When I was a kid some sixty or so years ago watching programs and movies on TV, it was a virtually universal idea that someone meeting up with themselves in the past or the future would end in some cataclysmic disaster. Certainly, for the person themselves or for the time continuum in general. As the years went by, the concept has been revisited with creatively new ideas, as this episode goes on to demonstrate. The story involves a six hour time differential, not very much to be sure, but combined with a time loop that portends trouble for The Enterprise and more specifically for Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart). It has the crew of the Enterprise encountering and beaming aboard a disabled shuttle craft in the Endicor System where no other Federation Starship had any reason to be. The even bigger surprise is that the vessel had Enterprise-D markings, and there's a duplicate Jean-Luc Picard on board!!
What transpires is a fascinating examination of the Captain's character, in as much that it's theorized that the incapacitated, duplicate Captain for some reason abandoned the Enterprise moments before it was destroyed by an unknown force. The shuttle's logs reveal that the event took place six hours in the future, with no explanation as to why 'Picard 2' might have ditched his vessel. This becomes a bothersome point for Picard to handle, as he gets testy with members of the crew when it becomes apparent that the Enterprise is gradually reaching that point in time when he will be faced with the same decision. Because 'Picard 2' is virtually unconscious and unresponsive makes it impossible to communicate with him to learn what happened, and it's left to the 'Picard 1' to try to figure things out before disaster strikes.
The resolution here is rather unique. As the hours go by, 'Picard 2' becomes more and more coherent, and it's revealed that he left the Enterprise in the shuttle believing he could save it by sacrificing himself to an energy impulse targeting him from a strange vortex. This casts the Captain in an entirely different frame of mind, knowing now that an escape from the Enterprise was not an act of cowardice. Rather stunning was 'Picard 1's' decision - he used a phaser to eliminate 'Picard 2'!! I like to think that this is what good science fiction is all about, an episode that makes you think about the implications of a character's motivations, leading him to act the way he does. In this case, Captain Picard saved the Enterprise and all aboard it, without succumbing to the endless paradox of a time loop in which they would have to relive the experience over and over again.
What transpires is a fascinating examination of the Captain's character, in as much that it's theorized that the incapacitated, duplicate Captain for some reason abandoned the Enterprise moments before it was destroyed by an unknown force. The shuttle's logs reveal that the event took place six hours in the future, with no explanation as to why 'Picard 2' might have ditched his vessel. This becomes a bothersome point for Picard to handle, as he gets testy with members of the crew when it becomes apparent that the Enterprise is gradually reaching that point in time when he will be faced with the same decision. Because 'Picard 2' is virtually unconscious and unresponsive makes it impossible to communicate with him to learn what happened, and it's left to the 'Picard 1' to try to figure things out before disaster strikes.
The resolution here is rather unique. As the hours go by, 'Picard 2' becomes more and more coherent, and it's revealed that he left the Enterprise in the shuttle believing he could save it by sacrificing himself to an energy impulse targeting him from a strange vortex. This casts the Captain in an entirely different frame of mind, knowing now that an escape from the Enterprise was not an act of cowardice. Rather stunning was 'Picard 1's' decision - he used a phaser to eliminate 'Picard 2'!! I like to think that this is what good science fiction is all about, an episode that makes you think about the implications of a character's motivations, leading him to act the way he does. In this case, Captain Picard saved the Enterprise and all aboard it, without succumbing to the endless paradox of a time loop in which they would have to relive the experience over and over again.