TNG Flashback: A Matter of Time

Rick Berman, executive producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation, had once before contributed his own script to the series, the fourth season's "Brothers." That effort was considerably more successful than his second episode, "A Matter of Time."

The crew is on the way to a planet experiencing an ecological disaster, hoping to kickstart a new greenhouse effect to counteract the rapidly falling temperatures. Suddenly, a time traveler appears. Berlinghoff Rasmussen claims to be an historian from the 26th century, here to observe in person the events of this day aboard the Enterprise. But his strange demeanor -- and Troi's empathic sense -- suggest that he's hiding something.

Berman's plot for this episode grew from two kernels: what if a time traveler tried to steal Data; and what would a man like Isaac Newton or Leonardo da Vinci have done if someone from the future had given them a calculator? What resulted was this story, in which a failing 22nd century inventor hijacks a 26th century time travel pod, to steal technology from the 24th century that he could "create" back in his own time.

According to show runner Michael Piller, the script did not come easily. Berman didn't get a pass just for being the boss, and he reportedly hammered on this idea for quite some time before it went before the cameras. Unfortunately, not all the kinks were ironed out. At a broad level, our heroes come off rather dumb for falling for this ruse even for just a while. They know, for instance, of their own ability to recreate history on the holodeck in striking detail; it's implausible that a "future historian" would have the gaps in knowledge that Rasmussen has. (In fact, if the writers themselves could have seen into the future and watched the series finale of Enterprise, they'd have watched Riker and Troi play "future historians" on the holodeck.) Riker even points out directly in the first few minutes that they've encountered imposters before (alluding to "Devil's Due," "Conspiracy," maybe "The Dauphin," and others), and yet they still go on to be deceived for a while.

The episode doesn't even do a particularly good job of fooling the audience. It isn't necessarily that one ought to be able to figure out the convoluted temporal plot twist in advance. Rather, it's that the subplot isn't particularly compelling. (A fact Berman himself later acknowledged, noting that when writing this sort of story on Star Trek, you can "get lost in the technical elements of it.") When you think of all the truly dire situations where the Enterprise has been in serious jeopardy, it doesn't quite track that a future historian would come back to witness the fate of one random colony somewhere, no matter the local stakes. When Rasmussen says to a child in Sickbay, for example, that he'll remember he was at Penthara IV, it simply doesn't sound believable.

Which really touches on another problem with the episode: Rasmussen is such a poor con man. Some of his slip-ups are no doubt necessary to the plot, intended to tip off the characters about the truth. Some are even fun, such as the way Crusher gently rebuffs his awkward flirtations. But Rasmussen just comes off shifty in his need to constantly re-establish his "cover"; he has to remind everyone at every turn that he's "from the future," which ultimately is what tells you something must be off there.

I also have issues with the ending, which strains credibility even farther. If you had a time machine, and you were planning to get out of it for even one second, would you set a timer on it, and in doing so run any risk that it might automatically leave without you? (You could argue it's an automatically engaging feature Rasmussen didn't know how to disable, but the question remains: why would that be an automatically engaging feature?) And how did Rasmussen think he was going to be able to reverse engineer technology from 200 years in his future? If you visited a leading scientist of 1814 (and Rasmussen himself admits, he's not a top mind of his time), do you think he'd have a snowball's chance in hell of figuring out how, say, a smartphone works?

After this avalanche of criticism, you may well be asking if I thought there was anything good going for this episode. A couple of things, thankfully. First, there's the rather compelling scene in Act 4, where Picard appeals to Rasmussen for advice in making the right decision. It's refreshing and original to see the Star Trek device of the Prime Directive portrayed with our heroes on the other side. Picard (and Patrick Stewart) makes a powerful case, acknowledging his own past violations of the Directive, alluding to the classic "would you stop Hitler?" thought exercise, and even name dropping original series-and-film villain Khan. Michael Piller thought this scene was a highlight of Berman's episode, and he's not wrong about that.

There's also the performance of Matt Frewer as Rasmussen, who's really cutting loose and having fun with the role. But there's a quite interesting story behind that. Originally, Rasmussen was written for Star Trek fan Robin Williams. I don't know whether he'd reached out to the show, or friend Whoopi Goldberg had prevailed on him to guest star. In any case, the plan for Williams to appear was solid enough that Rasmussen's character and dialogue were written with him in mind. But then he got an offer he couldn't refuse: starring in the movie Hook for director Steven Speilberg. He turned down the Star Trek part, and a replacement had to be found.

I'm doubtful that Robin Williams could have saved what's clearly a below average episode. Still, it's hard not to think about what might have been. And knowing about that possibility when you watch the episode, you can start to imagine it. You can almost hear what he might have done with certain dialogue, such as the list of famous blind people that ends with one of Star Trek's few contemporary references: "Wonder." Indeed, Matt Frewer doesn't quite seem to be playing the character so much as he's playing "Robin Williams playing the character," which makes me respect the performance more. Granted, Frewer seems to have the dial turned to maybe 7 where Williams would have gone to 11, but he's nevertheless pouring a lot of energy into a subpar script.

Other observations:

• On the subject of future history, we get a reference at the top of the episode to the "nuclear winters of 21st century Earth." I've always found it interesting that all incarnations of the otherwise hopeful Star Trek have intimated (or stated directly) that we're going to have to go through a cataclysmic World War III before we get our collective act together.

• In the act where the main characters are pumping Rasmussen for hints of the future, it's interesting to me that even Data can't help himself. He asks whether he's still alive in the future. (The sad answer, and the horrible final chapter of The Next Generation that is Star Trek: Nemesis, is a subject I suppose I might get to someday after finally finishing all the episodes.)

• One aspect of the episode that's not subpar at all is the visual effects. The various depictions of volcanic activity on the planet are far more involved than the "slice of planet below the ship" we usually get to see. And the climax in which the crew uses the Enterprise to siphon the bad particles from the atmosphere is more elaborate still. In fact, this episode tied for an Emmy win in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects. (It shared the award with a worthy co-winner, another episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation -- "Conundrum.")

Matt Frewer's heavy lifting, plus that well-presented moral argument between Picard and Rasmussen, pull this episode out of the basement. Still, it's too flawed to be completely saved. I give "A Matter of Time" a C-.