1x22 Skin of Evil

What's this bullshit about setting the warp core ratio at 25:1? There's only one intermix ratio: 1:1. We learned that in "Coming of Age".

The number of soundstage lights that the various Armus props and costumes reflect is amazing. Using such a reflective material was a big gamble—one I'm not sure paid off in the end.

I don't look forward to this episode when rewatching the series. It's kind of a disaster, from a writing perspective. Picard talking to an oil slick isn't nearly as ridiculous as several members of the production team have been quoted saying over the years, but it's not exactly the high-powered diplomacy we come to expect from Jean-Luc.

Mostly, though, it's the meaningless character death. It doesn't work. Unfortunately, the same thing happened at the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season six, again because the actor wished to move on from the show.

In this case, I think Denise Crosby gave up too soon. I agree with something Wil Wheaton wrote years ago in a review of "Hide and Q":

I have to give up some respect for Michael Dorn. I can't imagine what it must have been like to play Worf in the first season, when he was one-dimensional and so incredibly stupid. He didn't do much more than Denise did in these early episodes, and where she decided to quit the series out of frustration, Michael stuck it out, eventually developed a complex and beloved character, became a regular on DS9, and was in all the TNG movies.

— https://web.archive.org/web/20071011201935/http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/02/19/star-trek-the-next-generation-hide-and-q/ (the original site no longer exists)

When I originally went from watching later-season reruns of TNG on television to running through the series from start to finish, the most striking thing was how flat the writing was at the beginning for Worf. All of the characters needed time to grow depth, but it was especially surprising just how far Worf in particular had come. And yes, Michael Dorn really played the long game, where Denise Crosby seemed to rather impatiently throw in the towel. (Whether Worf would have developed as much as he did if Tasha Yar had remained on the show is another question altogether.)

The good points of this episode, though, are actually the scenes where Deanna gets into Armus' head. Didn't see that coming. Early Troi is really not a very good character, but her empathic abilities really work for me in this one.