While watching this episode recently, it occurred to me that it bore a strong resemblance to the second pilot of TOS, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". In that episode, Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell, the first to hold the navigator chair, obtains increasingly more powerful abilities, i.e., telekinesis, telepathy, etc. Those new powers corrupt the all-around-good-guy Mitchell, a colleague of Kirk's from a prior ship assignment they both shared. He eventually has to be destroyed in order to save the ship, if not the Federation.
ST:TNG "The Nth Degree" has a similar premise yet very different build up. The very flawed Barklay, alternately to Mitchell, who is well-adjusted in the extreme, uses his powers for the good of the ship and the Federation. His actions automatically assume one of greater good, opposite Mitchell's ego driven actions.
So it's rather comforting to know that both were penned by Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the franchise, and how, just before his death, he had gained a little more hope for the species than he had at the first series' birth.
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