Synopsis: Picard gets wrapped up in a ball of (racist) energy.
Memory Alpha Summary: This show’s badness is elementary
Review: More preaching by the Enterprise crew, disgusted that any species would want to eat an animal live. This allegedly enlightened human race doesn’t appear to be able to tolerate minor customs of other cultures. Gross. Also, Picard is still trying to shake off his bad temper, as he literally yells at the Enterprise as its systems keep failing. Thankfully, he eventually learns how to not be a crazy person in front of his crew.
When Picard’s body is taken over by the energy being, Troi proves her worthlessness by not identifying the problem until it’s quite obvious to everyone else as well. She redeems herself a bit when she senses his presence in the energy cloud right before Riker gives up on him. So go her.
The Antican/Selay subplot is mostly pointless, but at least Tasha gets to yell that one of them is being boiled by the ship’s cook. The highlight of the episode is Data as Sherlock Holmes, a role he’ll reprise a few times.
Death By Troggles 
Why does the ship even have a cook?
To cook for delegates and visitors with recipes not programmable into the replicators? I don’t think this cook is ever mentioned again, though perhaps Guinan did some cooking
Wow, the first season of this show seemingly had a lot of well-meaning episodes that ultimately pissed on Roddenberry’s ideals.
I read an article the other day that stated Roddenberry’s ideals were actually a combination of his thought and those of his right-hand man who wrote and produced a lot of episodes. For example, The Prime Directive was not Roddenberry.
In general though, he did seem to hope for a tolerant future where conflict was minimal and constructive. And season one did a very poor job, most of the time, in showing that.
Idea: a checklist page containing every episode in chronological order, and their placement, once they appear. Wait, maybe there already is one.
Excellent idea
Is there no justice?! I mean, Justice?!
Rest assured, Rhu, it will appear on the list.