Time Squared (TNG episode)

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Star Trek: TNG episode
"Time Squared"
"The second Picard about to enter the Mobius in Time Squared".
Episode no.
Prod. code	139
Airdate	April 3, 1989
Writer(s)	Kurt Michael Bensmiller
Director	Joseph L. Scanlan
Year	2365
Stardate	42679.2
Episode chronology
Previous	"The Royale"
Next	"The Icarus Factor"

"Time Squared" is the 39th episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise encounter a double of Captain Picard from the future.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The episode starts out as a simple flight through space until sensors pick up a shuttlecraft twirling in space with no power or fuel reserves. When Geordi and Riker use a tractor beam to pick it up, they are confused to find this shuttle is exactly the same as an already existing shuttle in the cargo bay.

They open it to find the passenger is a double of Captain Picard. The double appears to be in a state of severe trauma and is not aware of anything around him. It is then discovered that the double's shuttlecraft's internal clock is about six hours ahead of the ship's chronometer meaning the double is from six hours into the future.

Geordi and Data inspect the shuttlecraft and attempt to transfer power into it to find sensor logs. Using reverse polarities that normally wouldn't work, they recover a very poor quality sensor log video that shows the Enterprise approaching a strange anomaly and being destroyed.

As the crew members talk about what they need to do to avoid their destined destruction, they decide simply to wait for whatever happens to happen. They encounter the anomaly but are unable to move away and only become drawn in further. They send out a probe which explodes upon entering the anomaly. Force beams emanating from the anomaly seem to concentrate on the present Picard, leading him to understand that the future Picard had left the ship to draw its fire, an unsuccessful maneuver.

At this point Picard's double, now almost completely aware and coherent, sets out to escape the Enterprise as he had done before. The present Picard follows him and attempts to learn what the alternative solution is to escaping the Enterprise. The double only mumbles about how impossible the solution is. The present Picard stops the double by firing at him with a phaser. It is not established whether he is dead or merely stunned.

The present Picard returns to the bridge and orders the crew to stop trying to escape. Turning round, the Enterprise flies straight into the heart of the anomaly; after a short journey through bizarre displays of color it returns to its previous location. Apparently the warp core of the future "Enterprise" had (or would have) overloaded through the strain of resisting the anomaly. The doubles of Picard and the shuttlecraft disappear. The "Enterprise" is back on course.

[edit] Trivia

In the opening scene when Dr. Pulaski arrives bearing Ale from Enin VI, she says to Riker "Your omelets deserve no less", but he proceeds to make scrambled eggs.

The shuttlepod "El-Baz" (pictured above) is named for Egyptian born geologist and engineer Farouk El-Baz.

An earlier version of the script featured Q as the entity causing the time loop, and would have led into Q Who?.

Lieutenant Worf (and Geordi La Forge) speak the following lines, which were used in the Orbital songs "The Moebius" and "Time Becomes":

"There is the theory of the moebius. A twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop, from which there is no escape." [and] "When we reach that point, whatever happened will happen again."