This series has ups and downs like I just can't believe. The best episodes are on-the-nose Trek in all the right ways. The worst, like this, just phone it in. The premise is lifted from a TNG episode that I'm pretty sure Stargate had already copied before this aired. Recycling old scripts/premises led us to some of the worst TNG episodes and it's safe to say that this trend continues here. I'm really curious about the direction of this episode because that's clearly where it failed to come together. The aliens look goofy--their movements are not threatening or interesting, just odd, like a circus sideshow--and the tenuous thematic connection between Hoshi's self-confidence and her physical disappearance, while latent in the script, is not brought out in a meaningful way. Direction that properly emphasized this theme could have saved the episode. Unfortunately this is filler and everyone looks tired and bored.
Oh, and I really can't give anything set on a spaceship more than 1 star when someone on the crew becomes intangible and DOESN'T GET LEFT BEHIND BY THE ACCELERATING STARSHIP WHILE THEIR MOLECULES PHASE THROUGH ITS HULL. This is one of the dumbest conceits on television and it's fortunate that bloated budgets have (mostly) done away with the material conditions that led to its narrative use and abuse in the '90s and '00s.
