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Recap / Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E13 "Time Squared"

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"There is the theory of the Möbius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop."
Worf

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/timesquared_hd_367.jpg
Picard, meet Picard. Picard, Picard.

Original air date: April 3, 1989

A Federation shuttlecraft is found floating in space, far from any other Federation starship. The ship scoops it up to discover that it's from the Enterprise itself and, even more astounding, its sole occupant is another Captain Picard. This second Picard is unconscious, and Doctor Pulaski is puzzled by him– his vitals are OK, but all of his readings are "out of phase." She carries him off to Sickbay.

Picard orders Data to check the shuttlecraft's logs, but it’s drained of power, and the power from the Enterprise seems to be incompatible with its systems for some reason. Data and Geordi cook up some fancy engineering to get it started and discover that the shuttlecraft's onboard clock reads six hours into the future. They retrieve the final visual log from the shuttlecraft, which shows it taking off shortly before the Enterprise is destroyed by some sort of Negative Space Wedgie. Geordi suggests stopping or changing course to avoid encountering whatever it is, but the others say that there's no way to know what course of action will prompt the events they've witnessed.

Meanwhile Pulaski has successfully revived Picard Two, but he’s completely disoriented and can’t communicate. Pulaski theorizes that as time catches up to the moment he was sent back, he'll become more aware, until the final moment when he’ll be fully himself again. Picard insists on keeping him awake in spite of his suffering so that he can provide answers the moment he's able. Before long, it's too late, and the energy vortex appears without warning. It starts pulling the Enterprise in, and some sort of consciousness inside of it begins scanning them. As Picard tries to figure a way out, the vortex starts singling him and his double out and hitting them with energy beams.

His first instinct is to leave the ship to draw the vortex’s attention away and give everyone else a chance to escape, but then he realizes that that’s exactly what Picard Two tried to do. So instead, he heads to Sickbay and orders Pulaski to let Picard Two out. Picard Two has become vaguely aware of his surroundings, but can only focus on trying to leave the Enterprise. Picard One follows his double to the Shuttle Bay, trying to get him to think of another option. All Picard Two says is that the other way "would never work" because "going forward would destroy the Enterprise." Picard One understands what he means, and breaks the time loop by killing his double with a phaser before he can leave the ship again. He then returns to the bridge and orders the Enterprise to head directly into the vortex. This does the trick, and the vortex disappears, along with the duplicate shuttlecraft and Picard.

As the ship gets back on its way, Picard retreats to his ready room to ponder what it all means, confiding in Riker, "They say if you travel far enough you will eventually meet yourself… having experienced that, Number One, it’s not something I would care to repeat."


Tropes:

  • Apocalyptic Log: The future Picard recorded one, stating that the Enterprise was destroyed and he is the only survivor.
  • Call-Back: Picard refers to the Traveler and Dr. Mannheim's experiments when trying to make sense of the Timey-Wimey Ball that they're dealing with.
  • Continuity Nod: Picard mentions using the gravitational pull of a star to accelerate fast enough to slingshot back in time, which was used numerous times by an earlier Enterprise crew.
  • Crazy Enough to Work: The Enterprise is being pulled into an energy vortex that tightens its grip every time they try to boost power to the engines to escape. Picard realises at the very end that the only way to escape is to fly at warp speed directly into the maw of the vortex and collide with the energy source in the center.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: This is one of 24th-century Star Trek's first major time travel stories, and the idea that future versions of a person are disoriented upon going to the past until the moment of divergence is never referenced again.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: Picard is thrown back six hours in time and his body clock is completely out of whack to the point where his mind barely functions. The present Picard spends much of the episode trying to get answers out of him.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Riker mentioning his father is a precursor to the next episode, "The Icarus Factor".
    • Data restores power to the shuttle by a Reverse the Polarity that not only shouldn't have worked, but should have blown out all the shuttle's circuits. The method of escaping the energy vortex is similar— diving into the vortex at full speed not only shouldn't have worked, it should have torn the ship apart when it reached the center... but it actually gets the crew out safely.
  • Future Me Scares Me: Picard's double from six hours in the future disgusts him because the double apparently abandoned ship and left the crew to die, something Picard would gladly rather die than do.
    Picard: Except for his features, there is nothing about him that I find familiar!
  • Killing Your Alternate Self: Picard phasers his double to break the time loop.
    Picard: Captain Picard! I cannot allow you to leave. Before we go forward, the cycle must end.
  • Lethal Chef: Riker proves to be one, though he blames the weird eggs he picked up at Starbase. Only Worf likes the dish.
  • Mandatory Line: O'Brien, of all people, gets one late in the episode. After Picard kills his duplicate, O'Brien for some reason walks into the shuttlebay with Pulaski, then hangs around after she leaves, and witnesses the shuttle and duplicate vanishing, with his only line being to inform the bridge about this.
  • Narrow Annihilation Escape: Done by Picard's doppelganger, but unintentionally. When Duplicate!Picard leaves the ship in a shuttlecraft, thinking that the energy vortex wants him and not the Enterprise or its crew, an energy blast destroys the ship, and he is thrown back in time 6 hours.
  • Negative Space Wedgie: The vortex which the Enterprise crew encounters and must escape.
  • Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer: Played totally straight when Riker discovers the future Captain Picard in shuttlecraft 05.
  • Only One Who Likes Spam: In the teaser, Riker tries to cook omelets with some alien eggs. Worf is the only one who doesn't find them disgusting.
  • Railroading: Picard lampshades the possible hopelessness of their situation.
    Picard: We may be on a road that has no turns.
  • Ret-Gone: Once they decide to escape the vortex, the duplicate shuttle and duplicate Picard vanish without a trace. Played with in that the crew remembers the existence of the duplicate, but the duplicate itself no longer exists because the time loop that created it was broken.
  • Reverse Polarity: Data and Geordi can't get the duplicate shuttle to power up using conventional methods. Data suggests setting their phase inverter to negative, which by all rights should blow out every circuit. It brings the shuttle back on line.
  • Riddle for the Ages: Picard and Riker are left scratching their head about what that anomaly was and why everything played out like it did.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Crew members wonder if trying to avoid the disaster will actually lead to it happening. Given that the solution that Picard eventually comes up with is to dive into the vortex at full speed (which works), struggling against the phenomenon did cause the disaster before.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Picard spends the whole episode wracking his brain trying to find a way to save the ship.
  • Take a Third Option: "What was the other choice? We can't fight, we can't escape, we can't go forward..."
  • Temporal Paradox: The crew try to avoid the object loop kind, with Picard potentially being the object.
  • Temporal Sickness: Picard's future double suffers from it bigtime.

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