My issue with this episode is perhaps nitpicky and only aimed at the last few minutes of this episode where they explain the huge mystery developed over this entire episode. These issues really wrecked the whole story for me. Why would the Paxons construct a wormhole "trap", as it was explained, that pulls ships into their space in the first place? Clearly they have the biochemical stasis/mind wipe technology that works independent of this wormhole (i.e. they were still able to use it the second time when the Enterprise simply returned not using their wormhole), so, why not simply live anonymously (space is pretty vast, you know) and wipe the memories of the few ships that happen to stumble onto their planet by accident? The wormhole simply doubles their exposure. Moreover, Troy has this weird moment with her mirror where she is terrified by, one assumes, some unexplained psychological remnant left by the Paxon take-over of her body. Would not this same psychological problem recur for her after the second reboot too? Same goes for Doc Crusher's cellular clock thingy -- wouldn't the two days lost in this episode forever be embedded in every member of the crew for the rest of their lives to be noticed at some future medical exam? Some of these "clues" revealed in the episode seem destined to still bleed through even after the second reboot -- which begs for explanation from the audience as well as by the Paxons. Additionally, for a xenophobic species that borders on the paranoid, the Paxons seem oddly trusting of Data's ability to keep a secret forever simply based upon Picard's and Data's mere promise. He's a computer, so why not simply ask Data to expunge the memories permanently from his positronic brain? This just names a few more holes to add to the list already mentioned by other reviewers. All in all, the story was an interesting idea and fun to watch, but the big reveal in the last act was terribly sloppy and one's suspension of disbelief painfully pops amid the massive sleight of hand the writers try to pull over at the end. It was a very empty ending, like when a story simply ends with the main character waking up from a bad dream. This was simply a very bad use of "Deus Ex Machina", which is a plot device I actually don't mind, and occasionally enjoy, when done properly.
