A Star Trek: The Next Generation time travel episode originally had a Q storyline that explained the strange events of the episode.
Summary
- Without Q’s involvement, Time Squared lacks logical explanation, leaving viewers baffled by the unexplained events.
- Time travel in this Star Trek episode works unlike any other, deviating from traditional Trek time-travel norms.
- Gene Roddenberry removed Q from the episode due to a preference for standalone stories, disrupting planned serialized elements.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry broke this time travel episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation by removing a Q (John de Lancie) storyline that would have explained everything. Following the adventures of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D, TNG struggled in its first two seasons, before eventually becoming one of the greatest sci-fi television shows of all time. One of the most successful elements introduced in early TNG was the character of Q, whose nearly limitless powers allowed the show’s writers to experiment with genre.
After being introduced in the series premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Q became a thorn in the side of Captain Picard as he developed a certain fondness for annoying the Enterprise captain. Q appeared in about one episode in every season of TNG, but Gene Roddenberry originally wanted more Q episodes. Still, Q became one of Star Trek’s best recurring characters, and the powerful trickster continues to have a presence in modern Trek. Q often messed with time, and TNG season 2, episode 13, “Time Squared” was originally meant to be a lead-in to a more substantial Q storyline involving time travel.
Roddenberry Removed Q From Star Trek: TNG “Time Squared” & Broke The Episode
The events of “Time Squared” make little sense without Q’s intervention.
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Time Squared” begins with a great hook, as the USS Enterprise-D encounters a shuttle carrying a duplicate Captain Picard. As the original Picard and his crew work to unravel this mystery, they discover that the shuttle is actually from six hours into the future. As the Enterprise continues on its course, the ship soon gets trapped within an unexplained vortex. In the end, the original Picard flies the Enterprise straight through the vortex, but there is no explanation given for why this plan is successful, or why the future Picard showed up in the first place.
Without Q manipulating things, the events of “Time Squared” have no logical explanation.
As it stands, “Time Squared” makes no sense, but the original storyline had Q as the mastermind behind the events of the episode. Initially, “Time Squared” was meant to lead into the excellent Q episode, “Q Who,” a few episodes later. That episode would have contained a scene in which Picard suddenly found himself on a shuttle reliving the events of “Time Squared” from a different perspective. Then Q would have appeared, explaining that he was the one behind the strange events of “Time Squared,” as well as a few other odd occurrences on the Enterprise. Without Q manipulating things, the events of “Time Squared” have no logical explanation.
It’s unclear why Gene Roddenberry nixed this idea, although it could be because he did not want any serialized elements connecting multiple TNG episodes. Roddenberry preferred every episode to be separate, with the end of each story returning everything to the status quo.
Why Time Travel In Star Trek: TNG “Time Squared” Makes No Sense
The time travel works differently than any other Star Trek story.
Although Captain Picard references previous instances of time travel in Star Trek (including the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’s slingshot effect), the time travel in “Time Squared” is unlike any other instance of Star Trek time travel. When the future Picard is first brought to the Enterprise, he is unconscious, and Dr. Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) says that his brain waves are “out of phase.” When she later tries to revive him, the stimulant has the opposite effect. When examining the shuttle, Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) and Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) also have to do the opposite of what they normally would to power the shuttle.
Before flying the Enterprise into the vortex, the original Picard kills his future counterpart, in a moment that feels very out of character for the normally non-violent Captain.
When the future Picard does regain consciousness, he is disoriented and unable to reveal anything about the events that led him to be in a shuttle alone. He only knows that he needs to leave the Enterprise. Several Star Trek characters have traveled in time before and even encountered different versions of themselves, but it never happened the way it does in “Time Squared.” After the Enterprise flies through the vortex, both the future Picard and his shuttle simply vanish into thin air. The presence of Q could have explained all of this, but “Time Squared” does not even offer a technobabble explanation, making it a very perplexing episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
