Trivia / Star Trek: The Next Generation S7 E24 "All Good Things..."

• Blooper
  • Data is wearing a Second Lieutenant's rank in the past timeline even though he was always a Lt Commander at this point and is addressed as such in the episode.
  • Data says that the Enterprise in the future fired the first tachyon pulse, but it was actually the Pasteur.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Brannon Braga said this was the best Star Trek script that he had ever written.
• Deleted Role: A scene including Martha Hackett as Terrellian pilot Androna, who appeared in the Devron system, was filmed but cut from the aired version.
• Edited for Syndication: The two-parter aired as a feature-length episode, but is split up into two episodes in reruns. To fit in a Previously on… recap and opening credits in Part 2, a few minutes had to be cut out. Both parts have also been edited over the years to accommodate longer commercial breaks.
  • As it currently stands, streaming on the Paramount+ network, the episode is only available in its 2-part, cut for syndication version. This is rather inexplicable, considering Paramount owns the series and could easily stream the feature-length version. The cut version trims some seemingly tiny yet incredibly significant character moments, including 15 seconds of the final conversation between Picard and Q.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga being assigned the series finale despite also simultaneously being knee-deep in Generations. According to Moore, there was an unspoken assumption in the TNG Writers Room that Michael Piller would pull ranks to write "All Good Things...". However, Piller was ultimately too overloaded due to Season Two of Deep Space Nine and the impending launch of Voyager; instead, he offered it to his protegees.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Q's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, among other lines, make more sense when they're interpreted as the complaints of viewers who doubted whether TNG could live up to TOS' legacy, or thought TNG had become stale by this time.
  • The final scene, in which the main cast sits down to a game of poker, was also the last scene to be filmed.
  • The final poker scene itself, as written, is filled with subtext if you consider the show's history; for the first couple of years of the show's production, Patrick Stewart would not take part in the jovial behavior of his co-stars, even infamously calling them out on it. As time went on, however, he loosened up and joined in the fun. The dialogue exchange between Picard and Troi as he joins the poker game might as well be a conversation between Stewart and Marina Sirtis:
  Picard: "I should have done this years ago."
  Troi: "You were always welcome."
• What Could Have Been:
  • There were originally going to be four time periods, the fourth being the events of "The Best of Both Worlds", with Picard as Locutus. This was Braga and Moore's attempt to have the Borg featured in the series finale, which they felt should appear as villains, and have the episode be a follow-up of sorts to the infamous two-parter. Michael Piller felt the four time periods was too confusing, so they chose to ditch it instead of replacing one of the other time periods. Braga and Moore feel Star Trek: First Contact was a superior follow-up anyway, so they don't regret canning the Borg here.
  • Guinan was supposed to appear, but Whoopi Goldberg was unavailable.
  • An earlier draft of the script had Q flipping a card counter of the questions Picard is allowed to ask during the trial. This appeared in the novelization.
• You Look Familiar: Jessel, Data's grouchy housekeeper in the future, is played by Pamela Kosh, who previously played the equally grouchy 19th-century landlady Mrs. Carmichael in "Time's Arrow". (A descendant, perhaps.)

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