Question: Whenever I see this episode rerun, they leave out the scene where Picard suddenly appears at Worf's surprise party. This is a somewhat crucial scene, in my opinion, because it is one of the first clues (other than the cake switching flavors) that something isn't quite right. Why is this scene no longer shown? Is it simply due to the desire for more advertising time? Are other episodes cut like this?
Matty Blast
15th Nov 2013
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
1st Apr 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Factual error: Picard reaches for the bowl of rotten fruit, winces in pain, and suddenly his fingernails have grown about an inch. This was due to the fruit bowl being inside an area where time was moving much faster. The problem is, in order for his fingernails to grow, blood would have to supply the needed nutrients to his fingers at the accelerated rate. Since his heart is in normal time, being away from the bowl of fruit, there is no way his fingernails could have grown like that - his heart is only supplying a normal-time-continuum's worth of blood.
Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.
Suggested correction: This entry conflates rapid growth with sped up time.
7th Mar 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: Is there a reason why all planets (except earth) have a number attached to their names? Or is that never explained?
Chosen answer: Planets that don't actually have a specific name tend to be referred to by the name of the star which they orbit and a number indicating how far out they are - so the planet Tau Ceti IV would be the fourth planet out from the star Tau Ceti. Under this system, our planet could be referred to as Sol III, but as it has a given name, that is used instead.
7th Mar 2005
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: Even though Worf keeps jumping from parallel universe to parallel universe, he never encounters his double (i.e., the Worf from the universe he jumped into). At the end, when the Enterprise from Worf's final alternate universe contacts the "real" Enterprise, there's a Worf on the bridge with the "real" crew. Does this mean that every time Worf moved into a different reality, all the other Worfs shifted around as well?
Answer: When Worf jumps to another dimension, whatever Worf is on that ship is immediately sent to the dimension that the original Worf comes from. As an example, when Prime Worf jumps to the dimension where he is married to Counselor Troi, the Worf from that dimension is immediately sent to Prime Worfs dimension. All of the other Worfs stay in their own dimension until Prime Worf is inadvertently sent to one of theirs. After Prime Worf leaves that dimension, the Worf that had been sent to Prime Enterprise would end up back in his own dimension. Not shunted to another one.
Chosen answer: Correct. When Worf jumps, the other Worfs jumped also. That is how the other Enterprise (the one with the same signature as the Worf the episode follows) knew what was going on.
21st Jun 2004
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Question: Whenever anyone wants to contact someone else from another part of the ship, they hit their badge and say (for example), "Picard to Engineering." In no episode ever is there an instance where we hear somebody call someone else who is not involved in the current scene. We should assume, therefore, that when communication like this is initiated, it is only heard by the recipient of the page. So the question is, how can the ship's communication system know ahead of time who the person is paging? In other words, if Picard says, "Picard to Engineering," what keeps sickbay from hearing his call? There can't be a time-delay (i.e., the computer does not make the page until it hears the entire page, and then directs it only to the intended recipient) because in many episodes we hear the reply right away. Can anyone explain this? Are we simply "lucky," in that we only hear pages made by or sent to people in the scene we're watching?
Chosen answer: Enterprise's computer directs the call to the aforementioned department. It is then answered by the ranking member of the department. For instance, if Engineering was contacted, and Geordi was in sickbay or off duty, the call would be answered by whoever was "officer of the watch" in Engineering. Mainly, it wouldn't do much for the show to say, "Picard to engineering", "This is engineering, go ahead." "Yes, I'd like to speak to Geordi about some more phaser power, please", "One moment, I'll transfer you."
There is a episode of Voyager where someone calls someone on their combadge and it gets rerouted to another station and someone else answers. Due to a communications error being fixed. The comm signal was rerouted.
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Chosen answer: The most common reason rerun TV series are edited is to allow for more advertising time. They can also speed up the show's running time, which is unnoticeable but gives more seconds to be sold to advertisers. Cable TV channels are allowed to have more advertising than network TV channels, and they do whatever they can to increase revenue. It does result in episodes often being choppy and the story line a bit confusing. Now channels are also overlapping the end of one show while showing the start of another one by using a split screen, giving them even more time to sell to advertisers.
raywest ★