Synopsis: Inorganic life forms aren’t very happy when the Federation tries to terraform their planet, which would kill them. Tsk. Tsk.
Memory Alpha Summary: Bags of mostly water
Review: Troi does an excellent job at telling the bridge crew to be suspicious of someone who is acting paranoid and guarded. You know, just once I’d like her to point out someone is lying when they actually appear to be telling the truth. I am also noticing just how frequent Geordi makes useless comments from the con that would likely get him a reprimand from any other captain.
Crew antics aside, this episode is high on concept and low on execution. I am very pleased the writers created an intelligent life form that was not humanoid (I’m not sure the crystalline entity counts). But once they sense that this life form could be dangerous, they are really slow at problem-solving. Once they finally try to beam the life form off the ship, it’s too late as it has taken control over the computer. They try to suck out the environment in the lab, but again, no computer access. So they decide to manually shut off the lights, which the life form can’t survive without. Are you telling me there are no manual controls for the environment?
The episode also ends on a captain’s supplemental log, which is very awkward.
Death By Troggles 
You know, just once I’d like her to point out someone is lying when they actually appear to be telling the truth.
Shit, I’d like for her to unequivocally point out someone is lying when they’re actually lying.
Amen.
And yeah, I think only two or three times during the series does she say, “You’re lying.” It’s usually, “I can’t tell exactly what, but I think he’s hiding something.”
I think the choice of her being only half Betazoid really hamstrung the writers. Her special power becomes barely more useful than just good human intuition. If she’s full Betazoid, then her character stands out.
But if I was writing the character, she wouldn’t be able to read thoughts through a view screen.
My family talked about this episode at Christmas. I forgot about the fact that they basically have a mini-war with these things. We just talked about the high-concept. It was really probably one of their best. I think I’d move this up the list just for that reason, even admitting execution problems.
I had a hard time placing this one. There was so much cringing that I did throughout but the concept itself is such a breath of fresh air that I kept moving it higher on the list. This was as far I could muster, though.
and I love the fact you discussed this with your family