Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 126 (Time's Arrow: Part 1)

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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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 86 (The Wounded)

I remember watching an episode of Star Trek (the original series) and thinking that Ferengi, Borg, Bajorans and other races from the spin-off series existed.  They just hadn’t been invented yet.  At some point, each race was created for whatever reason.  The Ferengi and Borg were to serve as enemies, for instance.  In The Wounded, we get to meet the Cardassians, who are not on friendly terms with the Federation.

There is a peace treaty, so it comes as a surprise when a Cardassian ship attacks the Enterprise.  Captain Picard is able to get the situation under control pretty quickly.  When pressed for an explanation, Gul Macet explains that a Starfleet ship attacked first.  (A gul is their equivalent of a captain.)  Picard asks for an hour to verify this with Starfleet.  Turns out it’s true.  Captain Maxwell, in command of the Phoenix, attacked a Cardassian base.  He’s not responding to anyone, so no one has any idea what happened.  Oh, and Picard is to preserve the peace…at all costs.

Macet and two of his aides come onboard the Enterprise to find Maxwell before any more harm is done.  Interestingly, Chief O’Brien served with Maxwell.  They responded to a Cardassian attack in which Maxwell lost his family.  The Enterprise finds Maxwell, but can’t get to him before he finds two more Cardassian ships.  Picard reluctantly agrees to give the Cardassians the prefix codes for the Phoenix, which would allow the Cardassians to lower the Phoenix’s shields.  This doesn’t help; the two Cardassian ships are destroyed, anyway.

Up to this point, Picard had been resisting.  He realizes now that he can’t drag his feet any more.  He increases speed to warp 9 to get to Maxwell as quickly as possible.  Picard and Maxwell talk.  Maxwell is under the impression that the Cardassians are rearming.  He throws out a few vague statements.  (“Lives were at stake.”  “We had to act now.”)  Picard bluntly informs Maxwell that Maxwell will return to the Phoenix and follow the Enterprise back to Starbase 211.  Maxwell agrees insomuch as he’ll bolt at the first sign of a Cardassian ship.

Sure enough, Maxwell finds one that’s using subspace shielding, which makes scanning impossible.  Maxwell insists that Picard beam over, which Picard refuses.  O’Brien is able to beam over during a fiftieth-of-a-second window that the Phoenix’s shields provide.  (Yes, 1/50 of a second.)  O’Brien convinces Maxwell that he’s not getting his way on this.  Maxwell hands his ship over to his first officer and spends the rest of the trip to the starbase confined to quarters.

I remember when this episode first aired.  The thing that stood out the most was the song, The Minstrel Boy.  I don’t know why, but it was one of those things that stuck with me.  I also remember thinking it was odd that we never got to see any of Maxwell’s crew.  When O’Brien beams over to the Phoenix, we go from O’Brien telling Picard that he can do it to O’Brien walking into Maxwell’s ready room.  I think the writers wanted to avoid the issue of the crew being complicit in his actions.

Maxwell was someone who lost his family.  It took a while for him to finally snap.  I’m sure other Starfleet officers present had similar issues.  O’Brien even snapped at the Cardassian aides during the episode.  The fact that Maxwell was in command of a starship made things more dangerous.  O’Brien was in pretty deep denial about his feelings.  After snapping at the aides, he goes to have dinner with his wife and says that he feels fine about the Cardassians.  The war’s over.

The ending also stuck with me.  Picard and Macet have a conversation in the observation lounge.  Macet asks Picard why he didn’t inspect the ship, to which Picard responds with the truth.  If Picard had gone over, both sides would be making preparations for war and that’s not what Picard was instructed to do.

I originally took the scene to mean that we’d never know, even though it’s likely that the Cardassians were up to something.   There was a scene with Glin Telle, one of Macet’s aides, getting caught looking at sensitive information.  Macet confined Telle to quarters, but I always took the scene as the outcome of plausible deniability.  Macet probably had his aides look at stuff every chance they got.  Telle just has the bad luck of getting caught, so Macet had to appear to reprimand him.  Likewise, Picard points out that Maxwell was a good man that happened to do something very wrong.  The fact that he was right about the Cardassians doesn’t excuse killing 700 people, but the Cardassian government has been caught.  Picard can’t do anything about it…at the moment, but the Cardassians are on notice.


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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 26 (The Neutral Zone)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account..

The Enterprise is waiting for Captain Picard to return from somewhere. As the ship is waiting, an old Earth probe of some sort passes by. Commander Riker thinks nothing of it and is willing to simply let it fall into a star and be incinerated. Data, pointing out the opportunity to study something of Earth’s past, wants to go over and see what’s there. What Data finds is more than ordinary. He actually finds three cryogenically frozen humans. Before he can contact the ship for a decision, Picard’s shuttle comes back. Data makes the decision to bring the three people back to the Enterprise.

Dr. Crusher examines them and finds that all three are from the 20th century. They all died of problems that were pretty serious in our time, but are easily treatable in the 24th century. Both Riker and Picard question Data’s decision; the three people on the probe were already dead. Data pointed out that it would have been wrong to leave them there if they could be helped.

The problem is that the Enterprise is due to go to the Neutral Zone. This is an area between the Federation and the Romulan Empire used as a buffer; entry into the Neutral Zone could be considered an act of war. Several Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone have stopped communicating and there are reports of Romulan activity. It’s a dangerous mission, meaning that the three ‘survivors’ might have been just as well off on the probe.

For their part, the people brought back have varying degrees of difficulty. One is a housewife who’s distraught at the thought of not having her family any more. Another was a businessman who’s almost giddy at the prospect of how much interest he’s earned over the course of 370 years. The third was a country singer who’s just as happy to be singing in the 24th century as he was in the 20th. One venue is just as good as another.

Everything goes well with the Romulans, which is to say that neither the Enterprise nor the Romulan ship destroys the other one. The Romulans report similar instances of their outposts simply vanishing. (Both sides recognize that the other side doesn’t have the capability to do something of this magnitude.) The three survivors are told that they will be sent back to Earth to find new lives. Troi even helps the housewife find a few descendants. And so ends the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The episode, by itself, wasn’t much to look at. We never find out what happened with the three people from the probe or exactly how the probe got so far out. Apparently, it was lucky enough not to hit anything while it was drifting, but it’s amazing that no one else found them first. Also, it was mentioned that cryogenics was popular, but there’s no mention of other probes or ships other than the Botany Bay from the original series. I guess we’re just lucky that not all cryogenically frozen people turn out to be evil, genetically modified dictators like Khan. It would have been nice to revisit one or two of them in the series later on.

Also, how is it that Troi was only able to find one family for that woman? 370 years translates into 15 generations, give or take. Figuring that both of her children were to marry and each couple were to have two children, the number of descendants should be somewhere to the order of 30,000-65,000 people or more. Even if we were to figure far less, Troi should have been able to find quite a number of families. It seems possible that one of her descendants might even be on the Enterprise.

This episode was supposed to accomplish two things, really. First, it was supposed to bring back the Romulans. According to the episode, they had been missing for 50 years. Now, they were back and would be paying close attention to the Federation. The second thing was to set up the Borg. They were never expressly mentioned in the episode, but it would turn out that the cybernetic race was the real reason that the outposts disappeared. The Ferengi hadn’t shaped up to be the enemy that they were supposed to be, so the writers had to think of something else.

The acting was pretty good, but not spectacular. The writing was decent, but not great. The episode does set up later episodes, but could very easily be skipped. It’s a two-star episode. The only thing of any real importance that the episode does is to establish the year as 2364. I really can’t recommend this episode based on that alone. If you’re collecting the series on VHS, don’t waste your money on this one. (Actually, if you’re collecting the series on VHS, you might want to look into the DVD sets and a DVD player.) I suppose that it’s really a fitting end to the first season. It’s worth watching if it comes on TV, but it’s nothing remarkable.

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