Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 2, Episode 13
Original Air Date: April 3, 1989
Our heroes encounter a Picard double from six hours in the future. Log records from his future-duplicate shuttle indicate the Enterprise is to be destroyed by a yet to be encountered peril. How can they prepare for such a dire threat without even knowing what it is?
Grumble, grumble... it's Trek and time travel... grumble, grumble... I'm sure I seem like a broken record at this point (to those who remember what one is). I will try to be specific in my criticism.
No reason is given for why this strange time blip occurs. The story concludes with this exchange:
PICARD: A lot of questions, Number One. Damn few answers.
RIKER: Maybe none of it was real. Perhaps we were all part of a shared illusion.
PICARD: Or maybe he was thrown back in time, so that we would be able to take another road. Make a different choice. Well, they say if you travel far enough you will eventually meet yourself. Having experienced that, Number One, it's not something I would care to repeat.
RIKER: I'll be on the Bridge, sir.
Not particularly satisfying. In the end, it's merely a narrative gimmick. Some praise the episode for good Picard development but for me, that's not enough to rescue it. Not the worst episode for Season 2 so far but it's certainly not going to go on my list of favorites.
My favorite part of the story is, not surprisingly, about food. In the tease, Riker prepares an omelette for several of his fellow officers. The choice of an 'Owon egg is unpopular with most of his guests:
Colm Meaney (Chief O'Brien) was born May 30, 1953 in Dublin. After secondary school, he went to the Abbey Theatre School of Acting, then joined the Irish National Theatre. I first became aware of him as the father in the outstanding film, The Commitments, a great music lover's movie. In fact, he was in all three of The Barrytown Trilogy movies, based on Roddy Doyle's novels.
Meaney's path from bit player to principal cast within the Star Trek franchise is fascinating to watch. Between TNG and Deep Space Nine, he appeared in 225 episodes, second only to Michael Dorn. Either he had a great agent, a fantastic working disposition, a winning personality or all of the above.
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| via Memory Alpha |
Our heroes encounter a Picard double from six hours in the future. Log records from his future-duplicate shuttle indicate the Enterprise is to be destroyed by a yet to be encountered peril. How can they prepare for such a dire threat without even knowing what it is?
Grumble, grumble... it's Trek and time travel... grumble, grumble... I'm sure I seem like a broken record at this point (to those who remember what one is). I will try to be specific in my criticism.
No reason is given for why this strange time blip occurs. The story concludes with this exchange:
PICARD: A lot of questions, Number One. Damn few answers.
RIKER: Maybe none of it was real. Perhaps we were all part of a shared illusion.
PICARD: Or maybe he was thrown back in time, so that we would be able to take another road. Make a different choice. Well, they say if you travel far enough you will eventually meet yourself. Having experienced that, Number One, it's not something I would care to repeat.
RIKER: I'll be on the Bridge, sir.
Not particularly satisfying. In the end, it's merely a narrative gimmick. Some praise the episode for good Picard development but for me, that's not enough to rescue it. Not the worst episode for Season 2 so far but it's certainly not going to go on my list of favorites.
My favorite part of the story is, not surprisingly, about food. In the tease, Riker prepares an omelette for several of his fellow officers. The choice of an 'Owon egg is unpopular with most of his guests:
Acting Notes
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| via Die Hard Scenario Wiki |
Colm Meaney (Chief O'Brien) was born May 30, 1953 in Dublin. After secondary school, he went to the Abbey Theatre School of Acting, then joined the Irish National Theatre. I first became aware of him as the father in the outstanding film, The Commitments, a great music lover's movie. In fact, he was in all three of The Barrytown Trilogy movies, based on Roddy Doyle's novels.
Meaney's path from bit player to principal cast within the Star Trek franchise is fascinating to watch. Between TNG and Deep Space Nine, he appeared in 225 episodes, second only to Michael Dorn. Either he had a great agent, a fantastic working disposition, a winning personality or all of the above.
Speaking of Trek and time travel, which I usually hate, the latest episode of Discovery that we watched had a time loop in it, and it was actually really well done. I was impressed.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I'll get to Discovery eventually...
DeleteI remember reading this episode was to have somehow involved Q. In fact, if the information I read was correct, the next episode with Q was to have him refer to the events in "Time Squared."
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of Trek Time Travel, but what Andrew said about that Discovery episode was true.
Screenwriter Maurice Hurley originally intended this episode as a lead-in to "Q-Who" with Q popping in at the end but the idea was nixed.
DeleteScrambled eggs are a treat here because i don't want to wash up. But, I am darn good at anything eggs.
ReplyDeleteFunny how the humans were on the verge of spitting them out. But one can always count on Worf and his favorite beverage prune juice.
I'm not so keen on eggs...
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