Time Squared by: Maurice Hurley from a story by: Kurt Michael Bensmiller and directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan

 

“Time Squared” is written by: Maurice Hurley, from a story by: Kurt Michael Bensmiller, and is directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan.  It was produced under production code 139, was the 13^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 39^th episode overall, and was broadcast on April 3, 1989.

 

Maurice Hurley as showrunner of Season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation may have been partially responsible for the behind the scenes trouble in the show at the end of the first season and throughout the second.  He was responsible for the firing of Gates McFadden after she spoke up about issues with her character of Dr. Crusher.  He was often in conflict with the rest of the writing team in terms of script and overall arc direction and in conflict with the cast in terms of character development.  He had a handful of scripts in the first season: “Hide and Q” cowritten with Gene Roddenberry was a bad start but then again so is a lot with Roddenberry, a story credit for “Datalore” which was a standout of the first season (and “The Arsenal of Freedom” which was not, and “Heart of Glory” and “11001001” were great and good, respectively.  His record is decidedly mixed.  He opened the second season with “The Child”, one of the worst episodes of the show thus far and one that was incredibly sexist.  Hurley would have writing credit on three other episodes in the second season before leaving the show all together, being replaced as showrunner first by Michael Wagner for four episodes and then Michael Piller.  “Time Squared” gives story credit to Kurt Michael Bensmiller who had pitched multiple episodes to the team, but once again Hurley seems to have taken control of scripting and essentially making it an original script as he had done with “The Child” as the season opener.

 

Unfortunately, “Time Squared” is a stronger script from Hurley, understanding how to plot and execute a science fiction concept with an internal character conflict at the center of its narrative.  The episode is a slow burn from a shuttlecraft appearing that came from the Enterprise drifting through space, to the reveal that inside the shuttlecraft is a grievously injured Captain Picard.  This is just the pre-credits sequence, but it’s quite the tense sequence that is effective at teasing what is coming in the episode.  The actual premise is that the shuttlecraft is from six hours in the future, it’s come back in time as part of a time loop and Picard is the only survivor of the Enterprise.  Future Picard doesn’t actually get to have much to do, he spends much of the episode in a coma with Dr. Pulaski’s attempts to revive him having limited success.  When he does revive, Patrick Stewart gives a powerhouse performance as a Picard who knows what exactly is going to happen and fully believes he cannot change things.  That is until the episode ends with Picard in the present, shooting his future self to break the time loop on principle, altering the course of future events enough to move the Enterprise forward.  The episode is let down slightly by this resolution, Hurley’s script doesn’t actually imply any lasting consequences from the act.  Stewart plays it incredibly well as does the onlooking Diana Muldaur and Colm Meaney as Pulaski and O’Brien (the transporter chief who seems to be slowly becoming his own character).

 

Joseph L. Scanlan directs “Time Squared” and what’s particularly effective are actually the effects sequences: there is a vortex that is responsible for the time loop that the Enterprise deliberately flies through to essentially write the double of Picard and the shuttlecraft out of existence.  Apparently, Hurley wished to link this episode with the next episode he wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Q Who”, and while I have not seen that episode, “Time Squared” does end far too abruptly.  Hurley’s script also lacks a B-plot, but watching the episode you don’t ever actually feel like the B-plot is absent.  Scanlan keeps shots tight and the actors right on their marks.  So much of the episode relies on Picard’s own insecurities: he fully believes he abandoned the Enterprise which is something that he would never do, so what exactly could have drawn him to this point?  What really happened to the Enterprise?  It’s an episode that is carried by Stewart’s talent, probably the first episode to properly allow Stewart to explore what makes the character tick since “The Battle”.

 

Overall, “Time Squared” would be the perfect episode if there was a stronger resolution, because despite setting up a great end to the conflict of Picard taking the future into his own hands by killing his future self, the fallout from that isn’t at all examined.  Still Patrick Stewart sells the episode and the rest of the script is tight enough to actually work.  8/10.