Time's Arrow, Part II

This second part was written by Jeri, who captured the essence of the first part. Of course, she had to wrangle a part for her son (Who would later become Vorick in Voyager) as the young reporter Twain is talking to in the teaser.

In fact, this teaser threw me for a loop, I had been expecting Twain to react differently. I had thought he was more of a progressive gent, but then again, he was acting on a perceived threat. And that is what made the characterization great.

Of course, Picard's away team is also acting on the same perceived threat, but with Landladies and crooked policemen (Played by William Boyett of "The Big Goodbye") interfering, it was harder for their little Shakespearean Acting Troop. But the meat of this story is all laid out here, where Data's history coincides with the Away Team's history, and both coincide to 1893's "Cholera Epidemic". This part of the story moves a lot more rapidly, as it is less Discovery and more Solution. And of course, includes Picard's very first meeting with Guinan.

Meanwhile, Twain is investigating Data, so eventually all blazes get let loose when all parties involved including the Dividia-II aliens meet up in the Mining Shaft. It's kind of an Er, "Explosive" situation. Which gives Twain a unique opportunity to meet a "were-Worf" I think such "time shifts" would drive normal people mad.

But the idea was to solve this conundrum and have fun at the same time, and it was a success in that respect. As a Fan of both Twain and Trek I was tickled. These two episodes speak for themselves, this is again the Heart of Trek- Prevent Alien Incursions, and Have Fun with Historical Figures.

There's a bit of Mark Twain in an episode that features his character. The whole crew finally ends up together along with Guinan. Data's dismembered head is the critical thing. After a narrow escape from the evil space cannibals, Data, driving a horse and buggy, drives everyone back to the aforementioned cave. There they are to meet their adversaries. All is going well until Mark Twain shows up and throws a monkey wrench into the works. All manage to escape to the Enterprise to continue pursuit, but Picard and Guinan are left behind along with the head of Data. Also in the cave is one of the dying aliens, who tells Picard that if the Enterprise attacks her planet, they will destroy themselves. Twain has caused huge damage to the process. He is going to cause more trouble so the crew beams him aboard. The way they ultimately get a message back to the ship is so far fetched that it is beyond the pale. Still, it is a bit of fun.

The conclusion to the previous time travel episode.

This is an enjoyable finish to a pretty good story.

I prefer the cleverness of the story detail to the character moments. It does not generate much in the way of suspense or tension, as the pacing of the key plot details are quite slow. However when the situation is resolved I look back upon it as a cool time temporal concept that uses the passing time of time to great effect.

The characters are pretty good though, especially Captain Picard, Data, Guinan, Samuel Clements, and Jack London. How much the historical characters actually add to the episode other than padding that makes it all feel very literate and high-brow, is a matter of debate.

Patrick Stewart and Caryn Johnson are both great. Jerry Hardin is entertaining, but his voice starts to get a bit tiresome to me by the end, especially if you watch episodes parts 1 and 2 back to back. I do though like his observations on the idealistic Trek future society.

Riker and the others are fairly good also. The scenes when everyone pretends to be part of a theatrical troupe to humour a nosey landlady reminds me a lot of "The Ladykillers".

Visually it all work very well with some cool effects, set design, props, and costuming.

After arguably STNG's finest episode "The Inner Light", this two-parter continues the excellence, marred only by the performance of Hardin, an otherwise fine actor. His exaggerated Samuel Clemens, with its irritating, grinding old miner inflections and affectations, had me muting his portions after awhile. Too bad, because this episode is so cleverly written and so well performed, it is a flaw that should have been fixed. Otherwise I would have given this 9 stars.

He was from the South. Why is he talking like cartoon coal miner?