text: lonely among us " lonely among us " is the seventh episode of the american science fiction television series star trek : the next generation that originally aired on november 2 , 1987 , in broadcast syndication in the united states . it was written by d. c. fontana , based on a story by michael halperin . it was the first episode of the next generation to be directed by cliff bole . set in the 24th century , the series follows the adventures of the crew of the starfleet starship enterprise - d. in this episode , as the ship is en route to an interplanetary conference with delegates from the selay and antican races on board , a non - corporeal alien entity takes possession of various enterprise crew members , including captain jean - luc picard ( patrick stewart ) . this episode marked the first appearance of star trek : deep space nine recurring cast member marc alaimo in a star trek series , as well as the second appearance of colm meaney who would later play the next generation and deep space nine character miles o 'brien . the antican and selay make - up were created by michael westmore from designs by andrew probert . following the airing of the episode , fans wrote in to complain about a scene referencing cannibalism . reviews were mostly negative , with criticism directed at the writing in particular . plot the enterprise is en route to the planet " parliament " with delegates from two warring planets in the beta renner system , the reptilian selay and the canine antican , when the ship encounters a strange energy cloud . unseen by the crew , lt. worf ( michael dorn ) is hit with a strange energy discharge as the ship passes the cloud , causing him to become violent . doctor beverly crusher ( gates mcfadden ) sedates worf and brings him to the sickbay , but is also infused with the energy as she examines his body . crusher begins to act oddly to those around her and goes to the bridge , asking questions about the ship 's navigational functions . when she questions lt. cdr . data ( brent spiner ) at one of the science stations , the energy sparks between her and the console , leaving her confused as to why she is on the bridge . the ship suddenly begins to malfunction and captain picard sends assistant engineer singh ( kavi raz ) to investigate the cause . singh is later found dead near a computer link , and picard orders a murder investigation , considering the alien delegates to be prime suspects . data investigates the murder in the manner of fictional detective sherlock holmes , and determines that the delegates were not responsible . meanwhile , counselor deanna troi ( marina sirtis ) uses hypnosis on both worf and crusher , finding that both recall being invaded by some entity during their blackouts . the ship suddenly drops again out of warp , and as picard investigates the readouts at a bridge console , the strange energy transfers into him . the bridge crew becomes suspicious of picard 's actions after noting that all enterprise systems are back to normal and that picard has ordered them to return to the cloud . the senior officers attempt to plead with picard to undergo a medical examination and to step down from command , but he refuses . when they return to the cloud , picard announces that they had picked up an entity previously when they passed the cloud , and now picard and the entity are one . under its influence , picard plans to transport themselves back into the cloud , and he shoots energy at the bridge crew when they try to stop him . the crew are unable to prevent picard from beaming off the ship . the crew spend hours trying to locate picard to no avail , so they are forced to accept he is beyond recovery and prepare to leave . however , troi senses the captain 's essence nearby , and picard manages to signal the crew through the ship 's computers . data is able to reverse the transport , reconstituting picard without the entity . after determining that picard is himself again , lacking the memories since he was taken over by the entity , the enterprise continues onto parliament . production writing and casting the original story by michael halperin contained a different subplot involving a problem with the dilithium in the warp drive of the enterprise . the diplomatic conference was added by d.c. fontana when it was developed into a teleplay . fontana had previously worked on star trek : the original series , including the episode " journey to babel " . " lonely among us " was subsequently compared to " journey to babel " , which fontana denied , saying , " i wrote ' journey to babel ' and i wrote this too , and i feel there is a difference . there 's a definite delineation and separation here , both in intent and content . " director cliff bole did not recall much of the episode later , but did not think much of the script , saying " the subject matter affects the end product . there 's some better written shows , obviously . " it was the first episode of the next generation to be directed by bole , who had previously worked on shows such as v and the six million dollar man . colm meaney made his second appearance in the next generation after he originally appeared in the pilot , " encounter at farpoint " , as a conn ensign on the bridge . in this episode he played a security ensign , as it was not until season two that he began to play the recurring character of miles o 'brien , which would later become a series regular on star trek : deep space nine . another deep space nine actor who made his first trek appearance in this episode was marc alaimo , who played an antican who was unnamed on screen , but referred to in the script as n . alaimo went on to play several other roles in the next generation including as the cardassian gul macet in " the wounded " , before being cast as gul dukat in ds9 . john durbin appeared as the selay leader , and would also go on to appear as a cardassian later in the series , as gul in " chain of command " . kavi raz played assistant engineer singh , although as he was unavailable for a re - shoot , in one scene he was replaced by a wig on a chair . make - up and costuming the selay and the anticans were nicknamed the " snakes and the dogs " by the production staff . the designs were created by andrew probert , who had previously been responsible for the design of the enterprise - d. the make - up used on them were created by supervisor michael westmore , which involved full head pieces and hands for two anticans and five . because of the limited space available , the anticans were made internally in the paramount make - up studio while the were outsourced to a different studio to sculpt the head . once completed , a mold was made of the selay head and the unpainted pieces were cast in latex and sent to westmore to complete . it was intended to cast them out of lightweight polyurethane , but the first batch of selay heads came out really heavy . westmore had time to re - cast two of the heads from a soft foam rubber , but as each took five hours to make , there wasn 't enough time to re - make all five . the heavier versions of the selay heads were worn by actors in the background of the scenes , although westmore described them as being " very uncomfortable " . the antican mask didn 't allow for any movement at all with the exception of the actors being able to poke their tongues through the mouth opening . although this is the only major appearance of either the anticans or the selay , they continued to be used as background extras in other episodes of the next generation and deep space nine . westmore repainted the selay masks prior to reusing them in order to give the scales more of a three - dimensional look . this was the first appearance of the next generation era starfleet dress uniforms . they were based on those used by the royal navy in the 18th century , but would be slightly altered when they re - appeared during season two . one piece of a costume introduced in this episode which never returned was the surgical cap and eyepiece worn by doctor crusher . reception and home media release " lonely among us " originally aired in broadcast syndication on november 2 , 1987 . it received a 12 . 1 rating , meaning that it was seen by 12 . 1 percent of all households . this was an increase from the previous week 's " where no one has gone before " which received a rating of 10 . 5 . following the broadcast , the producers received a significant amount of mail from fans criticising the apparent cannibalism on the part of the anticans in this episode . several reviewers rewatched the episode following the end of the series . keith decandido reviewed " lonely among us " for tor.com in may 2011 . he gave it a score of three out of ten and was disinterested in the episode , finding the alien delegation subplot to be " mostly just silly " , and the majority of the episode was a " weak - beer mystery that 's mostly an excuse for gates mcfadden and sir patrick stewart to act weird and for brent spiner to be a silly sherlock " . james hunt thought that spiner 's sherlock impression was " completely brilliant " , in his review for the website den of geek in october 2012 . he thought that the episode shared some similarities with the third season of the original series , saying " by which i mean it looks cheap and appears to have been written by a child , in yellow crayon . " cast member wil wheaton rewatched the episode for aol tv in november 2006 . he criticised the writing of fontana in this episode , saying that around this time she appeared on a panel at a convention about how to solve " the wesley problem " , but when rewatching the episode he thought that " maybe instead of sitting on this panel and trashing me , d.c fontana could have written intelligent dialogue for me and helped solve the " wesley problem " herself . i don 't know , maybe she tried to do that and didn 't get a lot of support from the rest of the producers and writing staff , but even i know of dr. channing 's theory of not writing cliched dialogue for kids in science fiction , and then blaming the actor who is forced to deliver it . " overall he criticised the " very stiff " dialogue throughout the episode , and called the set - up " incredibly forced " . he did highlight that data acting out as sherlock holmes laid the foundation of future episodes which would expand on this . zack handlen reviewed the episode for the a.v. club in april 2010 . he too thought that the alien delegation subplot was poorly executed in a comedic fashion , and said that this " combined with the slow pace and a number of dialog scenes that can be charitably described as ' character development ' ( or more accurately as ' padding ' ) , this is an unmemorable episode that shows a series still unsure of its greatest strengths . " he gave the episode a grade of c- . the first home media release of " lonely among us " was on vhs cassette , appearing on april 1 , 1992 in the united states and canada . the episode was later included on the star trek : the next generation season one dvd box set , released in march 2002 . the most recent release was as part of the season one blu - ray set on july 24 , 2012 .