By Norman on Sunday, January 3, 1999 - 07:17 pm:

When Picard decides to go to Sick Bay to release his double, Troi is on the bridge, ready to follow him. When he gets to sick bay, however, Troi is already there. Did she take a short cut or a site to site transport? And why? She allowed Picard to release him, etc. That may explain, however why Picard ordered her to stay when he followed his double to Shuttle Bay Two.
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By Chris Thomas on Monday, March 22, 1999 - 09:19 am:

I think it's this one where Riker cooks for a few of them. He says he is making omelettes.
An omelette should be like a pancake made of eggs with lots of tasty ingredidents mixed in, cooked to golden brown on each side. What Riker cooks is more akin to scrambled eggs as he breaks up the yolk and mixes it with egg white, making them light and fluffy.
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By Mike Konczewski on Monday, March 22, 1999 - 11:47 am:

You beat eggs to make both an omelette and scrambled eggs. The difference is, once the beaten eggs are poured into the frying pan, you continue to stir the eggs to scramble them, but you don't to make an omelette (or a frittata, but that's another dish). After the underside of the omelette sets, you gently fold it over (twice if you're good) and finish cooking.
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By Chris Thomas on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 - 01:23 am:

That's my point exactly Mike - what Riker dishes up looks exactly like scrambled eggs, not an omelette.
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By Mike Konczewski on Tuesday, March 23, 1999 - 03:14 pm:

I guess you've never seen my sloppy omelettes; once I get them out of the pan, they look scrambled too. ;)
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By Chris Thomas on Wednesday, March 24, 1999 - 01:15 am:

Well if Riker is supposed to be as good a cook as he says he is, that wouldn't happen.
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By norman on Wednesday, March 24, 1999 - 03:01 am:

Consider everyone's facial expressions when they ate the omelette (well, except Worf's), I think that says it all. :)
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Friday, April 23, 1999 - 07:34 am:

Why does Data seem hesitant to try the "omelette?" Data can't taste, or at least, he doesn't taste the way a human tastes. He could analyze the various ingredients in the Owon 'omelette,' but he couldn't pass judgement on whether it tasted 'good' or 'bad.'

They are receiving the automated beacon of a shuttlecraft, but they cannot communicate with it because the shuttle is powerless. Well, why can't the communicators be fitted with the same power source as the automated beacon? Exactly what do they use to power these things anyway? These things are designed to travel through space so wouldn't it be sensible to equip them with batteries that can be recharged from stellar radiation?

Since Shuttle Bay 2 is at the back of the yoke, why don't we see the nacelles and tail of the ship when the doors open?

Isn't it just a little too coincidental that they happen to bring the future shuttle number 5 into the same bay that has the present shuttle number 5? The Enterprise has at least three shuttle bays and yet the next shuttle over from the future El-Baz is the present El-Baz.

What does El-Baz mean anyway?

Where did Troi come from? When Riker tells Picard that he should see this, he suggests that he bring Data. When Picard is in the shuttle bay, Troi is there, but no reason for her presence is given. Did she 'sense' something strange going on and go down there?

Looking at the burn marks on the future shuttle, it is stated that they look like they were caused by an anti-matter explosion, but they looked like simple burn marks to me. If they were caused by an explosion shouldn't we have seen pitting and other damage to the hull?

When Picard B is opening the shuttle bay doors, the control panel wobbles an awful lot. Shouldn't these things be a lot steadier?

There were a number of opposites in this episode. Worf's reaction to the Owon eggs was opposite everyone else's. The two El-Baz's faced opposite directions. The polarity of the future shuttle, and Picard B's reaction to the medicine was opposite of what they should be. Picard B's decision to abandon the ship is contrary to the tradition of a Captain going down with his ship.

okay, so who made this vortex anyway? it makes no sense that if ou fly to the center of it, you escape. i read in the sttng companion that maurice hurley had intended to put the blame on Q when he appeared in "Q-Who", but Gene Roddenberry insisted otherwise for some reason.
Oh, and by the way, the El-Baz shuttle pod is named for a NASA scientist. i also found this in the sttng companion. it's actually quite handy.

Troi should be court martialed. Picard leaves sickbay and orders Troi to remain, because the future Picard will be able to communicate with her before anyone else. After Picard leaves, Troi and Pulaski have a difference of opinion on Picard's emotional state - and after Troi speaks her mind - she leaves!

Phil pointed out that nit in his NextGen Guide. (Though I doubt a simple disobeying of one order is a court martial offense. The worst she'd get would be a stern talking-to by Picard, or a formal reprimand.)

You gotta love this. I just saw the listing in the Yahoo TV section for this episode airing on TNN tonight.
=============================
"Time to the Second", Episode #139.
Picard encounters his double in a shuttlecraft found hurtling through space.
=============================
"Time to the Second"!!??

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

It was hardly hurtling.

Time to the Second

Sheesh. You'd figure the folks in charge of one of the most powerful search engine on the Net might actually have take basic math at some point...

And the award for best musical score for a scene where a Starfleet captain abandons his ship and watches it blown to smithereens goes to…
Ruminations: Whereas the musical score can be an important part of an episode or movie, and add drama and tension to a scene, I normally don’t notice it. This episode, however, was an exception. Particularly noteworthy is the scene in the observation lounge when they replay the shuttle log, and in sickbay when "our" Picard confronts his double.
Well, as long as you’re sure…
Great Exchange:
Picard to Pulaski, ordering her to free his double: "Release him."
Pulaski: "Do you know what you’re doing?"
Picard: "No. Release him."
Course, right then Rudy Giuliani crashed through my window, grabbed my copy of the book, ripped out all references to prostitutes and porno shops, and then gave the book over to Disney to fix
In both the Table of Contents and the title heading on page 110, Phil lists the episode as "Times" Squared, instead of "Time" Squared.
It just occurred to him what body part of the bird the eggs come from
Why does Data make a disparaging grimace and hesitate tasting Riker’s food? Deja Q, Hero Worship, and ST Generations establish that without the emotion chip, he does not discern good taste from bad taste.
And you thought HMO’s were merciless in the 21st century…
When Pulaski has Picard B brought out of the shuttlebay, he’s on a cart with short legs, instead of an antigrav cart.
He was afraid Troi would take the helm
When Troi reads the other Picard’s emotions, she says, "He desperately wants to leave the ship." How does she know this? She’s an empath, not a telepath. She can only sense emotions. Lets’ see, there’s fear, anger, happiness, jealously, love, etc. What emotion is she sensing here? Having-to-get-off-the-ship-ness?
And not only that captain, but he was poisoned with something called "airline food"…
Pulaski diagnoses the Picard double as saying, "He was thrown out of time, which causes his body’s systems to change their rhythms." Excuse me, but didn’t she just describe jetlag?
Maybe he was up all night writing funny headings to nits he found in a TV show, and didn’t get any sleep
And why would being transported back in time affect body rhythms? Body rhythms are regulated by eating and sleeping patterns, and affected by environmental factors like sunlight.
Well, seeing Zarabeth in those animals skins in that episode sure affected my body rythyms!
And if being thrown back in time 6 hours does this to you, why didn’t the same happen to Kirk and Spock in The City on the Edge of Forever(TOS), in which they traveled back in time about 330 years, or to Picard and crew in ST First Contact, when they travelled back in time 410 years, or to Bones in All Our Yesterdays(TOS), when he travelled back 5,000 years, the biggest time jump in any Trek episode or movie?
And you don’t want to know how they used a pair of kid’s jeans with grass stains during an episode with the Romulans!
The effects team really improvised on this episode. When Picard and Riker look at the damage on the shuttlecraft, they deduce it looks like damage from an antimatter explosion. You mean all I have to do is throw some dirt on an object to simulate antimatter damage?
So if I go back in time 6 hours and meet Jeri Ryan, I’ll be fighting her advances?
The creators try to establish an "opposite" premise with the two Picards and shuttles, somewhat like Superman and Bizarro Superman. A stimulant worsens Picard B’s condition, rather than helps it, and the normal procedure that Geordi and Data follow in powering up the shuttle has the opposite effect of what was intended; what would normally destroy it powers it up. Why is this? What does going back in time six hours have to do with "opposite"? Does this mean that if I go back in time six hours and take a sleeping pill, I’ll be awake all night? What does time travel have to do with the laws of physics and biology working differently in an object or person?
Picard: "Note to self: No more Fourth of July celebrations on my ship."
The log footage of the Enterprise being destroyed in the vortex looks like the sparks of fireworks, rather than a ship exploding. The destruction of the probe at the end of he episode looks much better.
Data: "Captain, she’s falling apart!"
Asian newscaster: "AHHHHRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!"
Someone should tighten the screws on the Ops console. At the end of the episode when the Enterprise in traveling through the vortex, the bridge is shuddering, and Data is holding on to the edge of the console, which wobbles very badly.

Luigi: What does going back in time six hours have to do with "opposite"?

Not much - but apparently that was the point. See, to hear the creators tell it, this ep was originally part one of a two-parter with 'Q-Who'; the whole vortex dilemma was artificial, created by the omnipotent nuisance as another puzzle for the Enterprise crew.
I'm not sure why those plans fell through, but in the event, rather than rework the plots, they just presented 'Time Squared' as a self-contained non-Q story. Thus the wonky temporal mechanics are now supposed to be due to the 'mysterious' properties of the vortex.

Yeah, I read about the original intentions for the episode, but I never made the connection between that and the "opposite" premise.

When Troi reads the other Picard’s emotions, she says, "He desperately wants to leave the ship." How does she know this? She’s an empath, not a telepath. She can only sense emotions. Lets’ see, there’s fear, anger, happiness, jealously, love, etc. What emotion is she sensing here? Having-to-get-off-the-ship-ness?

Feeling trapped perhaps? While she can't read thoughts word-for-word like her mother she could probably interpret such an overwhelming desire and figure out what it meant. Don't forget that she can even communicate telepathically with (non-telepath) Riker, so she can do more than just anger/happiness/fear.

Aside from the fact that she and Riker never used this ability after Encounter at Farpoint, this was a rapport that grew between them during Riker's stay on Betazed ten years earlier, a bond that formed because they're Imzadi. Troi cannot communicate telepathically with anyone she hasn't built a strong rapport with, like Riker or her mom.

Luigi - Bones in All Our Yesterdays(TOS), when he travelled back 5,000 years, the biggest time jump in any Trek episode or movie?

*buzzer sounds* I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. That would be the 3rd largest time jump in Trek.

Number 2. Q taking Picard back to primeval Earth when life was supposed to start. (Forget the exact number, but somewhere around a billion years, I believe) All Good Things... (NextGen)

Number 1. Q (Quinn) taking Voyager back to the beginning of the universe in order to hide from Q. An estimated 12 Billion years. Death Wish (Voyager)

Thank you for playing, and here's a copy of our home game.

Troi cannot communicate telepathically with anyone she hasn't built a strong rapport with, like Riker or her mom.

Actually, I think the creators' idea is that Troi can communicate mentally with any telepath, or with non-telepaths with whom she's established a very strong emotional bond. Otherwise, she's limited to emotional responses only.
Brian might still be right, up to a point - Troi is probably able to recognize combinations of emotion that would generally indicate, say, 'I'm trapped here and want out.' This is what I always assumed she was doing when Peter David has her respond in his novel 'Imzadi': "I sense lies, cheats...anything to gain time..."

KAM: *buzzer sounds* I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. That would be the 3rd largest time jump in Trek.
Luigi Novi **NNNNNNNNGG!** Wrong! Both those other two "jumps" were by members of the Q Continuum, who would've blocked any such effects of the jump. Unless you're getting into Jwb hair-splitting territory here, you should know I'm talking about jumps made "organically" using humanoid, mortal technology that would've supposedly have caused this "6-hour opposite" effect. Sure, I could've used that clunky qualifer, but do I really have to, Keith? Didn't the passage, as I wrote it, make it clear what I meant, even if I was somewhat numerically imprecise in the exact wording?

Besides, we don't know if Q actually brought Picard back 3.5 billion years (the correct time period) in All Good Things...(TNG), or if the whole thing was an elaborate illusion or mental trick of his, much as Picard speculated to Riker at the end of Tapestry(TNG).

But here's a cigar. And make sure you see Vanna on your way out; we have some LOVELY parting gifts.

kerriem: Troi is probably able to recognize combinations of emotion that would generally indicate, say, 'I'm trapped here and want out.'
Luigi Novi: But how is that an "emotion", or even a "combination" of emotions? Emotions are basic instincts and drives. "I'm trapped and want out" isn't an emotion, or even a "combination" of them. It's more complex.

kerriem: This is what I always assumed she was doing when Peter David has her respond in his novel 'Imzadi': "I sense lies, cheats...anything to gain time..."
Luigi Novi: Same problem. Troi's ability to sense deception is another nit, since there is no particular emotion present when one is lying. This is why polygraph results are inadmissable in U.S. courts. They don't detect mendacity, they detect anxiety, which is not exclusive to mendacity.

As for "anything to gain time", I actually can buy that, because that would be impatience, which I think, is an emotion.

Emotions are basic instincts and drives.

To a point, yeah. But augmented by the rational side of the human mind interpreting them, they take on much more meaning.
For instance, I'm thinking the 'I'm trapped here and want out' combination would go something like fear/desperation/impatience/anger.
Leave it there and you're right, that wouldn't be enough to come to any conclusion. Instead of 'combinations' I should probably have said 'patterns' - that those particular emotions, in a particular order and intensity, would give Troi a sort of signature indicating the presence of the more complex thought.
(Bearing in mind too that she's been very carefully trained to interpret the emotions she feels - first (presumably) as part of the Betazed school curriculm and later as a psychologist.)

This is why polygraph results are inadmissable in U.S. courts. They don't detect mendacity, they detect anxiety, which is not exclusive to mendacity.

I'm not certain the polygraph analogy is a valid one, though. That test senses very basic physiological changes that indicate whether the subject's lying. Troi on the other hand has access to considerably more subtle emotional changes. Again, I have no trouble with the idea that she could interpret a particular pattern of feelings and extrapolate.

As far as Troi's concerned, I guess it's a matter of how each person interprets the premise of her powers, since we don't have a science fact reference point. To each his own, kerriem.

As for polygraphs, the physiological changes are ones of anxiety, not lying. Machines don't know the difference between what's a "lie" and what's "truth", nor is there any PARTICULAR set of physiological states that are UNIVERSALLY exclusive to truth-telling and lying in the physiology of every single person. I read this in an article around the time of the end of TNG's run by a psychologist who examined the accuracy and plausibility of Troi's duties compared with those of psychologists working today. It was that author who stated that there is no particular emotion present when one is lying.

He(or she?) also stated that a ship's counsellor would NEVER participate in crew evaluations, as Troi did in Man of the People and Lower Decks, because of the conflict of interest.

It was that author who stated that there is no particular emotion present when one is lying.

Well...doesn't the lack of emotion mean something, too? And again, who's to say that a highly skilled empath can't detect subtleties hidden from us mere mortals?

Which only proves that you're right - we're more or less arguing pseudoscience here.
I'm just saying that a possible case can be made for for empathy as presented in NextGen. (Also I just got finished rereading The Chrysalids - the John Wyndham novel about a group of telepaths in hiding - in which the author creates a compelling, and quite moving, scenario around just how complex sensing emotions could be.)

Kerriem, when I related his statement that there is no particular emotion present when one is lying, he didn't mean that there isn't ANY EMOTION AT ALL, only that there is no emotion present that is SPECIFIC to mendacity.

And thank you, point taken.

"Unless you're getting into Jwb hair-splitting territory here, you should know I'm talking about jumps made "organically" using humanoid, mortal technology that would've supposedly have caused this "6-hour opposite" effect"

How exactly should he have known this? There is nothing in your statement "the biggest time jump in any Trek episode or movie" to indicate this at all.

How exactly should he have known this?
By the context of the topic being discussed.

Now this is what I mean about you being dismissive.

Your first post
And if being thrown back in time 6 hours does this to you, why didn’t the same happen to Kirk and Spock in The City on the Edge of Forever(TOS), in which they traveled back in time about 330 years, or to Picard and crew in ST First Contact, when they travelled back in time 410 years, or to Bones in All Our Yesterdays(TOS), when he travelled back 5,000 years, the biggest time jump in any Trek episode or movie?

All of your examples are of travelling back in time. Now since each incident happened for different reasons then the Mechanics of Time Travel are unimportant. And yet when I come up with two different examples, suddenly the Mechanics of Time Travel are important. I'm sorry, but you cannot have it both ways.
Either it's Time Travel that causes the reversal, at which point it doesn't matter if it's a spacial anomaly, time machine, or Q snap.
Or the Mechanics of the Time Travel caused it at which point your examples must also be thrown out because they don't involve a Spacial Anomoly.

As for Picard not really going back 3.5 billion years in All Good Things..., you're right it could all have happened in his mind, but then we could make that argument for most of that story. ;-)
Hell, maybe Picard was just cracking up. It started in Tapestry when he thought he saw Q in a near death coma, then he dreamed he was being tested by the Q in All Good Things.
Maybe in a future movie he'll wake up in a loony bin and a Dr. Wychoff will tell him that he's a sci-fi fan who imagined himself in a series of stories set in the future of a '60s TV show? ;-)

But back to this episode.
In truth all we really know is that Picard B seemed to come from 6 hours in the future. We don't know for a fact that he really was a future Picard.

I don't see how any of what I said was "dismissive", KAM. The point I made was the for the purpose of questioning this "six hours = opposite" premise, which (I thought) I had made clear. If I didn't, I'm sorry. If I was imprecise in my wording, I'm sorry. If I had said, "Why didn't this happen when characters made other non Q-assisted jumps?", would that have been better? You once asked Jwb if you had to put a smiley in every post to know when you're making a friendly joke. Do I have to use such a qualifier for someone to know what I mean? If I don't, am I being dismissive simply because I'm trying to focus on the point of the nit, rather than whether I used the right combination of qualifiers, or whether I properly used the word "biggest"?

Fine, I was mistaken in my use of the word "biggest." I should've said,

"And if being thrown back in time 6 hours does this to you, why didn’t the same happen to Kirk and Spock in The City on the Edge of Forever(TOS), in which they traveled back in time about 330 years, or to Picard and crew in ST First Contact, when they travelled back in time 410 years, or to Bones in All Our Yesterdays(TOS), when he travelled back 5,000 years,--much LARGER time jumps than six hours, mind you?


No big deal, as far as I'm concerned. I've admitted I was wrong or mistaken about things LOTS of times on these boards, so I don't see why you're focusing on this one time as an example of dismissiveness.

And any case, PEACE.

It was 310 years in ST:FC. (2370ish to 2063).

I thought the whole point with Troi was that she was an empath.

My dictionary defines that as 'the power of identifying oneself mentally with (and so fully comprehending) a person or object of contemplation.

Possibly the idea that Troi can only read simple emotions comes from some lame dialogue attempting to simplify that concept.

Interesting, Sophie. And you're right, empathy in the broad sense refers simply to the ability to identify with that person.
But...in pseudoscience usage, 'empathy' is actually very commonly used to distinguish the ability to sense only emotions (as opposed to 'telepathy', the ability to sense thoughts).

Not strictly accurate, no - originally it was probably an 'attempt to simplify the concept' - but not lame on the NextGen creators' part, either.

Thanks, Scott. I stand corrected.

I brought up the two jumps because you said that McCoy's was the biggest.

You then dismissed my examples with what I felt was a bad argument.

Your original point was that time travel couldn't have caused the reversal because it never happened in these other time travel situations.

Frankly my examples simply strengthened your case, but you dismissed them because they were caused by Qs.

As your examples were caused by the Guardian of Forever (an intelligent entity of uncertain designation), a Borg-created time travel field, & an alien time machine, I didn't see why a Q-finger snap should disqualify the examples.

If time travel did happen in this episode, then the cause would have been, based on what we see, a spacial anomoly, therefore it could be argued that it was the anomoly that caused the reversal not the time travel. Therefore your arguments wouldn't apply. (And if it was mentioned in the ep that Time Travel caused the reversal, then someone in the show should have brought up previous time travel scenarios where it didn't happen.)

Okay.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the SHORTEST post EVER made by Luigi Novi! Let's give him a big hand!

applause

AHHHH! EmCee is Apollo!

!

GREAT LINE: "Delicious" Worf after eating Riker's cooking.

GREAT SFX: Every scene in which Picard A is next to Picard B. Flawless!

The last time I saw this episode, I saw something rather amusing and odd. In the scene where Future Picard is lying on the bio-bed screaming and writhing in some form of anguish, we quickly cut to a camera shot of Troi, who is among other crewmembers around the Future Picard and also moaning or something, sensing his anguish. The point is, the camera angles *suggest* that something rather more sleazy may be happening between our two esteemed British actors...

Of course, it could be the last vestiges of my adolescence playing tricks on my imagination....

FUNNY THOUGHT:
The title of this episode reminds me of the "Green Acres" theme song....
"....fresh air!....Times Square!..."

This episode gives some nice foreshadowing of the conflict between Riker and his father in the next ep: The Icarus Factor. However, here there's no indication that Pulaski knows his father.

Nice F/X. At the end, when Picard is in the rear observation lounge, you can see the reflection of the (port?) nacelle in two of the windows.

I'd wondered if Picard A shouldn't be charged with something for what he did to Picard B. But it seems that no-one actually saw him do it, so for all Pulaski knew, catching up in time made his chest catch fire or something. (Yes, there's sarcasm here, but she did seem not entirely sure about the nature of this beast.)

I think Troi's skills come from recognising emotions, recognising patterns, as you said above, and also being able to contextualise. I don't doubt she could recognise some pattern as 'I really really want to go now', and judge what that could mean for the person from their surroundings and situation. (IE, she guesses that Picard B doesn't want to leave his uniform or Trafalgar Square, but the Enterprise.)

Irrelevant. There's no evidence.

Overuled. There's no evidence against it either.

Overturned. It doesn't work that way. Evidence has to be presented to support an extraordinary claim, not evidence of the negative. It has been stated many times that Troi senses emotions only (with the exception of her mother and Riker). "He wants to get off the ship" isn't an emotion. Saying that she could discern this desire isn't a "context," it's a wild guess that doesn't correlate to any specific emotion she could sense.

I surrender. Good point.

The door to Riker's quarters seems a little "impatient". It almost slams right in Pulaski's face when she's entering.

Most doors read the script...that one read the fans' opinion of Pulaski.

If the shuttlepod is powerless, doesn't that mean that life support is off-line and Picard B should have suffocated?
And why was he sitting up so straight when they found him, if he wasn't wearing a harness and was unconscious?
And speaking of the pod, it escaped 6 hours prior far, far ahead of where our Enterprise-D picked it up. So how far away could it have been if it was tumbling without power AND is incapable of light speed, which I'm assuming Enterprise-D flew at to 'catch up' with the location of Picard B's vortex encounter?
Picard, Pulaski, and Troi just stare down at Picard B when he wakes up. No wonder the guy was panicking, with nobody offering even an 'Are you okay?'
Funny stuff about this being mentioned earlier as part 1 of a 2-part Q episode; I had the idea that Q saved their lives by showing them a possible future, but just didn't show himself.
The eggs scene at the beginning is one my top 10 favorite funny scenes in any of the series. Perfect reactions from Laforge and Pulaski who don't like the eggs, but show two different reactions-- nice tough!
Whimpiest explosion ever; the image of the gigantic Enterprise-D blowing up like a mere Voyager bridge console!

The hangar bay doors are at a 90 degree vertical angle, and yet where they are on the dorsal neck of the ship the hull is at about a 45 degree sloping angle, so they don't match. And at that closeness, I think we should be able to see an engine nacelle out there.
The height of the door also seems way too tight a fit in relation to the shuttles; there appears to be barely a foot leeway to enter; would it have killed the designers to make them several feet higher than the shuttles?
So Pulaski brings O'Brien into the shuttlebay, they see a dead Picard lying there, Pulaski confirms he's dead, and...walks away. What does she expect O'Brien to do? Pick up Picard's body and carry it to the morgue? Shoot it out into space? He's a transporter chief, not a medic or hangar deck officer; what in the world was he there for? Would it have killed the director to keep Pulaski there to witness Picard's fading away, herself?
The gurney that Picard B is placed on earlier in the show is low to the floor, which isn't practical for medical personnel to deal with; they have to kneel down to the floor to lend aid.

I guess its just more "bad writing".

All of it?

The hanger bay doors nit is set design not writing.

The shuttle doors is either set design or props.

The gurney is probably props.

Only the Pulaski/O'Brien stuff would seem to be writing. (Although it could also be directing and/or editing, or all three.)

When Riker hums at the beginning of this episode, that's Jonathan Frakes putting himself into the character. (I saw him at the convention, he did quite a bit of singing and dancing. He even did a tumble/roll on the floor)

Sven, about your 2002 post, re: Troi and Picard and the camera angles... I thought the same thing. :-)

When Picard A kills Picard B, would that be considered a murder or a suicide?

Of course, he could have just stunned him. Why he didn't is a mystery to me (Phil mentions this in his first book).

The bottle that Dr. Pulaski brings to Riker's quarters when his friends gather there at the episode's beginning looks like a 40 of malt liquor. Yecch.