A Matter of Time

As far as I know this is one of the first episodes written by Rick Berman himself. With all the mistakes you think he would have known better. It is after the death of Gene Roddenberry that Berman is now at the helm of Star Trek, and there are some obvious growing pains.

When the time traveller historian known as Rasmussen(Max Headroom/Lawnmower Man 2) claims to be from the 26th century( That's 2500-ish) he creates a plot hole. The Star Trek Timeline which was established off of an episode in the 2nd season I believe should put us circa 2367-9. somewhere in there. He claims to have come back nearly 300 years, yet the maximum would be 230 years which is nowhere near 300 years. Apparently math in the distant future is shaky.

I realize that back when this was aired there was less common knowledge about volcanism, asteroids, and global warming, but when the Captain has to ask Geordi why volcanic eruptions are bad on Panthera IV it's taking it a little far. Picard should know a hell of a lot more than that about the situation. He does spend his time mapping class M planets after all. How they save the planet is all theoretical and based on technology that doesn't exist(yet) so I cannot say whether that would work or not, but it seems like the work of a terraformer, not a flagship.

Furthermore even the slightest change in the past can have the colossal impact on the future. Say Beverly needed that Neural Stimulator in a coming injury, and because she had to have another replicated someone influential dies prematurely. The best course of action for time travelers is to never travel in time in the first place. It's just too risky - they would not, could not interact with such a person or accept them with open arms. Death is the only option.

When Rasmussen takes Data into his ship there is a major problem here. Why would the captain allow him to enter a vessel he doesn't fully understand. He would lose control of the situation. They would escort Rasmussen to the brig or some sort of quarters and strip search him with the aid of a tricorder. While inside, rambling on about his plans like any cliché villain he supposedly holds Data under guard of a phazer yet he takes his thumb off the trigger several times, looks away, messes with his ship...all ample opportunities for an android to move with inhuman speed and disarm/disable the guy. The way they disable the devices was a little too convenient.

Besides, if he WAS from the past how could he have known ANYTHING about Picard or the crew such as their names or anything at all? Or even that Data was an android? In the 21st century there was no warp coil as they knew it. 2063 is the year Cochrane made his first flight in the Phoenix and made first contact with the Vulcans. In the rest of the 21st century nothing more than a warp probe is launched. In fact during half of this century Earth is wracked in World War III and nuclear winter. Soldiers were addicted to enhancement drugs as is detailed the first time the crew encountered Q, it was a barbaric time. There was no way to tell what the future held. There was no way he could have conducted any sort of travel in space without knowledge of it, no would there be any reason for him to suddenly appear light years from the surface of earth in dead space 300 km from the Starfleet Flagship either. Wouldn't he just be in the future on Earth? A simple quiz about the 22nd century would have proved this guy a fake in 5 seconds. Name 10 alien races that were known in this century. GO. How about questions about the Enterprise. What is the fastest warp factor we can achieve safely, GO! No answer? Shoot him! What if because he never made it back to his time he didn't invent the things that could have theoretically resulted in the invention of starships and therefore damaged the present? What happens to the time machine when it goes back in time, adrift, a derelict for any to find and wreak havoc with.

Since there was no record of his existence why didn't they just vaporize him or blow him out of an airlock just for fun? Lock him in a holodeck medieval torture program indefinitely.

This whole episode is utter trash that should have never been put into production. It's just another filler episode on the way to bigger better things. There are simply too many of these filler episodes. Rick Berman needs to stick to production because as a writer he is a noob. I realize that at this point he is all alone, and new at it, but he should have planned for Gene's eventual departure at his advanced age long before this. They should have had the entire series written by this point like we do today. Sometimes it feels like the seat-of-the-pants, fly-by-night kind of pulp fiction writings detailed in a certain episode of DS9. :)

One more thing ILM makes me mad. The atmosphere of most planets is over 600 miles above the surface granted re-entry isn't noticeable until around 75 miles, the atmosphere is still there! The Enterprise according to ILM just sits right next to solid spheroid planets devoid of topography or water half the time, mere dozens of miles above the surface, and yet denies the natural orbit that is stable and easy to achieve around 250 miles above a planet of Earth's size. The Bussard Ramscoop collectors do collect Deuterium fuel for free at warp speeds, but you would tend to want to save wherever possible. It's called efficiency. Another thing, battles in space happen in 3 dimensions not 2.

Max Headroom comes aboard the Enterprise as a time traveler from 200-300 years in the future to watch as they attempt to save a colony world from destruction. Matt Frewer chews the scenery around the Enterprise, not as a mustache twirling villain, but as an unbelievably annoying cad. Without spoiling anything, you know something's got to be wrong with this guy within seconds. That unsubtle approach makes this episode clearly marked out as a light-hearted one, even though a planet faces total destruction, you're not supposed to take things too seriously here.

Still it's an episode I remember watching the first time, way back when it aired on an actual broadcast, likely thanks to Frewer's ridiculous professor and the somewhat interesting twist at the end.

Matt Frewer (nee, Max Headroom) is one of the most annoying presences on film that I have ever seen. He has starred as Sherlock Holmes in a series of poorly made episodes, and here appears as a time traveler. He is a hyperactive man, Rasmussen, who supposedly has returned from a future time to authenticate history. He arrives in a unique spacecraft and the crew immediately believes his story. He butters up Picard and runs around the ship, getting in the way. Troi is the only one who has no time for him and believes he is a phony baloney. While he travels through various areas of the ship, we see him stealing small but significant objects and pocketing them. While he does his thing, Picard and his crew are working with a planet that his dropped into an ice age due to an atmospheric blackout They must come up with a way to create a greenhouse effect. Otherwise, everything will die off. There are a series of risky moves that must be made, and at one point, Picard enlists the help of Rasmussen, who refuses him help. This has a satisfying conclusion, but it is bothersome that the crew was so quick to accept this man.

The Enterprise is dealing with a planet undergoing global cooling--a popular theory that was popularized by many of the folks who later popularized global warming. The ship is trying to figure out a way to reverse the cooling--when out of nowhere, a weirdo researcher who identifies himself as coming from the future arrives on the ship. He butters up the crew and tells them that he's here to see THE Enterprise --the one that is such importance to the history of the Federation. The Captain seems to accept this very readily and allows the guy to stay aboard and observe this mission. He also allows the guy to administer questionnaires to the crew and ask them questions. Unfortunately, changing the planet's climate is not easy--and the Captain is worried he'll destroy it in the process. And, unfortunately, this researcher is NOT exactly who he claims to be.

Matt Frewer was a good choice to play the time traveler, as he has had a long history of playing goofy characters---and this one is rather goofy. All in all, the show is inconsequential but also enjoyable-- with a nice ending.

'A Matter of Time' is a time-travel story, but with one caveat: it's really more about the consequences of knowing the future instead of actually moving through the fourth dimension. Cue the ample deliberation around a conference table scenes, a hallmark of this show.

But there's a key element that really breathes life into this: Matt Frewer, playing a historian from another time. The man relishes his role and adds a charming sense of guile to his scenes. We know deep down we can't trust him, but the guy sure is likable.

All of this is happening while the Enterprise is trying to save a planetside colony from its own geologic imbalance (which lends its own tension) but for me, this all rides on the historian character.

Lesser casting might've crippled this episode.

7/10