YMMV / Star Trek: The Next Generation S5E9 "A Matter of Time"

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Rasmussen remarking towards the end, "I am tickled pink!" is amusing given Matt Frewer became the voice of The Pink Panther two years later in the short-lived 1993 animated series.
  • Picard assumes that Rasmussen is following some form of "Temporal Prime Directive". While Rasmussen is later found to be a fraud, there are authentic time enforcement officers who will use an actual Temporal Prime Directive in refusing to meddle in Starfleet affairs.
  • This won't be the last time that time travelers from the future will be overly enthused in being on board the bridge of the Enterprise. Unlike Rasmussen, the next two will be actual fans of the crew.
• Like You Would Really Do It: While it was already pretty unlikely that they would show the Enterprise crew making a screw-up that results in them incinerating the population of an entire planet, Geordi's staying on the surface of Penthara IV during the attempt makes it clear that it's going to be successful.
• Retroactive Recognition: One of the scientists on Penthara IV is Shay Garner, who played Thumbelina in the infamous b-movie Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny.
• Strawman Has a Point: Rasmussen doesn't give an entirely spirited defense of his non-interference position because he's actually a fraud, and we're supposed to side with our hero, Picard, but there are actually plenty of reasons why someone might take the points he does make to heart and side with him.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some people think that making Rasmussen a fraud undercuts the meat of the episode examining the ethics of a "temporal prime directive" to not interfere with events in the timeline, turning one side of the argument into a strawman.

---