Here are my nits...
Crusher should have gone to sick bay, not the bridge, if a potentially dangerous anomaly appears...
Ro's earring is on the wrong side...
The Enterprises destruction was better than Defiants (No cheap cgi here), but you can clearly see the wires holding the nacelles in the 2nd explosion...
Riker really looks like he WANTS to fall...
Tractor beams bring stuff closer, not farther away...
And Crushers glass breaks (Isn't having breakable glasses a medical no-no?)!
See Ya!

The tractor beam seems to act more like a rope that can drag a ship at a fixed distance than a gravity field that constantly pulls things in. In this case they were trying to use the beam to swing the Bozeman past the Enterprise.

I don't know if that's consistent or not.

That sounds good until you remember the exterior shot showed the Bozeman getting pulled in, not pushed away.

Not to get picky [no pun intended :)]

but the Bozeman already had a forward momentum so when the Tractor beam locked on it was not being pulled in, they were attempting to maintain a distance between to two ships. We have seen the tractor beam pull something in and then hold it out at a distance.
I think this oversimplifies the abilities of the tractor beam. It is not just a gravity beam of sorts. We learned in the first season that Mr. Crusher could modify the tractor beam in his science expirement to lift things up in an artificial gravity enviorment (i.e. the Enterprise). Certainly, the ships' tractor beam is capable of such tasks......

Just a note.

Aloha,

ROBMAN

I Dunno If This Is In The Nitpicker's Guides Because I Don't Have The Guides Now But Data Said Something About Encountering The Number "3" 2,085 Times... Well, 2,085 Is A Multiple Of 3...
695x3=2,085

They should have made it 2115 instead of 2085.

Why? 2115 = 47 * 3 * 5 * 3

I can't help but think that Bateson's line about it being 2278 would have had more of an effect if we actually knew it was 2368 in this episode. Surely someone could have mentioned it. (They're always ready to admit it's the twenty-fourth century (although they didn't do that this week either), so you wouldnae think it would be much to just own up to the year more often. (I saw it with a casual viewer who heard the line and just asked, 'Uh, so that's significant is it?')

I just wondered, after the crisis was over, did they remove the post-hypnotic suggestion from Data? It would be amusing if they forgot to, and Data continued to inadvertantly incorporate the number 3 into everything.

I h3ve no idea wh3t you're t3lking about, Mr. Gr3y. What precis3ly are y3u say3ng?

Exactly exactly exactly that that that...

When the distortion begins to fluctuate, main power goes off line. The first time we see Riker react, he yells, "Red alert!," giving a clue as to how serious procedure requires the crew to react when main power goes out. The second time, he’s a lot more casual, saying, "red alert," as if he’s almost bored with the situation. (I guess Jonathan Frakes was getting bored with doing the same scenes over and over.) The third time, he doesn’t even need to. When Crusher, Data and Geordi arrive on the bridge, red alert has already been declared, but long before main systems go out.

Even though main systems go down, the crew can operate the tractor beams, open the main shuttle bay doors, shut down the warp core, eject the core (at least Geordi tried to, indicating it would ordinarily be possible without main systems on line), presumably operate the emergency escape pods, and open hailing frequencies with the Bozeman. Good thing none of those systems fall under the category of "main systems!" Question is, what do they fall under? "Toys to play with when the lights go out on the bridge during an emergency?" They could be under auxiliary power, but if that’s the case, can’t they transfer auxiliary power to the maneuvering thrusters or engines? They were able to do just that when the Enterprise got trapped in the Dyson Sphere and was being hurled toward the star in the episode Relics.

Every time the Bozeman appears, why doesn’t it respond it to the Enterprise’s hails? Maybe its communications are down, but then why does it respond after the Enterprise finally breaks them free of the loop? Was the older Bozeman just being snotty, and then changed its mind when the Enterprise did it a good deed?

In Act 3, during the third full loop, Beverly records the voices in her quarters, and later says she recorded 6.2 seconds of them, but from the time she turned on her tricorder, (as indicated by its beeps) to the time the voices stopped was more like 8 seconds.

I just loved this one: The crew first theorize they are in the loop during their third fully viewed onscreen loop in Act 3. In it, Crusher calls an impromptu early morning senior staff meeting. This is when Geordi first illustrates his theory of the loop on the lounge viewscreen. Data also first plays the voices in this meeting. Later, after Geordi and Data prepare the dekyon emission, they arrive at the distortion. But in the fourth loop in Act 5, they approach the distortion while they are still in the meeting! Now is the meeting described above from the third loop the same as the one in the fourth? Don’t they occur at the same time of day in both loops? If so, why did the ship approach the distortion so much faster the fourth time?

Unlike the first two loops, Riker, during the third loop in Act 3, doesn’t bother to order all hands to emergency escape pods. I guess he felt, "Hey, it didn’t work the first two times, why bother now?"

During the fourth loop in Act 5, when Crusher examines Geordi with the optical scanner, she warns him that the pulse might be a bit bright. Wouldn’t that be like warning Marlee Matlin that a song you’re about to play is very loud?

In keeping with the theme of breakable objects on the ship, the glass Crusher has in her quarters is easily breakable.

Why does Crusher have to be the one to treat Geordi? The fact that she’s at a poker game means she’s off duty, and Remember Me established that there are always four medical personnel on duty at all times. Why can’t one of them treat him?

Regarding the Bozeman not answering the hails: we don't know what was going on on the Bozeman. Perhaps they were too busy trying to avoid the Enterprise to answer, or they did not recognize the Enterprise since that kind of ship was not yet in existence when the Bozeman went into the loop. They may have been trying to identify the ship before responding to the hail. It's just a thought. I could be wrong.

The temporal anomaly could have been causing interference on the communications channels, too.

3 is 7 - 4.

Perhaps the Spectre is trying to introduce us to Seven of Nine's less attractive younger sister?

It is a somewhat convoluted 47 (or 74).

At least, thats the only thing I can think of?

You're right. Four taken from seven is three would probably be a better way to express it.

It's really sad. By your little game, we could take any number and connect it to 47. That 7-4 =3 is really stretching it.

All right, that's also my opinion. A 47 is a 4 and a 7 and nothing else.

It's just a bit of fun. People were discussing numbers being based around 3 and 47, and no-one had noticed 3 was in fact the difference between the two numbers which make up 47, the number 4 and the number 7. That's not nearly as convoluted as some 47s I've seen.

Of course, we know the writers didn't intend this, because it was about Riker's rank insignia, but indirect 47s have been put into scripts by Menosky and others. Someone (possibly Rene's idea of Satan, Brannon Braga) once said the number 425 or something had been put in an epsiode as a deliberate 47.

Hey Hey Hey! Don't insult Satan like that ;)

You here Rene???

Since I answered your post, it is logical to conclude that I am here

I guess so...

TUVOK!

Ha ha, I called you after a character in Voyager. Ha Ha!

I'm just being immature, since you react to it the same way you react to reason, I can at least have the fun of being immature

Now now, this can't become a place for Voyager-bashing. Why don't you two go to the chatroom at

http://homestead.juno.com/mattpesti/chat.html

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Couldn't you have called me Spock or something? How dare you? That was mean ;)

And Padawan, how could you dare give him the chat room URL? That was a secret!

In my opinion these are 47s:

-Program 47C (obviously)
-I'm on Deck 4 ... pardon, 7 (see DS9)
-numbers like 1564.7
-"ng" in a TITLE (Endgame), 4th and 7th letter; stop scanning episodes for ng! *gg*
-maybe the indierect "425" and "74656", but not more, because you can figure out a 47 from almost ANY number.

These are NO 47s:
-11=4+7 (and any number which evenly divides by 11)
-3=7-4
-a=ò₀ ⁴⁷G(t)f(x)dxdt *gg*

In Cause and Effect I understood the following...

the Enterprise was trapped in a time loop for 17 days and the Bozeman was trapped in a time loop for 17 days in real-time but it also arrived 90 years in the future so at the end of the episode when loop is terminated Bozeman is 90 years, 17.4 days into the future. They were NOT trapped in loop for 90 years they traveled into the future 90 years.

Is this correct???

According to 'Ship Of The Line' (I know, non-canon, but...) the Bozeman instantaneously travelled 90 years, and it was the Enterprise that had time repeated over and over. A great scene in the book was when Bateson consoled Picard because he thought the Enterprise had travelled BACKWARDS 90 years to Bateson's time!

Didn't the Bozeman pay attention to Federation time beacons in the book?

I think they mentioned that the Bozeman's long-range communications system was down, but I'm not sure.

Or perhapse it was a new beacon with a different frequency than the Bozeman was used to...

Did anybody notice that the distortion was "off the starbord bow", but the Bozeman approaches from port?

When I first saw this episode, I assumed the explanation was the Bozeman gets caught up in a temporal hole/rift/eddy which carried it forward in time, collides with the Enterprise and the explosion throws the Enterprise back in time and space to repeat events until they change it.
Dialogue in the episode explains that an explosion too close to a temporal phenomenon could have created the causality loop, but if that were the case then the Federation time beacon would have matched the Enterprise's clocks since the Bozeman supposedly would have left the temporal anomaly at the same time.
There are only 3 ways I can think of to explain why the Enterprise would be 17.4 days behind the times:
1. When they avoided the collision, the temporal anomaly got mad and threw them ahead in time 17.4 days;
2. The explosion pushed the Bozeman back inside the anomaly, and the Enterprise back in Space only, but the Enterprise's records and most of the crew's memories were erased, thereby explaining the feelings of Déjà Vu, and everything on the Enterprise went back to the positions they occupied 12 hours earlier and the Bozeman would reemerge 12 or so hours later to collide once again with the Enterprise. So instead of looping through time, they just repeated events over and over for 17.4 days;
3. The explosion created a separate Bubble of Time, that repeated the same 12 or so hours inside, while outside the bubble Normal Time went on it's merry way for 17.4 days.
Of the three explanations the second one answers a number of nits about repeating events being different, since if they were just redoing events they had already done instead of replaying those events, it's only natural that their 'timing' would be off.

If only the writer had just decided to let the crew wonder how many times it had repeated time loop instead of saying they were trapped for 17.4 days, it would have been much easier to explain. (I say we grab the writer, strap him, or her, to a chair, shine a bright light in his eyes and beat him with rubber hoses until he tells us the correct answer.)

Why exactly do the main power systems fail? The Enterprise has encountered time-space distortions before with no problem. Also since main power has failed, is this really the best time to bet your life on a tractor beam functioning properly? Perhaps the tractor beam didn't work properly because it didn't have enough power? Of course if the main power systems have failed, then why is there enough power to blow up the ship? Could the tractor beam's power source have overloaded and caused the explosion?

In the first two blowups it appeared that the left nacelle blew up before the right nacelle, but the third blowup shows the explosion happening between the nacelles.

Is Dr. Crusher working a different shift than Geordi, or did he choose to work overtime running the sensor sweep? If Geordi and Dr. Crusher were working the same shift, shouldn't Geordi be preparing for bed as well?

So was it really strong parking brakes or suction cups on the bottoms of the nacelles that kept the shuttles from being blown out of the shuttle bay? ;-)

If time is supposed to be repeating itself, why are all the commercials different?

"So was it really strong parking brakes or suction cups on the bottoms of the nacelles that kept the shuttles from being blown out of the shuttle bay? ;-)"

If you were an engineer in a shuttlebay, wouldn't you want the shuttlecraft to have good enough parking brakes to withstand explosive decompression? It would seem like a simple standard safety measure.

^ Magnetic clamps, a la First Contact, are also a possibility.

Five times we hear Dr. Crusher claim that "casualty reports are coming in from all over the ship."

Yeah, sure. I can see that.

Ensign Noname : "Ah! The ship is shaking and I broke my leg. Must find communicator and tell the bridge."

Equipment Oddities: If the core ejection system can be knocked off line by the very type of event that would trigger a need for it, what good is it?

Also, how is it that a glancing blow from a passing ship triggered such catastrophic results for the Enterprise-D, when Khan's Reliant (not to be confused with Mantalban's Cordoba) had one of its nacelles shot clean off and blew up only because of the Genesis device?

Maybe Scotty was right when he said, "the more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

Rene, I think that maybe since they lost power (right? They lost power to most systems) that there were hull breaches (caused by collisions) and no emergency forcefields so people would report the deaths of all the people they had just seen in death-causing areas. Maybe (and this is just conjecture, but it makes sense) Crusher transferred medical reports to the panel she was sitting at on the bridge so that she could find out what was happening.

...although I think Scotty was saying "overTHINK the plumbing."

As I understand it, here’s how warp engines are supposed to work: You have a tank of deuterium at one end of the reactor and a tank of anti-deuterium at the other end of the reactor. The matter and anti-matter are brought together in the warp core, where they annihilate each other, producing a high-energy plasma. Dilithium figures into this process somewhere, but I am not sure that there is a canonical source that definitively explains it. Some writers speculate that dilithium is used to align the matter and anti-matter streams as they enter the warp core. Others (including Okuda in the Technical Manual) state that it is used to focus the plasma stream as it leaves the warp core. In any event, the plasma stream is directed to the nacelles, where it powers the warp coils. The warp coils then create a subspace field, which allows the starship to travel faster than light despite relativistic limitations of normal space.
NOTE TO COUNSELOR TROI: A “Containment Breach” occurs when the magnetic seals on the anti-matter tanks fail. The anti-matter comes into contact with surrounding matter and produces an uncontrolled release of energy (See Contagion). In contrast, a “Core Breach” occurs when the high-energy plasma escapes the confines of the reaction chamber. The plasma can incinerate anything it touches, and an uncontrolled release of warp plasma can quickly tear a starship apart from the inside out. In Cause and Effect and Timescape, Geordi says that a core breach is in progress. The destruction of the Enterprise-D in Generations was also due to a core breach, and the destruction of the Odyssey in the DS9 episode The Jem’Hadar probably was too.
Containment breaches are supposed to be fairly uncommon because of all of the backup systems to prevent an uncontrolled release of anti-matter. So why aren’t there multiple backup systems to prevent a core breach? For that matter, how come the Enterprise’s warp-core ejection system always failed at the worst time, while Voyager ejected their warp core almost every year?

Then the TM is wrong. Because when identical particles of matter and anti-matter meet, all they create is a photon with energy equal to their combined mass. No plasma is created.

Well, there's another illusion that's been shattered. I suppose next you're going to tell me that it would be impossible for a transporter to disassemble matter at the sub-atomic level, transport it to another location hundreds of kilometers away, and then re-assemble it in the proper order (without a receiving device).

I believe the 3rd explosion is different from the others.

Yet another GRRRRREAT episode directed by Jonathan Frakes. I was laughing by the time the 3rd explosion occurred and said, "Here we go again!" when Picard started his log. (I'll bet they saved a lot of money with the reused footage too.)

In regards to the tractor beam, a tractor beam can be used to pull objects closer or push them away (repel)....even though I can't figure out why they didn't do it on "The Naked Now"...I think it was just a ploy so Wesley could save the ship in that episode.

Rene noted that Five times we hear Dr. Crusher claim that "casualty reports are coming in from all over the ship."

He added, "Yeah, sure. I can see that."

If I'm not mistaken, a "casualty report" does not always signify an injury. It also suggests that someone has died. Several episodes have stated that life signs can be detected from the Main Bridge. Therefore, when the warp naecelle exploded, the radiation more than likely killed a lot of people in the lower decks, thereby terminating their life signs and then transmitted that information to the Bridge. ("casualty reports are coming in from all over the ship.") I can recall several episodes in TOS & STTNG where a casualty report was given and it did include the personel who had died.

HERE'S ONE:
During the last casualty loop, after Data suggests the tractor beam, Picard orders Worf, "Make it so". Data then looks at Riker's insignia, and realizes informs Picard that the tractor beam idea is wrong & they should open the cargo bay doors instead. Data then does so...HOWEVER, the "tractor beam special effect" SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRESENT during the "exterior shot" because Worf had already pressed the button.

Not only that. It took forever for Data to make the connection and open the shuttle bay doors. By that time, the collision should have happened already.

Not only that, it was DATA...the one with all those quadrillion bits of memory that suggested the tractor beam in the first place. In other words, Riker is smarter than Data (?)

No... Data suggested a course of action which, under normal circumstances, is entirely correct (Picard even agreed with it). This wasn't a normal circumstance... it was the exception, not the rule.

The only way for us to be able to judge their intelligences in regards to this decision is if they were both aware of the impending outcome (which aside from knowing Enterprise would be destroyed, they didn't). Data did the right thing in suggesting the tractor beam (not that Riker did the wrong thing, mind you)... his suggestion was just as intelligent. It just so happens that in this case unforseeable circumstances had a disastrous consequence.

In other words, even if one guy is smarter than another, the less-smart guy can sometimes get the right answer; also, the smart guy can sometimes get the answer to the same question wrong. It happens.

Uh..........................huh?

Finding the correct solution to this situation is no measure of the characters' intelligences.

Andy H.: Equipment Oddities: If the core ejection system can be knocked off line by the very type of event that would trigger a need for it, what good is it?

:: This would be a good place for a fail-safe. The system would not eject the core, but would hold it in place. If the system fails, the core ejects.

The poker game was miscast. Ordinarily, Riker would be working on a straight if Troi, not Crusher, had a pair showing.

The first two times they show Crusher in her quarters, she's in her pink nighties. The third time, she's in her uniform.

I must add that when she went to see Picard, she took time to put on her uniform. Why not just slip on a bathrobe?

Just watched this episode on the DVD set for the first time in years.

Minor nits, although easily explained

Data says "ejector" systems offline once and then "ejection" systems in another loop

Worf reports that the distortion occurred in one loop while Ro did in another. Although Worf may have been in the observation lounge at the time, and the time alteration could have made someone else on the bridge report the anomaly.

Just watched this last night. It made me wonder why, if the tractor beam is an now an effective method of repelling an object, why the same wasn't done in "Galaxy's Child"? I'm sure there's an explanation (plus it's been a while since I saw that ep), but that's, for now, my official nit.

I wondered the same thing.

I must add that when she went to see Picard, she took time to put on her uniform. Why not just slip on a bathrobe?

Well, there's this little thing called military decorum...or, if you don't buy Starfleet as military, just plain professionalism. Are you seriously suggesting the CMO of the Enterprise go wandering the halls in her nightwear?

As for the repel beam discussion...besides noting here that again, we don't see anything being repelled (ie. actively pushed away) in this ep, just held off at a distance...anyhow, please see under the 'Galaxy's Child' thread, Delta, for a full and complete record of same.

Kerriem---You're right. However, it'd been more interesting MY WAY. (Crusher in nightie w/ Picard)

Are you seriously suggesting the CMO of the Enterprise go wandering the halls in her nightwear?

Why not? The Commanding Officer of the Enterprise did so (see All Good Things...(TNG)).

Yeah, but wasn't he supposed to be completely dazed by what had just happened to him? I dunno...besides everything else I just can't see Crusher, herself, doing it. To me, her stopping to put on a uniform is totally in character.

Anyhow, I am sorry if the initial response came off a bit snerky, there - long, long day at work.

PS - John, yeah...it would've definitely been more interesting.

WHAT IF this is how the "17.4 days" loop works:

This anamoly exists in a particular region of space. It has discernible dimensions and parameters (i.e., it has a fixed perimeter). Now, both the Bozeman and the Enterprise, 90 years apart, happen to be in the same area of space. If this area is remote enough, it's conceivable that NO other vessels or objects would enter the anamoly's boundaries between 2278 and 2368.

NOW...as the vessels approach the center of the anamoly, the Bozeman's warp engines create some form of distortion that interacts with the anamoly and for some reason tunnels forward in time--aha! BOTH ships' engines create two distortions that are joined together through some type of "temporal tunnel". There is now a bridge between the two time periods.

Then the collision occurs. Sufficient energy is released that the anamoly is 'reset'; both ships are returned to the points when they entered the anamoly. Not only that, ALL energy and matter--background radiation, time beacons, starlight, etc.--is similarly reset. The participants begin the journey all over again, continuing for 17.4 days until they finally break out.

The main shuttle bay decompression was flawed. In order for the enterprise to move out of the way from the decompression, they would have to remove the air from the entire bay, right?, and that bay is directly in front of the of the bay doors-

Reason 1:
Meaning that the pressure and hence the force of the releasing air would also come from directly in front of the bay doors.

Reason 2:
The releasing air would only be affected buy the angle of the bay doors for a fraction of a second given the time it takes to open them (not data pushing buttons, but the physical opening of the doors) and since there is a heck of a lot of air from the main shuttle bay (see Blueprints for scale idea).

Reason 3:
The only meaningful assistance of the decompression force would be directly aft, given the mass and the initial motion of the enterprise

What should have occured then was:
1-Data recognizes Riker is correct.
2-Initiates decompression
3-Decompression moves Enterprise-D straight ahead
4-The Enterprise, already moving straight ahead (into the Bozeman I might add) now moves straight ahead (AT THE BOZEMAN) at aven a greater velocity, PLOWS into the Bozeman and blows up.

From the shots, it looked like the shuttlebay was on the starboard side of the Enterprise. Therefore, by Newton's third law, the expelled air from the shuttlebay creates a rocket effect, pushing the Enterprise to port.

However, Phil's original point remains. Why not decompress the shuttlebay and use the tractor beams?

Funny thought: With everyone dying & reviving over & over, they got a pretty good idea what Mr. Leslie from Kirk's era went through everyday!

I'd like to nominate this episode's teaser as one of the Top Ten of any series. It got right into the action and you HAD to come back after the commercial to find out what happened!
Those were the longest 5 commericials I had to endure between the teaser and Act 1, back when I first saw this in its original run!

The teaser for Scorpion part I(VOY) would also qualify.

What about Shockwave(ENT), Minefield(ENT) or even The Expanse(ENT)?

just remember that we saw the Expanse teaser or parts of it for a few dozen episodes after too...

Shockwave and The Expanse are not particularly memorable for me because with the former, we didn't get to see the colony up close, and with the latter, we saw it, but it was a lifeless CGI shot that looked way too fake, and devoid of any people or anything.

What about Minefield? Seeing a chunk of Enterprise blowing off was pretty creepy IMO.

Agreed. That's why I didn't mention it in my March 17th response.

The Enterprise's senior staff must have been featured in the recent issue of "Starfleet Poker Weekly"

After avoiding the collison, Data explains the signficance of the 3s. LaForge then comments "You must've picked up a message we sent from the last loop... and stacked the deck in the poker game without realizing it."

First of all, what does that have to do with anything? In the staff meeting that just took place (and that LaForge did attend) it was established that 3s were popping up all over the place and that Data was likely recieving some kind of message sent from a previous loop. That probably would have been a better time for LaForge's poker game comment.

But somewhat more importantly, LaForge wasn't even a part of that poker game. How would he know about it? Maybe Data told him, but Data mentioned that there had been 2,085 occurances of the number 3 and Crusher establishes during the poker game that the deja vu feeling had been happening "throughout the day", so the poker game probably wasn't the first place Data was seeding 3s. What made the poker 3s so important that someone told LaForge about them? And how hard could it have been to have Crusher, Riker, or Worf -- all present at the time and at the poker game -- make the comment instead?

A warrior doesn't concern himself with voices ... a warrior must focus on causality loops and dekyon particles.

Why was Worf not present in the first two staff meetings? I got the impression that these were meetings for the entire senior staff, and that should include the Chief of Security. The agenda of the meeting is decidedly scientific, and perhaps they felt Worf should remain on the bridge just in case. That's fine and all, but why not call Worf in when Crusher reports the strange voices? The first meeting it's more of a curiousity, but we join the second meeting with talk of "auditory anaomlies" and of ten other people hearing them. Bridge presence during charting of the Typhon Expanse can't be so important as to exclude the Chief of Security from that conversation.

Explosive Decompression: Shear today, gone tommorrow

Regardling comments about using the tractor beam and decompression and comments about where the tractor beam visual is in the final scene. Wouldn't explosive decompression cause a somewhat violent movement and cause a lot of shear in the tractor beam? The visuals indicate that the Enterprise sweetly glides out of the way after decompression (another possible nit), but it seems the movement should be much more violent. With main power offline, wouldn't it be difficult to keep the tractor beam stable during an explosive decompression?

Crew evaluatons must be right around the corner ...

I love the line LaForge gives in the final staff meeting: "And I'll have the computer run a pattern-matching algorithm based on the number three."

A "pattern-matching algorithm based on the number 3"?? It's a 3, it's not really all that complex an idea. What kind of pattern are you going to conjure up from the number 3? He could mean that he's going to google the user manual that came with the ship for interesting references to 3s -- of course there would be so many of those it would be a futile search and Data probably has done something similiar already anyway.

"During the fourth loop in Act 5, when Crusher examines Geordi with the optical scanner, she warns him that the pulse might be a bit bright. Wouldn’t that be like warning Marlee Matlin that a song you’re about to play is very loud?"

No, since Geordi reacts; obviously what it means is that it will cause a very "bright" stimulus to be seen through his VISOR.

Doesn't his VISOR filter stimuli so as to not be overwhelming to him?

So, how many shuttlebay technicians were killed when they opened the bay to space with no warning?

Or maybe no one is ever on duty in the shuttle bay. That would explain why people can steal shuttles, and the bridge only finds out an unauthorized shuttle is being launched when it's too late to do anything about it. (See Dejá Q, Coming of Age.)

Hmmm...SIDESHOW BOB is the Captain of the Bozeman! Naw! Same voice / actor

Nope, John, it's Frasier Crane!

"I'm Captain Bateson, and I'm listening!"

OOPS! Well...Sideshow Bob was on the Bozeman anyway.

No he wasn't, the actor that voices Sideshow Bob also played the Bozemen captain. I thought you people didn't deal in realility?

This episode was directed by the actor that plays Commander William T Riker.

blue{By Mr Crusher on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 03:51 pm:


This episode was directed by the actor that plays Commander William T Riker.
}

This post wasn't made by mrcrusher... Someone's apparently using his name... Who would want to pretend to be Boy-Genious?

I made that post. What is your deal?

I thought it was someone else... because it was typed MrCrusher, not mrcrusher... how uncharacteristic of you to put caps on your name...

not really, i sign both ways all the time.

actually, both would indicate 2.

all caps, first letters, and lower case is 3...

therefore... you don't sign your name both ways all the time.

Hey, this is a nitpicker site is it not?

well ive never seen anything in the nitpicker rules that says you have to sign the exact same way every time.

Um, guys, could we get back on topic, please?

Is not the topic cause and effect? Mr.Crusher makes a nit, I believe it is my duty to nitpick this nit, leading him to attempt to antinitpick his nit...

Cause and Effect...

oh, you mean about Star Trek...

was there any explanation on how they could actually send a message to themselves?

it was some techno mumbo jumbo as usual.

>>>By Ryan on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 6:34 pm:
I love the line LaForge gives in the final staff meeting: "And I'll have the computer run a pattern-matching algorithm based on the number three."

A "pattern-matching algorithm based on the number 3"?? It's a 3, it's not really all that complex an idea. What kind of pattern are you going to conjure up from the number 3? He could mean that he's going to google the user manual that came with the ship for interesting references to 3s -- of course there would be so many of those it would be a futile search and Data probably has done something similiar already anyway.<<<

I can see that coversation;

Geordi; Hey! We have three shuttle bays, three torpedo tubes and 42 decks, which is a multiple of 3....

NANJAO

1. Regarding Dr. Crusher putting on a uniform to meet with the captain, well she did leave the pink ribbon in her hair.


2. I wonder if the weapons worked. Could they have just blown up the Bozeman? It was afterall threatening the safety of the Enterprise. Granted, not by willful malace, but it was a danger.

Given how close the ship was that could have caused more problems than it would have solved. An anti-mater explosion right in front of the ship.

NANJAO: I'm not sure if this was addressed before, but Troi's "We have to get out of here now" line was yet another blatant example of her character always stating the blindingly obvious. I just didn't think the writers would still have her be doing that as late as the fifth season!

And Picard's reaction to her saying that? I though it was pretty funny! It was like "Duh! I knew that!" Ha ha!

If you have "Surround Sound" like I do, you can hear the metal of the warp nacelles scraping each other as they collide. It's VERY COOL

How about that? The Typhon Expanse has sound in space!

TNG on DVD w/surround does reveal a pretty sweet sound design and mix for the whole series.

I can only imagine what STTNG would look & sound like if Paramount puts STTNG on HDTV / BLU-RAY

Marina Sirtis / Deanna Troi would be blinding

Sorry to tell you this, but HD DVD died a quick, agonizing death. Blu-Ray won that war!

Just like, back in the '80s, VHS totally destroyed Betamax. See what I mean?

Just like when cassette tapes came out, those crappy eight-track tapes were no more!

I like this kind of thing, discussing obsolete technology and what replaced them. It's cool!

How about that? The Typhon Expanse has sound in space!

Well, the laws of physics are different in The Expanse. Oh wait, wrong expanse.

John, it wouldn't look any different. It was filmed in SD.

Andre, he said HDTV (High Definition Television) not HD-DVD the High Def DVD format that lost the war to Blu-Ray.

ScottN - Sort of. It was filmed on 35mm film, that would look great if rescanned at HD resolution; as evidenced when they went back and did just that for Enterprise's "These are the Voyages" & whatever you think of that ep, it LOOKED great in HD. The problem is that TNG was mastered and finished on SD video. Basically they took the raw 35mm film negatives, transferred them to SD video; did all of the special effects work, editing & mastering in SD video. The problem wouldn't be that big if they didn't use lots of visual effects. They could just go back and match the film negatives to the completed audio tracks. The problem is that since there was so much visual effects in the show that would require them to either redo all of the VFX shots or cut lower-resolution VFS shots into 35mm quality HD footage, sort of like when Babylon 5 had to do when they went widescreen.

The thing was they knew they were doing it. I remember reading about it in the 90s in "The Making of Star Trek" where they discuss how film has been around for 100ish years, mastering your stuff on film is a pretty safe bet. On the other hand mastering your stuff on some video format that may look fine on today's TVs could look obsolete in 20 years time. They knew it, but what were they to do? They wanted to do things on par with the Star Trek movies on a fraction of the budget in a fraction of the time. That's what you do; you use the tools available to you at the moment and hope that in the future your story and acting will be seen as good enough to overcome how cheap and old fashioned your production values may end up looking.

Thanks, Brian. That's what I meant.

Sorry about that, I should have read your message more carefully!

Kudos to Kelsey Grammer for the excellent guest role! He had hair and a beard, so he looked cool!

Other than that, this was one of BB's particularly mediocre episodes. "Frame Of Mind" and "Timescape" were better!

I was just watching this episode and got so excited when I found a nit: the temporal rift always interrupts the staff meeting, but in the first two loops the staff meeting is at 0700, and in the last two it is earlier in the morning.

Then I checked here and found that Luigi posted it almost ten years ago, haha.

Even if Data sending a message to himself had not worked, the temporal loop would not have lasted much longer. Every time they went through it, the déjà-vu impressions got stronger and stronger. Eventually, enseign Ro would have known she needed to back off before Picard ordered it, or Worf would have known they were about to detect the time distortion, or something like that, and they would have avoided the collision with the Bozeman that way.

During the final loop we see Picard reading a book. He becomes puzzled as the déjà-vu effect makes him feel he has already read it. He then quickly rifles through the whole book, getting the same impression everywhere he looked, even the very end. However, even before the loop started he could not have read much beyond the point where the déjà-vu kicked in, most of the book should not have looked so familiar to him.

Here's a behind the scenes look at how this episode (which premiered 30 years ago this week) came to be.

Fascinating.

Ah, yes, the confusing opening of Act 1, where it seemed like my local Fox affiliate, WUTV CHannel 29 in Buffalo, had messed up and was now playing a different episode.
The article is right-- Frakes did a very good job of repeating the same scenes, but still drawing in the viewer to get answers to our questions of what the heck was happening, by making them look slightly different.
Definitely in my own Top 10 TNG episodes, too.

The 90's, when Star Trek ruled and Doctor Who was just a well remembered cult show. I miss those days (and I can hear Emily screaming "BURN THE BLASPHEMER!" as I type this).

Still they could have dialed back on the technobabble a bit. Why the fancy "Temporal Causality Loop" when just plain old "Time loop" would have sufficed.