Everyone is stunned when Lt. Kwan, serving in the warp nacelle tube, kills himself by jumping into a plasma discharge. It doesn't seem like an action Kwan would do, and Picard wants an explanation he can give to Kwan's parents when he informs them of the tragedy. Worf and Troi get to work on investigating the suicide. The pair search his quarters and even his personal logs, but see no evidence of any sort of strain - in fact, if anything, he appears happy and looking forward to the next days.

Troi then finds Kwan's girlfriend, Ensign Calloway, and speaks to her in sickbay. While she is shocked by his actions, Calloway also can see no reason for him to do what he did. The only potential lead Troi gets is that Kwan felt that his superior, Lt. Nara, felt threatened by his presence. She goes to the nacelle tube to talk to Nara and investigate Kwan's station. Nara shows no signs of antipathy toward Kwan at all, but the surprise comes when Troi stands on the platform from which Kwan leaped. She is suddenly overwhelmed by a flood of emotions, and can barely contain herself long enough to leave the room.

She is mystified by this sensation; the feelings, as she put it, "were just there" - no person was attached to them. Since her empathic sense is overloaded, in a way, at the moment, Dr. Crusher suggests she not re-enter the room for another few hours. In the meantime, Troi goes to her quarters to rest. Some time later, she talks to Worf there, and muses over the possibility raised previously that she might have felt an empathic "echo" left behind by Kwan. Worf encourages the possibility, saying "there are things we do not understand, yet they exist nonetheless," and then leaves to let her get some rest.

After Worf talks to Riker, trying to ask if Riker minds him becoming involved with Troi (but not getting through to an oblivious Will), Worf and Troi return to the nacelle tube. Worf opens the hatch doorway that Kwan jumped through for Troi - and as soon as he does, she has a vision: she sees a woman, very frightened, backing away and crying "no", and the image of a grim, red-haired man. They fade, and she looks around further, finding equipment bearing the markings of Utopia Planitia (where the Enterprise was built) and sees the woman again, this time laughing with another man when the pair are discovered together in a supply closet.

Worf suddenly snaps her back to the present, and they decide to leave quickly. At a briefing, it's suggested that she was reliving an event from eight years ago, possibly seen through Kwan's eyes, since he was at the shipyards himself. Crusher suggests a neural inhibitor to block out the sensations and let her re-enter the room safely, but notes that it will take sixteen hours to synthesize.

In the meantime, a search of personnel files turns up Lt. Walter Pierce as the red-haired man, currently serving on the Enterprise in engineering. He happened to be Kwan's supervisor, but claims to have no memories of anything unusual happening in the nacelle tube - or anywhere else. As she and Worf leave, Troi notes with surprise that she couldn't read Pierce at all - he must be partially telepathic. They begin to call up logs from Utopia Planitia, but those logs will take time to arrive. Worf begins to say good night and leave Troi to rest, but cannot bring himself to go. They clasp hands and begin to kiss fiercely...

The next morning, Worf wakes her with breakfast, only to be interrupted when Crusher calls on each of them in turn to help with a task. Troi gets to sickbay and receives the neural inhibitor, and Worf then arrives and greets her. When Worf is unable to accompany her to the nacelle tube owing to necessary work with Calloway, however, Troi begins to wonder.

In the nacelle tube, Troi (along with Data and Geordi) investigates a plasma conduit that Kwan repaired shortly before he died. As soon as the panel is opened, she again flashes on Pierce and the unknown woman despite the inhibitor. She is certain there is something behind that wall - and a quick scan shows that it's a long-decayed skeleton.

Calloway searches through personnel files and finds that the bone fragments are those of an ensign, Marla Finn, who is the woman Troi saw in her visions. When Kwan's records show he didn't arrive at the shipyard until months after Finn's disappearance, Troi realizes that the image of Pierce she saw was a reflected image, and that she must have been seeing things through his eyes. She and Worf leave to talk to Pierce again, but Troi is again concerned when Worf behaves very solicitously towards Calloway.

In the turbolift, Troi asks Worf if he regrets this new stage in their relationship, and he reassures her otherwise. Fatigued and stressed, she returns to her quarters to rest, letting Worf talk to Pierce alone. However, after a short while, she is surprised to see Pierce enter her quarters, alone! She immediately calls security and has them hold him in his quarters, but his words to her that Worf "said he had to go somewhere" leave her suspicious, particularly when she cannot talk to him. Hearing from the computer that Worf is in Calloway's quarters, she rushes there and finds Worf and Calloway in a passionate embrace.

Caught, they begin laughing at her. Panicked, Troi screams at them to stop, and eventually phasers Worf, killing him. Shocked at what she has done, she flees through the corridors of the ship. She runs into Pierce, who tells her "you know what you have to do." Suddenly, she does: she runs to the nacelle tube, opens the hatchway, and prepares to jump into the plasma stream...

... and Worf turns her around, very much alive - in fact, it's been only a few seconds since Troi asked Worf to open the door in the first place. Everything after the door was opened was her hallucination. Further investigating finds that Pierce, Finn and the man seen with Finn were all killed at Utopia Planitia eight years ago in a plasma discharge, but Troi is certain Pierce killed them both and then himself. Pierce's partially telepathic nature caused a psychic "photograph" to be imprinted on the conduit Kwan opened, and Troi's reaction to the energy caused her mind to recreate the events seen in Pierce's last moments, only altered to match her own life. The situation is resolved, but Worf is left puzzled as to why Troi was so surprised to see him alive - and what she meant by "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Highlight Listing:

"Eye of the Beholder" - While experiencing empathic visions after an officer's mysterious suicide, Troi becomes romantically involved with Worf.

Advertising Headline:

LOVE AND DEATH! Troi and Worf give in to passion - but her jealousy may tear them apart!

TV log listing:

Troi and Worf give in to hidden passions/STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.

Technical design, graphic design, interactive features, HTML & CGI programming by Andrew Tong. || All materials Copyright © 1987-1995 by their respective authors. || Document created: January 28, 1995 || Last Modified: November 09, 2010