take over the Enterprise, they barricade themselves inside Ten Forward. As Captain Picard tries to negotiate the hostage situation, the rest of the crew searches for a way to force the aliens from their friends' bodies.
"Power Play" began as a pitch from two writers -- one an outsider, the other Maurice Hurley, who ran the series before Michael Piller arrived at the start of season three. Though I tried to research the answer, I don't know if this idea was a leftover from all the way back in those season two days, or if Hurley came back to pitch this episode later. I do know that the actual script did not come easily. Piller envisioned it as an easy bottle show, a tense hostage situation that would feature pages and pages of dialogue between Picard and the possessed crewmembers. But many freelancers were given a crack at that story, and all came up blank.
Staff writer Brannon Braga finally took his stab at a script, and he too fell short. He delivered just what Piller had asked for, a dialogue heavy hostage story, and both men agreed the script wasn't good enough to produce. Piller decided to give the idea one last chance before throwing it out for good, assigning staffer Herbert J. Wright to work with Braga on a new draft.
Together, Wright and Braga really changed the direction of the script. First, they added a mystery element by having the aliens claim to be the ghosts of a long-dead starship crew. More importantly, they turned the episode into an all-out action piece. Adding in a shuttle crash, an elaborate and inhospitable planet surface, and dozens and dozens of phaser blasts turned what was meant to be a budget-saver into a budget-buster. But the result also injected life into the story, making it worthy of the cameras. Braga loved their changes, crowing: "It has no socially redeeming value, but it sure is action-packed."
That's exactly why Piller was never really happy with it. He lamented that they had somehow failed to keep a hostage situation tense enough to sustain 42 minutes of television, and felt that the action they used to fill it was "empty." Still, Piller did exactly hate the finished product either. He praised David Livingston for one of the best directed episodes of the season. Livingston not only delivered exciting action, he tried out some unusual camera tricks -- including a full 360-degree rotation during the shuttle crash, reportedly inspired by the movie Cape Fear.
Piller also praised actors Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, and Colm Meaney for their performances as the aliens possessing Troi, Data, and O'Brien. ("Slash," "Buzz," and "Slugger," as everyone on the set apparently called them.) For his part, Brent Spiner was concerned about finding a brand of villainy distinct from his previous portrayals of Lore. (I believe he was successful, as "Buzz" takes none of the glee in his misdeeds that Lore clearly did.) Meanwhile, Marina Sirtis was so enthusiastic about getting this action-packed material that she asked to do her own stunts. When the energy attacks the characters on the planet surface early in the episode, Sirtis was the only one of the four actors who did her own fall... and reportedly broke her coccyx doing it. Of course, with the other three characters played by stuntmen, the camera was positioned such that you couldn't really see their faces. Sirtis was later disappointed, claiming "It could have been Worf in Troi's costume and we wouldn't have known the difference."
But it's not just that Sirtis, Spiner, and Meaney really nail their roles in this episode, it's that their characters really are the perfect choices to put into this story. Making Troi the leader is a wonderful choice. These hard edges coming from a character who is usually nothing but smooth softness makes a real shock for the audience. Having Data be the most overtly psychotic of the three, when he is usually the emotionless character, is another strong contrast. And as the only married character among the main and recurring ones on the show, putting Miles O'Brien into this situation allows for wonderful tension with his wife Keiko.
Other observations:
- Watch for a true Star Trek rarity early in this episode: the shuttlecraft has seat belts!
- Babylon 5 fans should pay attention in the moment when Worf and two of his security officers find the abandoned communicators in the turbolift. The female officer is actress Patricia Tallman, who played telepath Lyta Alexander on Babylon 5.
- When the Ten Forward standoff is about to begin, the scene starts with Keiko trying to calm an already fussy Molly. Another parent who won't take their fussy baby out of a crowded restaurant.
- The remastered Blu-ray version of this episode contains the largest amount of missing footage in the entire series remastering effort. Nearly two minutes of the Ten Forward scenes could not be located and had to be upconverted from standard definition sources. Fortunately, they put a lot of effort into matching this footage to the true HD material; this material is not nearly as noticeable as the few seconds here and there that have been occasionally absent in past episodes.
- A role reversal of this episode would happen years later on Deep Space Nine; Keiko would be taken over by an alien entity, while Miles would be forced to deal with the possessed spouse.
- At the end of the episode, there's a humorous little "womp womp" moment where Data apologizes for manhandling Worf. But this week's real "Worf gets beat up again" moment comes early on, when Slugger/O'Brien knocks him over the bridge railing.
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