Note: This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.
The Enterprise is called back to Earth. Captain Picard and Data are
called down to an archaeological site, where they're shown several
artifacts, including a watch. Picard knows that these things can't
possible warrant calling Starfleet's flagship all the way back to Earth.
That's when they're shown something utterly amazing: Data's head. It
had apparently been sitting there for 500 years, despite the fact that
it's still attached to the rest of Data. At some point, presumably in
the near future, Data will go back in time and be 'killed' in
such a way that his head is left below San Francisco in the 1890s. From
this point on, everyone is conscious of Data's presence, abruptly ending
conversations when he appears.
Chief Engineer La Forge is able
to find a microbe that can be traced back to a planet called Devidia II.
The ship goes there to find a cave; upon beaming down, Counselor Troi,
an empath, senses a great many people and they're all afraid. There also
seem to be aliens who are out of phase with normal time, meaning that
they can't be seen, even if the phase shift is only by a few seconds. Captain Picard
is reluctant to send Data down for fear that this will be what sends him
back in time, but Data's presence is necessary to be able to see the
aliens. He's able to phase himself so that he's in sync with the aliens.
Using a delay mechanism, Data is able to communicate with the ship and
the rest of the landing party, but loses contact after a minute or two.
Data finds himself on the streets of San Francisco and the landing party
is left to assume what happened.
Data manages to find his way to
a hotel, but doesn't have the money to pay rent. Data gets lucky when
he finds out that there's a poker game going on. He sells his badge,
which has gold in it, for three dollars and cleans out the rest of the
players. (If one of the other players sounds familiar, imagine him as a
Cardassian. The one doing most of the talking is Gul Dukat.) Data is
able to set himself up in one of the rooms so that he can try to figure
out how to get back.
Back on the Enterprise, Guinan seems to know
what's going on. She had overheard Data before the accident and seemed
to know what was going to happen. (Her connection is revealed when Data
sees Guinan's picture in a newspaper.) Guinan tells Picard that he has to join the away team; history
depends on it. Picard joins the away team. The episode ends with Picard,
Dr. Crusher, Commander Riker, La Forge and Troi entering a temporal
rift to go after Data.
It was a great episode overall. There were
only two problems that I had with it. First, no one seems to notice
Data just appearing on the street. The street was somewhat crowded and
while not certain, I'd say that it's probable that someone would see him
materialize. The second point is that Data has to lie several times
during the episode. First, he tells someone that he's a Frenchman. He
later tells someone that he's an inventor. Granted, he can't tell
someone what he really is or why he's there, but I thought Data wasn't
supposed to be able lie. It looks like the writers had to conveniently
forget about this for the episode.
Overall, it's a four-star
episode. The acting was good and we got to see Jerry Hardin return to
the series, this time as Samuel Clemens. (He had appeared in the
first-season episode, "When The Bough Breaks".) It's
also interesting to see Guinan in the 19th-century setting. Her
relationship with Picard has always been a little mysterious, although
the two characters won't interact with each other in the 19th century
until the next episode.
The only trouble is that you'll have to
buy a separate DVD set to watch the conclusion if you're not using streaming. This will be the last episode of the fifth season with the
next episode being the first one of the sixth-season set. I'd recommend
the episode, but I though it fair to include this information in the
review.
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