Allegiance

DVD, TNG S3 (Allegiance)

Not a classic by any means, this nonetheless keeps the attention and provides some... different scenes from the usual. The four captives and their varied responses to authority were an interesting bunch, but at first I wasn't sure Cadet Haro was a Bolian, though she had the vertical split down the face since it's probably the only time a Bolian has been seen with hair. I'm not sure if that means the aliens got her wrong or if those from Bolarus IX, as she was, have hair, or whether it was simply a fashion item that some Bolians choose to wear a hair-like head covering - we know so little of the race that any of these could be true. Her appearance is also highly significant as being the first time the coloured shoulder style of uniform was seen, later to be adopted as fleet standard attire, first on DS9, then in 'Generations' and for the USS Voyager.

Esoqq, the lumbering Chalnoth is the other captive to have an interesting choice of wardrobe - the padded brown leather, thick shoulder pads and hulking boots became familiar as Morn's outfit on 'DS9'! Perhaps the Lurian was actually a Chalnoth in disguise, or more likely, had friends among the violent race.

The false Picard is so accurate, yet subtly off-key in certain moments that there is intrigue over his actions and whether the crew will realise his true nature. Beverly's status as very close friend is brought into the open, so it's sad that some of the things Picard says didn't come from the real man, and probably contributed to the smothering of that plot thread. It had gone from being an extra dimension for the characters to becoming a slight joke with which to tease the Captain. It's taken a while (most of the season) for the Doctor to integrate back in, and for her absence and subsequent return to be more than simply side-stepped, but at least she was being given her due by this episode.

The enjoyment is not in the small and boring set the aliens use to observe Picard and his fellow prisoners, but in the psychology of their interactions, Picard naturally coming to the fore, and even though I'd seen the episode before I didn't remember the identity of the enemy within. In some ways the false Picard acts and sounds more like his film counterpart, because by the time the cast moved into films Patrick Stewart had loosened the character up quite a bit to become more like himself.

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