Iyaarans are new to the Federation (and the ways of officers and how they function emotionally/behaviorally), and so a "cultural exchange" takes place so that "diplomatic relations" could commence between the two parties. One of the Iyaarans seems to purposely instigate Worf's resolve, asking him to do menial deeds for him and constantly cutting him off, using belittling tactics to incite/goad him to anger. The other is introduced to desserts by Troi, and his appetites become insatiable. Picard takes a shuttle with the third Iyaaran, but the dialogue between them is rough at best. When the shuttlecraft hits an "energy discharge" during their journey, crashlanding on a planet with constant "plasma interference", Picard and the Iyaaran are hurt. The crash supposedly kills the Iyaaran while Picard strays from the shuttlecraft to search for medical assistance, hit by a "plasma charge" (basically a lightning bolt) and injured. He is pulled away by a woman named Anna, for whom he awakens to. She proves to be an obsessive captor needing Picard to love her! She even accosts him with kisses and appeals for his love in one strange scene as Picard has to force her off of his person! Told he has broken ribs and that the Iyaaran is dead, Picard recuperates and soon learns that Anna is not who she says. She tells him she has spent seven years on the uninhabited planet and that thoughts of leaping from a precipice to her doom have crept in her heart at moments. When her love isn't shared and Picard "calls her bluff" on jumping (a necklace is a clue), he soon discovers something the Iyaarans have been needing to understand is the reason he's on the godforsaken planet. Human emotion (well, not just human, just concepts like love, antagonism, and the joy of "bad food") intrigues the Iyaarans so they want to get as much understanding of it as possible. Okay episode is more amusing than anything else, a tiny blip within the long-running series, "Liaisons" won't be confused with Yesterday's Enterprise or Relics, but it has its entertainment value. If anything seeing Worf uncomfortably stuck in a diplomatic role has its comic value, and seeing the Iyaaran rise up after being physically assaulted by Worf thanking the Klingon for enlightening him on the use of violence on the receiving end of antagonism is a hoot! Troi getting tired of chocolate after her Iyaaran has been feeding himself silly over the course of his stay is also quite funny. "Liaisons" is more of a diversion than something you'll remember long after its over. The planet Picard and Anna (stuck in a freighter that had crashed with Anna the only survivor, those once on the ship Terrellians, had perished) are trapped is another one of those barren, rocky horrors with constant electrical discharges quite used in the early seasons.
Review of Liaisons
