Power Play reverts to what has already become an annoying, detrimental cliché for TNG: crew members being possessed, or behaving out of character. It’d take up too much room to list every episode in which a crew member was some how “altered” but very few of those episodes manage any success.

Heck, we *just* had an episode in which the crew had its memory wiped, did we really need some of them to be possessed a week later? If Power Play is any different from the norm, it is only because this episode ranks among the worst “possession” episodes.

While investigating a two-century-old distress signal, an Away Team consisting of Riker, Troi, Data and, later, O’Brien, end up on the surface of an unusual M-class planet. While there, Troi, O’Brien, and Data (yes, Data), are possessed by three entities that claim to be the “spirits” of the captain and two officers from the U.S.S. Essex. They aren’t really that. They are the entities of criminals. But because the notion of Data being possessed is so preposterous, and because we’re sick of possession episodes anyway, who cares?

Once back on board the Enterprise, the possessed crew members try to hijack the ship. When that fails, they take hostages on Ten Forward. If there is a highlight to the episode, it is the action. The scenes involving the takeover of Ten Forward are fast-paced and well-choreographed.

But outside of those few sequences, the rest of the episode is dull, plodding, and stale. Instead of giving us episodes to explore the characters, to stretch them and make them grow, we get yet another 45 minutes of characters who aren’t themselves. It is a tired old concept that was barely tolerable in The Naked Now. Four years later, the concept hasn’t gotten any more appealing.

One last note on plausibility. Would hardened criminals who have spent centuries in limbo really choose to return to that limb, rather than die? I find it difficult to believe that they would accept such an outcome.

At any rate, add in the preposterous notion that Data could be possessed. Add in that Troi is the “leader.” Add in that O’Brien goes all creepy on Keiko and their whining baby. And you get an episode that just isn’t at all entertaining.

At this point, the premise of Power Play is just too cliché for a series like TNG. The action sequences are engaging. But enough with crew members being possessed already.

Filed under: TNG Reviews