Time Squared

More cool effects.	Energy Vortex - card!	If you think about it, doppelgangers are a good way to save the budget for extras.	Apparently Riker cooked these 'Owon eggs at the start of the episode. They used scrambled eggs instead.
(more images below)

Overview: Picard encounters his future self when the Enterprise becomes caught in a time loop.
Writer: Kurt Michael Bensmiller & Maurice Hurley
Director: Joseph L Scanlan

Anon²: Okay, card-count was 2 for Bowdy and 1 for each of us regulars.

Anon: We got Energy Vortex and Doppelganger amongst others. What did Doppelganger do?

Bowdy: I think it did something with Clone Machine, didn't it?

Anon: I can't remember. It was one of the broken links, wasn't it?

Bowdy: I think they had to release a card for it in DS9.

Anon: I think they had a broken links expansion at the end. Wasn't that the All Good Things expansion?

Anon²: Don't know. I didn't use it. Don't really care.

Bowdy: That was an interesting episode, actually.

Anon: It was sci-fi. I like sci-fi.

Bowdy: It had a bit of scientific theory melded into it.

Anon²: (farts) Silent but deadly fart there. Very good. You probably didn't hear it and I don't know how it'll be transcribed.

Anon: It was more like a qweef. (laughs)

Anon²: It was a bit of a quack. That's for sure.

Anon: The episode starts off with Riker cooking in his kitchen.

Anon²: Yeah. Fowl eggs. Worf is the only one that likes them. I don't know why Data's eating in this either.

Bowdy: There was no Wesley.

Anon²: Yeah, no Wesley. What did Geordi do except for transfer Engineering control to the bridge?

Anon: To me, if they can do everything that they can do in Engineering from the Bridge, why don't they have an Engineer permanently on the Bridge? Most of the time when he's in Engineering, he's got no one helping him. And when he does, it's Wesley.

Anon²: At the end of the day, Engineers are supposed to be there fixing shit. In Next Gen, when they do need to fix things they need a magnet like in that other episode. Y'know?

Bowdy: Engineers are great. They think up new ideas and implement them.

Anon²: Mmm... yeah. But the thing is the actual control of Engineering can be done from anywhere.

Anon: A lot of people end up places they shouldn't necessarily be. Geordi's on the Bridge, Pulaski's all over the ship.

Anon²: Pulaski shouldn't be allowed to live.

Anon: Yeah. Plus Troi's always following Picard around. Then you've got O'Brien turning up in Shuttlebay 2 despite Picard having told Security to clear personnel away just so he can see the doppelganger Picard.

Bowdy: Yeah, he's just there to witness it and report it to Picard. There was a nice bit of dialogue at the end about how if you travel around for long enough you'll meet yourself. I thought that was quite nice.

Anon: The episode also adds nicely to the whole Picard/Riker dynamic. It's one of the first episodes where that's at the forefront.

Bowdy: Yeah, it was a good episode. It was well constructed. And it was well-written.

Anon: I thought in places it was more confusing than it needed to be.

Anon²: Yeah, there were one or two ropey moments.

Anon: The ropiest moment was Deanna Troi's orgasm.

Bowdy: (laughs) Like the bit where she goes, "He's in pain!"

Anon: Deanna always seems to cum whenever anyone is in pain! But as I said, the episode was more confusing than it needed to be. There was even a line in there when Picard said to Troi, "You're confusing me," and that's what I felt like in places here.

Anon²: The dialogue after that was pretty ropey too.

Bowdy: It wasn't that bad.

Anon: I mean... I know what was happening because I've probably seen this episode 5 or 6 times.

Bowdy: There was a bit where they were talking about the decision-making process where Picard doubts himself. And Deanna and Pulaski are complete counterpoints to supporting the Captain. I liked that, because you had the rational Pulaski...

Anon²: But the thing is, and I know this will sound to the opposite of what you're saying, actually it didn't warrant the outrageous response that they gave. Picard's leaving didn't warrant the conversation that they had together. what's their fucking big deal? That's what I thought was bollocks.

Bowdy: He was acting angry. He was mishandling the situation. He wasn't calm in the way that Pulaski was expecting him to be.

Anon²: Yeah, but she's a miserable cow anyway. What they said afterwards was not on the same level as what had happened. It wasn't necessary. It had no impact on the episode. It was a pointless bit of dialogue.

Bowdy: I disagree. The dialogue explained it.

Anon²: All it did was develop the storyline.

Bowdy: Yeah, but it's all about, "Is the decision right or is the decision wrong?" It led to Picard shooting himself. That was the rational decision that he made.

Anon: Y'know, what this episode could have done with would have been a bit of humour.

Anon²: It had the Worf bit and that was it.

Anon: If you compare this to an episode like Cause and Effect, which isn't dissimilar, that was a funny episode in a lot of places.

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: I still like this episode. It's still above average so far.

Anon²: Oh yeah, it's way better than some.

Bowdy: It's actually on par with some episodes in later seasons. One thing that I was being a bit perdantic about earlier was when they said "Put the dial up 2" and it went down - it went the other way.

Anon: This was when they were trying to put power into the shuttlecraft?

Bowdy: Yeah. To retrieve the logs. They said, "Increase the inverter by plus two" and it died. Then they said "Increase the inverter by minus two" - well, it wasn't working at plus two, so why would you go minus four?

Anon²: I dunno. I'm still not sure of your maths on that one.

Bowdy: My maths is pretty good.

Anon: Well, +2-2=0.

Bowdy: Yeah, they start at 0 and it wasn't working. Why did they end up going back to 0?

Anon²: Well, take zero degrees, then go to two degrees then go to minus two degrees.

Anon: They didn't say "to" though, they said "by."

Bowdy: Yeah, exactly.

Anon²: Oh did they? I missed that.

Bowdy: Ah well. They're screenwriters; not mathematicians.

Anon²: I was under the impression is was positive two and negative two.

Anon: Pillow please!

Anon²: Yeah, I'm bored with this shit! Next episode?

Bowdy: Do you want to give this marks out of 10?

Anon²: Can't be arsed to do that right now.

Bowdy: I thought this was a pretty tight episode.

Anon²: I want to see all the episodes before rating them, unless I rate them by season. You can't rate them over the entire series.

Anon: Well, you can and I will. Anyway, this was fun. It wasn't amazing. It's better than the next episode.

Bowdy: Oh, which one's that?

Anon: It's The Icarus Factor. Remember that?

Anon²: I know what the Icarus is.

Bowdy: I like licquorice.

Anon²: (laughs)

Anon: The Licquorice Factor!

Bowdy: Or The Krypton Factor.

Anon: Krypton Factor, X-Factor, whatever.

Anon²: Icarus sent his son to death, or at least he didn't do anything to help him.

Anon: Yeah, The Flight of Icarus. That's an Iron Maiden song.

Anon²: Well, it's Greek mythology actually.

Anon: That doesn't change the fact it's also an Iron Maiden song. See you soon.

Anon²: Oh, hang on... is there a Minotaur in it? Or is there a Vulcan in it?

Anon: Watch me press the stop button now. (click)

- Anon, Anon² & Bowdy, 1-Nov-2009