Time's Arrow, Part II

TNG Season 6 Episode 1
Air Date: September 21st, 1992

The season 6 premier and conclusion of Time's Arrow. With the senior staff in the 19th century they start looking for Lt. Cmdr. Data. Meanwhile they discover there are aliens travelling back in time to absorb human neural energy. They eventually find Data, and have a final encounter with the aliens in the mining cave. Only Samuel Clemens shows up with a colt and causes the aliens to escape back into their own time. The rest of the crew follows him including Clemens, but Captain Picard stays behind to help the Guinan from the past who got hurt. Data also lost his head in the blast sending his body into the future but his head remaining in the past.

Once back on the Enterprise they work out a way to destroy the cave to prevent the aliens from continuing their incursions into Earth's past. They also work to attach Data's old head and get it working. They eventually are able to get Picard back to the present and Clemens back to the past.

Generally time travel episodes have loop holes and flaws that make me dislike them and this episode is full of them. But the episode has character and charm and is filled with many interesting quotes. Many people criticize the episode for bringing back a cheesy take on Mark Twain but I personally really like the character and he had a lot of interesting things to say. He was effectively Guinan's opposite. In the episode Clemens asks if they are able to see Haley's comet from the ship, but what is interesting is Haley's comet was visible from Earth when Clemens was born and when he died.

One thing that Clemens said that I realized but never really noticed is that while the Enterprise does have a few non Human's in it, it is actually run by mostly Humans. It is something that was brought up by the Klingons in Star Trek VI as well. I always assume that since it is a Federation of planets that a Federation ship would be pretty diverse. Thinking about it, maybe each race creates their own ships. Vulcans do have their own ships, but do they identify them as Federation ships or Vulcan ships?

There was a scene where Captain Picard and the senior staff were pretending to be travelling actors and when they were asked what play they were doing, for some reason I remembered it was A Midsummer's Night's Dream. A play I have never seen or read but it stuck in my head for some reason.

At the end of the episode, Cmdr. Riker orders Chief O'Brien to beam up Captain Picard before they destroy the cave system. I am pretty sure we don't see Chief O'Brien in the episode at all.

Quotes

"Young man, I have a maxim that I have always lived by: no one is more qualified to write your story than you are." - Clemens

"This is the 24th century, we're on Devidia II, and you're not supposed to be here." - Cmdr. Riker
"Well, it seems to me I have as much right to be in your time as you had to be in mine. I wanted to see how you've conducted my future affairs." - Clemens

"I know what you say, that this is a vessel of exploration, and that your mission is to discover new worlds. That's what the, the Spanish said, and the Dutch, and the Portuguese. It's what all conquerors say. I'm sure that's what you told that blue skinned fellow I just saw, before you brought him here to serve you." - Clemens
"He's one of the thousands of species that we've encountered. We live in a peaceful Federation with most of them. The people you see are here by choice." - Counselor Troi
"So there're a privileged few who serve on these ships, living in luxury and wanting for nothing. But what about everyone else? What about the poor? You ignore them." - Clemens
"Poverty was eliminated on Earth, a long time ago. And a lot of other things disappeared with it - hopelessness, despair, cruelty." - Counselor Troi
"Young lady, I come from a time when men achieve power and wealth by standing on the backs of the poor, where prejudice and intolerance are commonplace and power is an end unto itself. And you're telling me that isn't how it is anymore?" - Clemens
"That's right." - Counselor Troi
"Well, maybe it's worth giving up cigars for, after all." - Clemens

"I'll see you in 500 years, Picard." - Guinan
"And I'll see you, in a few minutes." - Captain Picard