Cause and Effect

DVD, TNG S5 (Cause and Effect)

A brave decision for a TV series and one I suspect could never happen nowadays because people would be more likely to turn over to something else or fiddle with their gadgets than appreciate the subtle differences of…

A brave choice for a TV series to make and one I suspect could never happen today because people would be more likely to turn over to another channel or play with their gadgets than appreciate the subtle differences of…

A brave choice for a TV series and one I suspect wouldn't happen these days since viewers would be more likely to turn to other channels or play with their gadgets and things than have patience to appreciate the subtle differences of seeing the same events transpire over and over again. Sorry, but the gag had to be done!

The point is that we are able to see those events from different perspectives, new routines get added and time unfolds a little differently as realisation gradually becomes stronger at their predicament. Add to that the mystery of the three's which even we don't know about since it is Data's message that he only has time to tell himself. They were stuck in the time loop for over seventeen days, so it's a wonder it took so long for the déjà vu to become vivid enough that Beverly questioned it. It may have been that the memories or whatever echo of past events that stuck in their perceptions took a while to build up to a noticeable level - practice makes perfect, and that could hold true for memory becoming more familiar as much as anything.

Jonathan Frakes must have had a headache helming this story. At the same time the opportunity to replay the same scenes over and over again could be a great gift to a director as it would be a challenge to find ways of making them interesting even when the same dialogue or actions were occurring. Frakes did a very good job of positioning the camera in alternative ways without becoming showy and drawing attention to the camera moves rather than the subject, the mark of his confidence as a director. It must have been especially tough because he featured so much in the episode, so plaudits to him for pulling it off in style.

While it probably isn't an episode to watch too often, seen in moderation you can appreciate the desire to push the envelope, and of course with such ideas Brannon Braga had to be in their somewhere! The teaser could be the shortest of the series - where 'Enterprise' and sometimes 'Voyager' tended to go for a short and snappy intro, 'TNG,' and to an even greater extent, 'DS9,' took their time setting an episode up. No need in this case: Picard's strangled cry for all hands to abandon ship is fantastic no matter how many times we see it, though I think first was best of the four loops we see. The mechanics of the episode were so absorbing I could happily have viewed a few more loops, and to leave the audience wanting more is a high compliment.

The one aspect of which I wished there could have been more investigation was the USS Bozeman from 2278, a time between 'The Motion Picture' and 'Star Trek II,' quite probably one of the first ships to have those 'film-era' uniforms. I so wanted Captain Bateson to ask where Captain Kirk was, but the Enterprise-D looked nothing like the refitted original so he wasn't going to ask that. My one question would be why the Bozeman didn't come out of the loop sooner, as for eighty years or so there was no other ship to collide with, so it must have been a time distortion directly from his time to the 24th Century so he wasn't necessarily reliving the same events for eighty years.

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