A Look at Time's Arrow (TNG)
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- Опубликовано: 21 июн 2024
- Opinionated Next Gen Episode Guide heads back to the end of the fifth season to look at a twenty-fourth century story that leads to the nineteenth century - make sure to take your jet lag pills. This time travel story begins the way you now doubt expected, finding your own severed head.
"LOOK OUT! MARK TWAINS GOT A GUN!"
- Lt Cmdr Billips, lacking oxygen
Fun fact: Hal Holbrook who originated the Twain performance that Jerry Hardin used...played Deepthroat in All The President's Men.
Also, both men appear in the underappreciated classic The Firm, starring Tom Cruise.
_The Deep Throat Connection._
If I had a nickel for every time an actor who played Mark Twain also played Deep Throat and were also both in The Firm with Tom Cruise, I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened twice
Twain's voice and inflections were legendary and people imitated it for ages. Then Hal Holbrook did his show for 60 years.
21:30 Tesla in the background looking like he's about to steal Mark Twain's soul.
I like how they just blatantly violated the Prime Directive AND contaminated their own timeline at the same time by giving Mark Twain a grand tour of a starship.
But who would believe Mark Twain? :)
Predestination paradox. Already cleared and approved by Temporal Investigations, and whoever Captain Braxton worked, works, and will work for.
I have up keeping my tenses straight years from now.
@@MKDumas1981same reason why no one stopped Admiral Janeway.
Braxton: "If I have to deal with Captain Insaneway - excuse me, _Admiral_ Insaneway, I'll just transport myself back to the late Twentieth Century. Even those post-industrial barbarians had a better grasp on reality than Katie O'Claire."
Braxton would go on to finally lose it and take out his frustrations by forcing Johnathan Archer to randomly travel or "leap" if you will through time.
It just popped into my head: There actually was a catastrophic disease outbreak in San Francisco starting around 1900. Only it wasn't cholera: it was the Bubonic Plague. It started among Chinese immigrants and spread throughout the city by rats. Attempts were made to quarantine and research the outbreak, but these were hampered by self-serving politicians and the general anti-Asian racism of the time. Ultimately what largely stopped the outbreak from growing into a national pandemic was, kind of ironically, the Great Earthquake of 1906, because sometimes you need a city destroying disaster to stop a city destroying disaster.
Not sure if that's what the writers were referencing here; the fact that there was a Medieval plague in San Francisco has only largely come to public light fairly recently. But it's possible, and the writing team just got the disease wrong because cholera is more strongly associated with the 19th Century than the Bubonic freaking Plague.
Probably if they'd say it was the plague too many people would think that's a silly thing and what were the writers thinking since reality can be stranger than fiction...
When using your time dilator actually causes a temporal cortex, causing a massive earthquake, that ironically, eradicated the reason you tried to hit those coordinates because “the great death” wipes out almost half the world in your reality.
Now, you’re stuck in a past that has spiralled off, from your own perspective, from the main timeline. Everything is now a butterfly effect.
For us. It’s history.
@@ThePiachu And as silly as it sounds, I remember hearing about more recent, but smaller, bubonic plague outbreaks in the last couple of decades.
True about the San Francisci Bubonic Plague outbreak. But the year 1900 was also near the start of the 6th global cholera pandemic. Cholera originated in the subcontinent India and only arrived in the Western hemisphere in the early 19th century via port cities, first reaching London in 1830 and the USA (via Quebec, Canada) in 1832. Early outbreaks in the Indian subcontinent are believed to have been the result of crowded, poor living conditions, as well as the presence of pools of still water, both of which provide ideal conditions for cholera to thrive. Seven global cholera pandemics have occurred since the early 19th century; the first one did not reach the Americas.
- The first cholera pandemic occurred in the Bengal region of India, near Calcutta (now Kolkata), starting in 1817 through 1824. The disease dispersed from India to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Eastern Africa through trade routes. The disease first spread by travelers along trade routes (land and sea) to Russia in 1817, later to the rest of Europe, and from Europe to North America and the rest of the world (hence the name "Asiatic cholera").
- The second pandemic lasted from 1826 to 1837 and particularly affected North America and Europe, due to the result of advancements in transportation and global trade, and increased human migration, including soldiers.
- The third pandemic erupted in 1846, persisted until 1860, extended to North Africa, and reached South America, for the first time specifically affecting Brazil.
- The fourth pandemic lasted from 1863 to 1875, and spread from India to Naples and Spain, and to the United States in 1873.
- The fifth pandemic was from 1881 to 1896 and started in India and spread to Europe, Asia, and South America. Spanish physician Jaume Ferran i Clua developed the first successful cholera inoculation in 1885, the first to immunize humans against a bacterial disease; out of the 30 thousand people he vaccinated only 54 died. The Russian-Jewish bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine also developed a human cholera vaccine in July 1892. He conducted a massive inoculation program in British India. Persons who survive an episode of cholera (which if untreated has a mortality rate of 50-60%) have long-lasting immunity for at least 3 years. In the 21st century, a number of safe and effective oral vaccines for cholera are available, as well as one injectable vaccine.
- The sixth pandemic started in India and lasted from 1899 to 1923. These later epidemics were less fatal due to a greater understanding of the cholera bacteria.
- The seventh pandemic originated in Indonesia in 1961 and is marked by the emergence of a new strain, nicknamed El Tor, which still persists (as of 2018) in developing countries. A cholera outbreak started in Yemen (in nthe south of the Arabian peninsula) in 2016 and is still ongoing due to the civil war in Yemen (which started in 2015), the wide-spread poverty in Yemen and lack of access to clean drinking water... or water in general, as ground water is the main source of water in Yemen but the ground water table has dropped dramatically from 30m to 1200m, beyond the reach of normal wells, from massive overuse due to lack of government regulations, and the war destroyed most civic infrastructure.
@@HilaryPea Yes, various types of bubonic plague and pneumonic plague (of the lungs) are still around, esp in developing countries in Africa and Asia where access to the suitable antibiotics is scarce. Although the virus strain that was responsible for the medieval Bubonic Plague no longer seems to be around, thankfully, according to genetic sequencing done on virus particles found in mummified remains of medieval plague victims.
The medieval strain, from historical accounts, had rapid onset and could kill within days or in some cases a few hours, as some victims allegedly got up in the morning feeling fine, but then the swellings of the lymph notes (buboes) appeared and the black spots on the skin and the victim died of massive sepsis before the day was over.
Historical accounts mention both the bubonic symptoms but also pneumonic symptoms, so either it was a virus strain that affected multiple body systems or multiple strains that affected victims at the same time. Not uncommon if the virus was a new mutations and rapidly mutating, as we've seen recently with Covid-19.
Guinan used connections to get them on the base, she mentions it in a toss-away-line.
That Cosby impression just roofied me.
It sounds like an impression not of Cosby but of Cosby doing an impression. Specifically the drugged out bum from the bus station announcer sketch.
You’ll forget all about it.
"Did someone do an iconic Twain?" Yes. Samuel Clemens. And there are indeed surviving recordings.
The Mark Twain voice was gratingly strident. And you brought up very good points regarding the alien villains.
But I've always liked this episode. And I have a soft-spot for the reading of Midsummer Night's Dream. Especially with Data reading Puck's lines, when Brent Spiner voiced Puck in Gargoyles. And Mrs. Carmichael's giggle is adorable.
If you stuck a Devidian in a tree, would they be a Branch Devidian?
Wow... The weird nostalgia you just gave me is....
Well weird
I hope that I'm not the only one who noticed that the Data's head prop looked a bit off. It's likely due to the materials they were using at the time, but it still gave my much younger self the creeps.... 😳
Time's Arrow was the first episode of Star Trek that I saw in full.
I had seen random clips before while skimming through the overnight recordings on the VHS looking for what I had recorded.
Oddly, given how Australian network TV of the time treated science fiction, it was being aired in prime time rather then at random oclock overnight.
_Mmrmrmm, Ya! Woh! Ha!_
The Devidians show up again in Star Trek Online and they are a pain to bother with.
They also like to hang out on Drozana Station for some reason.
Wow you dropped this just a couple of hours after they played the episode on Pluto TV. Don't think I ever watched an episode and then one of your reviews in the same day
That only happened to me once as well. ^_^
I like this two part story though the criticism is mostly valid.. I think of it as one of the “comfort food” episodes of ST:TNG fun and light.
Great review. All your criticisms are completely valid, but this is still one of my favorite TNG episodes to throw on while I'm doing something. It's just such a fun episode, carried entirely by the competency of the cast. I also enjoy the Mark Twain impression as campy as it is.
21:45 there's actually this really neat comic book called The Five Fists of Science inspired by that event.
Twain and Tesla have a giant robot and they fight Cthulhu.
That concept sounds like it could be either the silliest thing or the most awesome.
@@TF2CrunchyFrogIt's both.
Damn... I knew you got fisted if you trusted the science but 5...
Wow
Yea Guinan, you may never meet. Unless it’s in your bar or whatever in 2024….
Now now, let's not bring fanfic into this.
That's not their first meeting, from any perspective.
11 years later I can safely say, yes there is a version of Mark Twain that most go for. And that is from the one hander, "Mark Twain Tonight!" as perfected by Hal Holbook. By the time of Time's Arrow's airing, it had been on the air for a quarter century, and would take a decade more for it to be on home media. Why take that long? VHS was available, but still kind of expensive compared to DVD.
28:04 - Billups: "Mark Twain's got a gun!"
I say I did understand that reference, sir!
Federation has a firm "no vampires" rule.
This is my first viewing of your channel. Early on, your observations made me think of MST3K (surely a fine compliment), and then you go and mention them! I didn't catch all your references, but I especially appreciated the allusion to the Golem.
In a previous episode, I think it might be season three somebody asked why Guinan and Picard are so close and Gan said I don’t know. Old man was nice to me once long ago.
"Booby Trap". Geordi talking to Guinan about romance. She says she's attracted to bald men because a bald man was kind to her once, when she was hurting.
I had a similar experience worth redheads.
Why does Crusher's outfit include a pair of glasses? Dr. Crusher doesn't need glasses, and it's not like it's meant to disguise their appearance - no one in this time period knows who Beverly Crusher is.
It's because everyone knows that smart people like nurses wear glasses...
@@KingoftheJuice18except Dr. Crusher is the least intelligent doctor in star fleet... So perhaps the glasses were a last resort to be taken serious in a time where people were more competent
That was weird: YT removed an entire sentence from my comment and posted it anyway rather than deleting it. Is that new.
I pointed out that Crusher at least is better than phlox with the idea of keeping species alive at least and used a word that began with G. Seriously is this a new algorithm?
@@daviddiggens8841 Wait, don't tell me-and Janeway is the worst captain in Star Fleet (or maybe Burnham) 🤣
I saw this as a kid, and I loved it.
The overlap of "Knows about Football in the 1990s" and "Watches reviews of old sci-fi for entertainment" feels like it should be pretty small, but here I am getting a Joe Montana joke in 2024.
Sometimes I like to think everyones life is just the universe trying to experience itself through us. All of our experiences now matter how exciting or mundane is still a unique experience and therefore important to the universes collective consciousness.
Wonder why the writers decided to set Time's Arrow after Twain wrote A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It would have been another neat little nod if his experiences on the Enterprise inspired him to write his own time travel story.
(3:25) A simple (somewhat exaggerated) nod of acknowledgement from Picard would have been sufficient. But, no... We get... "Type ARRR!!!" 😬
This episode has uncredited writing from Hideo Kojima.
Always bothered me since the episode first aired. Like Picard knows the difference between those components.
@@MKDumas1981 Did you say nerd?
@@MKDumas1981I guess since it was his least convoluted and best written story to date he didn't want the credit
@@daviddiggens8841: I heard he also wrote for "Evolution" and "The Best of Both Worlds, pt I".
Haven't seen this one in a long time. There are many episodes of TNG i rewatch every couple of years, but these aren't among them, despite me liking it when i first saw it. I guess it was the way the alien menace was handled.
The alien "nurse" simply stating that there's nothing the Enterprise could do to help them looks like a cheap way to say their violent solution was right - even though Riker and the others didn't know this. Yes, we were unable to find a solution with our limited ressources, so i'm sure this Federation with it's different - and in many fields except time travel advanced tech and knowledge - will be unable to help us.
3:34 It's weird seeing a clear shot of the uniforms from the back.
A convaluted plot that would have been sorted immediately if they had just plugged in the head they found on Data's body and asked it what happened.
This episode is a little bit ridiculous, but also fun, and good.
Mark Twain being that ridiculous caricature was pretty normal back then.
EDIT: This episode is definitely one for the antics, and not so much for the villains.
Ironically, I think it's STILL better than a lot of the recent series, which makes me sad.
I think this episode might have been child me's introduction to Mark Twain, so maybe that's why I don't dislike the portrayal as much as others seem to. Plus of course child me thought randomly finding Data's head in an old mine shaft was the coolest thing ever, so my ability to critique this episode may be colored by nostalgia. :D
I have a theory that every William Shatner impression is based on Kevin Pollack's William Shatner impression which was actually about how Shatner, at least when he plays Kirk always seems to.....pause in the middle of sentences.
Was he the first guy to do it? I know his is probably the best known.
Good thing the people checking out the cave new who Data was.
Guinan accepting time travel doesn't bother me all that much. She's lived a long life and TNG implies she's more than the average space traveler beyond just a longer life.
Though if that's the angle they wanted to take for her not reacting with surprise to the concept, then she'd have needed to play a bit more coy over whether this is her first brush with time travel or if she's things just as weird.
Data's pimp hand is strong
37:36 - The late Gilbert Gottfried takes umbrage with that statement.
Hal Holbrook did a one man play where he played Mark Twain for 60 years in a row. He was very famous for it. I doubt he was cribbing the voice off of other actors who played the role.
the Kansas City Chief gag has a whole different meaning these days.
I'm so sad they used the Devidians in the recent book trilogy to bring to a close the decades-long continuity they had developed. I enjoyed it until near the end when Spock brought up his memory of his half-sister (after having never mentioning her before) battling an AI bent on destroying everything. 😕
They also show up in Star Trek Online in case you wanted to blast them with some phaser fire.
Yeah it was an unfortunate ending to what was a really good expanded universe.
Since when have Trek novels been "canon"?
They've always been explicitly NON-Canon!
It's not like Star Wars where Lucas actually signed off on and made requirements of the writers of Legends Continuity!
Or Doctor Who where the Virgin New Adventures, Missing Adventures and later BBC New Adventures featuring Paul McGann's Doctor actually tried to maintain a consistent Canon until Russell T. decided to ignore them and most of Classic Who along with them!
Star Trek on the other hand is known for the various novels being completely contradictory and absolutely NOT Canon!
@franohmsford7548 Who said anything about them being canon? They were simply a very enjoyable alternative continuity that was in real life forced by the higher-ups to change course, in fact, literally destroyed in-universe, to conform to the new shows. If you had been following it for the last few decades, it was really emotional. So, please politely take your ignorance and go elsewhere. 🙄
@@CybershamanX Apart from the latter seasons of Discovery {I gave up on that about a 3rd to half the way through season 3} I've watched every single live action episode of Star Trek along with all the films.
The only novel I ever read was Vonda McIntyre's "Enterprise" written in 1986 but I wouldn't have read it till at least 94 after her Star Wars novel "The Crystal Star" came out.
I enjoyed that novel first time round but was put off buying any more Trek novels because they were explicitly NON-CANON!
-
It's got nothing to do with the "new shows" or any of the constant ret-conning post 2008!
Trek novels have always been explicitly non-canon so why bring them up?
One aspect I found lacking is the fish out of water trope with time travel. With Picard rather comfortably conning Mrs. Carmichael. Or Crusher easily taking a submissive role with the Doctor. Heck Geordie needing to walk around public with a cane.
I think these are good episodes. And it led to one of the best but creepiest episodes of Srat Trek Online. It's really good
Maybe they thought Data was East European (i.e. Slavic).
Part one was a good start, plenty of potential. But the second part was a let down.
So stick to the impression done in 'The Adventures of Mark Twain', gotcha.
Twain sounding like the Penguin got me.
only one nite... saying monologues aren't how people speak...
+laughs in used to work for the army+
Was there actually a controversy about that 5/10? Because it seems very fair to me.
The episode that proves Star Trek: Picard couldn’t happen. Guinan somehow aging backwards then forward again, no alien biology is going to square that circle.
Star Trek Picard is Picard's fever dream as he lays dying in his vineyard from his bad brain syndrome and no one can convince me otherwise.
@@zephyr8072 agreed, or he got blown up by Romulans in episode 1 and the rest was a trip through hell by Q.
16:49 missed opportunity for a D.O.C. reference
24:51 please do a whole episode in this voice 🥺
So did Picard season 2 ever explain why Guinean went from Guinean in the late 19th century to another woman in the 2020’s to than Guinean again?
They had to retcon that to cover up the fact that they retconned the fact that Guinean met Picard nearly 2 centuries earlier and that she shouldn't have been confused about who he is
It's because Whoopi got old and portly
Wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff.
Who DIDN'T get face-lift in the 90s
That future never happened because Picard came from the dystopia future. The TNG Guinan, not to mention that entire reality, did not exist. Picard and crew were the only constant, everything else got Q'd.
Oh dear. Gainan and Data made Mark Twain come out of the closet.
PERHAPS TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO D...oh ice cream!
What? Is that a Joe Biden quote?
-Did you say the staff is called an "effidian"? I can't get the spelling correct to Google it. And the captioning is getting the spelling nowhere close to accurate.
-"I like this, the fact that they have to come face-to-face ... with a demonstration of Data's mortality." It's alway nice to see you no-so-subtly acknowledge things like inside jokes or puns (intended or not) without actually having to elaborate. It's the little things that bring a smile and make us come up with our own funny verbal acknowledgements, instead. As usual, sometimes less is better.
-"Hey, make her dress disappear!" Hahahahaha!
-LMAO at Pimpin' Data!
-"Pulling anals beads out of a sheep." OMG, I am dying here!
-Damn Gramma, always ruining everything, including Free Ice Cream Day!
-Not "... Dying in terror and presumably no ice cream ...", instead "... Dying in terror from lack of ice cream ...". Get it right next time!
-Twain couldn't be any more American if he had an Uncle Sam hat with a feather in it named Macaroni.
-Your acid Farewell of Twain was wonderfully acidic!
-Guinan is an alien herself, visiting Earth for awhile. And, since she has otherworldly knowledge and wisdom, she could accept Data as not being human. It wouldn't take much to convince her, if he had to. Just open up a panel on his arm for her to see his circuitry and wiring. If she needed to believe it from the rest of his human/humanoid crewmates, I could understand she would/should be appropriately skeptical of such claims. Dyson was skeptical to believe Sarah Conner's claims, but he had no choice but to believe the Terminator's claims after skin was peeled back from an arm. There could be no doubt for a space-faring Guinan where Data is concerned.
-And I agree that the writers could have skipped Mrs. Carmichael's arc, and instead, say why the hell the aliens were killing off human's for their soul energies. It's sad they all had to die. The fact that they were going after already sick homeless meant that they were trying to be merciful about it. People who were already in pain and dying. This meant that they might have been willing and eager to help the Enterprise crew find an alternative. They couldn't find an alternative, it doesn't mean that somebody else (like Data and his high intelligence) couldn't. I get that bad guys have to die or be incarcerated for a feel good storyline. But, the merciful deaths, and the fact that the aliens were weak and dying themselves. Then the fact that their reasons were never explained it is more bitter than sweet. Like they weren't given a chance to explain one character or redemption plot. It leave an empty feeling and too many strings untied at the end of the episode. And using genecide to stop them felt very unnecesary for something they were forced to do to survive. Yes, they killed, but in a circle of life kinda way. They still could have had a relieving solution at the end.
Frankly a 5 out of 10 is being very generous.
That mark Twain makeup is so bad!
I think they know Gainan well enough to know she’s seen almost everything. What’s weirder: a godlike entity or a predestination paradox.
Yes.
Gainan is a one-woman Dragon Break, every possible version of herself exists at once, even if they totally conflict with each other.
@@mikegates8993: Don't give the writers of Picard season 2 a pass!
29:19 - Wereworf.
The definitive shatner impression is from family guy
Has anyone ever fact-checked Twain's speech about Alfred Russel Wallace? I had always known of Wallace as the co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection. Was he ever quoted as "reaffirming" any creationist beliefs?
Wallace did theorise that life was confined to Earth in a paper replying to those claiming the canals spotted allegedly on Mars were signs of an advanced Martian civilisation.
@@jonathancurran5366 cool, thanks!
Strangest episode of NewWho ever. But it holds my heart by finally revealing Riker as a genocidal villain
So Lore is Left Brained and Data is Right Brained
Type R?
If Lore is Left Brain and Data is Right Brain, does that mean that Soong is Maximillion Cortex?
You rated it too high.