126 – Time’s Arrow, Part 1

Grade: B

Summary

The Enterprise has been recalled back to Earth because of some interesting evidence that has been uncovered. The cave where they’ve discovered these artifacts may have had activity from extra terrestrial beings. Data’s severed head is among the artifacts that they find.

Commentary

This episode is a good way to end a season, but it’s certainly not the best episode of this season. That was last week’s episode called The Inner Light. But Time’s Arrow is interesting and exciting. The mystery was set up very well, and of course, we all want to know why Data’s head is found in the cave in San Francisco. Unfortunately, we don’t find out in this episode, but we do have a pretty interesting mystery and a nice cliff-hanger ending.

If I have any complaints about this episode, it’s that all the senior staff go on this trip back into the past, except Lt Worf. I don’t know why Captain Picard insisted on sending Worf back to the Enterprise before jumping into the time vortex thing. I guess that will come up later. But at least in this episode, there’s no imminent threat to the Enterprise, so I think Worf should be with the Captain. He definitely wants to be at his side, as his protector, but he almost never gets this chance in the series.

The acting is fine, though I enjoyed Data, Guinan and Mark Twain the best. The young hotel clerk is annoying, but I guess that’s because he’s obviously eager to please. It was fun to see Marc Alaimo without a bunch of Cardassian makeup. He’s the man in the hotel who speaks French with Data.

So in all, a fun episode that would be worth a look.

Of Note

“Occupying the same space, but in a different time” is exactly the same thing H. George Wells says in the 1960 film “The Time Machine” about the ability to travel through time.