Ménage à Troi
"Ménage à Troi" is the title of an episode from the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The title is a pun on the French phrase ménage à trois.
Plot
At a reception aboard the Enterprise following a trade conference on Betazed, Counsellor Troi argues with her mother, Lwaxana Troi, about her insistence that Deanna get married and raise a family. At the same party, Lwaxana is approached by the Ferengi Daimon Tog of the ship Krayton, who is interested in Lwaxana in a sexual way, but also explains he would like Lwaxana to use her telepathy to help him make business. Lwaxana rejects him flatly.
Afterwards, at the urging of Captain Picard, Riker and Deanna decide to take a quick shore leave on Betazed, while the Enterprise heads out on a routine mission studying a nebula. Lwaxana tracks down her daughter and Riker, with intent to encourage romance between the couple. She is just getting started when Daimon Tog arrives stating that he has come for Lwaxana. As the Ferengi transport out with Lwaxana and Troi in tow, Riker is caught in the beam.
The three awaken in a cell aboard the Krayton. Tog then has Deanna and Lwaxana beamed into the lab of Farek, a Ferengi doctor who hopes to study Lwaxana's telepathy using mind probes. In the process of transporting them, he leaves the women's clothing behind. Lwaxana pretends to be interested in Tog, and gains Deanna's return to the cell with Riker by agreeing to discuss with Tog a proposal to use her telepathic abilities in trade negotiations.
Riker entices a Ferengi guard into a chess game, and once outside the cell quickly overcomes him. Once freed, Deanna and Riker attempt to send a message to the Enterprise and learn that the ship's communication system is secured by access code. As Lwaxana seduces Tog by rubbing his ears, she receives a telepathic message from Deanna asking her to try to get Tog's access code.
Lwaxana has nearly gotten Tog to tell her the code when Farek walks in and catches her in the act. Farek threatens to humiliate Tog by revealing his incompetence to the Ferengi, but offers to forget the incident if Lwaxana is turned over to him for experimentation, despite the fact that the proposed tests may be lethal.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise leaves the nebula, which has been interfering with communications, and learn from Betazed officials that Riker and the Trois have been kidnapped. Returning to Betazed, the Enterprise crew discovers flowers indigenous to a Ferengi planet at the spot where Deanna and Riker were last seen. Picard orders a frequency scan to see if Riker has somehow sent a message, but are unable to pick up anything discernible. In fact, Riker has tapped into the system on the Krayton that suppresses Cochrane distortion from the ship's warp field, and modulated it to generate a signal using unsuppressed distortion... into a pattern he hopes the Enterprise crew will recognize.
In the midst of the search, Wesley is in final preparation to depart to Earth to take his last Starfleet exams and be admitted. Just as he is about to leave, Wes realizes that the modulated interference itself may be the signal, and he rushes back to the Bridge, missing his transport back to Earth. Decoding the signal, Wesley finds Riker has provided the heading of the Krayton, and the Enterprise heads out in pursuit.
In the meantime, Deanna is experiencing great pain as she senses the mind probes being used on Lwaxana. Riker, having finished setting up the modulation of the Cochrane distortion, arms himself, and bursts into Farek's lab to free Lwaxana, but a standoff ensues when Tog enters with a phaser. Just then the Enterprise arrives, and Lwaxana buys the release of Troi and Riker by agreeing to stay with Tog, and serve him both as a lover and a business partner. After Riker and Deanna are returned to the Enterprise, Picard is forced to play the role of a jealous lover, and frightens Daimon Tog into returning Lwaxana to avoid being killed.
Wesley is told that he will be allowed to complete his Starfleet courses aboard the Enterprise, and Picard gives Wes a field promotion to full Ensign.
Production Notes
- Video footage from this episode's scenes on Ten Forward were edited and reincorpoated into the production of the Star Trek: Enterprise episode These Are the Voyages....
- At the end of the episode, Picard - while playing the jealous lover - quotes lines from various Shakespeare sonnets as if performing on stage. While Star Trek: The Next Generation referenced Shakespeare on other occasions, this episode had one of the more direct references to Patrick Stewart's own background: he was once a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.