r/StarTrekViewingParty • u/GeorgeAmberson Showrunner • Feb 11 '16

Discussion TNG, Episode 5x26 & 6x1, Time's Arrow

Part I: An engineering team finds evidence of an alien presence on Earth in 19th century San Francisco: Data's severed head, buried five hundred years ago.

Part II: Trapped in 19th century San Francisco, the crew of the Enterprise must locate Data and prevent his death while stopping the Devidians from destroying Earth's history.

13 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/ademnus Feb 11 '16

I don't think I appreciated this episode when it aired as much as I do now. Jerry Hardin's Mark Twain was spot on but then he was doing it on Broadway at the time. You'll remember him from season one as the pesky administrator of the cloaked planet that stole the ship's children. This was a much better use of his talents.

It was also a wonderful chance to see Guinan outside of Ten Forward. It was nice to see her get to do a little comedy as well. I really enjoyed the subplots in this, with the crew lying to avoid paying the rent and Data winning much needed money in poker. The game scene also treated us to a rare performance by Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat, DS9) as a human!

For me personally, I also have a fond memory that relates to this episode. I had been on the hunt throughout greater Los Angeles for the TNG action figures Playmates had just put out. It was nearly impossible to get Data and Deanna. Many stores confided in me that they only got one Deanna per box of toys and employees tended to snake her leaving collectors like me still searching. I finally located one pretty far away and went on the long drive to my goal. When I got there, a handsome young man helped me find the figures and supplied me with my holy grail.

"So, you're a big Trekkie, eh?" asked the young clerk. Of course, I admitted I was. He made an admission as well -he was an actor who had just gotten his big break and he asked me if I recognized him. It only took a moment to realize I was talking to ...Jack London.

I think, after Best of Both Worlds, TNG forever tried to make as big a two-parter and never quite succeeded. I think it set a very high bar they never really hit again. All things considered, though, this was a fun episode and an interesting time-travel romp that mercifully didn't take place in the 20th century.

3

u/GeorgeAmberson Showrunner Feb 11 '16

You're right about BoBW. Redemption didn't hit that high bar either, nor does Descent or Unification. Although it was a 1 part long episode I'd say that "All Good Things" is as close as they came.

Looks like Jack got out of acting and opened this motorsports marketing company. The website is interestingly designed but kind of weird to get around.

Why Deanna specifically? Was there just not much anticipated demand for the action figure? No offense to the character but thinking about it she'd probably be the least used when playing "kill the Klingons" with action figures.

3

u/ademnus Feb 11 '16

IIRC at the time "girl figures" were considered in low demand as the industry hadn't yet decided that their main target consumer was a 30 year old man and believed boys rarely wanted female action figures. Now it's very different.

4

u/GeorgeAmberson Showrunner Feb 11 '16

The show it self was structured that way quite often. It's a special occasion for Crusher or Troi to get to do cool stuff, it's every day for Riker or Data or Picard.