The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-06-09 at 7:52am:
  - Why does the Enterprise just hang in space waiting for Picard to return in the shuttle? Why doesn't the Enterprise warp over to get him? It can travel much faster than a shuttle, and as it turns out, speed is of the essence. As soon as Picard reaches the bridge, he sets a course for the Neutral Zone at warp 8!
  - When Offenhouse wanders onto the bridge, Riker orders Security to have him removed. The Security guys do rush over and grab him, but then they get mesmerized by the decloaking Romulan ship. What kind of military discipline is this?
  - While Riker is talking to the recently thawed humans, Picard pages him. Riker gets up from his chair, walks over to a companel, touches it, and responds. Riker is notorious for not touching anything when it comes to communications. And why would he get up and walk over to a companel when he could just slap his chest? Obviously it is a plot contrivance to allow Offenhouse to see how they work so that later in the episode he can bother Picard.
• From carsonist on 2009-03-28 at 2:14pm:
  I was proud of myself for recognizing that the Romulan you see on the left is the actor who later plays Gul Dukat. He still has the same speech patterns.
  
  In all, a good episode.
• From onlinebroker on 2009-09-21 at 10:39am:
  Best episode in season 1, but the end feels a bit weird. So the romulans didnt destroy the outpost, who did? Nobody cares and they just leave? Weird.
• From thaibites on 2009-12-03 at 4:05am:
  BORING...we needed less losers from the past and more Romulans.
• From Roland on 2010-04-16 at 9:42pm:
  This episode, IMO, sets the stage for the introduction of the Borg
• From rpeh on 2010-06-20 at 8:58pm:
  One of the most overrated episodes. The whole thing is so rushed, you have to assume it was originally intended to be a two-parter and got cut down later on. Beyond comic relief, the frozen humans offer nothing and the only purpose of the Romulans is to come out with that awful "we're back" line.
  
  In brief: the humans serve no real purpose; the Romulans serve no real purpose... so what is the purpose of this episode?
• From Bernard on 2010-06-21 at 6:36pm:
  I agree completely with rpeh. This episode is decidedly average. There is some talk of the palpable tension when the Romulans make their appearance? Well someone must have forgotten to tell me about it because there is little tension in this episode about 21st century humans trying to deal with waking up 300 years later. While that is an interesting premise it it very rushed and wasted on this episode. As is the reintroduction of the Romulans. They do not threaten, or hint at aggression. There simply is no 'game of chess'. They simply appear near the end to huge hype and there is no payoff at all.
  
  Overall I would say the fan rating of 6.5 is a pretty good indicator, I'd give it a 5 or 6.
• From linearA on 2010-09-03 at 4:58am:
  I was bothered by the preachy talk about how people in the 24th century no longer fear death. Still, I was able to overlook the episode's shortcomings, and I consider this the first top-notch episode.
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-28 at 3:49am:
  I don't rate this episode very highly, but it did have its moments. When I first watched this episode, and saw the huge new Warbird uncloak in front of the Enterprise, I thought it was pretty cool. The Romulan plot had some definite suspense. But most of the episode was dedicated to the cryogenics plot, which totally clashed with the Romulan plot; the suspense was broken up by silly 20th century antics. Also, the suspense is something of an unfulfilled promise. Of course it sounds interesting to say "The Romulans disappeared mysteriously, nobody has seen them for 50 years, and now they are back!" It sounds like a teaser to make you watch a TV show. But when nothing interesting is really ever made of the premise, it is hard to give it any brownie points.
  
  Some of the 24th-20th century clashes are interesting as far as how they develop and explain the Star Trek universe. Picard's statement about how the purpose of life in the 24th century is self-improvement, not survival or making money, is particularly memorable to me. But primarily the screen time was spent with the 20th century humans annoying the Enterprise crew, which I didn't find entertaining.
  
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-20 at 3:17pm:
  This episode fleshes out one of the main themes of TNG: the idea that life is no longer about acquisition of material wealth, power, fame, or any of the other external status symbols that we strive for, but is instead about internal things: Intellectual, artistic and spiritual pursuits.
  
  That is, as long as the pursuits are not in the form of organized religion, which is generally panned by TNG. But I digress.
  
  The idea that the Federation manages without a concept of currency is commonly expressed in TNG, as it is here. This seems rather preposterous, frankly. Currency is required for any kind of reasonable economy, and in places like Utopia Plenetia we see huge works going on. How is this managed? How does the Federation manage to obtain valuable commodities like dylithium from other races without some form of currency? In Voyager where the crew is frequently running short on stuff, they resort to barter, a rather inefficient way of organizing economic transactions.
  
  The Ferengi certainly have a currency in the form of gold-pressed latinum, but this is a symbol of how they are less evolved.
• From Helium on 2012-02-19 at 5:46am:
  I think the next time I get a sales pitch from my ISP attempting to sign me onto a TV contract I will quote Data "That particular form of entertainment [will
  
  become] extinct in the year 2040". I really hope he is right. I hope on demand video and OLED screens 3D or whatever is coming will evolve to make TV (and pushing ADS 24/7) completely obsolete. I also hope that our species does in fact survive the 21st century. I often think that with so many Offenhouses, perhaps we will evolve into the Ferangi or perhaps even the Borg (although that would take much longer than a mere 300 years).
  
  Anyhow I am getting slightly off topic. I LOVE this episode. There is so much to ponder. So many reasons to fall in love (again) with the United Federation of Planets. It makes me want to raise the flag, go to Starfleet Academy and put on a tight fitting jump suit. Alas I will not live that long however, after viewing this episode one can only hope we live up to our potential as a species. Let us all prove to Riker we can indeed survive the 21st century.
• From doulos23 on 2013-12-24 at 6:32am:
  I believe at the core of whether this episode is liked or not has a lot to do with one's personal agreement with the Roddenberry-ian philosophies or not. It is no secret that Gene's vision was of a techno socialist Utopia. It is an easier pill to swallow the pedantic lecturing of so-called "unevolved" selfish 20 Century man if one agrees with the "promise" of such a future - and one is forgiving of Anvilicious programming. I love Trek, but caricatures are straw men no matter your personal worldview.
• From Amine on 2015-05-15 at 2:00pm:
  What's with the judgment of cryonics? What a condescending reaction they all had, especially Riker with "no redeeming qualities"... how dehumanizing! There is a contradiction in them doing medicine at all and then scorning people for staying alive in this way. And Picard essentially wanted Data to murder those people in the beginning of the episode. Bizarre.
• From tigertooth on 2017-03-18 at 5:41am:
  As others have indicated, I felt the two plot strands didn't mesh together well and neither was very satisfying. We spend most of our time with the unfrozen people, but then never really resolve their plot. Instead the climax goes to the Romulan plot, but given the fact that the destroyed colonies are never mentioned again, that's unsatisfying as well.
  
  There were elements in both plots that could have been developed better and made into good episodes (probably separate episodes), but as it is, this is kind of a mess. Not terrible by any means -- probably in the top half of 1st season episodes -- but not that good.
• From Mike on 2017-03-29 at 4:43am:
  Riker: "It's a pity we can't take them ourselves. Having them on board is like a visit from the past."
  
  Picard: "That would take us in the wrong direction. Our mission is to go forward..."
  
  This is an odd thing to hear Picard say when you realize, after watching the entire series, that he almost became an archaeologist and it's still his main hobby.
  
  What is believable though is the behavior of the 20th century humans. My favorite is Offenhouse, only because he represents so many of the things you hope humanity will indeed eventually move away from as imagined by Star Trek.
  
  The impending encounter with the Romulans looms over this episode nicely, building tension that doesn't disappoint. Best of the first season by far.
• From Axel on 2018-06-13 at 12:08am:
  Re: Jeff Browning
  
  Currency and exchange are based on the idea that you have a scarce amount of one resource or product, and abundance of another. While this includes luxury items, its foundation is necessities: clothing, food, shelter, energy, medicine, etc. All economic models are based on the notion that these items are scarce, finite, and require labor to obtain.
  
  In the future Earth (though not all of the Federation), the idea is that there no longer is scarcity when it comes to necessities. Food and clothing can be replicated. Energy is presumably all drawn from renewable sources. Technology has made medicine, transportation, communication, and shelter all readily available. Automation has replaced human labor in many areas.
  
  If all necessities are taken care of and nobody risks going cold or starving, then what will people do with their time? Will they sit around, lazily mooching from their Eden, growing fat, dumb and happy? H.G. Wells "Time Machine" believed so, which is why you had some humans eventually evolving into the Eloi. Star Trek believes something different. It imagines that, free of the pressure to compete for resources or hoard wealth, people will pursue those interests and goals they otherwise would have: history, art, music, science, etc. As we see from the Picard and Sisko families, some people like to live the old fashioned way, resulting in restaurants and wine that everybody enjoys. Others want to explore the galaxy...hence Starfleet. The collective goals and ambitions of humanity benefit the entire civilization. Is it lofty? Perhaps...but then again, it's not hard to imagine replication technology, automated labor, and renewable energy eventually providing many of our needs even within sight of our own time. And how many people are stuck in jobs they hate because the job market doesn't reward them them for doing what they've always wanted? Would those people honestly sit around and watch TV all day, if they didn't have to work? Perhaps some would...but I do believe enough would pursue something that you could base a civilization on it.
  
  I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but I get the idea that's what this episode is trying to say. The 20th century human Offenhouse can't contemplate how this new economy works, and Picard tries to offer him a summary of the path he can take. It's the Roddenberry vision: a future where every kid learns how to read, none go hungry, and there's no need for money. It's either that, or we end up like the Ferengi :)
• From C on 2019-01-13 at 10:16pm:
  Wonderful episode.
  
  It’s interesting that some commenters here apparently have less trouble suspending disbelief related to the speed of light than the necessity of currency.
  
  Highlights why this episode is so good. Humans have a long way to go before we’ll be starfleet material.
• From jeffenator98 on 2019-07-19 at 5:26pm:
  An average episode at best. 5/10

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-06-24 at 12:39am:
  Data: "That action injured you and saved me. I will not forget it." (Great line)
  
  - Data tells Picard that Maddox was the only dissenting member of a sceening committee that approved his entrance into Starfleet. Maddox did this because he did not believe that Data was sentient. It seems reasonable that Starfleet would allow only sentient beings to attend the academy. However, since the rest of the members of the committee disagreed with Maddox's position, didn't they already imply that Data is sentient? If so, when did Data lose that label?
  - Maddox asks the JAG officer if Starfleet would let the computer of a starship refuse a refit. But the comparison doesn't match up at all. Starfleet built the computers on starships. They did not build Data. If Data belongs to anyone, he belongs to Dr. Noonian Soong. All Starfleet did was find him.
  - JAG officer to Riker if he doesn't prosecute: "Then I will rule summarily based on my findings. Data is a toaster." A toaster? That seems a little antiquated for the twenty-fourth century. Wouldn't a person in the twenty-fourth century illustrate their point using an everyday item for them - something like a food replicator, a tricorder, or a communicator?
• From TashaFan on 2008-09-28 at 11:34pm:
  I LOVED the reference to Data being "a toaster"... because "toaster" is what the Colonial warriors in "Battlestar Galactica" called the Cylons, who are also a mechanized artificial lifeform. I wonder if Ron Moore, who went to spearhead the "reimagined" Battlestar series, had anything to do with this reference?
• From Razorback on 2009-06-26 at 1:26am:
  A shocking episode.
  They have stripped away all of the trappings of a normal star trek episode, and done away with the sense of intergalactic exploration that gives me a reason to continu watching.
  
  Istead, they have created this terrible episode.
  
  You ask me to justify this?
  
  It has ruined me for the rest of star trek.
  No oher episodes will have even the slightest chance of ever living up to this one, seemingly set up to allow patrick stewart to prove exactly why he is seen as one of the greatest actors of all time. Brent spiner and Jonathan Frakes also outdo themselves - the dialogue is wonderful, the character's magnificent, and the whoe issue outstanding - leaving us with the question are we not all man made machines?
  
  I would also like to note the look on maddox's face at the end of the episode, as he relises that Cmr Data is far more wonderful than he'd ever imagined.
  
  Definately a 10 rated episode - a wonderful example of exactly why star trek is more than a sci-fi show.
  
• From Ching on 2010-04-06 at 3:38am:
  Thoroughly moving episode, but there are two things I question. One is to do with Picard's speech being, perhaps, unrealistically effective. I think I received it as one of those fictional events that has a perfect effect in it's story, but realistically would be questioned or perhaps a bit unprofessional (with Picard being so intimidating and emotional). But I'm much hazier on whether I find that an issue (and it wouldn't be a huge one) or not. I'm also not exactly well versed in court procedures to begin with.
  The second issue is with Riker's role in the story. I know the episode makes it clear why he was unfit to have taken the prosecution role, but does anyone know why there's a rule that the next most senior officer of the 'defendant's' ship becomes 'prosecutor'? I know, at least, that a jury is chosen specifically as an impartial body of people, so why chose a prosecutor who's in agreement with the defender? Makes no sense to have your opposing forces biased in the same way, but it certainly created an interesting drama. And like I said before, I really liked this episode on the whole, despite some confusion about common sense.
• From tigertooth on 2011-03-24 at 2:12am:
  I agree that the episode was great. My quibble: the first thing Riker does is call Data to the stand as his witness. Would he call a tricorder to the stand? Or the ship's computer? No, you call *people* to the stand as witnesses. If I was Picard, I would have said "There you go! Case closed!"
  
  But anything that gives Picard (Stewart) a chance to go off on a righteous monologue is pretty much guaranteed to be great.
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-29 at 2:13am:
  This is a fine episode. I especially love the way Picard starts his speech by dismissing the opposing arguments as irrelevant. The only caveat I have about this episode is that it portrays Starfleet's judicial system as oddly primitive and arbitrary.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-09-23 at 11:24pm:
  Agree with CAlexander's comment about how crude the Federation legal system appeared. As an attorney, I found it embarrassing. Several obvious issues:
  
  1. Data can't choose his own counsel? He is told that Picard will represent him. Picard offers to replace himself, but Louvois makes no such offer. The choice of defense counsel is totally in the control of the defendant in all civilized legal systems.
  
  2. The notion that Riker has to prosecute is absurd. He has a strong personal relationship with the accused. He is obviously not qualified. He would have to recuse himself.
  
  3. Why didn't Maddox appeal? You're telling me that a ruling by a mere JAG officer in a remote star base is final?
  
  You get the idea. Anyone with any legal training can find holes big enough to drive a truck through on this one.
• From One moon shirt on 2012-02-27 at 3:56am:
  I would give this episode 100 if there was such a rating. This is some of the best Trek out there. The issue of slavery and human rights is classic, this is an episode that will always endure the test of time, people will be watching this one in the 24th century :)
• From Rick on 2012-10-10 at 4:11am:
  This may well be the quintessential star trek episode. How do we treat new life forms?
  
  A commenter above notes that this episode may be flawed because Maddox already made the argument that Data was not sentient and he lost. This point of view is flawed, however, because although Maddox made the argument that Data is not sentient, the Board may have ruled that Data could be admitted to Starfleet on alternate grounds. This is a technical legal point but it is certainly plausible. The board simply couldve punted on the sentience issue and ruled that Data was admissible to Starfleet for whatever reason.
  
  The rest of Maddox's argument is rather poor upon further examination, as other commenters have noted. His entire reasoning is based upon analogy to other types of machines. Fatal flaw? No other type of machine is capable of or would refuse his examination. It seems pretty obvious to me that as soon as a being is capable of refusing to be destroyed (albeit potentially), it has earned the right not to be.
• From Rick on 2013-11-11 at 5:19pm:
  One more thing. Even if Data is ruled to be property why would he be Starfleet's property? Isnt he still his creator's property? Maddox would have a tough time explaining how he was against Data being able to join Starfleet while also believing that Starfleet owns him. If I were the judge it wouldve been an easy ruling to say even if Data is ruled as property Starfleet has no ownership so the whole case is irrelevant.
• From the obampresident on 2021-07-16 at 5:44pm:
  Why starfleet property? Because finders keepers :D
  
  Also the whole starship computer refit argument was strange. What if one of those computers really refuses? I am sure investigating the reasons (like possible sentience) for refusing will be more interesting than getting the refit done.
• From Azalea Jane on 2021-07-17 at 2:37am:
  This episode still feels relevant, as our species continues to struggle with the challenge of seeing the humanity and intrinsic worth of people who look or act different. Despite ample evidence, Maddox could not see what everyone else could see: that Data exhibits enough obvious signs of sapience, personhood, and self-awareness that we should treat him like a person. He has a will. He's not predictable. He arouses emotion in others. It makes no sense NOT to treat him like a person.
  
  It took considerable effort to get Maddox to see Data's personhood even a little bit, and it wasn't until then that Maddox used Data's correct pronoun, thus signifying his acceptance of Data's autonomy. I find this quite a powerful allegory for the many people whose humanity, whose reality, whose lived experience, has been or is still denied for various reasons.
  
  Fortunately for both Maddox and Data, Data is not capable of being insulted by this or holding a grudge. (In "Data's Day" we hear him reading a letter he is sending to Maddox.) Most of us are not so lucky.
  
  I love the shameless flirting between Picard and Louvois!
  
  "If we weren't around all these people, do you know what I would like to do?"
  "Bust a chair across my teeth?"
  "After that."
  "Oh, ain't love wonderful?"
  
  Damn. Thirsty Trek best Trek.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-08-03 at 11:19am:
  - Many times Star Trek will dispense too quickly with disastrous encounters in a character's life. For instance, it would have been very easy to jump right into a new set of adventures after rescuing Picard from the Borg. Instead, the creators took an entire episode to explore the emotional changes that the experience caused in Picard's life. Excellent!! One of my favorite TNG episodes.
  - Does it strike anyone else as odd that everyone in France speaks with an English accent during this episode?
• From Wayne on 2009-07-13 at 2:12pm:
  If I remember correctly this was also one of the lowest rated TNG episodes when it was first broadcast.
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-02-24 at 3:09pm:
  My wife and I watched this one last night. It was definitely a different type of episode and quite enjoyable. Picard's recovery and return to his home was heart warming and the rivalry with his brother was very realistic and brought their personalities out. Worf's story was also enjoyable and we always get a kick out of Worf's over the top Klingon reaction to things. Wesley still gets on my nerves but this was a better than usual story for him. Overall I gave it a 9 as I did miss some of the "real" science fiction.
• From thaibites on 2011-04-03 at 3:12am:
  I usually don't like human relationship episodes, but this one is really strong and a pleasure to watch. I think what makes it so strong is that the stories are all central and vital to each character - Wesley's father's death, Worf's discommendation, and Picard's emotional scars after being violated by the Borg. This is all pretty intense stuff, and there is no wasted fluff here. Great episode!
  
  And yes, I was wondering why everyone in France spoke with a British accent. I always wondered why Picard spoke with a mild British accent if he was supposed to be from France. Oh well, c'est la vie...(written with a British accent just to be consistent)
• From CAlexander on 2011-05-26 at 3:06pm:
  An excellent episode, very good all around. I wouldn't picture Picard as the sort of person that bonds with his brother by fighting with him, but it seems perfectly consistent with him growing up as the brash young man who picked a fight with some Nausicans and died laughing. And I love Worf's parents; they are so unlike him, but he just looks perfect as the child who is trying to be manly and is embarrassed by his doting parents. And while the Jack Crusher plot seemed rather extraneous, it too was well-written.
• From Axel on 2015-03-24 at 2:43am:
  This one may have been the lowest rated episode of the season when TNG was on the air, but I think it's gotten more appreciation as time has gone by. I doubt viewers enjoyed seeing Star Trek dabble in soap opera and now it's clear this is so much more.
  
  I agree that after Best of Both Worlds, it would've been strange to just go right to the next voyage of the starship Enterprise. Picard's visit home is the perfect epilogue. He briefly considers leaving his Starfleet career, showing just how much the Borg experience has shaken him. He and his brother continue the lifelong feud they've had, and I like that they really don't completely resolve it in the end. Instead, they reach an understanding through their fight that they both lead different lives, and that Picard's life is in the stars with his ship. The whole visit ends up being cathartic.
  
  It was also the perfect time to show how Worf's parents handle the news about his discommendation. They don't know what exactly it means, nor do they feel entirely comfortable asking Worf the details of it. What they do know is that they need to be there for their son. Despite his rigid emotional hide, Worf shows how much this means to him.
  
  The Wesley storyline was appropriately short, and was just enough to fill in between the others while also keeping with the theme.
• From Mike Chambers on 2020-08-24 at 4:04am:
  A very good episode. A little slow in parts, but excellent character development all around. The scenes with Picard and his brother are very well written and moving.
  
  A nice breather from the action and intensity after The Best Of Both Worlds.
  
  7/10 from me.
• From Encounter at Obamberg on 2023-05-03 at 4:02pm:
  The french have english accents because french is just an obscure language in the 24th century! Come on, this great continuity.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Vlad on 2006-03-31 at 9:11pm:
  When I want to introduce a non-trekker to the world of Star Trek I make them watch this episode. Isn't this a marvelous compliment? To me this is Star Trek at its best. The idea that we must find unity even if we must pay the ultimate price is extraordinary and oh so resonant in this day and age.
  
  But the philosophy of the piece is really presented through Picard. On a personal level he makes a new friend... and loses him, but in the end comes to understand his sacrifice. As a Starfleet officer, he is given a tough assignment, but he manages to do what he does best - preserve the piece and help bring about mutual understanding. On a universally human level we are left to ponder a very difficult question: Would we do the same if we were in the place of the Tamarian captain?
  
  Now, if only I could find the way to communicate to my mom just how good this episode is and make her watch it with me ;)
  
• From Pete Miller on 2006-04-14 at 7:24pm:
  Problem: If the language is based solely on reference to myth and history, then how does a child learn what happened in these myths? The language can only be spoken by referencing to something that both communicating parties are familiar with.
  
  A fine episode, but it just seems like speaking only in metaphor is an extremely improbable form of communication.
• From Bob Bracegirdle on 2006-08-04 at 10:10am:
  I could never see why Picard deciphered the language but for years previously the Federation had tried without success. Apparently they never even got the idea of metaphor. Were they stupid? I jumped to that conclusion within seconds of hearing it at the beginning of the episode - clearly a greek myth allusion.
• From benq on 2006-12-05 at 7:53pm:
  Darmok is another one of those episodes that reminds us that other races don't value life and freedom the same way we do. The language barrier is a poor excuse for the inciting incident of stranding Picard and the Tamarian captain on the planet with a disappearing beast, and even the explanation of the language barrier is dubious, given the historical overtones of every language. It has its place in the season 5 arch, but Darmok is probably one of the worst executed TNG stories that nevertheless touch us.
• From DSOmo on 2007-09-04 at 9:07am:
  Data and Troi deduce that the Tamarians speak in metaphor when they cross-reference the proper names "Darmok" and "Tenagra" to a mythological account from one of the planets nearby. After they give this information to Riker, Troi claims that communication is hopeless, since all they know is that Darmok was a hunter and Tenagra an island. If they know that Darmok is a mythological hunter, doesn't it seem likely that they would have access to some of the stories about him? Out of those stories, they might find something they could use.
• From KStrock on 2009-01-27 at 2:55pm:
  How could they have cultural stories on file about a race with whom they have no prior relationship?
• From Wes on 2010-05-07 at 7:07pm:
  You make a great point about Starfleet uniform code with Ro's earring and Worf's sash. Another interesting thing is that Mr. Mott said that he cut Commander Riker's hair a few days earlier. Look at Riker's hair. Sure doesn't look like he recently got a haircut. In fact, looks to me like he is due for one.
• From Vinny on 2010-07-29 at 8:41pm:
  Call it absurd fanboyism, but the one thing I remember clearly from seeing this episode the first time is totally falling in love with Robin Lefler, the first on-screen performace Ashley Judd ever made. Ah, the agony... I would have SO traded places with Wil Wheaton in the episode "The Game".
• From tigertooth on 2010-10-20 at 9:53pm:
  To me it seemed as if the Tamarians lacked verbs. They used nouns, prepositions, and adjectives, but I don't recall any verbs. That was kind of interesting.
  
  But as a previous commenter said, the idea that they could speak only in references seems far-fetched.
• From Quando on 2011-08-12 at 10:20pm:
  My question is this. How did a species with a language like this ever manage to develop the technology of space travel? I mean, how do you explain the technical specifications for building a warp core (or even a Model T) using only analogy to mythical figures? How would you even ask someone to hand you a tool? "Kinta, his 3/8" wrench open, his eyes red"! How do you talk about things like return on investment, varying interest rates, detailed medical procedures, etc. The whole language only seems suited to conveying basic ideas and emotions. It seems to me that a species with a language like this would never advance beyond the basic tribal hunter-gatherer stage.
• From Will on 2011-10-29 at 1:55am:
  The fact that you can rate this episode a 10 after all of the times you downrate episodes for bad science astounds me. As Quando and Pete have pointed out, the main premise of this story is scientifically implausible. I, for one, believe that the implausible is at the core of what science fiction should be, but based on your attitude toward episodes with such absurd science as this thus far, it seems unfair to be giving this episode a 10.
• From Kethinov on 2011-10-30 at 1:22am:
  Will,
  
  There's nothing fundamentally unsound about a language arising in this way. The fact that it's extremely improbable is an asset to the story in that the universal translator can translate the literal meaning of the words spoken but not the true meaning of their metaphorical basis.
  
  While I realize that it is hard to imagine a society being capable of functioning this way or developing advanced technology, I don't necessarily think it's beyond the bounds of realism, especially if you assume that the Tamarians have brains which more intuitively grasp metaphor or that there is a crucially emotive characteristic to the language.
  
  For instance, how a metaphor is stated and what body language is used may be just as important as what metaphor was used. The episode itself concludes by acknowledging that further study of the language would have to be done to fully grasp all its nuances. Just because the episode doesn't give us all the answers doesn't mean that no answer is workable.
  
  Since, in my judgement, the technical issues presented by the language aren't unworkable, the omissions of detail are not sufficiently distracting to the story, and the story itself is an outstanding piece of drama and science fiction, I stand by my classification of the episode's perfect score.
• From packman_jon on 2012-05-13 at 10:33pm:
  Very good episode. Tough to really get into, but this episode really rewards the viewer.
• From RM on 2012-08-03 at 7:33pm:
  This is one of the episodes that I like to watch even though they don't make terribly much sense. It is sufficiently suspenseful and has its good moments, definitely resulting in an entertaining episode that does more than show mindless battles.
  
  On the downside, the presented concept of the language never seemed convincing to me. I don't refute the idea that a civilization might base many of its expressions on metaphors (you could say that so do we in some respects; think of expressions like "a Valentine to all fans"). When talking about complex topics without requiring infinite time, many of the metaphor references might have to be "compressed", but possibly what we saw in the episode was sufficient for efficient communication. Likewise, the problem of how to describe the meaning of a metaphor in the first place does indeed exist, but this might indeed be achieved with a limited vocabulary.
  
  My two major gripes, however, were on the one hand how the language can possibly include references to off-world myths even for basic concepts. Does that mean the language only evolved after the Tamarians got in touch with cultures from other planets? Highly doubtful. On the other hand, I always wondered why the federation would be able to correctly translate prepositions and a few nouns when the meaning of the statements was unknown in the first place. How could a translator trying to figure out an unknown language (no matter whether it's a computer program like the universal translator or a living being doing that work) possibly know that in a sentence like "Shaka, when the walls fell." (note that what we see as English is actually incomprehensible Tamarian here) there's a proper name "Shaka" and four single words that mean "when the walls fell"? Wouldn't that translator recognize the same indicators used when deciphering other alien language that the topic is "failure" and then consider "Shakawhenthewallsfell" as one word, meaning "failure"?
  
  As much as forgotten Earth colonies are a trope that should be avoided, I'm convinced that the language trouble would have been a great deal more plausible if the Tamarians had originally been from Earth. That way, they could have used English words while the meaning of the sentences still wouldn't have been clear.
• From TheAnt on 2013-11-02 at 7:33pm:
  Cpt Picard on Forbidden planet.
  
  This is indeed one excellent episode.
  And even though Picard suspected that there would be a duel, I did assume that the alien indeed were proposing that they were going for a hunt as a means of building bridges between the two peoples.
  I've never lost a limb on a mountainside and as certain as the bear crap in the woods there had to be a monster challenge - one that had me think of the invisible beast from Forbidden planet.
  
  I found the comment by Pete Miller amusing since his name suggest he is from a culture that have a language that indeed use a lot of metaphors in daily use.
  Even so both the British and Americans are able to learn their language - also myself. So I do not see any problem in that respect.
  
  There's several examples on Earth of languages such as synesthetic ones, where the universal translator would be a lead balloon.
  So why not for one completely different species that have grown up on one isolated planet.
  
  And no actor but Patrick Stewart could have done the summary of the Gilgamesh epic as well as here. A solid 10 as certain as the pope wear a funny hat. :)
• From Axel on 2015-02-21 at 11:16pm:
  This has to be one of the most innovative episodes in sci-fi TV history. I agree with above comments about this being ST at its best. However, I think a lot of the concerns about the Tamarian language can be explained.
  
  In RM's case: consider that the Tamarian captain is best able to understand Picard when Picard is telling the tale of the Gilgamesh epic. It seems the Tamarian brain can process the language of other cultures through this narrative format, even if they don't yet know all the details of the story. This may be why Darmok, a mytho-historical hunter from Shantil 3, is part of the Tamarian linguistic database. Perhaps that legend became incorporated into Tamarian culture and language over time.
  
  There are other concerns too. For instance, how do the Tamarians handle certain basic day-to-day tasks, like "Hey, can you see if the engine coolant levels are good to go?" One explanation is that just as humans rely on metaphor in rare situations, perhaps Tamarians use literal language only when absolutely necessary, such as explaining a technical concept. Another explanation is that Tamarians may have invented their own stories that correspond to mathematical and scientific principles, in the form of music, history, and mythology.
  
  But this is all part of the fun. Star Trek presents us with an alien race that communicates through mythological and historical reference, and lets us fill in the blanks through our own imagination. Isn't that the whole point of sci-fi? A beautifully created episode, and a wonderful contribution to TV.
• From K on 2017-01-30 at 3:33pm:
  Regarding the phasers from the torpedo tube. I always thought they had purposely done that, as the modifications to do the needed damage required them to construct some sort of custom array that they mounted in the torpedo tube.
  
  Alas I noticed on the re-mastered HD version that that scene has changed to have the phasers firing from the dorsal array.
  
• From jeffenator98 on 2019-12-19 at 6:14pm:
  One of my top 5 all time star trek episodes.10/10

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Rich Dixon on 2006-04-20 at 10:37pm:
  Patrick Stewart never quite fully received the accolades and recognition from the Emmy's for his portrayal of Jean Luc Picard during his stint on TNG. The show as a whole was disregarded come Emmy time. We all know the reason why. It was a science fiction show, syndicated no less. In the early 90s, there was no way in hell a sci-fi show would be nominated for best drama on TV. Now in the 21st century, things have changed of course. Shows on Cable TV are routinely nominated. I still wonder if TNG and Stewart would garner nominations even still today. Not that the Emmy's are the end all to be all. My point is this. Somebody had to give this man an award! Stewart's performance in this episode was a tour de force. It was just stunning. The Inner Light although simplistic in its story telling, encompassed everything that Star Trek represents. The aliens in this episode will never be forgotten. At least not for Picard, who was controlled by an alien probe from a world long since vanished. During a span of 25-30 minutes, he lives a lifetime of another man complete with a loving wife and two kids. He watches them grow up along with the decaying of his planet. We watch as Picard stubbornly and defiantly refuses to play along with these people who seem to believe he's another man. Eventually, Picard assumes the life of this man and leads the life he never had and longed for. He has a family. He has a companion who is loyal, patient and nurturing. Picard's brilliant mind leads him to find ways to save his planet to no avail. Ultimately, the aliens reveal themselves and inform Picard the truth about themselves and their planet. This was their way of being remembered. What an effective way to let others understand who you are. Let them live a lifetime as one of you. One of the most moving and touching scenes came at the end, in Picard's ready room. Riker walks in and gives the captain the only contents that were found in the alien probe. A flute Picard learned to play as this other man. When Picard was first abducted, he didn't even know how to hold it properly. As Riker leaves the captain to his thoughts, Picard stares out the window. He begins to play it with a feeling and passion that conveys everything we need to know. These memories will stay with him forever. This is an excellent episode. It's the very reason why I loved this show.
• From Pete Miller on 2006-05-05 at 3:08am:
  Is it just me or does the second version of picard (aged once) look a hell of a lot like Jimmy Buffett?
• From Pete Miller on 2006-07-18 at 10:30pm:
  Sorry to come back and post again, but after I finished the series I decided to award my personal Best episode of TNG award.
  
  When I picked my "Best of..." episodes, I took into consideration what each series was really about. The Next Generation is truly about exploring the unexplored, discovering new people and cultures, and above all self-improvement. It is not like DS9, which focuses on more darker themes and contains more action. The Next Generation aims to paint an optimistic picture of the future, and to affect its audiences profoundly.
  
  The Inner Light accomplished all of TNG's goals. It is a masterful story of the tragic death of an entire species whose sun went supernova. The culture is not lost, however, but preserved through the memories of Picard, who is a changed man. It is a story of life in general, and of growing old and losing loved ones. The bottom line, though, is that the future is a bright one, and those things that we may consider to be lost causes today may yet live on in the future.
  
  This was a very moving performance by Patrick Stewart, the best actor to ever grace Star Trek. It was a perfectly written story, demonstrating the awesomeness of TNG's writers. I cannot subtract any points from anything, and the episode basically epitomizes TNG.
  
  It is with all of these things in consideration that I bestow my "Best of TNG" award to "The Inner Light". As soon as I finish Voyager I'll re-evaluate all episodes to find the best overall.
• From DSOmo on 2007-10-05 at 7:29am:
  This is one of my favorite TNG episodes of all time. That is not correct. This is one of my favorite Star Trek episodes of all time! Jean-Luc Picard is one of my favorite Star Trek characters (it doesn't hurt having an amazing actor like Patrick Stewart playing the part.) However, yes, I have even "discovered" a problem with this episode.
  - This is a society with the technological level of midtwentieth-century Earth. It manufactured a device that can create an alternate reality within an unknown alien mind. Look at what this probe accomplishes. It scans the Enterprise and overpowers the ship's shields. It finds Picard and attaches an energy beam to him. This energy beam creates an alternate reality so complete that "it is as real as his life on the Enterprise." Does this sound like a project undertaken by a community who have just begun to launch missles? In the late 1950s, if the nations of Earth discovered that the Sun would soon explode, is it even conceivable that those nations would be able to build such a device?
• From baron on 2010-12-11 at 7:49pm:
  After watching this I found the society that he lived in pretty unbelievable. All Picard seems to do is play his flute and look through a telescope. How did he raise a family just by doing that? Wouldn't he need a job and income of some kind? This isn't a futuristic society with food replicators and unlimited energy. They say they have to grow crops. Towards the end they say the crops are failing. Where are they getting their food from then? They say it takes a day just to send a message to the next village. It's pretty impossible that society could have built the probe in the first place.
  
  In an earlier episode someone mentioned that it would have been to impossible for a time traveler from the past to take a phaser and try to manufacture it back in his own society. Since their society wouldn't have the infrastructure in place to be able to manufacture it. Perhaps a phaser needs a mineral from another star system but they don't have the ability to leave their planet. But yet in this episode a 1950's era society can make technology more advanced than the enterprise.
• From Autre on 2011-03-04 at 7:32pm:
  They are aliens, and regardless if they are in a 1950's era situation they are much different from humans. Rather than creating atomic bombs or weapons to destroy one another they all banded together as a race with a single goal in mind.
  
  If you were to take every scientist in the world and work them to one cause it is very likely something astounding would come from it.
  
  But again, the main point behind this is that they are aliens, and TNG has many episodes with aliens that appear to not be advanced but turn out having technological marvels.
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-04-29 at 3:46pm:
  This was a very good episode but not nearly my favorite. In fact I rated it a 7. Stewart did do an excellent job of acting in the episode. But why I lowered my rating was that I did not find the scenario and the overall plot that exciting. While I could also say it was technically absurd, a race that seems to live a simple agrarian existence creating this marvelously advanced spacecraft that was launched on a very basic solid fueled rocket, that is not really my main complaint. It just wasn't that exciting or even enticing to watch Picard live this imaginary life. I am not a particular fan of massive doses of action or such but found this more of a soap operaish plot line. It appears I am the minority in this take on the episode but those were my thoughts while watching it. I found the interplay between characters much more interesting in the episode where Picard returns home and visits his brother.
• From Alvlin on 2011-05-27 at 3:45am:
  I agree with Baron. While this is a great episode both emotionally & executionally, logically it has a HUGE flaw -- there is no way that such a "technologically primitive" society could manufacture & launch a probe that would be able to pierce the defenses of a ship 1,000 years into the future, not to mention reach directly into Picard's mind and play out a scenario based on his own reactions. A real strech which unfortunately hurts the overall credibility of this one.
• From Bronn on 2011-09-25 at 5:33am:
  I just want to comment on some of the scientific critique's of this episode. One of the reasons I can buy is that I don't necessarily think their technology had to evolve at a similar rate to ours. Just because they weren't advanced in the field of space travel doesn't mean they weren't advanced in other areas-they just may not have been interested in space travel. It's worth wondering how interested humanity would be in space travel if this planet had no moon. The extreme advance of technology during the space race is partly owed to the existence of an easily definable objective: Let's put a human on the closest celestial object. It helps also to have such a close orbit body to fuel the curiosity of planet-dwellers, to give them an actual urge to reach space.
  
  What we see of the planet during this episode also represents a single agrarian community. It's not necessarily the best cross-section. If you visited 20th century Earth and all you saw was a farming community in Nebraska, you might not catch on that we can generate nuclear power, or that there is a laboratory in Geneva that can isolate atoms of anti-hydrogen. The native culture in this episode may have simply had some specialization in ways to affect brain chemistry, and this was a technology unique to their development.
  
  "But how does it pierce the defenses of the USS Enterprise!?" Well it's just possible that the Enterprise's defenses aren't designed to defeat the specific thing that the probe was doing. The shields are designed to repel only specific types of energy, and presumably solid objects (there are many inconsistencies with THAT). The shields clearly allow certain types of energy to pass through-as evidenced by the fact that the crew can actually see out a window even with the shields are activated, so visible light is not stopped by the shields. The crew is also still able to use communication frequencies with the shields up, so perhaps other parts of the EM spectrum are not screened out. It's not like this beam utterly defeats the Enterprise, since it takes the crew a whopping 5 minutes to figure out how to interrupt it (if that)-they are only stopped because removing it nearly kills Picard.
  
  Okay, so there's a little bit of a hand-waving in that the probe apparently "scans" the crew, or least has some method of identifying that there are life forms on board the Enterprise, and it manages to isolate one to communicate with, but it's not like we ever learn much about how the USSE itself scans for lifeforms. There's not really an issue with bad science in this episode, at least not enough to destroy willful suspension of disbelief, unless you're just looking for reasons not to like it.
• From Rob on 2013-01-27 at 6:05am:
  I love this episode, it could be my own personal experiences that leads me to this but it seems to me to be an analogy to a psychedelic induced state of mind wherein the 'traveller' can experience an entire lifetime in the blink of an eye.
  
  Once returning to their original understanding of their reality and normal perspectives there is a struggle, a conflict between the person they were before the event, the person they were during the event and who they need to be to move on from the event. Everything that took place was easily as real as the present and past to them, completely linked with emotions and feelings as real as any other memory in their mind.
  
  The only way for the traveller to move on is to merge the persona they lived into their ego, challenge the resistance from the higher ego and accept that they experienced a true existence and that perception combined with perspective is all there is, we accept our current one as the only one in order to live.
  
  This analogy would have been complete if after returning to the enterprise when Picard was given the flute he was able to play it as proficiently as he did in the mental projection.
• From skye_sken on 2013-03-28 at 12:31am:
  Just thought to comment on the allegations that a civilization such as theirs could not produce the technology needed for the probe to exist: I always figured the dreamworld that Picard experiences is rather an ideal representation of this people, or perhaps a "play" of a sort, rather than a full-on realistic portrayal of the advanced civilization they fostered just before the supernova event which eradicated it's people.
  
  When you think of it, some might say that a fine way to express one's civilization would be through art. It can be argued that technology is kind of homogenic in the way that any alien species can produce the same quantative results and inventions, whereas art I would suppose is always subjective and thus unique. I mean, showing aliens a play by Shakespeare would cover an immense amount of human emotions, those we hold so dear to us, and in a way sleek the image of humanity for the alien specators (after all, not many of us would sooner paint impressions of war, rape, extortion and other realistic qualities expressed by mankind).
  
  As someone before me noted, Picard doesn't seem to be doing any work, well, expect for his scientific research, which I guess many a folk do care for, and might deem important enough to sustain through their own labor. In the INNER LIGHT, art plays a key role in cultural preservation. In the dreamworld, we see art approached in the manner of the flute Picard gradually learns to play, the music of which in a way is a strong symbol of the lost people and a means to immortalize a part of their civilization.
  
  While we're making assumptions, I guess it's possible that if Picard's dreamworld was indeed a play, it was not entirely truthful, and this civilization never actually disappeared in a super nova after all; Picard just became a buffoon of an elaborate cosmic jape. But that's not nearly as romantic an idea, so forget it.
• From railohio on 2014-07-27 at 3:03pm:
  You guys are forgetting that while the probe was advanced, it certainly did not overpower the enterprise. The enterprise could have easily destoyed it, or severed the link (which they did), but they wouldn't because it would have been fatal to Picard. Even before he was connected by the beam, the Enterprise's mission is to explore new life and civilizations, so they could not simply destroy it on sight.
  
  As far as creating the probe in the 1st place. We can say the beginning of the episode took place somewhere in the 1950's. He lived almost a full life on Katan so it is feasible to say 40 years passed. That would put the society somewhere in the 1990s. With 1990s technology, it was seem like a far stretch to create such a device. However with the entirety of the planet working on such a desperate cause, one can conclude that it is somewhat possible to create something like this.
  
  Overall I loved this episode, and found it extremely interesting. A solid 9
• From Axel on 2015-03-25 at 3:53am:
  I'm in the minority that didn't enjoy this episode, and it's not because of the technological issues discussed above. It's because I really can't believe Picard or anyone else doesn't give a second thought to the ethics of what the Kataan have done.
  
  This probe is designed to take control of a person's conscious, force that person to relive a lifetime with the Kataan, and then awaken that person after making clear that this experience was just a recreation designed to keep the memory of their civilization alive. So twice you are confronted with years and years of your life being an illusion. The first time would be enough to make anyone question their own sanity. As for the second round of news at the end, Picard takes it pretty well. But the Kataan seem not to have considered (or cared) that others might not handle it that well. A person could leave this entire experience with serious mental and emotional problems rather than fond memories. Many might not have adjusted to living with the Kataan in the first place.
  
  Maybe the Kataan think that the collective memory of their civilization is worth all of this. But that issue is never really explored. Instead, Picard is released from his fake probe life as a happy man with a flute, never once wondering about the roller-coaster the Kataan just put him through.
  
  The acting in this episode is superb, not just Stewart but the guests as well. Still, the details of Picard's life with the Kataan isn't enough to redeem this one for me, nor was it interesting enough to put the episode's plot above average.
• From Harrison on 2016-06-25 at 11:50pm:
  A dramatic masterpiece, by far the best episode of any of the Star trek series. Stewart's performance is simply magnificent.
  
  Of course it is easy as pie to poke holes in the sci-fi logic underpinning the plot. That's true with any episode in the series, and it is hardly significant in light of the outstanding screenplay, character formation and plain old dramatic compulsion. A little suspension of disbelief won't harm you, and in the laws of the Star trek universe, there's nothing terribly difficult to accept.
• From dominic on 2016-06-26 at 5:11am:
  The thought did cross my mind that such a primitive society shouldnt' have been able to build such an advanced piece of technology in the probe, but I was able suspend my disbelief and get over that.
  
  What really bothers me about this episode is what Axel mentioned above. Surely the victim of this probe is put through an unfathomable amount of emotional trauma...not once, but twice. When Captain Picard "came back" and they asked him to go sickbay, I was totally expecting him to say something like "I don't need to go to sickbay. I need to see Counselor Troi." Not only did he not say that, but he didn't even see her. Was she even in this episode? Seems like a huge oversight to not have her play a more important role.
• From Chris on 2018-02-11 at 3:02am:
  I, like most folks, love this episode. An easy 10.
  
  If we here on earth were faced with a similar fate, I'm certain that once the religious idiots got out of the way, we could build something exactly like they did! ... and with current technology to start with!
  
  There are lots of study into mind reading technology going on right now and so nothing in this show is too much of a stretch for me.
  
  People always define other, alien technical abilities using humans as their benchmark and that is simply nonsensical to attempt. There is no context with which to base another alien's technical level and so leave it alone.
  
  I would have preferred if the aliens had done the probe to two people instead of just one. Like Axel, I think a person could seriously come out of an experience like this questioning one's sanity, and so having someone else come along for the ride would've been better I think.
  
  I have no problems with the food issues either. It's called C-Rations! ;-)
  
  Easily my favorite episode!
• From CAlexander on 2019-04-01 at 3:38am:
  Just watched this episode again, and it is even better when re-watched. This episode is too beautiful to care about the logic problems.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Wolfgang on 2006-07-10 at 1:04pm:
  Remarkable Scenes
  
  -Lieutenant Picard !
• From JRPoole on 2008-09-18 at 3:58pm:
  There's not a whole lot to complain about here, but I'm not as smitten with this episode as many fans are.
  
  It's great to see Picard's past, and his evolving relationship with Q is certainly interesting. But I find the It's-A-Wonderful-Life theme of this episode is a bit heavy-handed and explained to death. I also think they could have done a better job writing the characters of the young Picard's friends, who both seem pretty broadly drawn and never really elevate out of stereotype.
  
  Still, this is solid, and I can definitely see the charm, but I can't list it as one of the absolute best episodes. I guess I'll have to wait until I finish the series to make that call, though.
• From Dennis on 2013-04-02 at 10:05pm:
  I couldn't wait for this one to be over, and I've never felt that way about any other episode. The stupid costumes and make up. The over the top acting by Picard's adversary's, Q, all of it just stupid. The story had nothing to do with the theme of Star Trek. It could have easily been an episode of Mayberry RFD. Sorry if I'm a little heavy handed but they can flush this one.
• From dominic on 2016-08-19 at 1:04am:
  Problems: Q let Picard go back and put things back the way they were originally, so how did he end up surviving his present-day injury? A pretty glaring one IMO.
• From Cal on 2017-02-27 at 12:39pm:
  Q was involved, he can give and take life at any moment, so Picard's injury isn't an issue. Maybe Beverly saved him, maybe the whole injury thing was set up by Q in the first place, so it's hardly a problem. I adore the episode.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-07-09 at 1:16am:
  I give All Good Things a 10 overall. I did not rate Part 1 and Part 2, since I watch it on DVD and have no idea where the halfway point is.
  
  The episode itself is actually better than all the TNG movies. Everything about it is genius. Having the episode take place in three time periods is genius. Having the episode be a sequel to the very first episode is genius. I always look forward to watching it again.
• From Tony on 2008-09-09 at 4:23am:
  The whole idea of working among diferent time periods and Picard in that "one moment" open to new posibilities and things to explore is great, but there is one problem: the movies and series set after this episode in time seem to show that humanity didn't expand in ways predicted in this episode and just settled back into their old ways. Admittedly, our current minds are not highly evolved enough to comprehend such endevers, but it does seem odd that both humanity doesn't advance (except maybe in VOY: Relativity dealing with an even farther future) and that the Q doesn't seem to care. This is not a strike against this episode, but a strike against future episodes relating to this episode.
• From JRPoole on 2008-11-05 at 8:09pm:
  I just finished the entire TNG series, so this is a review of the series as a whole as well as a comment on this episode.
  
  "All Good Things" is phenomenal. It's intelligently written, fleshes out the characters well, and filled with fanboy fun stuff that doesn't get in the way of a good episode. I gave it a 10.
  
  TNG overall was also solid. Like the original series, it had its lame moments, but it was able to take the original concept and turn it into a sleek, intelligent show that took itself seriously but was still still fun. The best moments of TNG ("Measure of a Man," "The Inner Light," the Klingon saga episodes, the Borg invasion, Wesley's continuing journey to higher astral planes, et al) get at the heart of what Trek was really about. Now I'm looking forward to seeing DS9. I've seen a good bit of it, but a lot of it will be new to me.
• From djb on 2009-04-03 at 8:20am:
  I loved the 3D space battle scene. Unfortunately throughout most of Trek, the potential allowed by the three dimensions of space is wasted and most everything is in two dimensions, as if they were in a ship on the ocean. The brief battle scene here with the Enterprise arriving from a totally different angle and orientation was brilliant, and I wish we could have seen more battle scenes like that.
• From Ali on 2009-04-12 at 4:21pm:
  I love this episode too, but I think the science is a little bit iffy.
  
  Since Picard establishes that changes in timelines don't affect each other (i.e. Deanna doesn't recall him ordering a red alert on his first mission), then the fact that the first amino acid doesn't bond in the past shouldn't affect their known future or present...
  
  Multiple Universe Theories generally say that if an event is changed in the past, it will not alter the present; rather, create a new alternate Universe with that decision. And since there are infinite universes that exist where life did not end up occurring on earth, it wouldn't be that amazing. Life would have continued as normal to their perspective...
• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2011-10-01 at 1:49pm:
  If it's a 10, why isn't a candidate for your "Best TNG Episode" award?
• From Kethinov on 2011-10-07 at 6:49am:
  Both parts of the episode would have had to be rated 10 for it to be considered.
• From Vlad on 2012-02-13 at 3:49pm:
  This is one of my favourite episodes in all of Star Trek, but one little problem kills the magic for me...
  
  An early draft of the script, which was discarded for budget reasons, had the future crew stealing the Enterprise from a museum. Which meant that they started the search for the anomaly in the Enterprise and not the Pasteur.
  
  In the final version of the script they were on the Pasteur.
  
  Later, present-day Data says that the resonance pulses (or whatever they were called) inside the anomaly were identical "as if all three originated from the Enterprise".
  
  But they didn't!
  
  Anyway, aside from this little nitpick I have with the episode it's a fantastic send-off for TNG.
• From michael on 2012-08-07 at 10:03pm:
  If the anti-time reaction in the future goes backwards in time - how were they able to see it in the future? From the point of origin it travels backwards. From the perspective of linear time it would be impossible for anyone perceiving the forwards movement of time to see a reaction that moves precisely in the opposite direction?
• From Captain Keogh on 2013-03-17 at 10:38am:
  I loved this episode, just saw it on 26.12.2012 and thought it was brilliant, I gave it a 10.
• From thaibites on 2013-04-16 at 11:41pm:
  This is a great send-off for TNG. It's obvious a lot of thought was put into this episode. For example, I love the shot of Baby-face Riker they lifted from the 1st season. It was ingenious how they had new audio from Frakes while the shot shows Picard looking at the monitor, and then cuts back to Riker actually saying something from the season 1 footage. It was seamless and shows a lot of attention to detail.
  But the bigger aspect here is that All Good Things is what Star Trek is all about - pushing frontiers and going where no one (man) has gone before. Plus there's a lot at stake here - the existence of humanity (and the existence of every species between Earth and the Neutral Zone). This is awesome science fiction and TNG at its best!
• From L on 2013-05-09 at 12:32pm:
  This definitely was a great finale, epic and exciting. But a little frustrating too.
  
  Why do the Q continuum continue to torture Picard? They create some nonsensical dilemma and accuse Picard of being the cause when it was solely due to them that the crisis existed in the first place, just so they can force him to make some grand act they approve of.
  I thought the dilemma and its solution was totally irrational and may as well have been a dream, but it is implied that to evolve humanity must stop exploring real world science and technology and devote more time to this sort of thing. It seems they want to hold them back more than anything.
  I was annoyed at Q seeming to revert back to his earlier character after all they'd been through together, but felt better when it turns out he was acting under orders and did try to help after all.
  
  It was awesome seeing how irritable Picard was as an old man, and seeing Troi in a mini-skirt. It was a shame Guinan didn't make an appearance for the last episode.
  The last scene was perfect and uplifting.
• From Dstyle on 2013-09-23 at 3:03pm:
  This episode first aired when I was in middle school, and I remember being very annoyed at the fact that the anomaly, which is supposed to be moving backwards in time, was somehow moving forward in time after it was created. It was the first time I ever noticed any logical inconsistencies in my favorite show (which is kind of funny now, looking back on all the various logical inconsistencies throughout TNG's run), and it still hinders my enjoyment of this episode. But I guess it would have taken too much screen time for the future crew to create the static warp bubble in the past by slingshotting around a sun or something.
  
  I've always wondered why star ships always seem to be on the same plane when they run into each other, so it was good to see the future Enterprise approach and attack perpendicular to the Klingon Birds of Prey. Shame future Star Trek's didn't continue with this.
  
  Everyone thinks future Picard is crazy, but they inexplicably (or perhaps touchingly) humor him because he is Jean-Luc Picard. He refuses a brain scan at Cambridge, insisting instead that they immediately get a ship to the neutral zone. The "present day" crew, on the other hand, believe Picard completely, in part because Beverley was able to show (via two brain scans) that he had accrued two days worth of memories in a matter of hours. Why didn't future Picard immediately insist on the same brain scans? Wouldn't it have been much, much easier to get everyone on board with him (and to avoid being sedated) by easily providing evidence that what he was saying was true?
  
  Future Geordi is married to a woman named Leah. Leah Brahms, perhaps?
• From Jai Parker on 2014-07-10 at 2:11am:
  After a generally disappointing Season 7 TNG ends with a massive bang! Easily the best finale of any Trek series and 20 years on this is still one of the best grand finale's of any TV series IMO.
  
  I just wish they'd left the story here, rather than trying to reinvent TNG as a series of half baked sci-fi action films with a horribly out-of-character Picard at the helm.
  
  As with the Star Wars prequels I pretend the TNG films didn't happen and it ended with "the sky's the limit!"
• From englanddg on 2014-08-02 at 8:40am:
  The only thing I'll add is that the previous episodes were all setting up for this, outside of summing up loose characters (as fan service).
  
  Many of the derided episodes (when taken on their own) are in fact building the audience to this climax...
  
  Where Picard finally loses his mind.
  
  It was a quite brilliant story arch, across episodes, while still paying fan service to characters in interesting ways as they writers knew the show was dead after this season.
  
  Extremely well done.
• From Mike Chambers on 2016-08-25 at 2:55pm:
  This has already been mentioned by another commenter, but I want to reiterate. The one thing that always bothered me about this otherwise amazing finale is, if the anomaly only grows backwards through time then how the heck were they able to go back several hours into the future and see it??
  
  It's been a while since I've watched this, so maybe I'm forgetting something but I don't recall any explanation for it. Seems like a pretty massive oversight.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-06-06 at 7:04am:
  Changed Premise: If the transporter can screen out bacteria and viruses, as mentioned in this episode, how could the young people who went on the field trip in the episode "Angel One" bring back a viral infection?
  
  - At the end of the show, La Forge calls out the new heading, "9-7-0 mark 3-1-8." The episode "Datalore" establishes that each of the numbers given in a heading cannot exceed 360.
• From Jens-Ivar Seland on 2009-05-22 at 4:34pm:
  Merritt Butrick, who plays T'Jon, also plays Kir'k son David Marcus, in Start Trek 2 and 3.
• From rpeh on 2010-06-20 at 5:33pm:
  The god-awful "Just say no" exchange between Wesley, Yar and Data is the single most preaching, sanctimonious scene in Star Trek. Apart from that, it's not a bad episode.
• From Nick Counts on 2010-11-08 at 8:19pm:
  Sobi is played by Judson Scott, who also played Kahn's right hand man in Wrath of Khan
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-14 at 1:00am:
  I found the Prime Directive issues raised in this episode very interesting. Picard's dilemma is much more abstruse than in the typical morality episode since the Prime Directive doesn't exist in the real world.
  
  Picard's approach is interesting because, if he hadn't been aware of the political situation, he clearly would have given the Ornarans their engineering parts and told them they were not really sick. So Picard is not merely being neutral, he is actively manipulating the two sides in order to return them to the situation they were in before the Enterprise arrived.
  
  The downside to the episode is that it strains credulity to believe that in 200 years, nobody on Ornara has ever realized he can't die from the plague or noticed what the Brekkans are doing. Perhaps the Brekkans control the government and media on Ornara, and anyone who realizes the truth is taken away by the secret police.
  
  Also, how can the Ornarans be so stoned that they can't even remember how to maintain the space ships that they believe are critical to their planetary survival? You would think the Brekkans, at least, would try to correct the problem when the freighters started breaking down. Oh well, those silly alien races can be pretty short-sighted sometimes.
• From a2a on 2012-02-11 at 11:08pm:
  The beginning of this episode made me realize something: I really enjoy how in TNG the Captain addresses and encourages the entire crew, and not just the senior officers (at least in these early episodes - for instance he did this also in Where No One Has Gone Before - and perhaps continues to throughout the series). It creates atmosphere and realism, and gives you a sense of the ship as a whole, with its full complement. When you see random crew men, they are no longer quite so random and forgettable, because they've been incorporated in some small but emotionally significant way into the main events. There's a real sense that the story is about them too, and not just about the main characters.
  
  I'm not so sure about DS9, but this was something that was sorely lacking in Voyager, with a few exceptions. With Voyager, after a while you kind of get the sense that the ship doesn't extend very far beyond the bridge, the captain's quarters, and sickbay (and later the astrometrics lab). (BTW this is why I so strongly disagreed with Kethinov and very much appreciated Neelix' short-lived television show - it gave the ship a kind of social *atmosphere* (and incorporated the rest of the crew and their minor dramas and events...).
  
  Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Little more to say about the actual episode. Quite a good one.
  
  A possible problem in the technical ineptness of the addicted population: I mean, they supplied their drug-dealers with all the means of survival and even prosperity, right? (Who themselves had no industry besides cultivating and producing the narcotic.) So... how inept could they really be? If they could provide for the "necessities of life" of both their own planet and another dependent one, is it really conceivable that they can't maintain their ships, can't produce replacement parts, don't have the necessary tools, and can't align their engine coils or whatever?
  
  The resolution of the episode hinges on this technical ineptness (on a societal scale, not just with this particular crew), and I'm not sure it really squares with their role as suppliers in the relationship...
• From 1ne Moon Circles on 2012-02-18 at 4:57am:
  I have done a ton of reading about Yar leaving STNG, I am still not convinced that Yar did not have a drug problem. If so the after school special scene between Yar and Young Crusher must have been so humiliating for her.
  
  I agree with what some others have said about the drug addicts, if they were industrious enough to supply the drug dealers with all the their posh comforts
  
  then could they really be so technicnly unaware and dim?
• From Daniel on 2014-07-09 at 5:06am:
  Just one comment for this episode... In the scene where the Enterprise approaches the star, and the bridge crew is blinded by the bright light, Picard orders them to "mask out the photosphere", and a big black dot appears on the view screen and is moved into place. With 24th century technology, a big black dot is the best they could come up with to filter out bright light??? Kind of lacking on the tech level here.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From JRPoole on 2008-02-18 at 7:21pm:
  This is perhaps the first truly important episode of the series in terms of long-term developments, and it's a fittingly good one.
  
  Some of Picard's best moments are when he's antagonized by Q. You can really see his frustration that he's being toyed with by a petulant child who happens to be endowed with omnipotent powers. It offends his sensibilities that he's subjected to this, and it shows in his demeanor with Q. Even his plea at the end, when he admits that the Federation is outmatched by the Borg, is spiked with contempt for Q.
  
  My only quibble with this episode is the interaction between Q and Guinan. I like that they know each other, but the way they raise their hands at each other like some kind of fantasy wizards seems out of character and rather silly. Still, this doesn't tarnish an otherwise excellent episode.
• From JR on 2008-10-26 at 5:46pm:
  "This episode establishes that Federation shuttlecrafts of this time period do not have warp drive."
  
  Thad had been established in Time Squared.
• From paidmailer on 2009-09-23 at 2:56pm:
  Great episode, but isn't there one GIGANTIC plothole? If the planets destroyed look like the destroyed outposts in the neutral zone, then the borg were already there, so Q did not lead the borg to the federation, did he?
• From Inga on 2012-01-03 at 7:01pm:
  "Q may very well have done the the Federation a favor" how is that a favor?
  
  Also, agree with paidmailer.
• From Kethinov on 2012-01-03 at 8:15pm:
  Paidmailer, no, it's not a plot hole. Q was trying to warn them that the Borg were a yet-unnoticed threat that they should begin taking seriously.
  
  Inga, that's the favor that Q did for the Federation. He alerted them to the threat of the Borg that they had previously been oblivious to, but existed and was coming for them nevertheless.
• From Ggen on 2012-02-27 at 2:06am:
  This episode is superbly done and full of great moments, "both subtle and gross," to quote Q.
  
  It presents good continuity with events from last season, when both Romulan and Federation outposts were mysteriously "scooped up" by an unknown force. But most of all it brilliantly and seamlessly weaves together a number of great elements: the greenhorn Sonya subplot (itself useful in creating the social atmosphere on the ship, reminding us that there's a full complement of different characters, not just those we're most familiar with), Guinan's character development and history (with more background on the El-Aurians), the very first Borg encounter (and an exciting and dramatic one too), and a masterfully executed "Q returns" main plot.
  
  All of this is done well and nicely tied together. Sonya is convincingly overexcited and shaky under pressure, the Borg are perfectly cold, creepy, and confidently indifferent, Guinan is mysteriously wise, and Q is... well, Q ("next of kin to Chaos," according to Picard, and arguably at his best, with plenty of great lines of his own).
  
  This is exactly what a Q episode should be, and should've been all along. Less posturing and historical references, less "weird animal things" in costume dress, less inconsequential illusions and more serious threats, more real developments and dangers, including casualties.
  
  (I love how Q refers to the loss of several sections across a number of decks, along with 18
  crewmen, as "a nosebleed.")
  
  Finally, I love how Q is the archetypal "trickster" figure. Neither obviously good and beneficial, nor explicitly malevelent - and how his actions often have seemingly unintended positive consequence (in this case, giving the Federation a "kick in its complacency," to quote Picard).
  
  (From Wikipedia:
  
  "In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit,
  man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and
  conventional behavior.
  
  The trickster deity breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example,
  Loki) but usually, albeit unintentionally, with ultimately positive effects. Often, the
  bending/breaking of rules takes the form of tricks (e.g. Eris) or thievery. Tricksters can be
  cunning or foolish or both; they are often funny even when considered sacred or performing
  important cultural tasks. An example of this is the sacred Iktomi, whose role is to play tricks and games and by doing so raises awareness and acts as an equalizer."
  
  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickster)
• From Mike Chambers on 2013-10-21 at 12:51am:
  "Con permiso, capitàn. The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged. It's now time to see if you can dance."
  
  Wow, what an episode! I can watch this over and over again, and not get tired of it. The only thing that I thought was stupid was when they went over to the Borg ship, and Data said something like "we were scanning for individual life forms" when Riker asked why their sensors didn't detect any life signs when there were that many Borg.
  
  That's one of the stupidest "technical" explanations of the entire series.
• From Seven Inch Screw on 2020-09-17 at 11:24pm:
  One of my favorite Data moments is in this episode.
  
  LaForge: "He's got the straight flush, folks."
  
  Data: "Not necessarily. ::leans in intently:: Commander Riker may be bluffing, Wesley. ::Quietly folds, stares at Wesley::
  
  Hilarious.
• From obummer forever on 2021-07-18 at 4:24pm:
  I don't like that Q gets 18 people killed, it mars all future fun encounters with him. What if someone important had died, like Troi or Worf, would they joke with him about it later? Doubtful
  
  Also, I still don't buy the not a plothole thing, if these Borg are already active in the neutral zone, why does Q make it seem like they are 7000 LYs away? Not to mention, why are they not doing more than eradicate some outposts? It makes no sense.
• From Mitchell O on 2024-03-23 at 3:14am:
  “ Ensign Sonia Gomez will appear on the show only one more time (the next episode). Seems her confrontation with the captain resulted in a dismal career!”
  
  Rather amusing that 30 years later we learn that she did quite well for herself! (LD: 2x10)

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-30 at 4:50am:
  - As the show opens, Riker leads an away team down to the destroyed colony. When they arrive, he asks O'Brien to confirm their coordinates. O'Brien verifies the coordinates and says that they are at the center of town. The next shot shows the away team standing at the edge of a gaping hole. No buildings ring the abyss. If the hole is all that's left of the colony and they transported to the center of town, shouldn't they be standing in the center of the pit?
  - With the Enterprise concealed in the nebula, both Worf and Picard make statements about what the Borg ship is doing. How do they know what the Borg ship is doing? If the nebula is dense enough to confound the Borg's sensors, wouldn't it do the same to the Enterprise's sensors?
  - Before the away team beams over to the Borg ship, Worf hands out phasers. Shelby then comments that they will only be able to use the phasers a few times before the Borg will adapt to the frequencies. Evidently, tuning these phasers is a big deal. Otherwise the away could fire a few times, use the controls to set a new frequency, and start firing again. However, in the episode "The Arsenal Of Freedom," Data continues to retune the frequency on his phaser to find the "precise frequency" to free Riker from the force field. If Data's phaser had this capability in the first season, what happened to the phasers in the third season?
  - At one point, when Shelby boards a turbolift, she states her destination as, "Deck 8, battle bridge." She and Riker then have a disagreement, and she leaves as soon as the turbolift reaches her destination. However, the turbolift doors open into a hallway, not the battle bridge. "Encounter At Farpoint" showed two entrances to the battle bridge: both were turbolifts.
  - The Enterprise seems to have solved its structural integrity problems. During the runaway acceleration of "Hollow Pursuits," the Enterprise began shuddering as soon as it passed warp 9.4. In this episode, the Enterprise sustains a speed of warp 9.6 for several hours and everything's fine.
• From JRPoole on 2008-04-17 at 4:25pm:
  This is something I've wondered before, but I thought of it again watching this episode. Can Troi turn off her empathic abilities? If not, how is it fair for her to play poker? Couldn't she sense if someone was bluffing?
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2009-06-26 at 7:31pm:
  The cool thing is, this episode wasn't just about the Borg. Riker's personal and professional life was under a microscope and you had Picard pondering man's role in history while talking to Guinan.
  
  When you add all these small pieces to the main plot, you get a very enjoyable, movie-like episode.
• From Mike Chambers on 2013-11-18 at 12:11am:
  A very good, but imho overrated episode. I'd give it a 7. The Riker/Shelby rivalry thing gets annoying very fast to me, and I thought Picard becoming Borg was interesting enough but ultimately pretty gimmicky.
• From Daniel on 2014-07-04 at 5:22pm:
  I love this episode, as well as Part 2. One thing I want to say about this episode is that it's perhaps the best cliffhanger episode of any series! I shall never forget that famous ending with the music building and Riker giving the command "Fire!" Then... To be continued!
• From Dr. Paul Obumheim on 2023-05-02 at 4:17pm:
  This episode is remarkable because it might be the first one in which Riker is not trying to romance the female guest star.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-30 at 7:35am:
  - In "Q Who," Q sent the Enterprise seven thousand light-years through space to meet the Borg. At the end of that episode, Guinan pointed out that the Borg would be coming. Also, Data states that it would take two and a half years to get back to the Federation at maximum warp. At the beginning of "The Best Of Both Worlds," Part 1, an admiral says that the Federation knew for over a year that the Borg were coming. Picard responds that the Borg must have a source of power far superior to their own. Yet, in "TBOBW," Part 1, the Enterprise manages to stay with the Borg ship for several hours. And in this episode, even after Locutus claims the Borg ship is proceeding without further delay to Earth, the Enterprise actually catches up to the Borg ship. If the Borg ship has a superior power source, why aren't they using it and leaving the Enterprise behind?
  - Someone reworked the layout and look of the battle bridge. The last time the series showed the battle bridge was during "Arsenal Of Freedom." This battle bridge is a great improvement.
  - This episode contains a very interesting scene concerning communications on the Enterprise. At the end of the episode, Riker sends an away team to the "sleeping" Borg ship. While walking through the halls of the Enterprise, Riker discusses the Borg ship with the away team. Shelby asks Riker if they should stop the Borg's autodestruct sequence. Riker turns the corner and doors pop open. He walks into the room with Picard, and both Dr. Crusher and Data give their opinions on Shelby's question! Since Shelby asked the question while Riker was in the hall, were Data and Crusher eavesdropping on Riker's conversation? Yet, moments earlier, Riker gave orders to ram the Borg ship - just seconds after talking to Data, Crusher, and Troi. Evidently they didn't hear Riker's intention to destroy the Enterprise, because they calmly discuss the meaning of Picard's "sleep" instruction. If they did hear the order, Data simply would have implemented Picard's instruction instead of discussing it. If some protocol exists for establishing open communications among all bridge officers during a crisis, wouldn't it be more reasonable for that protocol to be in effect during the Borg attack than afterward?
• From JRPoole on 2008-04-28 at 5:35pm:
  Outstanding. This is definitely the best espisode up to this point, and there's not much to complain about here. I only wish we got to see more of Shelby in the future; what a great character she was.
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-02-23 at 2:46pm:
  Myself and my wife enjoyed this episode and the first part immensely. I liked the scene with Guinan telling Riker he must forget Picard and then Riker's follow up when he takes forceful command of the ship and executes his plan. Data had another great episode and his joining with Picard was inspired. I was wondering how they would resolve having the Federation win this one and thought this method of taking over control of the Borg was totally feasible without being hokey or just pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Very logical plot to carry the story. While I am the big scifi fan in the house this episode and most of the others has my wife enjoying the show as much or more than me. When the show was on the air family duties and work prevented us from watching it but now being able to enjoy it at our leisure on DVD is great.
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-02-24 at 4:52pm:
  Addendum to my earlier comment today:
  
  I also found the ending so perfect. I don't know where or when but I have seen a painting/picture of the boy under the tree gazing at the night sky. It may have been something to do with Isaac Newton but whatever that scene was iconic and perfect.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-08-07 at 3:06am:
  During one tender moment between Worf and K'Ehleyr, she places her hands on his chest. In fact, she lays her hand directly over his communicator. Of course, it doesn't chirp. It must have a "loving embrace sensor" to know when not to turn on ;)
• From JRPoole on 2008-05-02 at 2:05pm:
  Another factoid established by this episode: there are representatives of 13 planets among the Enterprise crew.
  
  This is fantastic, definitely a candidate for my 'best of TNG' award. I especially like Picard's reaction to Worf going AWOL and killing Duras. This is possibly the best-rendered episode of Klingon intrigue, and there's not much to dislike here. Gowron eats the scenery every time he's on screen, Duras finally gets his due, the Romulan involvement in the Klingon power struggle gets teased out, K'mpec dies a death worthy of Shakespeare, and everything comes together nicely.
• From JRPoole on 2008-05-06 at 5:14pm:
  Something I just thought about. As I pointed out in my mini-review, this episode maintains that there are 13 planets represented on the Enterprise crew. This number seems a little small:
  
  Earth (multiple examples)
  Betazed (Troi)
  Kling (Worf)
  Guinan's planet
  Bolia (I guess this is the name of the Bolians', as evidenced by Mot the barber's, homeworld)
  Vulcan (several Vulcans can be seen as crew members in the backgrounds of prior episodes)
  
  This is six already, nearly halfway there, and doesn't even count Data, who's from a colony planet, and the various obviously alien extras who've appeared in the background (the lady getting her hair done in the background of the barbershop scene in "Data's Day," etc.
  
  Okay, I've officially descended into Trek geek-dom by even thinking about this...
• From MarkMcC on 2008-12-25 at 11:44am:
  I've been rewatching this show recently and this is definitely one of the strongest episodes so far. My only minor gripe is with the lacklustre performance of the Enterprise security staff again.
  
  Ambassador K'Ehleyr is playing a pivotal role in the mediations where one of the two sides has already poisoned K'mpect and set off a bomb, and has been directly threatened by Gowron. You'd think after all that, security might at least post someone at her door in case of emergency.
  
  And let's not even talk about the security officer's Keystone Cops-style chasing after Duras' associate. Would a trained Starfleet officer really fall for such an old ploy?
  
  Then again, if security ever did their job properly there would be a lot less drama (and stolen shuttlecrafts) in this great series.
• From John on 2010-12-30 at 5:24am:
  Another "remarkable scene", in my opinion: at the end, when Alexander asks Worf "are you my father?" It's a nice reminder to us that Alexander has been pretty much ignored through all of this, even though it affects his life as much as, if not more than, anybody else's.
  
  I've always liked Alexander. I know some people hate him or find him annoying, but I sympathize with him. It's not easy to see your mother die a bloody death, and then find out your father is the biggest hardass in the galaxy.
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-19 at 3:06pm:
  Great episode. It could so easily have been done badly, but it was done well. I found K'Ehleyr very interesting to watch.
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-20 at 12:05am:
  One point I that was confusing to me was the bomb plot. They never described exactly how the plot was supposed to work and why it failed. It came across as though Duras randomly set off a Romulan bomb because, hey, he's an evil traitor, that's what evil traitors do.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-21 at 2:17pm:
  Another excellent use of the "onesie", the tight, form fitting one piece outfit favored by Star Trek for young, attractive women, in this case K'Ehleyr, who did not disappoint in this area. See my comment on the previous episode.
• From Axel on 2015-02-28 at 5:18am:
  JRPoole, I'll join you in geek-dom, years after your post.
  
  The Federation has a lot of planets and races, but how involved all of them are with Starfleet is unclear. Tellar and Andor are founding members of the Federation and we rarely see them as crew on any ship in most ST series. I think 13 is a reasonable number for the Starfleet flagship. It also stands to reason that humans dominate Starfleet if for no other reason than Earth is where the HQ is at, and therefore probably the main recruiting grounds.
  
  Descending even further into geek-dom, it's been implied that races like Vulcans and Andorians don't reproduce nearly as quickly as humans. Vulcans enter their cycle every seven years, Andorians need four parents, etc. This may also be why Earth and human-colonized planets dominate the overall Federation population.
  
  The simple, real-world reason why humans dominate Starfleet is that makeup and costumes inevitably consume budget money, but I still think that 13 is about right if you consider how many humans are on the Enterprise.
• From House of Obummer on 2021-07-29 at 4:34pm:
  When Alexander grabs the bathlet on the wall, the next scene should have been sickbay. Look where and how he grabs it.
  And the death of the mother was annoying because they did not seem to hurry at all. No beaming her to sickbay, no beaming the doctors into her quarters.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-10-18 at 4:22am:
  No major problems with this episode ;)
  Just a couple continuity/production problems:
  - Data orders food for Spot. The bowl that materializes contains a very small amount of something on the bottom. Yet, in the close-up, the bowl suddenly becomes over half filled with food.
  - The wedding glass O'Brien and Keiko drink from appears to be empty. The glass is translucent, so it is difficult to tell. If there was any liquid in the glass, I think it would show up.
• From djb on 2008-02-20 at 9:06am:
  - Notice how data's hands are twitching when he is explaining his findings about the transporter malfunction to the rest of the crew? I wonder if it as all related to Lore's facial tick. I'm more inclined to suspect it was just Brent Spiner being fidgety.
  
  - This is one of the funniest episodes I've seen so far. It's up there with "Deja Q" in terms of how often it made me laugh out loud. Data's logically coming to conclusions that we find so obvious is priceless. I bet Maddox will laugh his ass off when he gets the letter. Worf's assessment of human bonding rituals is also funny; it reminds me of his description of Klingon mating in "The Dauphin." ("...he reads love poetry... he ducks a lot.") Also, Data's big smile is something to remember.
  
  - Notice how Data's dance partner looks a lot like Tasha Yar? Seems appropriate given their connection. It wasn't Denise Crosby, but she sure did look similar.
  
  - Nice balance of character development and overall plot advancement. Very interesting existential questions brought up in line with "The Measure of a Man." It seems Data doesn't take personally Maddox's desire to disassemble him. But... since Data is not really a "person" in many senses, one wouldn't expect him to.
• From JRPoole on 2008-05-05 at 3:50pm:
  This is up there with the best TNG had to offer. I love episodes that give the viewer an idea about what goes on behind the scenes on a normal day aboard the Enterprise, so this one is a personal favorite. Data's attempts at uderstanding human behavior here are priceless, O'brien finally comes into his own, and overall this is phenomenal. My only (small) quibble is with the T'pel side-plot. It's interesting, and well-done, but it could have made a great episode of its own, and sometimes it cuts into the plot concering Data and the wedding a little too much. I still give this one a 10.
• From thaibites on 2011-06-27 at 3:16am:
  I've been watching TNG sequentially, and this is the WORST episode so far. I was shocked to see that so many people liked it. Another "soap opera" episode with very little sci-fi. And what's up with Kaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyko!?! What an emotionally unbalanced, useless twit! We have to treat that as an equal!?! If I was a woman who is striving for all women to be treated as equals, I would be angered and sickened by the writer's portrayal of Keiko as being a completely emotionally out of control woman. This episode is crap!
  
  In the review, the website creator says, "It seems Data holds no hard feelings for the man..." Excuse me...HELLO???? Data doesn't have ANY feelings at all for anybody or anything. That's one of the big points of this episode!
• From Kethinov on 2011-06-29 at 3:56pm:
  You don't need to have feelings to exhibit the qualities of bias toward an individual. It would be well within the realm of realism for Data to break contact with Maddox in an effort to avoid any further unpleasant dealings with him. In that respect, the phrase "hard feelings" need not be taken so literally.
• From Mike Chambers on 2013-11-22 at 4:25am:
  Very surprised to see this episode rated so highly by everyone. It's a cute little episode with a few laughs, but belongs nowhere near the top of the TNG heap!
  
  There's basically no sci-fi to be found, and it's not like we learn anything new about Data from it either. Overall just a very watchable, but go-nowhere filler episode that earns a very average 5 rating from me. Not something I'd put on heavy rotation. I did, however, enjoy seeing O'Brien get some more screen time finally.
• From Axel on 2015-02-28 at 9:02pm:
  The last thing Data says to Maddox in "Measure of a Man" is that Maddox should continue his research and that Data is ready to help in the right way. So, apparently Data had no negative views of Maddox even immediately after the hearing. I like that the writers handled it this way and picked up the Data-Maddox relationship for this episode. It makes sense for the character to view Maddox's research as intriguing rather than hold a grudge, which would be a purely human thing to do.
  
  Anyway, this episode had a lot of great stuff. It was funny, touching, and had several plots working together nicely from the perspective of Data.
  
  I do wonder a little bit about the T'Pel thing. You'd think the Federation would be aware that Romulans might try to impersonate Vulcans. They apparently have different life signs, and a Federation ambassador would have very high clearance level which would require rigorous screening. It's somewhat surprising to me that a Romulan could do this at all. I'm sure there are explanations, but it seems to me that T'Pel/Selok gets away with an awful lot more than she should have.
• From Chris on 2018-04-05 at 2:55pm:
  My only whine about this episode is that Data didn't have that goofy smile on his face during the real dance with the bride!
  
  I would have passed beer through my nose because I was waiting for it, but alas! :-(

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Whoa Nellie on 2007-04-15 at 6:56pm:
  This episode is a perfect 10! If you're going to have someone who is not a Trek fan or even a sci-fi fan watch an episode of TNG, this is the episode to have them watch. Like the TOS's 'Trouble with Tribbles,' Qpid is pure, unmitigated fun! Patrick Stewart's Picard doing Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, you just have to love that! Picard and Vash have a very compelling 'battle of wills' dynamic to their romantic relationship. The combination of Picard/Vash and Q is unbeatable. Star Trek at its character driven best!
• From DSOmo on 2007-08-26 at 8:15am:
  - When Q barges into Vash's room and discovers a rescue note to Riker, Q calls for the guards. The guards rush in, grab Vash, and march her out of the room. She's already in a cell in the tower. Just where are they taking her?
  - When Q returns the crew to the Enterprise, Picard immediately notices that Vash is missing. Picard taps his communicator and asks the computer to locate Vash. The computer replies that Vash is not on board the Enterprise. I thought the computer used the communicators to locate people. Vash doesn't have a communicator. So how does the computer know Vash isn't on board?
• From Dio on 2009-01-02 at 9:35pm:
  I had to rate this episode 10. Vash is a great character, representing both romance and adventure, so she automatically gives this episode 5 points. Q is always fantastic and adds another 2. The last 3 come from the humor, production and continuity.
  
  I wish Vash had made one more appearance in TNG. maybe this could have been a 2 parter with the second episode focusing more on Picard and Vash before Q whisks her away...
• From John on 2010-12-31 at 4:49pm:
  Worf saying "Nice legs. For a human." -- priceless.
• From CAlexander on 2011-05-27 at 12:45am:
  This episode feels aimless. Q pops in and argues with Picard, then puts him in some random situation for no apparent reason, then they act out part of an old movie. I did, however, like some of the funny bits, like Picard being embarrassed by Vash and Worf's reaction to becoming a merry man.
  - It is cool that Vash tries to use guile to manipulate the imaginary characters, which puzzles Q since he knows, as do we, that the Enterprise crew would be too principled for such a thing.
  
• From Mike Chambers on 2013-11-18 at 5:35am:
  Pointless, boring, cheesy episode with a few laughs scattered about. The only bad episode of TNG starring Q. This one gets a big fat ZERO from me. Vash is the worst TNG guest star. Even worse than the traveler, that creepy interdimensional space-pedo.
• From Axel on 2015-03-17 at 10:57pm:
  Either Q endowed Picard's team with special swordfighting skills for the purpose of this fantasy, or fencing is apparently a top past time for most of the senior officers :) I could see Picard himself learning to fence, and obviously Worf has a natural weapon proficiency. But LaForge? How the hell did he so good with a blade?
  
  Anyway, this is a pretty amusing episode. It was good to see Vash again as she is the perfect woman to trip up Picard a bit. There are a lot of scenes I also enjoyed in this one, aside from the ones listed by the OP. For some reason, the scene where Riker is fighting one of the soldiers while Q is munching on a piece of chicken really cracked me up.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-05-07 at 5:06pm:
  Half a Life takes the euthenasia issue and stuffs it into a Lwaxana Troi episode. While it is nice to see a more rounded characterization of Lwaxana, I was not moved by the many heavy conversations between her and Timicin, or between her and her daughter. This emotional disconnection is coupled with a bit of bad science. How can you alter a massive star with photon torpedos? The Enterprise has almost become a Death Star, able to wipe out whole systems with a push of a button. While I find the moral issues intriguing, I just wanted more out of this episode.
• From Frogshortening on 2006-08-25 at 10:24pm:
  I loved the way they pu the serious issue in with Lwaxanne- showed that she really did take some things seriously... and the contrast between her normal self and the one who was upset about Timicin's decision made it all the more dramatic! They WERE very moving scenes! (so there)!
• From DSOmo on 2007-08-29 at 12:01am:
  - When Timicin first beams aboard, Picard immediately sticks out his hand to greet him. This action confuses Timicin, and then he comments that he has heard humans shake hands to greet each other. For a man as well versed in diplomacy as Picard, this seems very out of character for him. Timicin comes from an isolationist planet. Why make him feel immediately uncomfortable by forcing him to participate in a human ritual? Prior to this episode, Picard initiates a handshake only one other time, and that was only in respond to a physical greeting from the other party ("Final Mission")
  - In this episode, Lwaxana orders Oskoid from the food replicator. When Timicin asks what it is, Lwaxana says it is a Betazed delicacy. But during the picnic in "Menage a Troi," Lwaxana offers Riker an Oskoid leaf and he acts like he's never had one before. Riker offers it to Troi, as if she'd never had one before. If Oskoid leaves are a Betazed delicacy, why do Riker and Troi act like they'd never eaten them before? Troi grew up on Betazed, and Riker was stationed there for several years.
  - When Timicin and Lwaxana transport to the planet they are holding hands. Their hands are outside the confinement beam but they manage to transport OK (see "Sarek")
  - After Timicin asks for asylum, Lwaxana and Troi have a talk. The scene opens with a shot of Lwaxana leaning against a mirror. As she walks away, the pole from the boom mic can be seen in the mirror. When the scene changes and follows Lwaxana walking across the room, the boom mic shadow can be seen moving across the wall.
• From djb on 2008-03-13 at 7:17am:
  This was a valuable episode in many ways.
  
  As others pointed out, I liked how Lwaxana's character was a bit more fleshed out in this episode. Usually she's just obnoxious and insufferable, but here we get to see something really, truly bother her, and see her go through some intense emotions. Much better.
  
  At first I thought it strange that Lwaxana would become so romantically attracted to a man (an alien, at that) at first sight, but I then remember that she's a telepath, an especially talented one at that, who can basically "read" the gestalt of a person in the first few moments of knowing them. What takes us humans months or years to find out takes her minutes instead. Makes you think about what Betazoid culture must be like, with basically no one able to lie to each other...
  
  I like how this episode brings up the issue of moral relativism. Normally I'm not a moral relativist; I think that there are some standard rights we can uphold for all of humanity. But what about when other sapient species come into play? The "Resolution" concept sounds to us like euthanasia taken to an unacceptable extreme, but I actually tend to agree with Timicin's daughter when she basically tells Lwaxana she has no place to judge their people's practices. Even though it sounds abhorrent to us, we're talking about a different species, planet, culture, psychology, history; enough to determine that we have no moral jurisdiction. Plus, it sets a bad precedent: species intervening on other species' practices they find offensive can lead down a totalitarian path pretty fast.
  
  So much of Star Trek is based upon speculation. We really have no idea what other species in this galaxy are going to be like. An episode devoted (partially)to one alien's personal dilemma makes me think about what fields of study will pop up once we start making contact with extra-terrestrial species. Basically take any field we have now and add the prefix "xeno," and you have a new field: Xenobiology, xenopsychology, xenosociology. Xenoethics. Xenotheology. Xenomusicology! The possibilities are endless...
  
  Good point someone made about the star subplot... The idea that a starship can make a star go nova with just a few specially-modified photon torpedoes, in minutes, is ludicrous (at least they made the nova look semi-believable, unlike "Evolution." They still don't get that novas appear for weeks, even months). If not ludicrous, extremely scary. The power not to destroy planets a la Death Star, but to cause the devastation of an entire solar system! This system had no inhabitants, but what about systems that do? If life on any of the planets survived the radiation and solar debris, how long would life last without the primary power source? How would they react gravitationally to a white dwarf (which will be less massive than the original star)? If this kind of stellar apocalypse is possible, why didn't the Romulans send a few cloaked ships into sector 001 and just decapitate the federation as soon as it became a threat?
  
  If anything I'd say that an unsuccessful result of this experiment would be no change in the star. I also think that if the experiment were successful, we wouldn't find out for months, even years. Remember we're talking about a body that's about 1 and a half sextillion (1.5x10^21) cubic meters in volume and about 2 nonillion kilograms (that's 2x10^30) in mass. Whatever effects our special little torpedoes might have is going to take quite some time in real life.
  
  Anyway, bad sci-fi, but great character study, great themes. Also, David Ogden Stiers is such a good actor that even though I've seen him in M*A*S*H countless times, I didn't realize it was him until I looked him up! Great guest star performance. An 8.
• From JRPoole on 2008-06-26 at 4:43am:
  I don't have much to add to the commentaries here. This is about as good as stand-along episodes get: interesting (if not very plausible) science, great guest actors, interesting themes, and finally a Lwaxana episode that doesn't annoy. I give it a 9. Did the Enterprise wait for Ms. Troi? Or is she staying here until she can hitch a ride back to Betazed?
• From John on 2010-12-31 at 8:36pm:
  You have to love how good an actor David Ogden-Stiers is. He renders his part with a quiet dignity that perfectly fits the character. I can't think of anyone better suited for the role. Certainly one of the best guest-stars TNG has ever had.
• From MJ on 2011-01-05 at 7:12pm:
  I also agree with the vast majority of the webmaster’s ratings, but I would give this one a 7. The lack of explanation of Tarses fate doesn’t ruin it for me, nor does the lack of sufficient explanation for what exactly he did wrong (was it falsifying the application or the fact that his grandparent is Romulan?).
  
  The drama of the episode is irresistible, and the issues it grapples with are both complex and timely; it would’ve been interesting to see how differently this might have been written in a post-9/11 world. I also don’t think everyone is quite out of character. Worf’s paranoia at the prospect of having a Romulan spy on board seems very fitting, for example.
  
  The only other snag which knocks the episode down somewhat is that it seems strange that Admiral Satie would’ve been able to use tactics like this in all her investigations without throwing up any red flags. Sometimes it seems everyone at Starfleet are blind, despicable fools compared to Picard and crew.
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-03-17 at 1:50pm:
  Some of the other comments are very pertinent. As far as the backup story about rejuvenating a star with photon torpedoes, that is technical bunk. Stars burn based on their internal hydrogen and other element components and the fusion induced by the mass and these components makeup. If this star had burned out of hydrogen a photon torpedo barrage is not going to make it spontaneously rejuvenate. This was only a device to allow for the fundamental plot line of euthanasia.
  
  Now that part was quite interesting to watch and quite pertinent in many ways to our present conditions. While there is the prime directive to not get involved in other species culture, if there was a cultural decision years ago to go this course that is not a reason to consider changing a flawed decision. However that would have to be instigated in person by Timicin but with support of Lwaxana and/or others. I wanted that to start out of basic morality but felt in the end Timicin was only returning to accept his preordained fate rather than starting a fundamental examination of a flawed law. He should have become the catalyst but it was not in his psyche. The same is so true of so many things on our planet at present, women's rights, children's rights, etc. If one person does not start a movement or does but gets not support it is fundamentally unjust. But for no one to even try then the conditions will simply stay the same flawed way. I do enjoy these episodes that examine fundamental human rights.
• From Lee on 2012-04-25 at 4:27pm:
  Since I don't care much for technical problems (as long as they aren't as severe as in VOY: Threshold of course), I could really enjoy this episode. It's also the chronologically first Lwaxana-episode I really like!
  
  It not only has the typical TNG-themes, it's also very sad and the acting of the guest star was magnificent! And although the science of the episode is probably not the best, it has still some awesome visuals.
  
  
• From Douglas on 2016-04-21 at 12:48pm:
  I've watched this episode many times but only just saw that when Georgi is at his console, the file number for the experiment is 4077. Nice in-joke since guest star David Ogden Stiers was in M.A.S.H. and the unit he was posted to was the 4077th.
• From QuasiGiani on 2018-04-18 at 7:38am:
  Not euthanasia.
  
  Just pure bureaucratic stupidity.
  
  Irritating episode. As formulaic as the preceding episode on witch-hunts. But at least that episode was addressing its intended subject. The only problem there was that it missed the opportunity it had so worked to go beyond the ordinary and extend an understanding to the witchfinder's pitiable foundation of fear... This episode just entirely mistakes its very subject... Not euthanasia. Just pure bureaucratic stupidity.
  
  
• From RodimusBen on 2020-10-05 at 1:22pm:
  Is it just me or does Majet Barrett act the heck out of this episode? More often than not I can't stand Lwaxana, but every now and then they give her a powerhouse ep (see "Dark Page" and DS9's "The Forsaken").
  
  There are only a few episodes of Trek that move me to tears but I got close to it listening to Lwaxana talk to Deanna about the trauma of aging in the transporter room. Perhaps because it is so real. This is a universal human experience that everyone can identify with (or will, sooner or later).

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-09-03 at 7:02am:
  - Near the beginning of the episode, Worf and Guinan practice together on the phaser range. Guinan tells Worf she had a bet with Picard that she could make Worf laugh before he made the rank of lieutenant commander. "Not a good bet today," he replies. The conversation seems to imply that Guinan has never made Worf laugh. In the opening scene of "Yesterday's Enterprise," Guinan did make Worf laugh. Was there an alternate reality that was caused in that episode by the older Enterprise coming through the time fissure and then returning so that Worf never laughed in Ten-Forward?
  - When Gowron first tells Picard of the Duras sisters' challenge, Picard asks for details. Gowron has none, stating that women cannot serve on the High Council. That must be a new rule, because Gowron offered K'Ehleyr a seat on the High Council in "Reunion."
  - As Worf prepares to leave the Enterprise, he packs his belongings in a large chest. Picard comes to his quarters for a chat. During the conversation, Picard says he will make sure Worf's belongings get transferred to the Klingon ship. Just before Picard escorts Worf to the transporter, Worf closes the lid on the chest and they walk out. However, while they were talking, a pan of the room showed Worf's bat'leth still hanging on the wall. In "Reunion," Worf explained to his son that the weapon had been in his family for ten generations. There is no way Worf would leave that behind. Was he hoping that Picard would remember to pack it also?
  - When the family of Duras attacks Gowron, two Klingon warships attack, pummeling Gowron's ship. Picard observes the battle as Data narrates. At one point, Data says, "[Gowron's ship] has lost her port shield. It is unlikely that they will withstand another hit in that quarter." The shot changes to the main viewer of the Enterprise. As Data continues narrating, the graphics show Gowron's ship taking not one, not two, not three, but four more phaser hits on the port side, and in each of those hits the blast disperses as if the port shield still functions!
• From JRPoole on 2008-07-02 at 1:00am:
  This two-parter would be a candidate for my best of trek award. The only small problem for me is the Romulan Tasha Yar, which, despite the explanation coming in the second part, is stretching it a little.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-09-03 at 8:59pm:
  - At the end of "Redemption," Worf was leaving to serve as weapons officer on Gowron's ship. Yet this episode opens with Worf serving under his brother Kurn on Kurn's ship. Did Worf get a demotion?
  - Worf's brother claims that the bar is filled both with men loyal to Duras and those loyal to Gowron. At one point, men loyal to Duras attack Worf in the bar. They knock him unconscious and drag him out. Why doesn't anyone come to Worf's aid?
  - Sela gives Picard an accurate recounting of the facts of "Yesterday's Enterprise." Specifically, she knows that her mother came from twenty-two years in the future. If the Romulans knew that Yar came from twenty-two years in the future, it is inconceivable that they would kill her. Yar was a tactical officer with in-depth knowledge of weapons systems. The Romulans had unlimited time to torture her until she cooperated. It makes no sense for them to throw away a resource like that just because she tried to escape.
  - After the sisters of Duras fail to convince Worf to join their cause, Sela appears on a viewscreen and gives them new orders. Worf calmly looks at the screen before they lead him away. Is Worf still groggy from the beating in the bar? The viewscreen shows the face of a woman he called a friend - a woman he thought died years ago. His reaction should have been similar to Picard's: shock and amazement.
  - Picard's entire plan for exposing Romulan involvement hinges on the successful detection of cloaked Romulan supply ships. The successful detection of the supply ships rests solely on the blockade using active tachyon beams. When the main computers on both the Enterprise and Sela's ship show the blockade, the graphics show lines connecting the Starfleet ships. If the Starfleet ships are using beams, they've got problems. The Romulans could detect the gaps and fly through them. To get the type of density they need, the Starfleet ships would have to be clustered very closely together. And if the ships are clutered that closely together, then the Romulans could simply fly around the blockade. Picard and the main computers on both the Enterprise and Sela's ship must be confused. The Starfleet ships must be sending out "waves" of tachyon emissions. This would fill in the gaps.
  - At one point, O'Brien tells Picard, "The detection net is picking up activity from the Romulans ... fifteen cloaked ships spreading out along the border." O'Brien says this before the Romulans cross into Klingon space. If the blockade could only detect a cloaked ship when it crossed a "beam," how does O'Brien know that there are fifteen cloaked ships getting ready to cross?
  - When Sela speaks with Picard, she asks why twenty-three Starfleet ships lie on the Romulan border. If there are twenty-three ships in the blockade, why do only seventeen show up on the viewscreens both on the Enterprise and Sela's ship?
  - After the Romulans flood the border with tachyon emissions, Picard orders the ships to fall back. Data realizes that the Romulan ships might be detectable for a short time. He gets to work immediately, disobeying a direct order from Picard. Aside from the fact that everything in Data's programming supports his full compliance with orders from a superior officer - Data's disobedience is totally unnecessary. In the time that Data spends arguing with his first officer about Picard's orders, Data could simply say, "Data to Captain Picard. There may be another way to detect the Romulans. Stand by." Data's disobedience is simply a plot contrivance to add tension.
  - Worf's resignation from Starfleet was a major component of the cliff-hanger of the finale for the fourth season. Then, just before this episode concludes, Worf turns to Picard and says, "Request permission to return to duty, sir." Picard says ok, and they leave together! That's it? That's all? A person can resign from Starfleet and all they have to do is say, "Oops, I've changed my mind," and everything's fine?
• From Bernard on 2008-05-26 at 12:09pm:
  I have to say that after such a great buildup in the first part in terms of klingon political intrigue what we get in this concluding part is an episode that deals mostly with a romulan/federation confrontation and a rather out of place storyline for data. Surely we're all thinking 'lets see klingons!!' all the way through the other scenes. Judging by the average scoring others no doubt disagree with me.
  
  Solid episode, but such a disappointment for me considering how well the first part sets things up.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-02 at 3:49pm:
  Problem: During the battle among the three Klingon Warbirds (one of which is commanded by Kurn, Worf's brother), Worf announces that the aft shields are gone. Immediately afterwards, the ship takes several direct phaser hits on the aft section. It would have been totally destroyed without shields. However, the shots are clearly deflected off the Warbird's aft shields. Which is of course inconsistent with the statement Worf just made.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-10-10 at 8:49am:
  - When the Enterprise first discovers the Dyson's sphere, Data states it is 200 million kilometers in diameter. Riker responds, "That's nearly as large as the Earth's orbit around the Sun." The Earth's orbit around the Sun is approximately 297 million kilometers. I leave it for you to decide if a difference of 97 million kilometers qualifies as "nearly."
  - When Scotty rematerializes, his arm is in a sling. Later, Crusher states that he has a hairline fracture of the humerus - the long bone of the upper arm. Surprisingly, Scotty seems to feel no pain as Geordi bumps the arm several times and gives it a good whack right where the injury is!
  - When Data discovers Scotty doesn't care for the taste of synthahol, he tells Scotty that Guinan keeps a store of true alcoholic beverages and proceeds around the bar to fetch some. Can anyone just help themselves to Guinan's provisions?
• From JRPoole on 2008-09-07 at 1:30am:
  I agree with everything here. One nice touch to this episode is Scotty's relationship with Worf. He refuses to shake Worf's hand at the end of the episode. I like this because it's true to his character and it's not a pollyanna feelgood ending, as some things never change.
• From KStrock on 2009-01-23 at 1:43pm:
  In reference to DSOmo and the alcohol.
  
  In Season 2's episode "Up the Long Ladder", Worf states that true alcohol can be replicated. Although then we would't be able to reference the "It is...green" scene.
• From Ali on 2009-03-22 at 6:04pm:
  When Scotty is first brought back, and Riker tells him he is from the Enterprise, Scotty assumes Kirk is commanding it, and Riker has to explain the time passage, etc.
  
  But Kirk is dead at this point (or believed to be by the world). According to the Generations movie, he was picked up by the Nexxus, and Scotty is one of the first ones to find out he is gone.
  
  So, did Scotty forget this? At first, I thought maybe Scotty had been placed in this beam before the Kirk incident, but then Scotty never returns to the earlier time from whence he came, so Kirk's death must have happened beforehand.
  
  Someone tell me if I am missing something here!
• From Someone Else on 2009-05-04 at 1:11am:
  Ali:
  
  No, you're right, and this is the main problem with this episode - however, bear in mind that this episode was filmed a considerable time before Generations. And, who knows? Maybe being stuck in the transporter buffer for half an aeon can lead to temporary amnesia or something.
• From Daniel Blessing on 2009-09-16 at 9:30pm:
  Beamings happen all of the time between Federation ships while shields are active. I am surprised you have not mentioned that as a problem in more of your episodes.
  My only reasonable explanation for these occurrences is that the Federation ships are all provided with either a universal transponder code, or they are provided with every commissioned ships transponder codes, including old, lost, and out dated ships. This could explain how they were able to beam the two of them out while the shields were up. They also are able in certain episodes to beam people aboard while their OWN shields are active... This could be a bit harder to explain, unless again, my theory is applied? They are able to beam thru the shields if they are aware of how to "penetrate" them.
• From direktbroker on 2009-10-06 at 12:13pm:
  Nice thought,but no good Daniel, just think of all the times they could not bring back their own teams because their own shields are up due to some terribly artificial threat in orbit.
• From rpeh on 2010-07-19 at 11:21am:
  I may be an old softy, but the bit on the holodeck where Scotty raises a glass to his all crew and toasts them with "Here's to ye, lads" always brings a tear to my eye.
  
  Of course, Bones was still alive in the very first episode and Spock's still around too, so it's not totally impossible that he could catch up with two of his best friends from the old Enterprise.
• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2010-08-18 at 4:22am:
  The Dyson Sphere, although a popular device in sci-fi, is not a "sci-fi concept"; it's a hypothetical structure proposed by the very real and very brilliant theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson.
  
  Good review, though and a fantastic site overall. Count me as your newest fan!
• From Zaphod on 2011-04-13 at 1:05pm:
  Dyson himself refered to that idea of him as a joke btw.
  
  I nevertheless wished they would have concentrated more on it and even the slightest bit on its creators and less on Scotty. I really like him but using such a wonderful idea as the Dyson Sphere only for the usual Star Trek problem of the week is a waste. So for me it's just an okay episode, way above the crap u would expect from a TNG episode though.
• From John on 2011-08-30 at 3:53am:
  Once again, DSOmo proves that he does not understand the concept of narrative writing. He also proves his desire to tear down things other people in enjoy with petty nitpicking.
  
  Riker's statement that the diameter of the Dyson sphere is "nearly the orbit of the earth around the sun" is meant to to fire the imagination of the viewer by planting the idea that the sphere may be habitable. We find out later that it is (or was). Perhaps it's not close enough to the mean orbital diameter of Earth to qualify as "nearly", but who cares?
• From Will on 2011-10-30 at 1:41am:
  Earths orbital radius may not be the same in 300 years for all we know.
• From Inga on 2012-01-12 at 12:51pm:
  I really wish they would explore the Dyson Sphere more, though.
  
  Also, maybe I just missed something here, but how did the Enterprise get free from the pull at the end of the episode?
  
  1. The helmsman said they've lost main power and the auxiliary power is down
  
  2. Then she stated that they were still being carried by the initial motion of the tractor beam and that the impulse engines were offline. She also said "I can't stop our momentum."
  
  3. They couldn't use the maneuvering thrusters, until they diverted the remaining auxiliary power to them.
  
  4. Then, they achieved orbit, yet it seems they couldn't escape it (?). I mean, why else would they wait until their shields went down and the solar flares would burn them up? Couldn't Picard order Data to scan for another exit from a safer location?
  
  5. So when Geordi contacted the Enterprise, how did they manage to escape?
  
  I feel like I just missed or misunderstood something, though :/
  
  
  
  
• From railohio on 2014-06-03 at 11:00pm:
  If anyone is disappointed by this episode, he should read the novel "relics." On top of including every single part and line of the episode, the book adds a whole section of information. In the novel, they actually send an away team down to the planet before making their escape through the jammed doors. The book goes through a great depth of description of the surface inside the sphere, as well as a deeper exploration of Scotty's inner consciousness. Even if reading is not your thing, I strongly recommend reading the novel based on this fantastic episode
• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2015-06-02 at 3:26am:
  @Zaphod: the Dyson sphere concept was published in an academic paper in the journal science and it was definitely NOT a “joke”. What Dyson did say was that he was not “serious” – not in the sense that he was “joking” but in the sense that he didn’t think it was ever going to be a plausible technology for anyone to find useful. But he DEFINITELY thought such a sphere was technically possible. HOWEVER, his version of the “sphere” was not a solid structure like the ones you see in sci-fi, but rather, a collection of structures spread out over a region of space constituting a “sphere”.... so I guess, in way, we’ve come full circle and our host is (in a limited sense) correct in describing the star trek version of the sphere as a “sci-fi concept.”... touché...
• From ChristopherA on 2019-06-27 at 6:04am:
  When I first watched this episode a long time ago, I thought Scotty's problem was that he was a "fish out of water", unprepared for the time period. But now that I rewatch it, it is obvious that his real problem is that he is having a mid-life crisis, feeling old and out-of-touch, in a parallel to how Kirk was rusty, depressed, and out of touch in the movie era. TOS Scotty would act totally differently if he were transported to the future. It is arguably an interesting progression to see his life path progress from ernest and serious in the show, to goofy and laid back in the movies, to lonely and pathetically trying to be wanted.
  
  However, I mostly find "over-the-hill Scotty" annoying, so this isn't a top episode for me. But I do like the recreation of the TOS-era bridge, and Scotty getting to use his mad engineering skills at the beginning and end of the episode.
• From Andrew James on 2019-09-16 at 2:37pm:
  My problem with this episode is the idea that people were not interested in Scottie's stories about the old days. This man is no a living legend from one of the most famous ships ever, he would more likely be inundated by historians and fan boys and girls. The better plot work up is him not being interested in "reliving" the old days but by wanting to be an engineer and being obsolete. The trip to the old enterprise should have been to get away from the people who did not care who he was know but just wanted his old stories.
• From Chris Long on 2020-05-21 at 1:51am:
  With TNG being the way it is, the character stories are most interesting to me.
  This one is right there satisfying that 'element'!
  My big complaint about this episode is that the from any perspective showing the Enterprise with the sphere, one can see the curvature of it! What utter nonsense! There is no way anyone could discern anything remotely like some curvature from something that size!
  It bugs that they dropped the ball on the scale but I suppose maybe they simply didn't think about it.
  No one else here has made a comment on it so I'm alone in this.
  Meh... ;-)

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-11-12 at 7:58am:
  - Madred asks Picard the names and ranks of those who accompanied him on the raid. Picard responds with "Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher and Lieutenant Worf." Isn't "chief medical officer" more of a title than a rank? Crusher's rank is commander, in the same way that Riker's rank is commander and his title is first officer.
  - Both Part 1 and Part 2 of "Chain of Command" suggests that the Cardassians were able to lure Picard into their trap simply by using theta band emissions as the bait. Is Picard really the only person in Starfleet who knows about these kinds of subspace waves? What happened to the rest of the crew on the Stargazer? Data seems to address these questions when he says that Picard is "one of only three Starfleet captains with extensive experience in theta band devices. The other two are no longer in Starfleet." But is this the type of mission that Starfleet feels must be lead by a captain? Isn't this really just a commando raid to seek out and destroy a Cardassian lab? Does it seem reasonable to send the captain of the flagship of the Federation on a grenade-throwing mission? And does it seem reasonable that the Cardassians would expect that they could capture Picard simply by transmitting a bunch of theta waves?
• From wepeel on 2008-05-04 at 6:11pm:
  While DSOmo is once again on point with Picard saying the title Chief Medical Officer instead of Crusher's rank (like he was asked to), and is probably a writer oversight, one could make the argument that the writers deliberately wrote that line to illustrate the view that information extracted via torture is neither ethical nor reliable. Picard was simply too exhausted to give the most appropriate answer...
• From JRPoole on 2008-09-16 at 5:13pm:
  This is one of the stronger episodes of the series, and one that's often overlooked.
  
  The only problem I see here is that it seems a little unlikely that Star Fleet would choose to send it's flagship captain on such a dangerous mission. We're given some justification of that -- Picard is an expert on the techno-babble issue of the day-- but it still seems like a long shot for the Cardassians to lure him in this way. I can't imagine that Star Fleet couldn't simply train some special-ops task team on the subspace emissions and turn them loose rather than sending Picard. But that's a minor thing, and the this episode is more than worth the suspension of disbelief needed to get through it.
  
  The torture scenes are acted wonderfully by everybody involved, and they're some of the most gripping scenes of TNG. This episode also features a great guest turn by the actor playing Jellico, as well as the one portraying Gul Madred. We also get that rarest of TNG treats, a Ferengi character not so annoying and overdrawn that the Ferengi at large seem unrealistic. This is quality stuff, and I give the two-parter as a whole a 9.
• From rpeh on 2010-08-01 at 11:26pm:
  As far as I'm concerned, this is the best episode in the entire Trek oeuvre. The story is gripping from start to finish and then... Patrick Stewart.
  
  His acting in the torture scenes was nothing short of perfect, and the final line in the scene with Troi... well. Perfect again. This is one episode where the TNG writers finally realised that had a serious actor on their books and gave him a chance to show off his talent.
  
  It's almost as if every other actor steps up a gear given Stewart's performance. Frakes in particular loses some of his usual cardboard edge and gives a great show as Riker, and the others are almost as good.
  
  It was the memory of this episode that made me get the old DVDs down off the shelf and watch them all again. Absolutely brilliant.
• From nirutha on 2010-11-21 at 11:28pm:
  I really dig David Warner as Gul Madred. He has the perfect voice for that role, one that seems to belong to a man both sophisticated and sadistic. (He also voice-acted Jon Irenicus in a similiar role in the RPG classic Baldur's Gate 2.)
• From John on 2011-02-01 at 3:46pm:
  Once again, DSOmo manages to suck all the mystery and fun out of a fictional show. I bet he's a lot of fun at parties. And funerals.
• From anon on 2013-12-29 at 1:14pm:
  I feel kind of sorry for captain Picard at this stage. He's lived a very hard life. First he was a borg, then he lived a whole false life in 'Inner Light' (to suddenly discover your children and wife weren't real would be devastating) and now he has been tortured. Plus it appears that he has never been in a very serious relationship despite him appearing to want companionship.
• From Quando on 2014-03-19 at 9:47pm:
  The whole "how many lights do you see" thing was borrowed (stolen?) from George Orwell's great novel 1984, in which the protagonist Winston was being tortured by the state and asked repeatedly how many fingers the torturer was holding up (there were only four, but the torturer insisted that there were five). Like Picard, in the end Winston said that he really did believe that he saw five fingers, although there were only four.
• From Axel on 2015-03-22 at 3:59am:
  This two-parter was held back a bit by the scenes involving Jellico's interaction with the crew, but is redeemed by Picard's mission and subsequent captivity.
  
  The Enterprise crew comes off as very whiny in this episode. Sure, Jellico may be an abrasive captain, but what is he really asking? That the ship be prepared for an emergency combat situation and shut down its research missions to be fully ready for that? Surely the Enterprise has contingency plans for this kind of thing, so it can't be that unusual for the crew to step up its game a bit. I think the conflict between Jellico and the rest of the crew was forced. Jellico's negotiations with the Cardassians did make for some great scenes, along with the plan to place mines on the Cardassian ships.
  
  The Seltris III mission and Picard's captivity, though, are amazingly done. David Warner is one of the best guest cast members in all of TNG as Gul Madred. Patrick Stewart's research and preparation for this role pay off, and the two actors' performances are what make this two-parter pure gold. The final scene where Picard talks about seeing five lights was gripping and the perfect end to this story.
• From Emitter Array on 2016-08-20 at 2:13pm:
  I think this is one of TNG's finest episodes (although I do agree with DSOmo's comments about problems with the premise). David Warner is perfect in his role while Patrick Stewart gets to act out a bit more compared to the usual fare he gets on the show; just excellent all around and a joy to watch.
• From Mike on 2017-05-06 at 9:59pm:
  If you want the Enterprise to explore space, make contact with new civilizations, or even go into a confrontation hoping to work out a peaceful result, you go with Picard. If you have to send the Enterprise into a confrontation expecting to do battle, you want a Jellico.
  
  What's interesting to me about the Jellico part of this plot is that all we can really say is that Jellico and the senior staff had a hard time working together. The episode does a good job of not portraying Jellico as a bad captain, just a different captain who excels in a situation most of the TNG crew aren't used to. Ultimately, he does have to rely on Riker and the rest to complete the mission, humbling him a bit. But Starfleet's confidence in Jellico as a Cardassian expert is clearly justified.
  
  The scenes between Picard and Madred are superbly written and acted. It was a very gripping part of the plot, and again, what we get in Gul Madred is not a one-dimensionally evil interrogator, but a complex and somewhat tragic figure. Picard recognizes as much. I absolutely loved the final scene, too, where Picard is speaking with Troi. He didn't come away from this experience completely unchanged, just as with his abduction by the Borg.
• From jeffenator98 on 2019-06-04 at 5:19pm:
  David Warner played a Cardassian in this a Human in Star trek 5 and a Klingon in Star trek 6.
• From Chris on 2019-07-29 at 10:03pm:
  What a great episode!
  
  Awesome acting and drama at all stages!
  
  To me a perfect STNG episode, one of my favorites along with Fistful, Relics, I forget...
  
• From RodimusBen on 2020-10-25 at 2:27pm:
  I have a strong aversion to scenes of torture, so this episode is difficult to watch, but from a writing and acting standpoint it is excellently done. Most Star Trek episodes aren't fortunate enough to have two heavy-hitters for guest stars like David Warner and Ronny Cox. Both of them play their parts perfectly.
  
  I actually watched this episode after having watched some of Deep Space Nine, so it brought into crystal clear focus just how terrifying and sadistic of an antagonist the Cardassians can be. Suddenly the 50 years of occupation the Bajorans endured at their hands becomes all the more horrifying.
  
  

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-06-21 at 1:56am:
  It is always fun to watch this episode. The problem with Worf switching realities becomes worse and worse. You start to feel bad for him. The only drawback is that the solution was too easy. Get in your shuttle, emit this kind of field, and off you go. However, that part is long after all the cool things happen. I'll never forget the Enterprises filling space, or the Enterprise from Borg infested space, who's Captain Riker refuses to go back. This episode it a balls to the ground classic. I'm giving it a 9.
• From Wolfgang on 2006-06-29 at 8:48pm:
  The disappointing ending turns a nearly-perfect one into a superb one. I guess that a 2-part episode may have presented the room for a more dramatic final, although it could have been difficult not to frustrate the viewers, and to maintain the tension.
• From Jason on 2008-02-07 at 10:41am:
  Did you notice how in one of the timelines Data had blue eyes? Spooky!
• From Paul on 2010-08-17 at 10:13pm:
  Really enjoyed this episode, the scene with hundreds of thousands of enterprises! I also enjoyed the subtle changes that were unlaboured, like data's eyes and the picture on his wall constantly changing
• From Bronn on 2013-06-04 at 5:51am:
  Agree with others that the ending was disappointing and rushed. There were some serious changes in some of the timelines, and especially with the last one, which could have been explored more. Science Fiction fans always love to ask "What if?" This episode could have been a two parter.
  
  The first part could have ended with the revelation that Worf's shifting, and his inability to perform his duty had killed Geordi. That was a moment that was not very well explored in this episode. Deanna rather casually shows up in his quarters, lightheartedly mentioning that she'd heard he'd had some trouble on the bridge. It would have had real dramatic weight if she'd had this attitude of concern and nervousness in knowing that he'd screwed up badly enough that one of their dear friends and comrades had been seriously injured. The second of the two parts would have only had one timeshift, but it would have deal with Worf accepting some of the realities of his current universe in his attempt to get back. It's a different, and grimmer one, without Captain Picard or LaForge, and they'd end up losing Worf also (most likely, since we never see what happens in that timeframe after the shift back). The grim reality of a Deanna Troi forced to give up her husband and an Enterprise losing its first officer would have made for great drama. A second part of this episode would have been a greater contribution to Trek history than some of the later episodes in season 7, like Genesis and Sub Rosa.
• From TheAnt on 2013-11-04 at 3:33pm:
  A shuttle full of Worf's.
  
  There's a bit too many episodes with time loops and alternative timelines in Star Trek.
  
  But if we would have to remove one such, this is not one of those that would have to go. Since even though it is weird, and of course completely impossible, the idea presented here is indeed found in actual scientific discussions. That for every action with a choice - two timelines would be created.
  Even the conservation of energy in creating the new split off universes would not be violated, in case the universe is a hologram - which is part of a hypothesis that have been introduced after this episode of TNG were made.
  (Not that I even for a split second think the universe works that way, but consider it to be one interesting model only.)
  
  The telling of the story is also better than for a few other alternative episodes in Start Trek. So with good science and one enjoyable story I give this episode a solid 8.
• From pzaz on 2017-08-19 at 5:25am:
  I don't get why Troi would have to "give up her husband"... once the Worf that we know goes back to his "proper" dimension, aren't all the dimensions put back to normal--and therefore, wouldn't alternative Troi's life with her husband Worf also be put back in place?
  
  hmm... this hole in the narrative logic meant I didn't feel sad for her

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-02 at 12:55am:
  When Wesley gets his experiment (the antimatter) out of its storage bin, he is very careful. Later, when he and Geordi place it in the warp engines, Geordi urges caution. Yet, when Wesley beams it over to the Hathaway, he beams it onto a small tabletop. Since the container is round, it rolls to a resting place (it is a nice effect). If this thing is so unstable, why beam it onto a tabletop and take the chance it will roll off?
• From JRPoole on 2008-02-20 at 3:50pm:
  This is a solid episode, but not one of my favorites. Aside from Worf's perplexing ability to fake out the Ferengi sensors--why hasn't he been doing this all along to every body the Enterprise meets in battle?--there aren't many real problems. But something just isn't right here for me.
  
  Maybe it's just my predisposition to turn up my nose at any Ferengi episode, but the Ferengi presence here seems rushed. I know they're driven by profit, but I don't really buy their willingness to potentially start a war over the Hathaway. Again, maybe that's just my anti-Ferengi bias. I've always thought them to be a silly, over-drawn, stereotypical species, and here is one of the worst offenses this side of their initial appearance.
  
  I love the sub-plot with the Stratagema game. I find the finger-interface and the game display to be ridiculous, though.
• From KStrock on 2009-01-24 at 11:55pm:
  Starfleet doesn't conduct military routine exercises? What about Section 31's activities? I find that hard to believe given the (fairly recent) wars with the Klingon Empire and the brutal war with the Romulans that lead to the establishment of the Neutral Zone.
  
  Also, I find Picard and Riker's distaste for the whole exercise as "unnecessary for an officer's makeup" bit out of character. Both men surely would see value in having their crews trained for battle stress.
• From Yaspaa on 2010-05-07 at 10:42pm:
  I wasn't keen on Pulaski at the time. On watching the episode now (after not watching an episode in 9ish years) she is, dare I say, a better more enjoyable character to watch. Both Pulaski and Crusher have the old hippocratical oath
  caring tendencies. Pulaski is more abrasive however, making her more interesting, purely due to the friction her personality can generate.
• From THoyt on 2011-04-12 at 9:09pm:
  The Ferengi attacked and gave Picard "10 of your minutes" to surrender the Hathaway. The Hathaway had no real weapons to speak of, and the crossover relays between the Enterprise's real weapons systems and simulation systems were "fused", rendering them unable to fight back against the Ferengi. How did they manage in 10 minutes to have 4 very real photon torpedos ready to fire at the Hathaway? And if indeed they were able to get weapons online, why not just fight the Ferengi and send them running?
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-18 at 2:39pm:
  - I pretty much liked the plot about Riker getting his own command, picking the best crew, and cheating like heck to try to beat the Enterprise.
  - I was guessing from the start that the battle would be broken up by a real enemy. Maybe because that was exactly the premise of an old scenario from Star Fleet Battles (a Star Trek wargame). I wonder if the writer of this episode read that scenario.
  - The subplot with Data was sort of peculiar. Pulaski wants to bring Kolrami down a peg, and she assumes that since Data is a Deus Ex Machina who can do anything, he's bound to win. When Kolrami wins, she thinks the plot just isn't supposed to be written that way.
  - It is remarkable about how petty everyone is towards Kolrami beating Data. Nobody is impressed by his incredible accomplishment. They just want to wipe that smirk off his face. When Data can't win, but manages to upset Kolrami, everyone cheers.
  - As KStrock mentions, it is very hard to believe the comments about the crew not needing to practice war maneuvers because Starfleet is not a military organization. Of course it is! I'll assume that Picard was really just being diplomatic, what he really thought initially was that the specific test Kolrami planned, spending a great deal of time preparing for a brief, totally uneven matchup, was stupid and a waste of time.
  - In response to THoyt: It was established in the first Ferengi appearance that they have starships equal in power to Federation starships. The Ferengi made what was effectively a sneak attack on the Enterprise, and the Enterprise shields "can't take another hit" and the weapons are scrambled. Presumably 10 minutes was enough to get a few torpedoes online, but not enough time to give the Enterprise a reasonable fighting chance against the Ferengi.
  - I agree that Worf's ability to fake out the Ferengi was hard to believe, not a very satisfactory conclusion to the problem. But then again, those TNG Ferengi are so stupid, maybe they don't know how to read their own instrument panels properly.
  
• From g@g on 2012-03-03 at 2:10am:
  Agree about the main technical problem.
  
  Otherwise, plenty of good stuff in here. The strategist was a pretty neat and memorable guest character. Also, Warf has an especially great and useful role to play (again, just like in Emissary) and some good lines to go with it(Data: "That would be unfortunate." Warf: "*Very* unfortunate. We will be dead").
  
  Data's little crisis of confidence subplot was great... I loved Picard's reaction to having to "handhold an android," and likewise Data's reaction to Picard. Also, it was great to see Pulaski finally come around a bit towards Data and "anthropomorphize" him like everyone else - what I really mean is show him some understanding, compassion even.
  
  Besides the main tech. problem, my other questions would be:
  
  1) Data's tactic of playing for a draw seems a bit obvious to have such devastating consequences on a grandmaster. But he's Data, so maybe it was the semi-obvious tactic combined with his mad processing powers.
  
  2) Shouldn't the Ferengi's brazenly firing on the Enterprise have some kind of serious longterm consequences?

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-22 at 2:22pm:
  The defector orders a glass of water from the food dispenser. He specifies "twelve ahgians." The computer replies that it is calibrated for the Celsius metric system. The Enterprise plays host to hundreds of races. What happened to the Universal Translator?
• From JRPoole on 2008-04-06 at 9:31pm:
  This is, in my opinion, one of the finest episodes to this point in the series. The Romulans are a much more interesting, well-written and developed race than the Ferengi, and the episodes that focus on them are generally better as a result.  The defector character is nuanced and well-acted, and his plight is endearing.  My only quibble with this episode is the way the Klingon aid is handled.  I realize that it was meant to build suspense, but the effect is rather cheap and the climax suffers a little as a result. Still, this is top-notch trek.
• From paidmailer on 2009-09-26 at 9:36pm:
  Another great neutral zone episode. Two things I can add:
  
  -In the beginning , the character on the right of Data is played by Patrick Stewart.
  -Problem: Why did nobody search the romulan defector?
  
  
• From thaibites on 2010-12-20 at 12:39pm:
  Finally, a good episode! This one has it all - action, intrigue, suspense, wits, Romulans. It shows what TNG was capable of doing, but up until this point, rarely delivered. I especially liked how the Klingon situation was handled. They throw you one little hint that makes you scratch your head and say, "Whatever..." And then it all falls into place at the end. I really enjoyed this one!
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-19 at 1:44am:
  A superb episode. It really catches the tension involved in Jarok being a defector. And this episode shows the Romulans at their finest. I think the ending is well done.
• From EvanT on 2011-06-24 at 10:12pm:
  "twelve ahgians."
  I can see two explanations for this:
  1) The computer really had no idea the Celsius equivalence of the anghian (lack of information about Romulan culture)
  2)This signifies that the defector is all alone on an alien ship (he can't even have a glass of water) He's truly alienated (isn't this the same scene where he thoughtfully studies his suicide pill?)
• From Inga on 2012-01-15 at 4:06pm:
  I really liked to see Klingon ships and the Enterprise lined up against the Romulans
• From Ggen on 2012-03-13 at 10:39pm:
  A rather excellent episode revolving around an excellent guest character (the defector). Through him, we get an inside look into Romulan culture and sensibilities - which, at least in this case, prove to be more rational and sophisticated than previously depicted - and even a sneak peek at Romulus itself (or its holographic recreation). There is of course also the issue of loyalty and betrayal, and the odd matter of betraying out of one's personal interpretation of patriotism (planeterism?).
  
  Lots of great lines strewn along the way, as the defecting Admiral has a rather lyrical bent.
  
  Question: Riker suggests the defection is a ploy to draw the Federation into the neutral zone, and Picard finishes his sentence, "Then they will have a legitimate excuse to respond with force." *Why* would the Romulans need "an excuse?" In front of what interstellar authority? The implication, perhaps, is that Romulan internal affairs are quite a bit more complex and less monolithic, and their society less thoroughly militarized than it appears... (This, of course, is reinforced by the defecting Admiral's personal beliefs and actions.)
  
• From Matt N on 2013-06-01 at 3:32pm:
  I loved the use of the Klingon music from the old Star Trek films when their ships appear.
• From Lloyd on 2016-07-12 at 7:20pm:
  I found it unlikely that the Holodeck would have exact specifications for an area of Romulus, yet the computer cannot convert Celsius to the Romulan unit of measure for temperature.
• From tigertooth on 2016-09-29 at 1:26am:
  It's curious how many 0 votes this episode got. Yesterday's Enterprise and Deja Q also got a surprisingly high 0-vote total despite being well-liked episodes otherwise. Hmm.
  
  Anyway, one aspect that they didn't explicitly touch upon was the fact that Jarok clearly viewed this as a suicide mission. He surely intended to kill himself regardless of the outcome. And it seems likely he was driven to that partially by his demotions. I feel like as much as he loved his daughter, he was so dispirited and humiliated by being pushed to the side that he was trying one last gasp at being important. Sad that his ego overtook his love for his family and his home.
• From Mike on 2016-11-26 at 6:37pm:
  I'm also surprised by the number of low ratings this episode got from so many fans. I tend more toward the webmaster review and other comments here about the excitement of the plot and the character of Admiral Jarok.
  
  I like the hesitation he shows in revealing too much about Romulan technology and tactics to the Enterprise. A lifetime of loyalties would be hard to overcome, even if he's defecting in order to prevent the war he believes is coming. It's also a nice touch having him miss Romulus and Data taking him to the holosuite to see it. In hindsight, his statement "I have sacrificed everything...it must not be in vain" has even greater meaning. It's not just his career, and never seeing his home and family again. He is preparing to sacrifice his life.
  
  Re: Ggen, I would think interstellar opinion in the ST universe still counts for something, and the great powers would need to legitimize or gain sympathy for actions that would otherwise be naked aggression. An unjustified Romulan move against the Federation might cause other neutral worlds to sympathize with or even support the Federation. And within the Romulan Empire, the civilian government would no doubt need reasons to support this move, as their internal politics and civil-military relations are shown in several episodes to be complex. It's definitely not a military dictatorship.
• From Keefaz on 2016-12-22 at 11:50pm:
  The voting for this episode has clearly been hacked for some pathetic reason. Probably best ep to this point.
• From Charles Gervasi on 2017-03-19 at 10:34pm:
  It's seemed odd to me that relations between the Federation and the Romulans was so bad they could not even deliver a message.
• From tigertooth on 2017-04-25 at 2:18am:
  One thing I caught this time around: when Jarok blows up his ship, he expresses disgust that the Federation was eager to pick apart the Romulan craft for its technology, implying that Romulans wouldn't act that way.
  
  Then when Tomalak thinks he has the upper hand on the Enterprise, he gloats about how he's going to pick apart the starship for all its technology!
  
  Jarok's position was obvious puffery - who wouldn't want to look at an adversary's tech? But it was amusing to see the hypocrisy revealed.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Vlad on 2006-05-22 at 1:41pm:
  If there was a voting pool for the funniest Star Trek episode ever, this should take first place! I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Q minus his powers was more irritable than an Andorian and more fun than a Ferengi. And again, as it was the case with "The Survivors", we learn a little something about what makes us human with the help of a superbeing... as unlikely as that may seem.
  
  Oh, and Corbin Bernsen's otrageous appearance as Q at the end was an added bonus. What an amazing actor he is!
  
• From DSOmo on 2007-07-23 at 5:26am:
  - When Worf takes Q to the brig, Worf has to press a button on a panel beside the door before it opens. Later in the episode, Data simply walks through the doorway. Why the difference?
  - When Q hurts his back in Engineering, Data taps his communicator and calls for a medical team. Note: He TAPS his communicator. If badge tapping is simply habitual, why is Data tapping his badge? He is an android. Data doesn't do things out of habit. Data always "does things by the book." If the book says that a badge tap is unnecessary, Data would not tap his badge.
  - Dr Crusher fixes Q's back with a tool that looks exactly like a hypospray. But it doesn't make a hypospray sound. Maybe the hypospray is a mulipurpose machine. Then again, maybe the prop department didn't have time to make another medical device.
• From JRPoole on 2008-04-14 at 1:21pm:
  This is one of the top 10 episodes of all time. Q is hilarious, the writing is crisp, the Calamarain are interesting, Guinan's response to Q is great, as is Picard's, and this is all-around top-notch.
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-20 at 11:55pm:
  There were definitely a few jokes I liked, but in general I found Q's complaints about humanity tiresome and overly exaggerated.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-21 at 9:22am:
  Sooooo, what about the Prime Directive? If the idea of the Prime Directive is to allow a sentient species's society to evolve naturally, wouldn't preventing natural catastrophe be exactly the type of interference to short circuit evolution? Indeed, this exact point is made in TNG: Pen Pals where there is a huge debate over saving a species whose planet is threatened by geological activity. Why no debate here? Perhaps the Enterprise folks have decided to Hell with either Prime Directive.
• From Ggen on 2012-03-16 at 7:57pm:
  Solid episode. Another excellent Q edition. Love the premise of Q becoming human and stumbling through all the physiological and psychological pitfalls. And a nice little ironic reversal with Q suddenly helpless and at Picard's mercy.
  
  The other story arc, with a Japanese-like alien race ( I think they were even played by Asian actors ), worrying about a moon-related Tsunami, was also nicely done. Same for the rather nondescript aliens seeking revenge on Q.
  
  As one would expect in any good Q episode, this one is chock full of witticisms and clever lines. One of my favorites is Picard's "It's a perfectly good shuttlecraft." The Mariachi sequence at the end is ridiculously appropriate, though the final "Engage" cigar gag was just a little bit much.
  
  
• From vote oh bummer! on 2021-07-24 at 9:50am:
  Great and fun episode. I guess showing some orphans or grieving friends and familiy of the 18 people Q got killed last time around would have ruined the good times.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-24 at 6:59am:
  - The major plot oversight in this episode concerns the personnel aboard the Enterprise during the alternate future created by the Enterprise-C. In the alternate future, the Federation and the Klingon Empire have been at war for twenty years. In war, people get killed. In fact, Picard says the Klingons have destroyed half of the Federation's fleet. Since people get killed in war, people get promoted quickly. It is inconceivable that Riker, Data, and Geordi would still be serving with Picard. They would have their own commands fighting the Klingons. Of course, this is a television series. The viewers want to see the same set of core actors from week to week.
  - Picard has an odd sense of three-dimensional space in this episode. He meets with Guinan on the spacious observation lounge. He meets with Riker and Yar on the spacious observation lounge. However, when he meets with his senior officers, five in all, he crams them like sardines into his ready room.
  - At the beginning of the episode, emergency teams beam over to the Enterprise-C. Dr. Crusher determines to take the captain back to the Enterprise-D. Dr. Crusher taps her badge and calls for transport. She then puts her tricorder away and reaches up to tap her badge again. At this point a befuddled look comes across her face and she puts her hand back down to her side. I guess she realized she didn't need to tap her communicator to shut it off.
  - After Crusher leaves, Riker and Yar find a survivor in the wreckage. The survivor is buried under a bunch of rubble on a darkened main bridge. Riker and Yar dig him out. What's the first thing they do for him after he's out? They shine flashlights on his face!
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-21 at 2:14am:
  One of the great Star Trek episodes. I'd like to add one more Remarkable Scene:
  - Picard discussing how the war is going badly, and Federation defeat is inevitable.
  
• From Percivale on 2011-09-05 at 5:02pm:
  A perfect Star Trek episode - worth a 10.
  
  I feel that the ingenuity, energy and skill that went into this script surpasses any of the TNG movies (and most TOS movies) and feels much more epic.
  
  Wouldn't it have been great as a film? The only important characters left out of this are Wesley and Worf. I don't know (and frankly don't care) what could be done with Wesley, but there's an obvious role for Worf - as a Klingon commander attacking the Enterprise, of course!
  
  I especially love how they let Guinan really shine in this one. It shows the strength of her character and the depth of her relationship with Picard - even in a depressing alternate universe - and we are even left with another tantalizing clue as to the nature of her species. I don't think there is another episode where we are shown quite as clearly why she is on the Enterprise.
  
  But the interesting cinematography, the dramatic tension, the moving ending - Man, I could watch this one over and over again (and have).
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-21 at 12:31pm:
  I agree generally that this is a fabulous episode. For one thing Denise Crosby is terrific. Perhaps because she was unhappy in her role in season 1, she seemed to be lacking in that season. Her performances were rather wooden, I thought.
  
  One logical issue: when the Enterprise D is holding off the Klingons, it takes the Enterprise C friggin' forever to go into the temporal rift! What's up with that? At the distance they were from the rift, they should have been through in a couple of seconds. As it is, it takes several minutes. Of course this adds to the tension, but it still creates a logical problem.
• From Sean on 2012-01-07 at 1:20pm:
  As I write this, there are over 700 episodes of Star Trek and eleven movies, and "Yesterday's Enterprise" still stands as my favourite episode of all time, twenty years after it first aired on television. To me, this episode is a perfect representation of what Star Trek is about: hope for the future. In this timeline, Picard is still as loyal and reflective as his normal counterpart, but he's a man who's been turned bitter by decades of war. I love seeing his slow turn from stubbornly refusing to sacrifice the Enterprise C ("Every instinct is telling me that this is wrong, it is dangerous, it is FUTILE!") to slowly realising that Guinan has introduced an incredible idea: that this ship has altered history - badly ("I've weighed the alternatives. I will follow Guinan's recommendations").
  
  Ultimately, Picard puts the needs of the many (the billions lost in the way) above the needs of the few (the crews of the Enterprise C & D). It's Star Trek at its very best. The fact that the crew all accept this is just beautiful - there's no dumb mutiny by a character who's looking out for his own skin, everyone realises that by sacrificing themselves, they are saving billions of lives and creating a brighter future for humanity. Even in this dark version of the future, the crew stays true to Roddenberry's vision of a united humanity. Even Riker, who clearly disagrees with Picard's decision, speaks to him with respect and once Picard makes his decision, that's it.
  
  What truly makes this episode so perfect, though, is the performances. As I've already mentioned, Patrick Stewart is in fine form, as are all the other regulars. Tricia O'Neil gives Captain Garrett a tough, strong personality without ever making her annoying. Whoopi Goldberg is suitably spooky, yet Denise Crosby steals the show by giving Yar the send off she deserved - particularly the scene where she requests the transfer to the Enterprise C. Seeing her explain to Picard that she's "supposed to be dead" always moves me.
  
  Of course, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the space battle, which to this day is impressive to look at, hardly aging at all. I love how the ultimate fate of the Enterprise C - it's final stand and it's destruction by the Romulans - is left to our imagination.
  
  Others may complain that it should have been a two-parter, or that Worf should have been on board the Klingon battleships, but I disagree. Having only one episode gives it a quick, almost panicked pace - after all, the Klingons are on their way! And we don't need to see the Klingons, or Worf, or any other part of this dark world, it's so much more interesting to see the story at the intimate level of just one starship. Often the best way to tell a large story is to just tell a small part of it.
  
  "Yesterday's Enterprise" is Star Trek at its best. My favourite episode of not only The Next Generation, but all of Star Trek. "Let's make sure, history never forgets the name... Enterprise."
• From meinerHeld on 2012-02-10 at 6:36pm:
  Keith: "I like how the writers gave Yar a better send off in this episode than in Skin of Evil."
  
  Three cheers for that one!
• From Ggen on 2012-03-21 at 6:21am:
  This was a rather excellent episode. In fact, of all the time travel episodes throughout Trek, this has got to be one of my favorites, for several reasons: For one thing, this episode accomplishes so much more than just the typical temporal parodox. 1) It is also a "mirror universe" episode of sorts, because the alternate militarized timeline is so fundamentally different from the norm. [And rather awesome to observe, I might add. I've long wondered about the straight-up military dimension of Starfleet - nice to finally see it on display] 2) It is very much so a Tasha Yarr episode, and a damn proper one at that. Tasha's oddly timed and oddly executed first death is rather gloriously redeemed here. 3) We're introduced to the mysterious and unique Al-Aurian "perceptions beyond linear time," which is a neat concept and a useful plot device. 4) Finally, this time travel episode is the only one I know of where someone (in this case Picard) asks the crucial question, "Who's to say *this* history is any less proper than *that* one?" This typically unexamined question has been perpetually in the back of my mind throughout the rest of Trek, causing me to cringe every time I heard the words "polluting the timeline."
  
  I also loved the high stakes of the final scenes - revealed when Picard admits that the Federation is doomed to lose the war within 6 months, failing some radical change of events.
  
  I don't know if I entirely follow how all of the events tie together to the very beginning and the very end, when the Enterprise (in "present" time) stumbles onto the space-time anomoly, but in this case I'm willing to just assume it makes some sense.
  
  Details
  - Warf calling prune juice a "warriors drink," and being sort of chauvinistic and piggish.
  
  - Alternate Picard's jargon: "miltary log," "combat date," "battleship."
• From Mike Chambers on 2013-11-16 at 7:05am:
  One of the best TNG episodes ever filmed, without a doubt. However, one major problem I noticed.
  
  - Since the Enterprise-C traveling into the future caused such a radical change in the timeline, do you really think the Enterprise-D would have still been at the exact position in this new timeline that they were at in the old timeline? That is, at the site of the temporal distortion at that particular moment in time. I'd say the chances are practically zero percent.
  
  Granted, there wouldn't be much of an episode if they weren't. It's just something I was thinking about while watching.
• From tigertooth on 2017-05-01 at 2:30am:
  This is great. I loved the instances of Picard arguing against the logic of the plot. NOT GOOD ENOUGH, DAMNIT! And also when he and Yar have the scene in the Ready Room. He tells her it's illogical for her to go, which it is! But I still completely dug it.
  
  I guess I view it as all the characters having a less defined version of the El Aurian senses. Guinan can sense the anomalies far more than anyone else, but the others sense it, too. That's the only reason I can imagine for Picard and Yar's actions. And it works for me.
  
  I will say the death of Captain Garrett was not great. The shot of her wide-eyed with shrapnel in her forehead was more comical than anything else. The Riker death scene was only better by comparison. Overall the director did a great job, but that was a clunker. The casting of Castillo was questionable, too.
  
  One other quibble: right after Riker was killed, it probably would have made more sense for Picard to talk about surrender terms with the Klingons if for no other reason than to stall them while the Enterprise-C got through the rift. But the awesomeness of Picard's "That'll be the day!" and vaulting back to tactical? Those far outweigh the logic issue.
  
  But overall this was great - a terrific sendoff for Yar, a fascinating look into a possible military Starfleet, some juicy moral conundrums... what more could you ask for?
• From Steve R Mohns on 2018-05-08 at 10:05pm:
  I love that at the end of the episode they are heading to "Archer 4".

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-25 at 8:10am:
  - Someone needs to replace the light bulbs in the transporter room. When Kurn beams aboard the Enterprise, the transporter platform is very dark. Maybe he called ahead to tell the transporter chief he wanted to make a dramatic entrance ;)
  - Picard replicates a variety of foods for Kurn to sample. One of them is roast turkey. Why would the replicators aboard the Enterprise replicate bones? Doesn't this seem like a waste of enegy? Picard must be a real stickler for authenticity ;)
• From thaibites on 2011-02-05 at 5:05am:
  To say that this episode is a soap opera brings dishonor to this episode. A soap opera is where some slut is having an affair with her boss, while her Mom is banging some guy upstairs, and then the boss wants to bang the Mom, but the Mom is now depressed because blah, blah, blah...
  
  This episode is intense and obviously had a lot of energy put into it. I love how the Klingon homeworld is shown as a dark, sterile, foreboding place. The lighting is great! For me, this is the best episode of TNG so far, chronologically speaking. It's flawless.
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-22 at 2:12pm:
  This becomes a really superb episode once the main plot starts. No wonder Klingons became popular, they had some strong episodes in TNG. It also adds a lot of dimension to both Worf and the Klingons to see that not all Klingons are as rigidly obsessed with honor as Worf – that he has essentially overcompensated for his Federation upbringing by trying to become the perfect Klingon.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-09-28 at 2:48am:
  Tony Todd who played Kurn, Worf's younger brother, also appeared in several other Star Trek episodes, two TNG episodes where he reprises the role of Kurn (as he does in one DS9 episode) plus one other DS9 episode (The Visitor) where he played the older Jake Sisco. This DS9 episode is arguably the best Star Trek episode ever. Certainly, Todd's performance was a major factor in that. Todd also plus the Alpha Hirgen on Voyager.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-09-28 at 4:47pm:
  Tony Todd who played Kurn, Worf's younger brother, also appeared in several other Star Trek episodes, two TNG episodes where he reprises the role of Kurn (as he does in one DS9 episode) plus one other DS9 episode (The Visitor) where he played the older Jake Sisco. This DS9 episode is arguably the best Star Trek episode ever. Certainly, Todd's performance was a major factor in that. Todd also plus the Alpha Hirgen on Voyager.
• From John on 2011-11-23 at 2:33am:
  That I really like this episode. I tend to like most Klingon episodes, but this one in particular because it's the first time we get to meet Worf's brother Kurn, played so well by Tony Todd.
  
  There's only one thing about this episode that confuses me. It's really a nitpick, but... when Picard first finds out the story behind why Kurn is there, he orders a course change to the first city of the "Klingon Imperial Empire". As opposed to the Klingon "non-Imperial" Empire. If it's an empire, then it's imperial. What's up with the redundance?
  
  Other than that I think this episode is great.
• From Ggen on 2012-03-22 at 4:21am:
  Another excellent episode. There are almost two separate halves here, each interesting in its own way: first Kurn as exchange commander, and then Warf's legal drama on the Klingon homeworld.
  
  Kurn is a great character, with the tension on the bridge practically dripping off the ceiling... And the heartfelt scenes of loyalty between both Warf/Kurn and Warf/Picard were great. And finally the legal drama was excellent, with all its open court and behind-the-scenes elements.
  
  I'd imagine this is how many of our earlier courts operated, complete with stabbings in the halls. Unfortunately, I also strongly suspect that our modern courts aren't a heck of a lot better, not when there's a "powerful family" involved, and there's a perceived threat to "national security." There are backroom deals, plea bargains, and all sorts of extralegal, purely political considerations. See the mock "trial" of MLK's assassin, James Earl Ray, for a very prominent example.
• From Daniel on 2014-07-02 at 10:04am:
  I too loved this episode for many of the same reasons as others do. I like the introduction of Kurn and the seeding of a future storyline with Worf and the Klingons. I do have one nitpick about one particular scene... When Wesley Crusher is at his post to navigate and Kurn is in command, Kurn gives the coordinates and speed, then says "Execute" - which is the Klingon version of Picard's "Engage"... Now, any other Starfleet officer would have simply replied, "Aye, Sir!" And obeyed the command. But, Wesley, upstart brat that he is, replies very vehemently "Engage!" Thus correcting his commanding officer's choice of words in pure spite. No one seemed to notice this. If Kurn had noticed Wesley's smart-ass response, he would have killed him, as any Klingon would do. If Picard or Riker had noticed Wesley's contempt of his commanding officer, they'd have scolded him and possibly reprimanded him. Yet, somehow, the boy wonder gets away with being insolent. Doesn't seem right! What about the rigid Starfleet regulations and code of honor? Since when is it okay for a Federation Starship crew member to correct his superior officer... And spitefully too, since the correction is unnecessary?
• From Axel on 2015-03-03 at 2:13am:
  John's comment made me laugh only because I thought the same thing. THe first time I saw this episode, I had to rewind and listen again because I thought I misheard. But "Imperial Empire" doesn't make a lot of sense. Was that in the script or was it just a flub-up?
  
  That redundancy aside, this episode was awesome with lots of great plot twists. The Worf-Picard relationship evolves a lot in this one, and will continue to do so in "Reunion" and "Redemption" as they discuss Worf's family honor and their mutual struggles to balance between Federation and Klingon interests and cultures.
  
  On a side note, Tony Todd is one of the better guest actors in Star Trek. He does a great job as Kurn in TNG and DS9, and also portrays an older Jake Sisko in DS9: The Visitor.
• From Captain President Obummer I. on 2021-07-25 at 5:51pm:
  The scenes where Kurn tries to anger everyone but Picard are too funny.
  But I don't buy the whole klingon plot, are Klingons so dishonorable that there would be enough support for such a romulan traitor for a civil war?

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-29 at 1:26am:
  - The engineers get contaminated because a seal on one of the medical containers is broken. The engineers contact the invidium as they carry the tissue sample from the transporter pad to an antigrav unit. Why are Geordi's top engineers carrying medical containers? Isn't that a job for the medical technicians?
  - After the engineers load these precious medical samples on an antigrav unit, Geordi tells Barclay to fix the antigrav unit. Geordi says it has an intermittent problem. Is this a standard procedure on the Enterprise? Does Starfleet have a regulation, "Whenever you encounter a problem with a piece of equipment, put a lot of really important stuff on top of it and then get someone to fix it?"
  - When Geordi faces the problem of the ship "flying apart," he calls his team of senior engineers together to solve the problem. This is a sound approach. If you have a staff of highly trained individuals, why not consult them? In previous shows, however, Geordi has always tackled the problems alone or with the help of a holographic representation.
  - Barclay enjoys a holodeck-created Ten-Forward. He walks over to Troi and she says, "I feel your confidence, your arrogant resolve. It excites me." At this point the companel beeps and someone says, "Lieutenant Barclay report to Cargo Bay 5 now!" Barclay responds by telling Troi, "It'll have to wait till later, darling." He quickly adds, "Be right there." So what did the guy at the other end of the conversation hear? In response to his command that Barclay report to the cargo bay, did the man hear Barclay tell him in loving terms that it would have to wait until later?
  - Geordi originally discovers Barclay's fantasies by strolling into the holodeck. Later, Riker, Geordi, and Troi do the same thing. They simply walk up to the panel, Riker punches a few buttons, and the door to the holodeck pops open. Shouldn't there be an etiquette involved with entering the holodeck? These holodecks function as recreational areas for the crew. Even Geordi admits that what people do on the holodeck is their business. Isn't it an invasion of a person's privacy to allow others to walk into that person's fantasy?
  - Picard must have one of those screen savers that blanks the screen until some activity occurs. Just after he tells Geordi to make Barclay his "project," Riker and Geordi leave Picard's ready room. Picard reaches over and turns his display panel toward him and studies it - except the panel is blank before he turns it!
• From djb on 2008-04-04 at 9:47am:
  I watched this episode over a month ago, and I JUST today got that the episode's title is a pun. Hollow = Holo --> Holodeck. Very clever.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2009-06-07 at 4:16am:
  What a refreshing episode! Barclay feels real; I sometimes have to look away from the TV when he is having his awkward interactions with the crew.
  
  And who can forget the Goddess of Empathy?
• From thaibites on 2011-02-25 at 2:15pm:
  This is a lame and unbelievable episode. Geordi says it all early in the episode when he wonders how a guy like Barclay makes it through Star Fleet Academy. The truth is he wouldn't. Which means he wouldn't serve in Star Fleet, and he would never serve on the flagship Enterprise. This whole episode was a fantasy from the beginning. It could never happen. Barclay's a loser and that's all.
• From CAlexander on 2011-05-01 at 6:19pm:
  An excellent episode. It is totally effective at portraying Barclay's character.
  - The characters wonder how he made it through Starfleet thus far, and this is never directly explained to the viewer. Presumably his intelligence offset his lack of confidence until he got on to the Enterprise, which, as the flagship of the Federation, was just a bit too stressful for him. Then he started spending too much time on the holodeck, reducing his performance, lowering his confidence further, encouraging even more holodeck abuse, until he is the nervous wreck that LaForge can't tolerate anymore. Quite realistic.
  - Star Trek is full of characters who are psychologically flawed, but usually they are unbalanced in the arrogant, overconfident direction. This episode shows someone flawed in the opposite way.
  - Echoing DSOmo, the scene with the antigrav unit bothered me too. It is really weird – "The antigrav unit isn't working correctly. These containers we've precariously stacked on the antigrav unit are extremely important. Activate the antigrav unit." The scene would have worked fine if it had just been executed a little bit differently.
  
• From Nicolas on 2011-08-07 at 2:41am:
  It should be standard enough to do a background check on the parties involved in serious accidents, just in case. Doing so would have saved them some time.
• From TheRealProj on 2011-12-23 at 7:22am:
  Ugh. Wicked gay episode. Another throwaway that belongs somewhere in season 1 or 2.
• From Ggen on 2012-03-28 at 11:42pm:
  Another poignant and thoroughly excellent psychological episode, this one with a healthy dollop of humor on the side.
  
  I'll touch on the lighter aspects first... the humor here is excellent. Some of the lines from Barclay's fantasies are perfect. I especially enjoyed Troi as the "goddess of empathy," and Troi as the seduced counselor. "I feel your arrogant resolve - and it excites me!" Hah, that's great, made even greater by the next line, "Please report to Cargo Bay 5." Not even 1 or 2, but *5* . Hah.
  
  Beyond the humorous scenes, Picard's slip of the tongue among them, this was a brilliant depiction of, and commentary on, social anxiety. I love how you can absolutely see Barclay's effect on others, you can *see*( how tense he makes the people around them (equally brilliant was Guinan's acknowledgement that there's a bit of a feedback loop here, the more uncomfortable Barclay makes others, the more uncomfortable he gets, and so on). Barclay also just lays it out to Geordi, explains quite effectively what its like, "afraid of forgetting a name... not knowing what to do with your hands... the guy who ends up in the corner trying to look comfortable examining a potted plant." That's great.
  
  I also appreciated how serious the whole thing became, first threatening to end Barclay's career, and later threatening to put the entire ship in jeopardy - though of course Barc came through in the end. Might as well mention that the technical problem (the contamination) and the technical solution were both pretty neat.
  
  So, I thought this was thoroughly excellent. I've seen some of the other Barcley episodes, both TNG and Voy, and I believe this was the best one, possibly because it's the first. In later episodes, the actor playing him gets a bit too comfortable in the discomfort, if that makes any sense... the stuttering etc starts to seem more predictable, more rehearsed. Here the performance is entirely convincing... (I wonder if they didn't have him improv. some of those lines to get the desired effect...)
  
• From Arianwen on 2012-12-17 at 11:20pm:
  thaibites - it is perfectly possible to succeed, and succeed spectacularly, while still having difficulty with your personal life. Social anxiety and academic /career excellence are not mutually exclusive.
• From Damien Bradley on 2015-05-14 at 8:33am:
  A few thoughts...
  
  - Did anyone else catch the reference to the "flux capacitor" during Barclay's fake counseling session? Awesome! Wesley called it a flow capacitor in the preceding scene, but Barclay said "flux" instead. :)
  
  - I like what someone else said about Geordi having a team of engineers he heads up. I would have loved to see some recurring characters (Sonya Gomez?) that way. But why, oh why, do they all have to be dudes? And with exception of Geordi, white dudes? Come on!
  
  - I loved the continuity with Booby Trap when Geordi mentions he "fell in love" on the holodeck. I wish there had been more offhand references to other episodes like this!
  
  - How many holodecks are there and how do people reserve time on them? With a thousand crew members, it seems weird that one lieutenant seems to be able to use them whenever he wants. It seems holo time would be scarce and in high demand.
  
  - It also seems there would already be strict regulations around simulating existing people, *especially* superior officers. Everyone seems so surprised as if no one has ever thought of creating a holodeck program where you can punch out your commander or ravish your counselor.
  
  - It's kind of fun to see Troi lose her poise. We see it in The Loss as well. I'm surprised that she was surprised at her own representation, though. She would have certainly sensed Barclay's lust toward her, and expected it once she saw he was simulating crew members. Then again, Trek writers conveniently forget about her empathic abilities all the time, so no huge surprise.
• From Azalea Jane on 2021-08-25 at 6:15pm:
  This episode highlights one of Troi's big problems: nobody on the writing team seems to know what a qualified counselor would act like, so they make this parody of a counselor whose empathetic powers short-circuit when it's convenient for the plot.
  
  For one, "holodiction" would already be a thing. Treating it might be an emerging field given how relatively recent an invention they are, but either way, Troi would have approached Barclay's issues *much* differently if any of the writers knew a thing about psychology. She certainly would not have done what she did in their (real) session. She looks like an absolute dummy in this episode. Being clueless about how to help Barclay, seemingly being *surprised* he lusts after her, losing her cool at seeing her holo-version... gah. Troi is such a tragically wasted character. I still like her in theory, and sometimes she's written well and her character utilized effectively. But not here.
  
  I like how Barclay kind of disrupts the status quo in this show. So far we mostly see crew getting along. But on a real ship, we'd have characters/situations like this constantly, and not just among the lower decks. In reality our main cast would probably have some awkward conflicts with each other, as we see more realistically in DS9 and onward.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-08-20 at 7:34am:
  - When the Enterprise first locates the Phoenix, Picard orders the con to lay in a course for the Phoenix at warp 6. After the Phoenix destroys the warship, Picard asks how long till they intercept, and Data replies, "At our present speed of warp 4 ..." When did the Enterprise slow to warp 4?
  - At one point O'Brien enters a turbolift with two Cardassians. As it travels, one of the Cardassians asks O'Brien to have a drink with them. When the turbolift reaches its destination, O'Brien mouths off to them and heads for the doors. The doors on the turbolift wait until he approaches before opening. Compare this to the operation of the turbolift doors in other episodes. As soon as the turbolift reaches its destination, the doors open. They do not wait for the person to approach. This is normal operation for turbolift doors.
• From Rob on 2008-04-14 at 12:13am:
  The only part I don't like about this episode (and it's so minor it shouldn't matter, but it's distracting) is the design of the Cardassian armor/outfits. They are fugly. I'm so glad that they are changed by the time they become a major baddie on DS9... especially those utterly ridiculous helmet-thingies they wear.
• From JRPoole on 2008-05-06 at 2:12pm:
  This episode is a perfect 10 until Maxwell shows up. I love the idea of a renegade captain, but Maxwell is written and acted so broadly that the character doesn't really rise above cliche. Parts of his interaction with O'brien are still moving, and Picard's chilly exchange with him after bringing him into his ready room is awesome, but overall, he's not one of the most memorable guest characters.
  
  Nearly everything else about this episode is great, though. Our first introduction to the Cardassians is a good one, and I love the way that Picard handles the tense situation. Even though Maxwell is right, and the Cardassians are up to something along the border, he knows that boarding the ship would lead directly to war, something he wants to prevent.
  
  The plot of this episode is crafted exceptionally well, with no easy answers and a lot of gray area to explore. Despite his violent actions and the coming court martial, Maxwell has in effect been a peacekeeper. He killed nearly 700 Cardassians without real provocation, but his actions ultimately led to Picard sniffing out the plot, which undoubtedly prevented an eventual Cardassian attack. We can posit that the Cardassians, knowing that the Federation's Star Fleet is reeling following the Borg incident, have beefed up arms along the border for a foray into Federation territory. Picard's frosty little speech to Macet at the end of the episode put the dampers on this plan, making Maxwell a sort of hero in disgrace since his outlaw actions led to this chain of events.
  
  Macet himself, like several other Cardassian characters we'll see later, is a well-drawn character. I get the feeling that Macet, like Picard, wants to avoid war--I tend to take his speech about some people needing war at face value--but he still is required by duty not to spill the beans about the border ramifications to Picard.
  
  Finally, this episode, like a lot of great Trek episodes, studies the nature of command very well. Picard's interactions with O'brien and Maxwell are indicative of his command style, as his handling of the incident of the Cardassian attempting to access the computer system. Macet's handling of this incident is interesting as well, and the actor playing the busted Cardassian is great. He implies with his eyes that he was acting on Macet's orders and is bewildered by Macet's reaction, but his sense of allegiance makes him follow orders. Contrast this with Picard's speech about Maxwell earning his crew's respect and allegiance.
  
  All in all, a great episode. I rated it an 8, but this one is not far from being a 10.
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-22 at 2:55pm:
  A tense, exciting episode. The plot, and the performance of Picard, are awesome. I tend to agree with JRPoole that the characterization of Maxwell is not very convincing and is a weak point in an otherwise superb episode.
• From Nadrac on 2012-05-14 at 11:18pm:
  As an even bigger fan of ds9 i am quite enjoy to see familiar faces "back", happy for change to dukat i would have never taken him seriously with that helmet ;)
• From Jake on 2012-09-20 at 3:41am:
  I wonder if the writers planned to have O'Brien in DS9 way back when and gave him more development in this episode and the last because he would have a larger part in the Cardassian arc in DS9. This episode feels like a DS9 prequel on my rewatch.
  
• From Praelat on 2013-11-27 at 6:42pm:
  Regarding the Macet-Dukat change: At the time of this episode, Gul Dukat would be commanding Terok Nor, supervising the Cardassian operations on Bajor. He would have no business chasing the Phioenix. Making Macet and Dukat the same character would make no sense.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-04-23 at 3:38am:
  problem: How the HELL can casualty reports be coming in from all over the ship a mere 2 seconds after impact?? A little ridiculous.
  
  Some of the stuff in this episode is just chilling. Like hearing Picard order all hands to abandon ship, while he's sitting there at the table
  
  I love how they refuse to reveal the actual year at the end. Picard just craftily tells him to beam aboard, but doesn't say "well its actually ____ A.D." I thought I could finally know, but I guess we're just damned to deal with their stardates.
  
  Wonderfully directed, Jonathan, wonderfully directed
• From DSOmo on 2007-09-30 at 7:15am:
  - At the end of the show, Worf checks with the nearest starbase and discovers that the Enterprise has been stuck in the loop for more than seventeen days. If that is true, the crew hasn't been repeating the same fragment of time. If they were repeating the same fragment of time, the ship's chronometer would line up with the starbase's chronometer, since the entire universe would get reset at the beginning of each loop. Instead, the crew of the Enterprise must have been repeating the same actions, and somehow everything on the ship - including the crew's memories and the ship's chronometer - got reset at the beginning of each loop.
  - The episode never adequately explains where the other ship came from. The show implies that the USS Bozeman has been caught in a loop for eighty years. If so, how did the Bozeman get started with its loop? According to Geordi, the Enterprise began its loop when the ship exploded. The captain of the Bozeman made no mention of any explosion before seeing the Enterprise. He simply said the time-space distortion appeared and was followed by the Enterprise. The Bozeman could have jumped forward in time eighty years when it entered the time-space distortion. It could have exited the distortion and collided with the Enterprise. That would explain the lack of explosion for the Bozeman. If that is true, Picard should be treating the Bozeman the same way he treated the Enterprise-C in "Yesterday's Enterprise." Just after the Enterprise-C came through the temporal rift, Picard realized that disclosing information to the crew of the Enterprise-C could fundamentally alter history if the Enterprise-C ever returned to its own time. In this episode, Picard's behavior is quite the opposite. He immediately invites the captain aboard for a conference.
• From djb on 2008-04-16 at 10:05am:
  I love this episode, and always have, and the one thing I think that's lacking was already brought up: what the deal is with the other ship and why it's 80 years off, where the enterprise is only 17 days off.
  
  
• From online broker on 2009-10-04 at 9:17pm:
  I love this episode, its my favourite of TNG, and has been since I was 12 and saw it on TV. I always thought it is called "Deja Vu"!
• From musterpuffer on 2010-03-04 at 9:11pm:
  One of my favourite episodes ever, I love the repetitions which are slightly different from time to time. Jonathan Frakes is such a talented guy!
  
  I think Data should have found the way out of the loop though: At one critical point they discuss whether to change course or not. Picard speculates that altering course might have caused the problem in the first place. But, the single reason the discussion arises is because they have become aware of the loop by now - hearing the echos etc. The very first time around there was no loop and no echos or other pointers so therefore there would have been no reason to change course. From which they might have concluded that there was no course change in the original timeline. But then the episode would have been a lot shorter so it's not meant as a criticism! Great stuff.
• From Jason on 2011-01-06 at 4:06am:
  My question: how can the crew program the number 3 (recognizing Riker to be correct in his strategy for avoiding the collision) when they have no tangible memory of these (for them) still future events? The crew has no idea what is coming through the rift and yet they retain memory of who had the correct strategy of how to avoid it? Seems far-fetched and certainly not adequately explained
  
  Otherwise an excellent episode and a season (and series) highlight
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-07 at 6:27pm:
  When I think of my favorite TNG episodes, this always comes to mind first. Really skillfully done.
  
  In answer to Jason's question: Seconds before the Enterprise is destroyed the last time, Data realizes his strategy was wrong, looks at Riker's 3 rank buttons, and sends the message to the next iteration. This is clearly shown, but easy to miss since it happens so fast and with no verbal explanation.
• From Zaphod on 2011-04-12 at 1:27pm:
  I don't like this episode, not just because it indeed is very repetitive, but because of a couple of other reasons too:
  1. Timeloops dont make any sense and the technobabble explaining them is complete bullshit, period.
  2. Moreover there is no believable explanation for why they have memories of past runs through that loop. Dekyonparticles interfering with their brains or what? Where did I hear that before? ... Ah, that's it! I bet Geordi is wrong and the midi-clorians told them what happened last time! That's where the whispering came from too! Midi-clorians, Dekyon-Particles, both just pathetic excuses for magic mumbo jumbo, nothing more. Star Wars was about magic, at least before George Lucas screwed it, so at least they have an excuse.
  Doesnt make sense at all. If I want to watch magic mumbo jumbo then Star Wars does a better job.
  3. Why do they remember some unimportant things like the cards they got dealt but not important ones like using the tractor beam doesn't work? Very easy answer, plot convenience, that's why.
  4. The story they repeat over and over again ... *headdesk* ... it's just boring as hell!
  You might argue: "But the Enterprise explodes!"
  Sorry, still boring, taking into account the poor special effects of that explosion and the annoyingly stupid explosion sound they play every f***ing time when a ship blows up in Star Trek.
• From Zaphod on 2011-04-12 at 1:57pm:
  @ Jason:
  Since CAlexander didnt really understand your question, here's the explanation:
  
  They altered the dekyon grid last time they went throught the loop and that alteration manipulated Data (his Brain seems to be sensitive to these dekyon field emissions) into unknowingly placing that 3 everywhere he went this time.
• From Zaphod on 2011-04-12 at 4:20pm:
  Sry, it's me who didnt understand Jasons question. ^^
  He asked for the message, I explained the delivery method. CAlexander is right of course.
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-04-19 at 11:39am:
  I only rated this a 6 as I found the episode beginning to get repetitive and a bit boring as a result. Certainly there were minor differences each time which managed to hold my interest a bit but I told my wife, one more repetition and I'm giving up on it. Now at the same time I did find the idea somewhat interesting although flawed a bit but then while being fairly good technically ST still deals with some of these things as magic rather than technology. The crew interaction was good and that also kept me from turning it off. Still, one more time through this loop would have been it for me.
• From Rache on 2012-05-03 at 8:29pm:
  My favorite TNG episode too!
• From Keith on 2013-08-21 at 8:46pm:
  Love the episode, but absolutely hate the poker. Once a pair of queens is showing everyone should have folded, looking at the cards there is no conceivable way that Worf or Data should have stayed in for as long as they did, that is lousy poker, and while Riker may have wanted to bluff Crusher should have bet whatever the limit is before the last card giving him a possible straight. Finally, poker in general in STNG is silly. Poker only works if there are stakes or consequnces to betting, i.e. losing money, if played for points nobody folds and it is just a silly game of luck.
• From Daniel on 2014-05-03 at 10:10pm:
  This episode brought about two questions for me; one purely hypothetical. First - Riker orders all crew to be ready at the escape pods, then Picard orders all hands abandon ship. Now, admittedly, there is no time for anyone to actually escape the ship. But, suppose a few crew members did manage to escape in time. What would happen to them in the repeating time loop? Would they be out of the loop and adrift in their escape pods? (Just a hypothetical.) The other question for me regards the habit that Riker has of putting his foot up on the console and assuming a pose like that. Like when he is standing next to Data at the helm and props his leg up on Data's console. Is it okay for a Starfleet officer to use ship equipment as a footrest?
• From tigertooth on 2017-07-04 at 2:31pm:
  I loved this back when it first aired and have considered it my favorite episode since. Watching it now, it didn't hold up for me. Without the mystery, it loses the effect.
  
  I found it funny how useless they made Nurse Ogawa seem. She has to call Dr. Crusher away from her off-duty hours just because Geordie comes in feeling dizzy?
  
  Also, I know why it had to be this way, but the reactions of Picard and crew when the impact is 30 seconds away seem awfully slow. If they'd fired up the tractor beam a few seconds sooner, they might have deflected the Bozeman successfully.
  
  And Riker's solution seems pretty goofy, really. You couldn't control how the decompression would move the ship. I'm not even convinced that it would move the ship very much. That said, why not do both? Use the tractor beam *and* blow the shuttle bays!
  
  Finally, I get why the writers went with "three" as the message to be sent -- to add to the mystery. But I'd think Data might have sent "Riker" or "shuttle" or something instead.
• From Chris on 2018-04-03 at 4:50pm:
  Did I miss something? The Bozeman apparently is stuck in the 24th Century from here on out?
  
  Since that seems to be the case, They would've done well to keep Grammer on as a semi-regular who was re-learning updated Ster Fleet protocols and tech! Or perhaps as a history teacher? He's a great actor and his cameo in this episode was wasted I think...
  
  I liked this episode when I first saw it, but thank god for Netflix to allow me to kick through the repetitions! ;-)
  
  Also, 10 'right arrows' on your keyboard allow you to skip the main intro after the set-up intro!
  
  Personally, I think the message I might have sent to myself if I were Data, would have been simply "Wrong". Three or 3 would have simply been way too arcane a reference to have figured out so abruptly or quickly. In fact, by this point, I'm thinking that once the drama began to unfold, and them all having a good idea that bad things were afoot, whatever command Picard designated as make-it-so, would've been the incorrect one.
  
  My guess is that they figured they could only send a single character and not a word... I don't recall them specifying.
  
  Why was 'Sideshow Bateson' unaware of what was happening to his ship and crew who surely must've been getting the same deja vu feelings!
  Made me think of the Darmok episode or others, where the Enterprise crew is filled with geniuses compared to the boobs in the rest of Star Fleet who no matter how much time they have, are unable to figure things out for themselves! It's a little irritating.
  
  Still, a great episode!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From djb on 2008-07-20 at 8:36am:
  I've seen this episode many times, but I just got what might be a little joke at the end. This bit of dialogue between Picard and Worf:
  
  "I only wish I'd had the opportunity to use it on a horse."
  
  "Of course."
  
  Reminds me of Mr. Ed....
• From JRPoole on 2008-09-22 at 10:17pm:
  Not so much a problem as a WTF moment: Data mentions that ther are several Terralians living on the Enterprise, and that Terralia is one of only a few inhabited planets without any atmosphere whatsoever. How in the world can someone from a planet with no atmosphere exist in the first place--perhaps an underwater civilization? In any case, it's hard to believe they could function on a ship.
  
  This episode is pretty incosequential in the long run, but it's a perfect 10 from an entertainment stand point. As mentioned in the review, Picard the killer is cool in James Bond mode here, and there is some serious McGuyver action with Geordi's visor being turned into a weapon. Come to think of it, Spock was doing that sort of thing long before McGuyver anyway.
  
• From JRPoole on 2008-09-23 at 1:56pm:
  An afterthought:
  
  With the obvious exeption of the Borg conflict episode and the occasional random death-of-an-entire-civilization plot, this episode has to have one of the highest body counts ever recorded in a Trek episode. Picard kills pretty much all of the thieves and even indirectly blows up their shuttle. Plus, "Hutch" is gunned down and presumably dies as well.
  
  The slapstick stuff with Data and Commander Hutchinson is funny and well done. I also love the way Troi rolls her eyes when Picard excuses himself from the reception.
• From Mark McC on 2009-02-08 at 1:58pm:
  Some on the production team was obviously a fan of the Bruce Willis move, Die Hard, and decided to make Die Hard in Space! There's a whole raft of similarities, the staff/crew are both held hostage at a social function while our lone hero runs around the building/ship causing mischief. In both, what we assume to be terrorists actually turn out to be mercenaries doing it purely for profit.
  
  Even the scene where Picard pretends to be Mott the barber is a reversal of the movie scene where Alan Rickman, the leader of the bad guys, fools Bruce Willis by pretending to be a clueless hostage escaped from his captors.
  
  I enjoy Trek for the range and depth of social and moral questions it explores, but sometimes an all-out entertainment episode like this is a breath of fresh air.
  
  Data and Hutchinson's slapstick is the icing on the cake, the comic timing and quick repartee between the two is fantastically done. 9/10
• From Markus on 2009-11-09 at 8:33am:
  Didn't they forget to save Picard's fishes from the sweep?
• From Inga on 2012-03-20 at 5:01pm:
  Is it me, or did Picard use a Vulcan nerve pinch on Devor?
• From Bronn on 2012-12-25 at 8:22am:
  Picard executing the Vulcan nerve pinch is actually a subtle, but nice, continuity nod. Remember that he's been in a mind meld with both Sarek and Spock, by this point. He should possess quite a bit of Vulcan knowledge.
• From dronkit on 2014-03-09 at 3:19am:
  A barber without hair? lol
• From Autre31415 on 2014-08-31 at 11:28pm:
  Also ironic about the Vulcan nerve pinch Picard performs is that it was on a future Vulcan!
• From tigertooth on 2018-02-27 at 3:17am:
  To dronkit's point: the real Mott is bald, too!
  
  The Baryon sweep was such a great gimmick to bring tension and to force everybody to be in the same spot on the ship.
  
  I loved how after the sonic pulse that knocks out everybody but Data, the first thing Data does is calmly collect the bad guys' weapons. A detail like that could easily have been missed, but it was done perfectly.
  
  I also liked how you think the B plot is just going to be comic relief, but then they end up being part of the A plot. It was timed well, too, as you couldn't have gotten much more out of the "small talk" gag.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-05-22 at 1:42am:
  One of my favorite episodes EVER. The whole concept was really cool, the story was engrossing, and I enjoyed the romulan-federation cooperation. The only thing keeping it from a 10 is that it's not profound or anything. Only episodes that move me deeply get 10's. But certainly a 9.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-06-04 at 8:52pm:
  This episode is fun from beginning to end. The plot moves along nicely with enormous challenges for the characters involved, such as the warp core breach, Beverly receiving a point blank phaser shot from a Romulan, and the difficulties with working in a suspended environment. There are a lot of memorable scenes, such as when Picard draws the happy face. The science portion is also well explained.
  
  Deserving of a 9.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-06-04 at 8:57pm:
  Problem:
  I could be wrong about this, but when Picard, Troi, Data, and Geordi first see the Enterprise and the Warbird frozen, their descriptions don't seem to match up with what is shown. The refer to a second beam, but there is only one beam visible. I don't think they are talking about the photon torpedos that the Warbird is firing.
  
  Correct me if I'm wrong.
• From Kethinov on 2006-06-05 at 4:56am:
  I'm pretty sure the warbird was firing disruptors and that that's indeed what they were referring to, Orion.
• From Evan on 2008-05-26 at 2:36pm:
  I don't think there's an issue with the life support per se. What would it need to do? (1) Keep the Enterprise warm enough and (2) provide enough air. The first wouldn't be affected by time, and the second wouldn't matter so much because there would be plenty of oxygen in the spaces available to last for the "fast" characters' short visits. The bigger problem is where the O2 that they breathe come from, since the air molecules would also have been slowed.
• From J Reffin on 2009-08-05 at 8:34pm:
  A very fast moving episode packing a lot in to the time available.
  
  One of the actors playing a Romulan can't help swaying slightly in the background when Picard is making a speech on the Bridge on the first visit (no - not one of the aliens). Must have been tough to hold a freeze pose for that length of time.
• From Mike on 2017-04-24 at 1:53am:
  This is one of my favorite episodes. It's just a classically well-done piece of science fiction. Like "Darmok" and the finale, this is TNG sci-fi at its best. This one comes down to the crew experiencing something entirely unexpected as a result of encountering a life form they had no idea existed.
  
  While the plots of some episodes tend to crash in the final minutes, this one kept it together until the end. Yeah, there are some problems. For example, I don't know how they managed to save Geordi...granted, they said they were beaming him directly to sickbay, but quite a bit of time elapsed between the resumption of normal time and that, and he was seconds away from dying when they removed his armband. Overall, though, this is brilliant and one that doesn't lose its suspense with repeated viewing.