We'll Always Have Paris

Enterprise encounters time distortions and Captain Picard is faced by someone from his past.

This is an interesting episode with a good focus on Picard and a strong sci-fi concept.

The story follows two plot threads of the time ripples and a lady from Picard's past. It feels that both are thematically linked with time and reliving past moments which I thought was a good. Whether or not any of it is compelling is debatable. Personally I found it enjoyable because I'm rather nerdy about space and time, but how the story unfolds is probably not in the most riveting way. Once you get into the emotions of the love interest plot it kind of sucks all the life out of it in the next scene with a lot of technobabble.

Some of it is reminiscent of the original series episode 'The Alternative Factor', but this is far better.

Picard has a number of good scenes that provides a bit of backstory and shows him in a more emotional and sensitive light than other episodes.

Data is pretty cool as he contributes to the story in an important way.

Dr Crusher has some scenes that explicitly state she has feelings for one individual. Personally I would have rather left this unsaid and let it be implied in their behaviour towards each other in later episodes.

Deanna Troi does have the unique ability to kill the momentum in all her scenes. It's not the fault of the actress, it's the way she's written into plots to analyse how everyone feels. This does ruin the flow of several episodes.

The visuals are good, particularly in the more sci-fi heavy scenes and on the holodeck.

Patrick Stewart is excellent in this episode and whilst everyone else is solid, he stands out significantly with this type of material.

What am I even watching here? Picard has a boring ex-girlfriend with a sleepy new husband? It has something to do with time loops, but not really, they never really get into it? Beverly is bummed out, for some reason? Also, at one point Jean Luc says to Data, "Well, Data, I'm gonna ask you to put a stitch in time - and save much more than nine", so that's not great. The set for Dr. Manheim's lab is cool tho.

This is an excellent episode, addressing unrequited love and the fabric of space. An old friend and super scientist invokes his old friend's good nature to try to repair the results of experimentation in time. Because of this rift, a series of events take place where things become sort of stacked. This also brings in the character of a beautiful woman that Picard loved back in the day. As with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, she chose the great man, the man going places, even if she didn't love him. Because things are able to be repeated, Picard is given a second chance. He can let his friend die and get the girl or try to solve the problem. There are some wonderful scenes where events test the quick thinking of the crew as reality and time are chopped up. We get to see the lonely captain, wanting something so bad, an opportunity one never gets. We are also again able to see Beverly's true feelings for Jean-Luc. Of course, some believe that Picard's arbitrariness led to the doctor's husband losing his life. A very good episode with lots of implications.

This episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is a rather poor one--mostly because the show features two plots and one of them is frankly very dull. As for the other, it is decent...but nothing to get excited about either. Overall, it left me very flat.

The Enterprise notices a space wrinkle where things repeat themselves for an instant. This distortion is investigated--and it takes the ship right in the path of a woman who Picard abandoned many years ago in order to go to space. Michelle Phillips stars as the woman and this part of the show isn't bad. But the time distortion is so very dull and uninteresting. It really was just an excuse to bring Picard and his old flame together--and it should have been a lot better. Overall, sort of like a soap opera and as far as the sci-fi goes, it was a bust.

By the way, while many viewers will recognize the phrase "we'll always have Paris". If you don't, it's from "Casablanca".

Of all of the episodes of the original series, next-generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager and enterprise, this episode is Star Trek. This episode is in fact what Star Trek is about.

Maybe this is an homage to the original series episode with "Lazarus", the man from two universes- but where that episode deals with time in respect to alternate universes, this episode deals with time itself, The constancy of time, and what would happen if that constancy were interfered with.

It also deals with time in a relationship that Picard had with a woman played here by Michelle Phillips, Who he meets here 15 years after he walked away.

Picard's former love interest is married to a doctor Mannheim, who has discovered a crack in time, a crack which has to be sealed.

Where normal people would be confused by alleged time-hiccups, Data is not confused. So Data is the one who has to work with past and future iterations of himself to close this crack.

This episode is always fascinating to watch, it's one of Brent Spiner's greatest Data performances. There is a quality of believability here, suspension of disbelief is not a problem, it's a fantastic concept, we believe in it because of its uniqueness.

Episodes like this were rare in the Trek franchise, but when they were revealed, they were very refreshing. In fact next generation had a double roll with the very next episode "Conspiracy".

Of course the last few episodes of season one lacked the appearance of Denise Crosby as Tasha Yar- Who I admit I did not like in season one but I actually liked a lot more when she appeared in "yesterday's enterprise" and then later as Sela, the daughter of that alternate Tasha. And those future episodes of course also dealt with time and/or alternate time-lines.

When we watch episodes like this, we start to wonder if time is as immutable as we think it is.