In this episode, they are trying to teach Data how to make small talk. They pair him with a diplomat (the actor who played Scully’s dad on X-Files and an Army officer on Twin Peaks) to make completely inoffensive chit chat.
Don S. Davis is the person you’re thinking of from Twin Peaks and X-Files, but I don’t remember him in a ST:TNG episode, and I can’t find anything that says he was in one.
As I understand it, hostage situation was a contingency, not the primary plan on the surface. The gang organizing the heist of WMD from Enterprise engines placed confederates on the staff at Hutchinson’s party, to observe and make sure that the Starfleet personnel didn’t go back to the ship or do anything else to give away the job while it was in progress. Now, they failed to keep Picard from slipping back on board for his saddle. But he seemed confident that he’d be back before the sweep started, so maybe they assumed that he’d be no trouble.
But the events actually precipitating the hostage situation contingency had nothing directly to do with ‘Enterprise’. The hostage takers wouldn’t have been planning to use the weapons if circumstances didn’t force them to. But when Geordi spotted the weapons, they had no choice but to proceed, IIRC.
Yeah, that just highlight the big dreams mixed with tunnel vision of the series’ writers. The senior staff was at the cocktail party - that leaves nearly 800 Starfleet personnel assigned to the Enterprise. If there was a serious concern of someone going back to the ship, why concentrate on just a handful of them? That just tips them off that something is going on.
Of course, another factor is the somewhat annoying principal that all the primary actors must appear, however briefly, in every episode.
It clarifies some of the weaknesses of the show’s writing; I still consider it a plot hole.
Well, we have no idea what other measures might have been taken with regard to other Enterprise personnel. It was natural for Hutchinson to invite Picard’s senior staff to a reception - that probably had nothing to do with the plot. We’re not really sure what the rest of the crew are doing while they’re evacuated from the Enterprise - or even (and this is somewhat wild surmise,) whether they’re all on the same planet where the sweep is being performed, or if some considerable number were offered shore leave elsewhere.
I remember this episode. At the time it aired, the fandom got a big kick out of referring to it as ‘Die Hard Picard’ due to the action antics. Fun ep to watch.