"First Blood" in SPAAAACE! And that's not the only action hero movie franchise that TNG will be lifting it's ideas from.
Our story opens with Picard on an alien world where he is discussing with the Prime Minister about his world joining the Federation of Planets. Things seem to go smoothly until the Prime Minister informs Picard that a prisoner has escaped and they're not equipped to handle it. Riker decides to help out and we get a sour preview of what's to come. The prisoner they're chasing is so clever, he manages to outthink and outmaneuver EVERYONE. The way his character is portrayed comes off more as a game character where the player typed in "godmode" and, I'm not kidding, "noclip". After managing to beam him onboard, we get that funny scene with O'Brien where he calls again and again for "More security! More security!" as this prisoner owns the whole place. We even get an awkward shot of Worf peeking out of the Turbolift before dashing out into the corridor to subdue the prisoner. Was this an editing miscalculation? The way Worf slowly peeks out of the turbolift really feels out of place and out of character. It would have been better if the shot had just cut to Worf and Riker running out of the turbolift.
And...*sigh*... Troi is brought into the picture. I know she gets a lot of flack for stating the obvious from episode to episode, but I find the handling of Roga to be much worse. This is a prisoner who has killed two people and assaulted five Starfleet officers, and she's trying to convince Picard that he is not a violent person based solely on the notion that there is something about him that is "inherently" non-violent. The problem with that argument is that it doesn't amount to much if his violent nature is all that he responds to and it's a cheap way of saying "There is more to him" when really, there isn't. Roga doesn't come off as a sympathetic character who is misunderstood or mistreated. There is no indication that he wants to resolve his problems in a peaceful manner. Maybe if a different actor was cast in the role, they could have pulled it off better, but Jeff McCarthy seems to only channel one emotion, and it's utter disdain.
So Picard decides that Roga is to be transferred back to Angosian authorities despite the very forced views of Troi and Data stating that Roga is perfectly fit to rejoin civilized society. Thankfully Picard just shrugs them off and they initiate the transporter. This is the point in the episode where it goes from a poorly executed drama to complete and utter nonsense. Roga, through the power of the noclip cheat executed by a dance command, manages to manipulate the transporter and escape the Brig. Not only does he manage to escape elsewhere on the Enterprise, he manages to not materialize into a solid object since there is no stationary control over what he was doing. What follows is a series of events that pretty much turns all our main characters into "Wile E. Coyote"s. They try to capture Roga, but are thwarted in every... single... step... I don't mind clever bad guys, but Roga is supposed to be an alien who has never been on a Federation Starship before, yet he's programming phasers into overload, circumventing security subsystems and disabling the ship's sensors. Despite everyone's attempts at stopping him, even venting gas in the cargo hold (which he somehow conveniently knew where a breathing mask was, despite not using it), Roga still manages to escape the Enterprise. Yay........
As the Enterprise tries to repair the job that Roga had done, Picard is informed by the Prime Minister that Roga has freed several of his fellow soldier prisoners and are now heading to the capitol. Picard decides to bring down Troi, Data and Worf. That's great. If you can't contain one single person on your own ship who managed to beat your chief of security one-on-one, what the heck are you going to do when facing an army of them on their own planet? I know Picard is going under the assumption that they won't kill them unless their survival is at stake, but last I checked, Roga's survival wasn't at stake on the Enterprise either. Just his freedom. They're still liable to knock you out, capture you- Oh, never mind. Turns out they literally don't attack anyone unless their lives are being threatened. So how does Picard handle this situation? He lectures the Prime Minister in the most smug manner possible and leaves everything up to them. To make things even more smug, Picard decides while on the bridge to offer the Federation's assistance should the Angosians decide to reintegrate their soldiers back into society. Wow. Kind of makes that whole beaming down thing kind of pointless, doesn't it? And this is Picard's decision, not while he's on the planet trying to not provoke a fight, but while he's leaving the system. No wonder we hardly see any new worlds join the Federation. All the diplomats we send are a bunch of a-holes.
CONCLUSION:
It's really hard to recommend this episode because it doesn't paint our heroes in any sort of positive light. Troi's positive outlook on Roga's condition is non-evident in his actual depiction, the crew are all outsmarted by an alien who should be completely unfamiliar with their ship and nobody seems to give a crap about it in the end. Now that I think about it, "The Hunted" would make for a perfect Enterprise episode since it's level of incompetence and lack of concern from the show's Captain is one of Enterprises' defining qualities.
STINGER:
