“Time’s Arrow” (Part 1)
Written by Joe Menosky and Michael Piller
Directed by Les Landau
Season 5, Episode 26
Production episode 40275-226
Original air date: June 15, 1992
Stardate: 45959.1
Captain’s Log: The Enterprise is in orbit of Earth for a rare trip home. An archaeological dig prompted by the installation of new seismic regulators under San Francisco has revealed evidence of extraterrestrial life in the 19th century—the rock in the cavern has been altered by triolic waves, which wouldn’t occur naturally on Earth in the 19th or 24th centuries.
But that’s not the really bizarre part, nor why the Enterprise specifically was summoned. Amidst the various artifacts—a pair of glasses, a Colt revolver, a pocket watch—is Data’s severed head.
They bring the head back to the ship. Data verifies that it’s his head and not Lore’s, and that it’s been in that cavern since the 19th century. Riker, despite knowing Data for five years now, doesn’t understand how he can be dispassionate about examining his own head.
One way or another, though, Data is destined to die in 19th-century San Francisco.
Meanwhile, La Forge has determined some aspects of the alien species that was in that cavern. They are probably shapeshifters, and also immune to triolic waves. He also found a cellular fossil on one of the alien skin cells, and that fossil belongs to a creature found only on Devidia II. Picard tells Riker to lay in a course.
In Ten-Forward, La Forge and Data talk about what they’ve found. (La Forge asks if he wants to talk about it, and Data blithely says that he has no particular desire to discuss it. Then Data asks if La Forge needs to talk about it, and La Forge emphatically says, “Yeah!”) Data muses about the fact that he’s mortal, and actually finds the notion that he will die to be something that brings him closer to being human.
After Data leaves, Guinan comes over and La Forge fills her in. After he leaves, she smiles and says, “Full circle.” Because it’s been a while since Guinan got to be all mysterious and stuff.
They arrive at Devidia II. Worf reads no life signs, but Data’s picking up a temporal disturbance—which isn’t at all problematic given that Data’s death will have to of necessity start with time travel—and there are triolic waves on the surface that match those found in the cavern on Earth. Riker takes an away team down that includes Worf, La Forge, and Troi—and does not include Data. When questioned by Data on the subject, Picard says that this investigation started with Data’s death, and they’re trying to avoid it ending with that.
On the surface, Troi is sensing life: dozens of terrified humans. Data determines that there is synchronic distortion that puts what Troi is sensing out of phase. They’re in the same place, but not the same time. The only phase discriminator they have that is sensitive enough to make that phase shift is in Data’s positronic brain. So he has to join the away team.
After he beams down, he explains that, once he’s shifted, he’ll be just as invisible to the away team, but he’s adjusted his combadge so they can hear him, though they won’t be able to talk to him back. He phases out, and then describes what he sees: several life forms, which are ignoring him. They are bipedal, two-to-three meters in height, silver-gray skin, no eyes or ears, but a single orifice at the forehead. They appear to be ingesting energy pulses from an apparatus. He sees no signs of the humans Troi sensed.
Then he sees an ophidian held by a force field; two of the aliens free the ophidian, and Data reports temporal distortion. There’s a noise, a loud flash of light, and then the phase shifter Data was holding falls to the ground, visible. Of Data, there is no sign.
Data himself wakes up on a cobblestone street, surrounded by humans and horse-drawn carriages. Attempts to ask after two people with a “snake” are met with laughter. A newspaper shows that he’s in San Francisco in August 1893. A beggar assumes that Data’s “in the same boat,” and starts giving him advice on who to hit up. (Stockbrokers are cheap, sailors will beat you up, but a young man might try to impress his lady by being nice to a man down on his luck.)
From a bellhop, Data learns of a poker game. He sells one of the poker players his combadge (which contains gold) for three dollars, which gives him an ante. It isn’t long before he cleans up, giving him enough for a hotel room, clothes, and to give the bellhop a shopping list of stuff he needs to construct something that will sense the bad guys. (He tells the bellhop he’s an inventor.)
Meanwhile, the beggar is approached by a well dressed couple, who zap him with a blue beam that appears to kill him.
Back in the 24th century, they still need to find out what’s going on. Picard instructs La Forge to build a subspace field that will allow an entire team to be out of phase so they can do what Data did. (And they didn’t do this in the first place, why, exactly? Also, if Data’s positronic brain has a sensitive enough phase discriminator, why not use the one in the 500-year-old head that’s sitting in the lab?) Then Guinan informs Picard that he needs to be on the away team—if he isn’t, then he and Guinan will never meet.
In 1893, Data continues to build his scanner, though he allows the bellhop to believe he’s building a motor for a horseless carriage. (The bellhop, whose name is Jack, thinks that’s awesome. “A man rides into town in his pajamas, wins a grubstake at a poker table, turns it into a horseless carriage, and makes a million bucks! That’s America!”) Jack leaves him with a soggy croissant wrapped in a newspaper. Said newspaper has an article about a literary reception, complete with a picture of the woman hosting it: Guinan.
Cut to the reception itself, where Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, is ripping into a natural philosopher named Alfred Russel Wallace, who has allegedly revived the pre-Galileo notion that the Earth is the center of the universe. The character assassination is interrupted by Data, who needs to speak to Guinan urgently. Guinan doesn’t recognize him, and Data realizes that Guinan did not follow him back in time, as he originally assumed, but that this is a younger Guinan visiting Earth. He explains the situation to her—and, unwittingly, to an eavesdropping Samuel Clemens.
Riker has taken down another team, consisting of Worf, La Forge, Troi, and Crusher. La Forge has constructed a device that should allow the away team to phase shift into the same temporal plane as the aliens. Picard beams down, sending Worf back to be in charge of the ship.
La Forge activates the field, and they see what Data earlier described. The aliens are ingesting energy pulses. Those pulses, Troi realizes, are imprints: the last echo of life before they died. A portal opens, and two more aliens come in, carrying an ophidian. They deliver more life energy, then head back through the portal—and the away team follows them through.
To be continued…
Can’t We Just Reverse the Polarity?: Lore’s positronic brain uses a Type-L phase shifter, while Data uses a Type-R. If only they’d known that when Lore switched places with Data in “Datalore”….
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: When Riker is snappish and angry, Troi counsels him by describing Data’s definition of friendship, while also doing a good impersonation of Data (down to the head tilt): “As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The inputs eventually are anticipated and even missed when absent.” (Data used that same definition to Ishara Yar in “Legacy.”) A few minutes later, Riker throws that line back at Data, to which the android responds that he’s fond of Riker and Troi as well.
If I Only Had a Brain…: Data is far more philosophical about his impending doom than his friends, who are cranky about it. Data also notices that people suddenly and awkwardly stop conversations around him.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: Just to cheer everyone up, Worf tells Riker that they could all have died with Data in that cavern, since their remains would have long since turned to dust.
Syntheholics Anonymous: After getting pissy Guinan in “I, Borg,” things go back to normal as the ship’s bartender is all metaphorical and mysterious and stuff. We also get to meet Guinan when she was 500 years younger, and Whoopi Goldberg plays her beautifully, much more eager and curious.
I Believe I Said That: “Couldja help out a 49er? I fell down a shaft, I got run over in a tunnel.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“It is most unfortunate. I require large amounts of whiskey as a linament.”
A beggar trying to hit up Data and failing.
Welcome Aboard: Jerry Hardin returns—having played Radue in “When the Bough Breaks”—to play Samuel Clemens, a role he enjoyed so much, he started up a one-man theatrical show, Mark Twain: On Man and His World, which ran on and off for fifteen years. Michael Aron is fairly clichéd in his role of Jack the bellhop (a role that will get more annoying in Part 2), while Jack Murdock is delightful as the 49er down on his luck.
But the most fun is the poker table. Besides veteran Lakota character actor Sheldon Peters Wolfchild as Joe Falling Hawk, we get two guys better known for appearing on Trek with makeup: Ken Thorley, between his two appearances as Mr. Mot the Bolian barber (“Ensign Ro” and forthcoming in “Schisms”), plays the seaman, while Marc Alaimo—an Antican in “Lonely Among Us,” a Romulan in “The Neutral Zone,” a Cardassian in “The Wounded,” and the future Gul Dukat on Deep Space Nine—makes the first of only two appearances on Trek without any makeup as Frederick La Roque (he will also appear sans makeup as a cop in DS9’s “Far Beyond the Stars.”)
Trivial Matters: Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, spent most of the 1890s staving off creditors, in part by doing lecture tours. He had moved his family to Europe by 1893 due to the cheaper standard of living, and a lot of his speaking engagements were on the other side of the Atlantic. It is, therefore, extremely unlikely that he was in San Francisco in August of that year.
Alfred Russel Wallace was an early proponent of evolutionary theory, and was actually a respected practitioner of the biological sciences of the time. He’s not known to have said much of anything about the Earth’s place in the cosmos, so Clemens ripping into him for it makes little sense. What’s amusing is that Wallace also was a supporter of mesmerism and spiritualism, even defending spiritualists against charges of fraud, and that is something Clemens would’ve gleefully ripped into.
The producers had not planned to do another season-spanning cliffhanger, but with the announcement that they were developing a spinoff series (Deep Space Nine), rumors started that TNG was closing up shop. So they did a cliffhanger to reassure viewers that TNG was also coming back for a sixth season.
Guinan’s statement to Wes in “The Child” that she never met Picard before reporting to the Enterprise is now confirmed to be a big, fat lie (on more than one level).
Make it So: “Alors, nous sommes presque frères.” The diminishing cliffhangers continue, as this episode isn’t even worthy of a season-ending two-parter, and has to win some kind of award for least exciting cliffhanger ever, as we end the season with our heroes walking forward. Ooooh, scary.
This episode has a lot of great moments, but it doesn’t really add up to anything. Data and La Forge’s conversation about his mortality is very nicely done, as are Riker and Troi’s similar talk and Picard declaring to Data that, dammit, he’ll be irrational if he wants to. The poker scene is a hoot, watching Whoopi Goldberg play Guinan as the equivalent of an overeager 20-year-old is delightful, and Jerry Hardin leaves no piece of scenery unchewed as Clemens. (Though one wishes they had gotten Hal Holbrook, who has been doing one-man Mark Twain shows since 1954.)
It’s also very entertaining to watch Data totally own the 19th century. After all those original series episodes where Kirk and the gang struggled to blend in (e.g., the mechanical rice-picker bit from “City on the Edge of Forever”), it’s wonderful to see how easily Data manages to assimilate, without ever losing his innate Data-ness. (The bit where he hefts the anvil one-handed and then remembers that Jack’s still there is hilariously done.)
Although, speaking of “City…,” I can’t have been the only one wanting Data to tell Jack that he was building a mnemonic circuit from stone knives and bearskins….
But the episode is entirely setup with nothing even remotely resembling a payoff. Adding Mark Twain to the proceedings seems forced (this will be exacerbated in Part 2 when we find out who Jack is), we’re blithely told that a dark-skinned woman would be running a literary salon for the hoi-polloi in 1893 San Francisco (admittedly, San Francisco was already a bastion of flamboyance and support of the arts in the post-Gold Rush years, so it’s possible, but at the very least, the newspaper report would describe it as being run by a “negress” or some other such description that modern eyes would view as racist), and Data’s odyssey feels less like it’s taking place in 1893 San Francisco and more like it’s on a Hollywood back lot. (Seriously, it’s a hilly port town, yet all the land is flat and we never once see water. It’s like setting a story in Venice and never seeing a canal.)
Warp factor rating: 4
Keith R.A. DeCandido wishes Star Trek a happy 46th anniversary. To celebrate, check out today’s Google doodle. Be sure to make the tribbles fall out of the hatch in the transporter room….
Unrelated…but everyone go to Google today and have Google Kirk fight the Gorn!
Nomi and I have always called this episode “Data’s Head.”
— Michael A. Burstein
crzydroid: It’s not unrelated at all, because I mentioned it (complete with link) in my bio. I knew nobody read those things……………………
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Oh, you already mentioned the Google doodle. I actually hadn’t read ANY of the post when I wrote that, because I was so eager to srpead it around.
The interesting thing about the reception scene is that Guinan is not the only well-dressed black woman.
I guess Data got better at Poker since “The Measure of a Man.”
crzydroid: Remember the opening of “Legacy”? Data picked up on poker right damn quick….
Michael: BRING ME THE HEAD OF LIEUTENANT COMMANDER DATA!!!!!!
—KRAD
I could mention how I referenced this 2-parter in The Buried Age, but that’s probably best saved for the Part 2 recap. I also touched on it briefly in Watching the Clock, and in researching Twain’s itinerary in 1893, I came to the same conclusion you did, Keith. My annotations for the novel said the following:
Interestingly, it was Rogers who got Twain involved with the emancipationist movement, and I like to think that in the Trek universe, it was Guinan who introduced them.
@5: No, I forgot the opening of Legacy.
I guess my point was, Data doesn’t always clean up with the Enterprise crew…so does that mean Riker and the rest are better than these nefarious card sharks from the 19th century?
I saw these episodes before on our Time Travel collection DVD and they annoyed me – as I’ve said before I’m not a huge fan of the ‘gimmicky’ episodes – the ones where they use something like the Holodeck/Time Travel/Q to put the crew in some anachronistic setting. I also found the Mark Twain aspect annoying. However, I did find I enjoyed it more the second time around (epecially the second episode) by just tuning that stuff out and focusing on Data’s quest and the general mystery.
Although my head still hurts every time my husband tries to explain to me how it is possible that two of Data’s heads can coexist at the same time and how that it isn’t a violation of creating extra matter (something to do with how the matter is also time specific, otherwise no time travel would be possible at all, since the molecules in your body must have existed in the previous time in some other form as well).
I thought this was an OK episode. I thought it was measurably better than most of the season 5 gutter filth. But it was aired after 2 very strong season ending cliffhangars, and immediately after argueably the best episode ever, so there was no way this was going to meet expectations in any way.
I would give it a 7 though, as when I watched it 1st time, I was wrapped up completely in the plot. It hasn’t aged super well. As for Mark Twain, I am not a student of Twain, but from my limited knowledge, I always assumed he would probably act exactly like this. I have always thought that people that do not like this performance, and find it annoying, would likely find Twain himself quite annoying.
@7 Crzydroid… I wonder if Data, like Laforge and his VISOR has a way to cheat at poker but chooses not to since they are his friends. This would make it the second time that Data cheats while gambling, the first of course way back in sasons’s 2 “The Royale.” Actually it probably wouldn’t be hard, since Data could probably pick up on biometric information that would indicate someone is bluffing.
Overall this episode is just sort of blah. I like that they at least had Data sort of fit in to the time period, so we didn’t have a bunch of the oh-so-wacky person from the future with wierd clothes, speech, etc. the way we did in Star Trek IV or Picard in “the Big Goodbye.” However, I don’t see any real danger here. There is no expectation that Data, Picard and the rest of the group won’t come back, and we have no indication that Data’s presence in 1890’s San Francisco will dramatically change the timeline in a butterfly effect type thing. So while we get to enjoy an extended appearance by Whoopi Goldberg (two weeks after the release of the wildly successful Sister Act!) as an episode it’s just sort of flat.
The other issue I have is that does it have to be Mark Twain who shows up in these sort of things? It’s like someone says “the only people anyone will remember from the 19th Century is Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain so lets include him.” The episode would have probably been equally effective with a fictional character instead of a fictional Twain.
And one techno nitpick. Why is it that Data has the only properly sensitive phase discriminating amplifier on board? Can’t we build a new one? For that matter, why does Data have one in the first place? And why is it that Data (who was built 3 decades ago by a genius on a remote planet) has a more sensitive amplifier than on the 5 year old ship of exploration built at the best shipyard in the Federation? I realize that the writers need to give a reason for Data to be there in the first place, but it seems a bit forced.
Anyone but me have the poster in youth that said “Never put your bridge crew on one shuttle”? Because except for sending Worf back to the ship, I think this is one of the only episodes where everyone who matters gets to be on an Away Team. And…nothing happens. Crappy writing.
Decades ago, I pitched an outline for a STAR TREK novel (this was before TNG even existed) where an archelogical dig on Earth turns up the perfectly preserved body of Spock, and they all have to time-travel back and find out what happened. They were actually interested in buying it, but I ultimately decided against writing it, and it never got written. I was amused when I first saw this episode to see that an adaptation of the same general idea had been used. (And no, I don’t think they stole it from me–it’s a logical idea when you think about it, and I’m sure somebody came up with it on their own.)
Mike, at least we haven’t yet gotten MARK TWAIN, VAMPIRE SLAYER, although I’m waiting for it to come along any day now.
Wallace (co-discoverer with Darwin of natural selection) was an early speculator on what we now call the anthropic principle, and Twain did mock it, in an essay called “Was the World Made For Man?”, saying:
But Wallace and Twain weren’t writing this stuff until the early 1900s, so the show is off in having Twain saying this in the 1890s.
@10 and others re Data playing poker, I have no doubt that Data if he wanted to would be able to see and remember every minute scratch, nick, fade, etc on each card. So it wouldn’t be very long before he knows what most of the players are holding in every hand.
@13: He used “I dunno” back then?
@11: I was actually just thinking about that too, but was going to save it for the second part? Who was in command during this time? Did that person have standing orders to wait a certain amount of time before doing anything? Because it seems like the time portal opens to a fixed amount of time between the past and the future; ie, if a person spends 25 minutes in the past before opening another portal, then 25 minutes go by in the future too. I got the impression the crew was in the past for a couple of days.
Maybe everyone just had a big party on board the ship instead.
It’s not like he’d have to be “cheating” in any way. He is, after all, an ice cold mathematically literate player by his very nature. You can clean up any amateur table if you’re good at statistics, don’t panic, and have a good poker face.
Well, the Enterprise was in Earth orbit, so no doubt opportunities abounded for systems checkups at one of the dockyards scattered across the neighbourhood.
@16: The point is, this wasn’t supposed to be an amateur table. These are supposed to be the best poker players of their day.
Perhaps poker strategy has advanced in the intervening 500 years?
This episode always makes me think of a completely pointless piece of coincidental trivia that’s of a kind with those “Lincoln/Kennedy similarities” you used to see bandied about.
Hal Holbrook played Mark Twain on stage. He also played Deep Throat (secretly W. Mark Felt) in All the President‘s Men. Jerry Hardin played Twain in this episode and the next. He also played Deep Throat (not sure if it’s supposed to be the same person or not, but Felt’s involvement wasn’t known then) on The X-Files. COINCIDENCE? Yes, it is.
@15: “I dunno” may seem rather modern, but Twain was known for writing colloquial speech (as in Huckleberry Finn.)
I haven’t seen this episode in quite a while, but it does seem like the delay between Data’s arrival and the others’ points to “San Dimas Time.”
I seem to be in the minority, but I thought these episodes (1 & 2) were fun ones (despite the fact of Data’s imminent death). I assumed he was counting cards or reading the biorhythms or something (but definitely cheating) when he won at the poker game.
And didn’t he explain away his odd coloration by saying he was from France or something?
Goodbye and good riddance, Season 5. Blech. Makes me want to watch Seasons 1.5-4 again and then just skip to 6.
#21, yes he did and then Marc Alaimo’s character, who was a Frenchman, began speaking French to him and Data replied in French to him satisfying the Frenchman. The ”real” Frenchman, of course. lol
@10 & 21: Reading other players’ biometrics isn’t cheating; it’s what any good poker player learns to do. As long as you’re basing your judgments only on what you’re able to observe of the other players’ reactions, then you’re playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played. A good player is simply someone who’s better at people-reading than a lesser player.
And I don’t buy that card-counting is cheating either, because, again, it’s simply paying attention to information that’s theoretically available to every player. It’s only frowned on because not everybody has a good enough memory to do it (plus casinos frown on it because they don’t want anyone winning too much money, honestly or otherwise).
krad (@3): Regarding your bio-signatures and their complete un-read-iness, I refer you to Comment #9 in the rewatch of “The Masterpiece Society”. Clearly, the answer to the question posed therein is ‘No’, you father-raper, you.
Jack at 21
I also liked this episode and part 2. You are not alone.
In my case, I seem to have a much higher suspension of disbelief threshold than many and don’t get thrown out of a story as easily.
My daughter, on the other hand, could write a nitpickers guide to everything. Her critical eye for contunuity and logic errors is astounding.
”the hoi polloi”
‘Hoi’ means ‘the’, so the ‘the’ is redundant. She’s also running it, not for hoi polloi (which implies the masses) but the upper crust.
I remember watching this when it first came out. I was 12. I loved these two episodes so much! Mostly because Data’s head scared the crap out of me. It looked so weird and spooky and back then death and everything related to it scared the bejesus out of me. To see Data sans body looky dirty and just plain creepy (those eyes!!) made these two episodes the most memorable (other than a few of the Wesley-centric episodes, but that’s because I had a crush on Wesley).
The scene after the poker game where Data walks into the hotel room wearing the hat AND the vest just tells so much story that we didn’t get to see. When I first saw that scene, I broke out into giggle fits that remained with me the entire episode. To this day, every time I see that scene I laugh. You know what? I’m typing this and giggling right now. :D
No, no, and no. I loved this episode. No big battles, just a solid sci-fi premise that had a nice, easy-to-understand predestination paradox. And it was totally worthy of a cliffhanger. Aliens threatening 19th century Earth, and our heroes going back in time to stop them. I love the direction they went here, rather than pew-pew blow up the ship, they went with a story where you have to think. Data and Guinan look great in 19th century dress, and Jerry Hardin’s Samuel Clemens is very compelling. The rest of the cast would be equally awesome in 19th century dress in the next episode. A good solid sci-fi story, rating a good 7.
One of the funniest moments in TNG:
GUINAN: Do I know you, Mister?
DATA: Data. Yes. We were on a ship together. The Enterprise.
GUINAN: Is that a clipper ship?
DATA: It is a starship.
Data’s death is unworthy of a season finale, KRAD? But let’s not delude ourselves. Is there any doubt that Data will be alive and well in Season 6 because he’s TNG’s most popular character?
The Clemons character annoys me to no end, that whining voice and strolling about the room holding court to the tittering of the ladies. All I could do not to fast forward to another temporal phase.
I found the Mark Twain scene a little boring, but enjoyed the episode overall. Mr. Spiner looks absolutely dashing in the period attire.
@10 There are two reasons for Mark Twain to show up here, the first being that the show runners thought he’d be entertaining to watch. Whether or not they were correct about that is entirely subjective. Personally, I think they were right, and having read Twain, I have no trouble believing that his behavior here would be entirely in character. “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” is one of my favorite pieces of literary satire, and I feel like Holbrook plays Mr. Clemens here with the right amount of snark.
The second reason, and to be honest I’m a little surprised no one else pointed it out, is that Mr. Twain actually wrote a story about a time traveler. It’s called “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” and it tells the story about how a modern (for the time) man somehow finds himself traveling back to the past, ending up in Camelot, and uses his knowledge of modern (for the time) conveniences to “improve” life for the denizens of King Arthur’s court–which, as I recall, involves building them a telegraph machine so they can better communicate over long distances, and inventing bicycles for Lancelot and the rest of the knights to ride around on.
I have in my head the thought that it wouldn’t be the first time that a piece of literature about time travel has been “explained” by claiming the author actually met a real time traveler or experienced something of the kind and was thus inspired to write said piece of literature. The only other example I can currently think of is the 1979 movie “Time After Time,” which involved HG Wells building a real time machine that he later based his book on, but I feel like I’ve seen this basic plot somewhere else before, as well, but I just can’t think of it right now.
At any rate, the writer’s of this ep of TNG were off by 4 years, considering “Connecticut Yankee” was published in 1889 and this episode places Data’s arrival in the 19th century in 1893. Maybe they’re trying to suggest that the fact that Twain wrote a book about time travel made him more open to the possibility of something of the sort actually happening? Either way, the connection between Samuel Clemens and time travel is pretty clear.
@36, “Connecticut Yankee” is in fact explicitly mentioned in the episode. So your second hypothesis is correct.
Is it me or does this episode not actually identify “Mr Clemens” as Mark Twain? I realise that for many of the American audience Twain’s appearance and real name may be sufficiently well known that they could be expected to instantly recognise who this character is, but TNG had quite a big global following by this stage and much of that audience wouldn’t necessarily have the same knowledge.
Also the whole thing about the second officer usually going on away teams is surprising since they’re usually led by the first officer and often have the third officer in there as well. It seems odd to send so many of the highest ranks on such missions – sure you need one of the top officers on the ground for diplomacy or taking emergency decisions but what sense is it to leave just the captain and very junior ranks on the bridge?
“Global” audiences are quite familiar with Mark Twain, his appearance, and his real name, don’t worry. :)
@38/Tim: Part 1 does not refer to Clemens as Mark Twain, but part 2 does on three occasions. Maybe it was meant to be a surprise for those who didn’t already know it.
And yes, it’s implausible to send the command crew on away missions all the time, but TV shows can only afford so many regulars. In David Gerrold’s 1973 book The World of Star Trek, he proposed an alternative format centering on a “contact team” of regular characters that would be sent on dangerous missions instead of the bridge crew — sort of like how the main characters of Stargate SG-1 were the titular exploration team and their commanding officer was a supporting character, although I think Gerrold’s proposal would’ve still had the captain as a main lead. Anyway, since Gerrold was an uncredited co-creator of TNG, this was somewhat reflected in the idea of Riker leading the away teams while Picard stayed on the bridge, though it was still mostly the command crew otherwise.
Although it’s not just TV shows that tend to show high-ranking officers/officials going into the field when it would more realistically be their subordinates. Look at all the Batman comics and TV episodes where Police Commissioner Gordon is personally going to crime scenes and shootouts on a regular basis. It’s just economy of storytelling to focus on a finite cast of core characters doing jobs that would more realistically be done by a range of different people.
@@@@@MaGnUs I can’t easily speak for myself as when the episodes were first shown terrestrially in the UK back in 1995 I only saw the second part (it was during exam season), but when rewatching it this week it did suddenly strike me that it wasn’t automatically obvious. Twain’s writings are well-known here but the man himself less so and the pen name just doesn’t leap out. I’m not sure who the British equivalent would be – maybe Mary Anne Evans?
George Elliot, right?
I can’t speak for my fellow Germans, but I’ve known Mark Twain and his real name from childhood. As a British equivalent, I’d suggest Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
38/ Sounds like what the writer of DS9’s “Little Green Men” was originally going for in the first draft of that tale with one of the Roswell Army men was to be revealed to be one G. Roddenberry.
I feel like the writers of a Futurama must be particular fans of this episode (we know they’re ST fans in general). Data’s head showing up underground is a clear inspiration for the Planet Express crew digging up Bender’s head in the New Mexico desert in “Roswell That Ends Well”. Also, Data meeting Guinan in 1893 is reflected in Fry confronting Nibbler in “The Why Of Fry”, where he is convinced Nibbler has come back in time to cryogenically freeze him.
Fry: “You came back in time to knock me into that freezer. And now, I came back in time to stop you.“
Nibbler: “I did not come back in time. My people lack that ability.”
Fry: “But I know you in the future. I cleaned your poop.”
Nibbler: “Quite possible. We live long and are celebrated poopers
Personally, I always loved this episode.
And as a costume person (if you couldn’t tell from my handle) Whoopi/Guinan was absolutely fabulous in that gown!
San Francisco was freewheeling in some ways even in the 1890s, look up the history of Mary Ellen Pleasant for example. Guinan could have hosted a literary event.
Sadly (to me) lost in the mix here is some of the more effective use of techno-babble on Next Generation, that is, using it to convey a feeling of verisimilitude instead of to plaster over gaps in the plot. And I don’t mean that our re-watcher here “missed” it, but rather that the episode’s known weaknesses make it more difficult to see the positives. The example here happens early on, so it’s easy to miss, and it’s also coming from the wrong person, as it’s La Forge who offers medical-forensics findings that seem like they should be coming from Crusher (a stretch might put them in the mouth of Data as science officer, but his lines in the scene need to be reserved for emotional impact, given that they’re studying Data’s own 500-year-old head.)
La Forge reports the readings of the cavern walls match a certain sort of energy that tend to be harmful to most cells from any world, but one of the exceptions happens to be found in species that can change their shape and appearance, which in turn suggests how extraterrestrials might have been present on Earth in the 19th century without being detected. The second finding is both forensic and paleontological: the team that discovered Data’s head also found fossils that include a life form from a specific planet, a life form small enough to have hitched a ride on the visitors. This is what sends the Enterprise to the origin point of the space-time travelers.
Again, it would make more sense for Doctor Crusher to deliver the lines, but I thought it was interesting in hindsight that, well before the breakout success of (admittedly near-future sci-fi) shows such as C.S.I., the crew of the Enterprise was engaging in the sort of forensic science that seeks suspects using such findings as microorganisms found at the crime scene. That sort of thing wouldn’t have been found in the common language of TV drama at the time even among the Law & Order fans in the Next Generation audience. It makes perfect sense by way of analogy, though, and it’s a real-life procedure, so it’s not using the good-as-magic technology of the show to skip over story development, just projecting what might be possible with forensic science in some possible far future.
@48/Texactly: “That sort of thing wouldn’t have been found in the common language of TV drama at the time…”
You’re off-base here. CSI wasn’t the first show about forensic scientists. That would be Quincy, M.E., a mystery series that ran from 1976-83, starring Jack Klugman as a police medical examiner. (Although over time it became less about murder mysteries and more about social activism, to a degree that I found tiresomely preachy even though I agreed with its politics.)
For that matter, fiction about detectives using science and forensic methods to solve crimes goes back to Sherlock Holmes, and it’s long been a staple of Batman stories in comics and television. I realized some years back that in the 1966 Adam West Batman series, it was so routine for Batman and Robin to examine evidence using their super-scientific equipment in the Batcave that I realized they were essentially functioning as the Gotham City PD’s unofficial CSI unit.
No, I’m not talking about forensics in general, which is why I drew the distinction from Law & Order, which would have already made much of the audience familiar with, say, using blood types from blood found at the scene of a crime to narrow down suspects. I’m talking about relatively harder-to-communicate techniques such as using the microorganisms found at the crime scene to place the criminals in this or that location because of the microorganisms’ likely origin, which would become much, much better known to the average TV viewer with the rise of C.S.I. and its copies. It’s interesting that Next Generation made that into a throwaway line to propel the plot forward before it was something the audience would consider de rigeur on a show entirely focused on that aspect of investigation.
(And, I mean… yes, it would be absolutely absurd, beyond the capability of a person at all aware of the world around them, to believe that Star Trek invented forensic investigation altogether in popular entertainment… which is really all you need to know that your average comment on this site probably isn’t saying that.)
@50/Texactly: “I’m talking about relatively harder-to-communicate techniques such as using the microorganisms found at the crime scene to place the criminals in this or that location because of the microorganisms’ likely origin”
Just a variation on a trope that’s been a staple of detective stories for generations, like tracking down the location of a villain’s lair by identifying the particular variety of gravel and the particular species of moss found in their bootprints and identifying the one part of the city where both are found. They were doing that kind of thing in Batman comics for children in the ’40s. It’s not hard to communicate at all. I think you’re gravely underestimating the audience, and underestimating the degree of variation that’s always existed in the mystery genre.
You apparently think I haven’t heard of Sherlock Holmes or Batman using science to solve crimes, so I understand you think that I’ve “gravely” so-and-so’d; I assure you that I have heard of both and remain a little baffled (and amused) that you think anyone commenting on this site hasn’t. I think it’s fair to assume that knowledge in good faith.
All I’m saying is what I said in my comment, which I made clear was a fairly narrow (and, honestly, fairly uncontroversial) statement about Star Trek casually using a sort of technique that you seem to understand is distinct and was, at the time, far less common in forensics on TV than what you’re talking about as its “variations”. I feel secure saying that I’m… saying what I’m saying, and not whatever it is you’re trying to make me out as having said.
@52/Texactly: Again, I simply don’t agree that it was uncommon at any particular time. I really don’t see what you think is such a big deal about it. It’s exactly the same as a stock detective trope — “We found a specific kind of X that’s only found in location Y, so that’s where we need to look.” Sure, the specific words they use to describe X sound more complex and sciencey, but that’s just filling in the blank in the formula. It still boils down to “thing X is only found in location Y.” It’s utterly routine detective-story stuff, indeed one of the laziest cliches for how detectives discover where to find someone, so it isn’t impressive in the least.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to help you understand better at this point. You misread my comment as saying that audiences were unfamiliar with forensics altogether before C.S.I., which is the sort of misunderstanding that happens all the time on the Internet; I happily explained I was not saying that, that I was saying something narrower, and directed you to the part of my comment that acknowledged one big way that audiences at the time would be familiar with forensics in crime scene investigation, Law & Order. You persist in trying to get me to defend a broader position I never advanced, where the counter-position is a no-brainer with which we both agreed at the beginning.
All I can say is that if you want to have a debate over the position you’re attacking, you will have better luck if you find someone who ever advanced it in the first place.
The conversation seems to have gotten lost in the weeds here at some point; probably time to move on. Thanks.
When the away team is discussing the phase differential of the aliens, Worf asks the astute question of why the aliens are invisible with such a tiny differential. Geordi explains that the differential is irrelevant, no matter how insignificant, the aliens will always be invisible. Later, when Data beams down with his plan of phasing into the aliens time, as he is adjusting the differential, he slowly disappears. If what Geordi says is true, shouldn’t Data have vanished the instant he tuned the device he was using?
I enjoy this episode since I enjoy most time travel episodes. It’s not without its flaws as most time travel plots do have. The one question I had was in regards to Data’s head. In the episode called Disaster! involving the Enterprise getting hit by a quantum filament Mr. Data and Commander Riker were in a crawl space near engineering. They managed to help save the Enterprise but it involved removing Data’s head but he was still able to talk and guide Riker in connecting his head to the ship’s system correctly. Why wouldn’t Data’s head that was found under Starfleet that was from the 19th century be able to do the same? Perhaps the shock of the explosion? It is one issue that comes to mind. I still enjoy the two part episode.
I find all the light stuff at the end perhaps the most genuinely alien thing ever seen on the show but, yeah, it’s not so much a cliffhanger as just a break in the middle of a double-length episode.