1.4 — “Time and Again”

1.4 — “Time and Again”

Plot: While on an away team, Janeway and Paris fall into a subspace fracture. The others have to microscan the fracture to pick up the signal from Janeway’s subspace beacon, then use a device to put out an antipolaric field to repel subspace fractures, thereby rescuing them. And possibly violating the Prime Directive in the process!

Thoughts: Too much gobbledy-gook! Here’s a test: if you remove the gook, is there any story left?

All there is of substance in this episode is a new way to misinterpret the Prime Directive. No, the Prime Directive does not require you to let things “run their course,” allowing the extinction of other civilizations to happen at a time that’s fated, or divinely ordained (a concept that would make Gene Roddenberry spin in his grave). Sadly, since early in the run of TNG, the Prime Directive itself has become technobabble, a nonsense explanation spouted off to paper over lazy writing and plotting.

Speaking of technobabble: subspace. What’s that again? Is it like a subfloor? Originally it was a word like “warp drive” used to denote a theoretically impossible technology, specifically how the Enterprise NC-1701 achieves instantaneous radio communication over interstellar distances. The signal is coming over subspace! Oh for simpler days. sunny jim observed that subspace has become the sonic screwdriver of Star Trek, a magic wand wielded by the writers to justify any contrivance. Michael and Denise Okuda’s exhaustive Star Trek Encyclopedia has listings for subspace compression, subspace flux, subspace funnel, subspace interphase pocket, subspace rift, subspace rupture, subspace shock wave, subspace sinkhole, subspace tear, subspace vacuole, and more than a dozen other inanities.

The good part of “Time and Again” is the interplay between the developing characters. I find myself liking Tom Paris, and enjoying his banter with Ensign Kim and the Captain. “We are demons and we eat children and I haven’t had my supper yet!” That’s funny.

Going to the time travel well already in the third episode? Uh-oh.

2 out of 5 shifting definitions of “subspace.”

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Time_and_Again