6.1 — “Time’s Arrow, Part II”
Plot: Continuing last season’s cliffhanger, Picard, Crusher, La Forge, Riker, and Troi pursue Data to 1897 Earth, giving them an opportunity to try on new costumes. Samuel Clemens is now suspicious of the time travelers and determined to stop an invasion from the future. Let’s not forget they still need to stop the soul-sucking aliens traveling through time and space to harvest yummy humans.
Thoughts: Last season, I thought they were saving the good stuff for Part II. I was fooled! The good stuff is over. What’s left is embarrassing. This plot would have worked much better on Doctor Who.
The crew was wearing uniforms when they passed through the rift in Part I. Where do the period clothes come from?
I laughed at Crusher’s unintentionally funny investigation of the bodies in the hospital. I would expect to find that the electochemical neural energy has been “drained” out of CORPSES. It’s not an alien conspiracy; they are dead. As usual, Beverly looks desperately uncomfortable around patients. Riker then asks one of the great imponderable questions: “If you were a time traveler with a taste for human neural energy, where would you get your supply?” Let’s not accuse TNG of failing to challenge us.
It feels like someone decided to set a TNG episode in 1897 and feature Mark Twain without researching either of those topics. How do you write Twain without having him say anything of interest? This version of 1897 America apparently has no racial discrimination, given Geordi and Guinan’s ability to pass without comment dressed as dandies. This omission is notable, given that Twain is one of America’s most significant writers on the subject of race and class relations.
There’s nothing Twain-like about the character, really. It could have been anyone. A period-accurate scientist would have made more sense and been more interesting.
In Part I, Data observes that his head has experienced “twelve percent decomposition of the bitanium in the neural pathway links.” Now his head is in fine shape, fuhgeddaboutit. Just pop it right back on! The events of Part II apparently prove that Data is, in fact, immortal. Despite the significance of the mortality issue in Part I, nobody mentions this. Nor does anyone seem overly concerned either when Data’s head pops off or when it is reconnected. A shame! Data so recently planned a nice funeral for Geordi and Ro.
All this work sets up Picard and Guinan to be alone together so that… nothing happens. At all! Just hello and goodbye and no revelations. Picard’s tone seems to imply they were lovers, perhaps representing two actors trying to make something out of nothing, since there’s no hint of this in the dialogue.
How long have these aliens been harvesting humans? Centuries? Their discovery was a mere coincidence driven by discovery of Data’s head in the archaeological dig. Did Riker commit genocide by ordering the bombardment of the cave? This plot is so undeveloped, it’s hard to feel that it makes any difference either way.
In short, this episode is terrible. And writing take-downs of bad episodes is no fun. The good news is that Season Six must get better from here… right?
1 of 5 snake-head sticks.
Leave a Reply