66 – Allegiance

Grade: B-

Summary

Aliens abduct Captain Picard from his quarters, and he wakes up in some kind of prison resembling a lab. Joining him are an Academy cadet, and a peace-minded alien and an anarchist alien. Meanwhile, an alien imposter has taken Picard’s place on the Enterprise.

Commentary

I really shouldn’t be too harsh on this episode, because it seems to be based at least partially on a classic episode of the Twilight Zone (Five Characters in Search of an Exit). But in all honesty, Allegiance is not that great. The script is not very good, and the storyline is not really very interesting. When the episode ends, I really didn’t care all that much about it.

Actually, the worst thing about this episode is the way it ends. The last 10 minutes or so are rather bland. It turns out this is just a slight twist on the all-too-common Star Trek story of “Humanity on Trial” that this franchise has done about 100 times or so. If it had a different ending, I probably would have rated it much higher.

If this episode had taken place in the first or second season, it might have been among the best of the year. The third season is much better than the previous two, so this episode doesn’t really stand out.

Of Note

Even someone like me who watches Star Trek all the time gets easily confused about one of these aliens. He looks like a Nausicaan, but he’s actually Chalnoth. It’s hard for me to tell the difference between them.