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The Nitpickers's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers, Volume II covers the seventh season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the first movie to feature the NextGen cast, Star Trek Generations. It also contains all new nits for the first six seasons from members of the prestigious Nitpicker's Guild in addition to fourteen side bars including updates for the toteboard in the NextGen Guide and The Technobabble Generator. It was released in November, 1995.
Comments
With two Guides out the door, I needed a project for release in November of 1995. (Hey, when you're on a roll . . . ) Fortunately, this one was a no-brainer! The NextGen Guide was selling well but there was a small problem. It didn't contain the seventh season of NextGen! Why, you ask? Because at the time I was working on the NextGen Guide, there wasn't going to be a seventh season. It was only after the main portion of the book had been submitted that Paramount made the announcement. (My editor Jeanne Cavelos decided to push ahead with the book anyway.)
So, it was time to get a Guide out there in the nitpicking world at large that contained the seventh season since it appeared that the creators really, for truly, were going to kill the most popular Star Trek of all (but that's an entirely different discussion). There were two ways to go at this problem. We could have created an updated version of the NextGen Guide that only appended the seventh season and made fans buy another book just to get a few extra pages. I didn't like this idea at all! The other possibility was to do a real volume II. Plenty of input had come in from the members of the Nitpickers Guild and I was sure I could fill a second book. Jeanne agreed and got the ball rolling before she resigned her post as a senior editor at Dell to teach writing at a small college in New Hampshire.
Eric Wybenga came onboard as the new editor for the Guides and we quickly developed a good working relationship. The only real problem we had with the book was the length. It turns out I had too much information! The first "cast-off" I did for the book estimated the length at 675 pages. A wee bit too long, laddies and lassies for Dell to publish. I cut a bunch out. Eric cut a bunch out. We cut and cut and cut and finally got it down to a length acceptable to Dell. (I've been publishing some of the cuts that were made in the newsletters.)
A note about the selected passage below. This is the way that I submitted the manuscript to Eric. Originally, all the credit lines followed each nitpicking section. Unfortunately, when the book ran long, I had to pull them all out into one bulk section at the front of the book. We actually saved approximately 30 pages by doing this!
Selected Passage, Pages 72-76
Star Date: 47988, 41153.7, (Future Star Date Unknown), 47988
When a distraught Picard tells the crew that he is shifting through time, Crusher examines him in Sickbay and discovers that he is telling the truth. Suddenly, Picard jumps forward approximately 25 years and finds himself tending a vineyard. In this timeline, he has Irumodic syndrome--a degenerative neurological disease. Jumping backward in time, Picard takes command of the Enterprise, duplicating the events that occurred seven years ago.
In both the past and present timeline, Starfleet dispatches the Enterprise to the Romulan Neutral zone. Some sort of anomaly has appeared in the Devron system and the Romulans are massing starships to investigate. In the future timeline, Picard determines that he must go to the Devron system as well and calls in a favor from Captain Beverly Picard--former wife of Picard and now the captain of the USS Pasteur. Although the Neutral Zone no longer exists in the future, Picard obtains permission to enter the now Klingon territory from Governor Worf.
Along the way, Picard learns part of the reason for his time shifting. Q brings him to the post-atomic horrors courtroom featured in "Encounter at Farpoint" and states that the Q Continuum has finally reached a verdict. They have decided end humanity's existence but it will be Picard who actually destroys the race.
In all three time lines, the ships converge on the Devron system. With no anomaly showing in the future, Data suggests using an inverse tachyon pulse to detect it and modifies the deflector dish of the Pasteur to accomplish this. When Picard shifts to the other time frames, he suggests Data do the same there as well. Unknown to the captain at the time, these three converging beams actually create a rift between time and antitime--a construct similar to the relationship between matter and antimatter. Unsealed, the rift will grow backward in time until it disrupts the formation of life on the Earth thereby erasing humanity from the galaxy. With Q's assistance, Picard eventually discovers this relationship.
In the future timeline, the Pasteur is attacked by Klingon warships and subsequently rescued by Riker's Enterprise but not before the Pasteur's warp core explodes. Even as Riker's Enterprise heads back to Federation territory, Picard convinces the crew to return to the Devron system and assist the other two Enterprises in closing the rift. At the cost of all three ships, the crews manage to seal the boundary between time and antitime and save humanity.
Back in the post-atomic horrors courtroom, Q congratulates Picard on showing promise before returning him to his present day Enterprise.
Ruminations
Great and fabulous, knee-slapping, standing to our feet, clapping kudos to the creators for the battle scene between the future Enterprise and the two Klingon warships. It was so wonderful to see the ship finally attack from outside the flight plane of the target vessels. (I really liked that phaser/photon "weapon-o-mass-destruction" cannon, too!)
I wonder if Picard actually put this experience in a captain's log that was subsequently forwarded to Starfleet Command. I realize that he told the senior staff, but what about his superiors? Remember that Picard is the only one that has any memories of these events. I can just imagine what the high mucky-muck admiral back at Headquarters would say when she read this report. "Okay, let me get this straight. Captain Picard expects us to believe that he saved the entire human race but none of us can recall any thing about the incident. I supposed the next thing you're going to tell me is that he wants a medal for it!"
Great Lines
"What?!"--Worf to Troi after seeing her frustration with his minimalist description of a particularly lovely holodeck program as "very stimulating."
Trivia Questions
1. Under what security lockout does Picard record his captain's log in the past time frame?
2. What Starbase is nearest to the Devron system?
Plot Oversights
o At the very beginning of the episode, Picard trots down a hallway, barefooted and in his bathrobe, to interrupt a kiss between Worf and Troi and ask the date. Why doesn't Picard ask the computer while still in his quarters?
o In the future timeline, Picard and La Forge meet with Data at Cambridge University. Attempting to add some distinction to his appearance, Data has colored a broad streak of his hair gray. His housekeeper asks Picard and La Forge to convince him to change it back because he looks like a skunk. Allie Brightwell, who lives in England, informs me--given the lack of skunks in England--it would be more believable for the housekeeper to say Data looks like a badger. (Of course, maybe by the 24th century, skunks have overrun the British Isles.)
o Picard continually battles the perception in the future timeline that he's losing his mind. Yet, in the present timeline, Crusher found positive proof of his travels in time by performing two neural scans. Why not have Crusher do the same thing in the future and lay the issue to rest?
o Does anyone else think that the crew of the past timeline show an extraordinary amount of faith in the very oddly-behaving captain?
o What happened to the Romulans? In the present timeline, Tomalak agrees that one ship from either side of the Neutral Zone can investigate the temporal anomaly in the Devron system. That's the last we hear or see of the Romulans.
o In the future timeline, Klingon warships attack the Pasteur. Specifically they attack the Pasteur before decloaking. The first blast hits the medical ship and then Worf reports the warships' appearance. If the warships can fire while cloaking, why decloak?
o This episode contains one of the loveliest plot oversights of the entire series. The creators postulated a thing called "antitime" and based the entire plot on this device only to find it necessary to violate this basic premise in order to make the show work. (It is a thing of beauty to a nitpicker!) According to the dialogue, Q received a directive from the Continuum to destroy humanity. To accomplish this goal, he sends Picard skipping back and forth through time. Eventually, Picard has the Pasteur and two versions of the Enterprise beam an inverse tachyon beam at the same point in space. This causes a rupture in the subspace barrier between time and antitime. The rupture grows backward in time, getting larger and larger until it disrupts the formation of life on Earth, thereby destroying the human race. Lest you doubt my interpretation of the events, listen to La Forge in Ten-Forward after Data comes to the conclusion that Picard is telling the truth, " . . . because antitime operates opposite the way normal time does, the effect would travel backwards through the space-time continuum." This was a very clever way for the Continuum to destroy humanity.
Yet, when the Pasteur originally arrives at the Devron system, they see no rupture. This lack of temporal anomaly motivates Picard to send the inverse tachyon beam in the first place. Then the crew leaves one Riker's Enterprise only to return to find the beginnings of the rupture. Wait a minute: That's completely backwards! If the rupture grows backward in time, Picard and the others should see it when they arrive on the Pasteur. But they shouldn't see it when they return on the futuristic Enterprise. Let's say that Picard created the anomaly at time index "T." You should see the anomaly at any time prior to "T" since it grows backward. The temporal anomaly should have been present when the Pasteur arrived and then winked out when Picard began the inverse tachyon scan. (Actually it probably should have winked out when the Klingons attacked, thereby terminating the scan.) When Riker's Enterprise returns to the Devron system the time index is something like "T+2 hours." Therefore, they shouldn't see anything. (Of course, if they couldn't see it, they couldn't assist with the sealing of the rupture and the entire ending for the episode falls apart! I suppose we could say that Q arranged to have the anomaly cloaked when the Pasteur arrived and then covertly kicked Riker's Enterprise back in time as it returned to the Devron system so that it would appear when they arrived. I suppose we could say that but it sure sounds like a strained explanation to me!)
Thanks to: Allie Brightwell of Hampshire, England; David M. Blakeman of Merced, CA; Dirk DeJong of Isabella, MO; Lori Hope of Austin, TX; David Karp of Thornhill, Ontario; Johnson Lai of Ajax, Ontario; Murray J.D. Leeder of Calgary, Alberta; Joshua M. Truax of Fridley, MN and Ed Watson of Downington, PA
Changed Premises
o There are lots of little discrepancies in the recreation of the Enterprise of seven years hence. The observation lounge didn't have viewscreens in the first season. Also, the observation lounge viewscreen normally stayed off earlier in the series until someone needed to illustrate a point. In the recreation of the past, the viewscreens stay on. In the first season, Picard's chair on the bridge had flip-up panels. The chairs for Conn and Ops are different. What eventually becomes La Forge's work station facing the warp core started out as a flat white area without any controls. In addition, the large master display on the wall in Engineering was originally colored in yellow, not blue as it was at the end of the series. Lieutenant Torres, not O'Brien, manned the Conn as the Enterprise travelled to Farpoint prior to the meeting with Q (of course, Picard could have made this change.)
o Data first appears in the past timeline with the rank pips of a lieutenant, junior grade (one solid, one hollow). Yet Picard calls him "Commander," and the first time we see him in "Encounter at Farpoint" he holds the rank of lieutenant commander.
o In the present time frame, Picard asks Troi what happened after he came aboard seven years ago. Troi responds that there was a reception in Ten-Forward. Yet, in the entire first season, we never saw Ten-Forward. Major remodelling, maybe?
Thanks to: Jonathan Bridge of Salt Lake City, UT; Brendan P. Farley of Pittsburg, PA; Sara Green of Wildomar, CA; Johnson Lai of Ajax, Ontario; Brian Lombard of Gaithersburg, MD; Jonathan Ryder of Providence, RI; Robert Stevens of Washington, DC; Christopher Todaro of Danbury, CT and Ed Watson of Downington, PA;
Equipment Oddities
o In Sickbay, Crusher determines that Picard has a defect in his brain that would only show up on a level 4 neurological scan. This scan was never performed before? Even after Picard's experience with the Borg?
o Obviously, someone will rework the warp scale in the future. Tech Manual adamantly proclaims that starships cannot go faster than warp 10 but both Pasteur and the Enterprise go warp 13 in this episode.
o Can't the Pasteur eject its warp core? When a core breach occurrence, Riker just beams them aboard the Enterprise and then lets the medical ship explode.
o After beaming aboard the Enterprise in the future timeline, Picard makes an impassioned plea for Riker's Enterprise to keep looking for the temporal anomaly. Out of nowhere, Crusher reaches up and hits Picard with a futuristic looking hypospray that knocks him unconscious. Where did she get that? She just beamed off her ship with a warp core breach in progress. Does she carry a loaded hypo around in her pocket? (I am really, really suppressing the urge to make a few snide comments about this.)
o Of course, no one even mentions separating the saucer section before dispatching any of the Enterprises to almost-certain destruction inside the temporal anomaly.
Thanks to: David M. Blakeman of Merced, CA; Richard C. Lewis of Bellevue, WA; Jospeh Pintar of New Hartford, NY; Carrie Rostollan of Saxon, WI and Ed Watson of Downingtown, PA
Continuity and Production Problems
o Considering the location of the observation lounge and the way Earth Station McKinley wraps over the top of the Enterprise, shouldn't it show up in the lounge windows?
o When Picard speaks over subspace with Riker at Farpoint in the past timeline, the creators reused footage from "The Arsenal of Freedom" for Riker's end of the conversation. That's Captain Paul Rice in the background.
o This is a gem. In the future timeline, the door signage consists not only of the door plate but wide vertical strips of color that define the leading edges of the doors. In the past timeline, after telling Picard about her prior relationship with Riker, Troi walks out of the ready room and it looks like the emergency turbolift doors on the other side of the bridge have the future timeline door signage!
o The final scene with Picard joining the senior officers' poker game for the first time really resonated with me. (I still tear up a little when Troi says, "You were always welcome." Sniff, sniff.) Of course, us nitpickers wouldn't feel really fulfilled unless we could find a nit in the final moments of the final episode of the series! (Okay, I admit this is grungy, needlessly excessive nitpicking but hey . . . life's short, enjoy the ride.) As Picard deals the cards, an overhead crane shot begins to pull back and rotate. The footage then dissolves to a close-up exterior of the ship featuring the windows on the leading edge of the saucer section. The shot continues rotating for a few moments longer before dropping back and away from the Enterprise as it flies off into a nebula. (Read that: "sunset") Because the creators exactly matched the rotation of the camera between the interior shot of Riker's quarters on deck 8 and the close-up exterior shot of the saucer section windows--also located around deck 8--I assume that they intended to give the impression that the camera had floated through the hull of the Enterprise and out into space. If they did, the sequence has a nit in it! To join the poker game, Picard takes a seat directly across from the windows in Riker's quarters. When the scene dissolves to the close-up exterior shot, Picard should still be facing the windows. He isn't. He's facing directly away from the window. To my way of thinking, the creators should have pointed the Enterprise in the other direction--going right to left on the screen instead of left to right. (But then, they never asked me and really don't have any need to do so!)
Thanks to: David M. Blakeman of Merced, CA; Brian Bock of Omaha, NE and Scott Saslow of Boca Raton, FL
Trivia Answers
1. Omega 327.
2. Starbase 23.
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