The Enterprise prepares to take on a covert mission, of which Commander Riker is key component of; meanwhile he prepares to play the lead role in the latest production being put on by Doctor Crusher in the ship's theater.
During the play, and following his performance, Riker begins having strange experiences. Namely it seems that he's actually *living* in the play (about a man's struggles inside an insane asylum.)
Over the course of the episode events shift between "realities" of Riker living on the Enterprise and living in the asylum. The head doctor of the asylum tells Riker he's an insane man who has killed numerous people and his mind is making up the life on the starship as sort-of a coping mechanism. Eventually the doctor convinces Riker to commit to regaining his sanity as such Riker begins rejecting the visions he has of the Enterprise and members of the crew visiting him in the hospital under the pretense of being part of an operation to recover him from the asylum.
The doctor wants Riker to commit to much more radical and invasive procedure to regain his sanity which Riker submits to but he begins seeing cracks in the narrative being told to him by the doctor, and further seems to be rewarded by confronting the doctor and the asylum reality.
Eventually Riker decides to commit suicide using what he believes to be a phaser -but is told is actually something harmless- when he does the entire framework of the vision shatters and Riker awakes on an operating table in an alien hospital. He gets up and manages to get a hold of his phaser and com-badge, contacts the ship, and is transported aboard. He is told that he was captured by aliens on the planet and they were trying to extract strategic information from him. As a defense mechanism his brain created the layered asylum scenario not only to protect Riker but to keep him sane. Riker is satisfied he is back in his true reality and in order to seal the deal he begins to dismantle the play's set.
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This is an episode I often go back and forth on on whether I like it or not. It's got some interesting ideas and such to it, but episodes with shifting "realities" and such are hard for me to really get into as it pretty much requires accepting a lot as far as how the brain chose to defend itself.
I know we have to accept a lot period when it comes to any sci-fi series but transporters and warp drive seems more likely to me than this layered reality centered around a play that Riker's brain creates.
It does succeed in creating the unsettling feeling of Riker's spiraling sanity through the various realities, and Frakes does a good job of portraying Riker's un-hingedness through it all. Which may be part of why I find the episode unsettling to watch. It truly does have an eerie feeling and vibe to it and Frakes turns in such a great performance along with some noteworthily good work on something as small of giving him "crazy hair" as he struggles with his sanity on both the hallucination of the ship and hospital.
Watching the episode feels like experiencing a fever dream. You're laying on the couch, a temperature of 104 and the lines between reality and dreams is very, very, blurry as you struggle to grab onto something tangible.
So it's easy to maybe get how Riker is feeling if you've ever had strep throat or other illness that causes a high fever.
The reason why Riker is on the planet, how the aliens captured him or even why they kept his phaser and com-badge on the table near his bed is forgivable. As, really, so is how this entire thing really "worked" when examining it since it really does come off as an unsettling and creepy episode.
I wasn't too much a fan of the "shattering glass" effect used as Riker crashes through realities. It struck me as a bit too obvious and broad for TNG's usual tone and look. A dissolve or "woosh" probably would have worked, but the shattering realities was probably more done to reflect on, well, Riker's reality shattering.
A good episode, again, not one I revisit too often. In part because there's not exactly a whole lot to get into as far as story and such goes -since pretty much nothing in the episode "really happens" but mostly because it truly is a fairly unsettling episode to watch.
