‘TIME SQUARED’ (TNG)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
‘Time Squared’ is a ‘Star Trek: TNG’ episode that I enjoyed very much and found better than ‘The Royale’. It’s an episode that features two Picards and an intriguing story of a swirling vortex in space.
Before I talk about the episode, there’s a scene at the beginning where Riker entertains Data, Geordi, Worf and Pulaski to a scrambled eggs breakfast. It gets explained where Riker got the eggs.
The scene doesn’t seem relevant or add anything to the plot of the episode. It just provides comic relief. It was funny when Geordi and Pulaski found the eggs awful but Worf found them ‘delicious’.
Anyway in the episode, the Enterprise comes across a shuttle craft in space. Taking it aboard, they discover that it’s one of their shuttle crafts. Looking inside, they find that the shuttle-craft’s pilot is…
…Captain Picard. Picard from the bridge comes down to see himself inside the shuttle craft. This shocks him. He wonders why and how there are two Picards and where he came from in the future.
It soon turns out according to the shuttle-craft’s logs that the Enterprise got caught in a swirling vortex in space. The Enterprise got destroyed as Picard escaped in the shuttle and abandoned ship.
This is a gripping and tense episode as a mystery occurs with Picard and the Enterprise’s future. The time-travel element involved is interesting, but not great as the Season 5 episode, ‘Cause and Effect’.
Patrick Stewart delivers one of his finest performances in the ‘Star Trek’ series. Picard gets anxious about what’s going on, especially as they attempt to get answers from his future self on sickbay bed.
But the Picard from the future isn’t like the Picard we know and love. For one thing, he doesn’t speak much during the episode and seems to be in shock when he wakes up in sickbay as he faces himself.
The real Picard gets frustrated when he can’t get an answer out from his future self. Dr. Pulaski remains to look after the Picard’s future self while he’s restrained on the sickbay bed via force-fields.
It also seems that the real Picard doesn’t seem convinced that his future self is really him. But Deanna Troi can sense duplicate Picard’s anxious thoughts and feeling as he wants to leave the ship.
There’s a scene between Deanna Troi and Pulaski where both are concerned for Picard’s sanity and decision-making. Pulaski considers having to relief Picard of command should something bad occur.
It’s interesting how the two share each other’s opinions on this, since Troi thinks that Pulaski is wrong in her doubts about Picard. Pulaski hopes Troi is right about her doubts of Picard being wrong.
Eventually, the Enterprise across the swirling vortex in space and Picard eventually makes the decision to break free from it. But the vortex seems determined to draw the Enterprise ship inside.
This gets tense and interesting as every time that they try to get away from the vortex; Picard gets hit by an energy beam from somewhere. Not sure how that happened, but it was so tense to watch.
It turns out that there might be an intelligence controlling the vortex. So Picard decides to have his duplicate self set free and to find out what’s going on. Soon, his duplicate heads for the shuttle bay.
Picard’s duplicate self seems determined to take a shuttle craft and leave the Enterprise to re-enter the vortex. Picard continually questions why his duplicate wants to do that, but receives no answer.
Eventually, Picard shoots his duplicate self and makes a drastic decision to have the Enterprise journeying through the vortex itself. Fortunately, they get out of the vortex and enter in deep space.
Colm Meany guest stars as Chief O’Brien. Again he doesn’t have a lot to do, but he gets to see Picard’s duplicate and the shuttle craft disappear. And he is out of his transporter room for a change.
‘Time Squared’ is a pretty enjoyable episode with two Picards in it. Patrick Stewart delivers one of his finest performances and it is interesting how the mystery gets resolved with the two Picards in this.
I found some interesting behind-the-scenes trivia about this episode. Originally this was going to feature Q but Gene Roddenberry disallowed it. This is rightly so, as Q would later return in ‘Q Who’.
‘Time Squared’ (TNG) rating – 7/10
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