ST:TNG Season Four, Episode Five "Remember Me"

ST:TNG Season Four, Episode Five "Remember Me"
Production Order: 5
Air Order: 5
Stardate: 44161.2
Original Air Date: October 22, 1990

Once again, we have a episode whose title instantly reminds me of a song. Only this time, it's a sweet song.

*******

Crusher's Log 44161.2: "Docking at this station to rotate out some crew. Gonna meet up with my old friend, Dr Dalen Quaice. We're taking him back to his home planet."

Crusher meets an older guy as he appears on the transporter pad.
Hey, it's that guy who's in everything!
They exchange pleasantries, and he says it was nice of them to offer him a ride, and she says it's on their way, so no biggie.
She thanks O'Brien as she and Quaice leave the transporter room.
Side note: her buddy seems like he's human, and his home planet is not Earth, so I guess there's a colony on this mystery planet, which is kind of not part of the plot either way.

We follow Crusher and Quaice off the lift and into the corridors, and she tells him that she's sorry to hear that his wife died, asking if he's leaving the station because of that.
"Pretty much," he admits. "We were together for a really long time at that starbase, and it was hard being in those spaces without seeing her everywhere."
She says she gets it, because her own husband died, and she had similar feelings.
He talks a bit about getting older and watching loved ones slip away and realizing too late that you forgot to tell them how much they mean to you. Then he apologizes for heaping emotional baggage on her and quips that he "usually travels light."

A bit later, Crusher goes down to Engineering on her own. Wes is frantically doing a thing at the pool table, and Geordi is getting pissy because Wes' experiment thing has commandeered the warp engines. Geordi wants his shit back yesterday.
Crusher is clearly there to see Wes, and when he notices her, she sees that he's busy and waits patiently for him to finish.

Hmm, that looks familiar.

There's a brief flash, and it sounds like motherboards have fried.
"The fuck?" asks Wes.
"The fucking fuck?" asks Geordi. "Majel, check out our systems."
"Systems are all good," Majel reports.
"What the hell happened?" Geordi asks Wes.
"Dunno," says Wes. "We shouldn't have seen anything outside of the warp drive."
Riker calls to say that they're ready to leave, and Wes confirms that he's done with the engines.
He glances over at where Crusher was standing but she isn't there anymore.
The E leaves the starbase.

Welcome back, LeVar Burton!

Crusher goes to her friend's quarters and rings the bell. When no one answers after several chimes, she opens the door to look for him.
No one inside.
"Majel, where is my friend, Dr Quiche?"
"Dunno," says Majel. "Not on board. Nobody by that name."

Mystery music! Opening credits break!

Crusher is still sitting in Quaice's quarters when Worf rings the chimes and comes in.
"Hey," she says. "So yesterday, my friend came on board and was assigned these quarters."
"Oh. Um, I've never heard of this passenger."
"I thought it was standard procedure for Picard to tell you of any passengers when they're approved."
"It is," he confirms. "But continue."
"So we were supposed to meet for breakfast, but now I can't find him."
Worf asks Majel to find Dr Quince, and when she replies again that he is not on board, Crusher presses him to start a search, because he's an older guy, and may have fallen or damaged his comm badge or something. He agrees. On his way out, he turns and asks why Quiche's belongs are missing, if he's injured somewhere.
She shrugs.

Later, Crusher meets with Picard, Worf, and Data in the ready room. The searches have turned up nothing, and Data's scans of the ship show only the crew.
"They wouldn't show anything if he was dead," Crusher suggests.
Data agrees.
I... that seems like something they should fix. I mean, wouldn't the comm badge of a fallen crew member still show up? Feels like, by the 24th century, they should be able to locate dead bodies on the ship.
Anyway, Picard suggests that maybe Quince went back to the starbase on some emergency, and failed to tell Crusher. "We should call the starbase and Starfleet Command."
They all agree and are exiting to the bridge when Picard calls Crusher back.
"Sooo, you didn't put in a request for your friend to come on board," he says.
"Noooop, I submitted that weeks ago," she replies. "And it was approved."
It seems weird to Picard that Crusher would not follow protocol, so he lets it go. Instead, he suggests that they figure out if Quiche had any enemies on the starbase.

On the bridge, Data tells Crusher that he can't find records of Dr Dennis Quaid on Starbase 133. He also can't find records of Quaid having a service record with Starfleet, or being born.
"I tried like, 170+ variations of his name."
"The hell?" asks Crusher. "I interned with this guy. I've known him for 15 years."
Worf comes back onto the bridge to announce that the search is over, and they couldn't find Dr Quaid.
"Somebody went to a lot of trouble to erase all traces of this guy," remarks Riker.
"I met him in the transporter room!" says a frustrated Crusher.
Crusher and Riker go to the transporter room to talk to O'Brien.
"I beamed someone on board?" asks O'Brien. "Pretty sure I didn't."
"Was I talking to thin air?" demands Crusher. "Was he freaking invisible?"
"No," said O'Brien. "You came into the transporter room, looked around, then said "thank you" and left."
"The hell?" asks Crusher.

Mysterious, dramatic music! Commercial break!

Frustrated, Crusher and Riker get back in the lift and Crusher accuses O'Brien of lying. Riker walks her back from this, and she admits that, with all of the crew transfers, O'Brien might have not remembered correctly. There was no trace of Dr Quince in the transporters.
"I didn't just make him up!"
She calls Quaice "one of my best friends." No... don't...don't do that, Star Trek. Don't conjure someone from thin air and bestow a bestie title on him because you want to tug at our heartstrings. We saw the guy for five seconds, and we're supposed to feel bad for Crusher, but this is a "disappearing mystery," not an occasion where he died tragically.
Riker suggests that maybe she run a "diagnostic" on O'Brien to check to make sure he hasn't been "tampered with" as well.
O...kay. Look, it's nice that everyone immediately believes Crusher, but you're now suggesting that there's something wrong with O'Brien. To the tune of you possibly performing invasive medical procedures on him to figure out why they can't find a person that Crusher says is real, but who they can find no trace of. No trace whatsoever. And no one has ever seen him.
Just before getting off the lift, Riker says he'll check the replicator logs, because Dr Quinn, Space Medicine Guy has been missing for 18 hours now, and he'll have had to eat.
Do the replicators keep track of who has ordered food from them? Or will Will just be looking for rando orders in unexpected places?

Crusher goes back to sick bay, where O'Brien is waiting for her to give him an exam. He protests that
she can check his eyesight, but he didn't see her friend. She assures him that she intends to be "more comprehensive than that," and calls another doctor, a Dr Hill we've never heard of. No answer.
"How about Dr Selar?"
Yes, please. I'd like to see Dr Selar again.
"There are no doctors on board named Hill or Selar," responds Majel.
O'Brien looks at her with pity, because girlfriend is clearly crazy.

Crusher goes to Picard to complain/check in. Drs Selar, Hill, and four other members of her medical staff are missing, their families don't remember them, and neither do two duty nurses.
He asks her if they came on board with Dr Quince, and she responds that they've been on board for months. She misses the fact that Picard did not know who these doctors were, either. Even if he didn't know Hill or the other medical staff, Selar has been on board for at least two years.
Wes pages Picard. "Um, come to Engineering? We got weirdness here that may connect to Dr Quaid's disappearance."
On their way through the bridge, Picard asks Riker about the replicators, but Riker says the ones in Quaice's quarters haven't been used... the quarters that we'd already established were unoccupied. Did Riker assume that maybe Quaice was living in the walls? Wouldn't Majel have reported that?
"Dr Quaice is currently in bulkhead C, Deck 12, guest quarters 10."
Picard also asks Worf to check their systems for weird anomalies and shit.
"I have. They're fine."
"Then run like, a manual diagnostic. I want to find this missing man that only Crusher thinks exists."
Worf looks so, so pleased.

Crusher and Picard rush down to Engineering, where Wes says he's been fucking around with the equations for Kosinski's warp bubble experiments. You remember Kosinski, right? That first-season asshole who came on board with nonsensical equations meant to improve warp engine efficiency, but who was actually a total fraud because all of the work was secretly being done by his alien time-traveling assistant? That guy?
(Okay, he's not a complete fraud, but you'd think that the E's previous experience with the dude would dissuade Wes from screwing around with Kosinski's work, which mostly only worked because his assistant was stacking the space-time deck in his favor.)

So Wes is playing with these equations, and there can really only be two outcomes here: nothing will happen because the equations are crap and never worked in the first place, or something went sideways because they did kind of work and wunderkind Wes understood enough of it to know that it will work, just not how to fix it if it goes off the rails.
You can guess which one it is.
"Yes, I've read your reports," says Picard.
Okay, you let him play with that shit? Like, in the warp core?
"Captain Picard, may I play with dynamite? I understand how gunpowder works, and I have goggles."
"Sure Wes, have at it! Send me updates!"
Wes and Geordi show Picard and Crusher the specs for the warp bubble that Wes made in the warp core, trying to see if they could keep it stable.
"We couldn't," says Geordi. "There was a flash of light, and it collapsed."
They're suggesting that Dr Quaice was inside when it collapsed.
"Where would he be now?" asks Picard.
"Dunno," says Geordi. "Maybe anywhere."

"Was Quaice down here when you were doing the experiment?"
"Nope."
"Did the bubble leave Engineering?"
"Nope."
"Then how could it have trapped him and the others?"
"What others?"
"Others who weren't in Engineering."
Picard tells them to keep plugging away, because they don't have any other plans.

Crusher goes back to sick bay, but it's empty. Frantic, she rushes to the bridge.
"No one is in sick bay! At least four members of my staff are supposed to be on duty at any given time!"
"Um, you do not have staff," says Data. "You're the only medical personnel on board the E."
"Are you kidding me? I'm the only doctor on board a ship with over 1000 people?"
"Noooo..." replies Data. "We only have 230 people on staff here."
Weird, suspicious music. The only senior officers give her some side-eye, because clearly, there is something wrong with this person who thinks that 800 people are missing from the ship.

Picard asks her to come to the ready room with him.
"Sooo, Wes' experiment couldn't have encompassed the whole ship, and we haven't found anything weird, but you're saying we're missing a whole shit-ton of people."
"Do you still believe me?"
"I kind of have to," he admits. "My crew is in danger." He gives her a weird look.
"Yeah, I examined myself," she admits. "Nothing wrong with me."
"But why are you the only person on board who hasn't been affected by this... whatever it is?"
She sighs. "Yeah, I'll talk to Troi."
Just before exiting, she turns and frantically asks him to return to the starbase for a full diagnostic.
He agrees, because he's always trusted her word.

Crusher goes back to sick bay, I guess to hang out by herself, and while she's there, some kind of windy vortex opens and tries to suck her in.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

The senior staff go to the Obs Lounge to talk about what just happened. Geordi tells everyone that he and some others spent two hours scanning sick bay and found nothing. Data comes in and says there's nothing wrong with the ship. The only Federation ship in the vicinity says nothing is wrong, as does a Ferengi ship nearby.
"How many people are on this ship?" Crusher asks hesitantly.
"114," says Data.
"OMG."
"That's how many there should be," says Data.
"That's over 900 missing," insists Crusher. "How does this ship on have a hundred people on board, and tons of empty quarters?"
"We do diplomatic missions," explains Data. "And evacuations. We need the room for those people."
That... is actually a good explanation.
"Okay," sighs Picard. "Confine all non-essential personnel to quarters and toss on red alert."
"Can we have Worf set up a thing to monitor their life signs?" Crusher asks.
"Who?"
"Worf."
He gives her a blank look.
"Seriously? Worf, the chief of security?" More blank looks. "Big guy who never smiles?"

Troi, who has been absent for the first half of this episode, is walking through the corridor. Crusher catches up to her.
"Hey Troi, am I actually crazy?"
"If you're actually asking, then the answer is probably no," replies Troi.
"But what if the problem is with me, and not with anyone else? It means I've delayed a mission and scared the hell out of a bunch of people."
"So what?" asks Troi. "You were acting in the best interests of the ship. That's okay."
I feel like she's downplaying this a bit too much here, and that Crusher could have gotten herself checked earlier without interfering with the running of the ship quite so much, but that's not where the episode wants to go, so...
Troi promises to order a complete physical and psychological work-up of Crusher when they get to the starbase, and Crusher pessimistically mutters about the possibility of reaching the starbase at all.
Then she suddenly remembers that she still has a kid on board (maybe), and rushes off, accompanied by mysterious, worried music.
Troi looks uneasy.

Crusher goes rushing into Engineering, calling Wes' name. She's pretty sure all is lost, when he steps out of the back.
"We don't have a lot of time," she says.
He hesitates, and she correctly guesses that she doesn't believe her.
"Tons of people are missing, and we only have your experiment to help us figure out why."
Wes gets a little short with her, and explains that he already talked to Kosinski on subspace, but the freaking fraud had no ideas, because he's a freaking fraud.
"I could try Kosinski's assistant, that traveling alien who combined warp energy with his own thoughts, but I don't know how to contact him."
"Oh! Maybe you recreated something he did!"
"I doubt it," says Wes. "That was some next-level shit. I mean, I sent a message to his home planet, but it's really far away, and that guy was super sick when we saw him last, he might not even be alive. But if anybody has answers, it'd be him."
"Let's go talk to Picard!" says Crusher.

"Our chances are slim at this point," Crusher continues, "but I'm feeling like teaming up with Picard and this traveler guy might just be enough to get us some info."

Crusher bursts onto the bridge to find just Picard. She moves to the door leading to the Obs Lounge and checks in there, to no avail.
"Lemme guess," she says, looking a bit off, "it's only ever been the two of us in this big empty ship, and you've never heard of any of the crew members that I clearly remember?"
"I've been entertaining this weird notion you have of a crew, but I'm kind of losing my patience," he replies.
She speaks of the missing crew members, talking about character traits they have that she likes, but he just stares at her like she's crazy. She tells him about The Traveler, and how they need to find him.
"When we get to starbase, I'll look for him," he assures her, in a patronizing voice.
"I want to set the computer to monitor your life signs out loud," she presses.
"Until I disappear?" he smiles.
"It'll happen."
He agrees, and they sit in the command positions. Majel begins reading out his vital signs.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper just now," she says calmly. "You remember that, don't you?"
Sassy Picard: "Vividly. But if I've forgotten my closest friends and colleagues, then I deserved the tongue-lashing."
"There's something I want to say to you, that I've been meaning to say to you for a long time..."
Here comes the will-they-won't-they moment, but you know the show won't let that happen.
She glances away, and starts her speech, noticing too late that Majel has stopped speaking.
When she looks back, the captain's chair is empty.
"I won't forget any of you," she tells the deserted bridge.
The vortex returns, big and badder this time, attempting to pull her through the viewscreen.

Heard through the vortex are the warped voices of Geordi and Wes.
"Wes, did you get her this time?"
"No, it isn't holding!"
The vortex starts to subside on Crusher's end, but we follow it through to the other side.
Geordi and Wes are trying to keep the vortex open, but what they're doing isn't working. Wes sees the bubble collapse completely onscreen.
"It's over, we lost her."
Geordi apologizes to the deflated Wes, but another voice says, "It isn't over, Wesley. There is another way."

Yay, Traveler!

Dramatic, hero-worshiping music! Commercial break!

Picard's Log 44162.5: "We tried twice to get Dr Crusher back, but haven't been successful. But The Traveler just showed up, so yay us."

In the Obs Lounge, Picard asks The Traveler if Crusher is alive.
"If she thinks she is, then she is."
Dude, that's not an answer. That's philosophy.

The Traveler says that human meatbags have a really narrow perception of time, space and thought. When Crusher got caught in the warp bubble, she created her own solipsistic nightmare. What she was thinking about when she got trapped was what formed the reality that she's stuck in.
"Can you get her back?" asks Troi.
"No, that's her reality. I can't go in, just like I can't go into her thoughts."
"Cut the bullshit," says Wes. "You said there was another way."
"There is," responds TT. "I can help, but you need to assist me. There's a power in each of us that most people don't recognize, but you have begun to recognize it. Together, we can do the thing."
Way to Vaguebook it, Traveler.

Crusher is pissed, and goes back to sick bay, determined to double-down on this shit.
She thinks out loud, because there's 14 more minutes of this show, and just watching her try stuff without saying anything the rest of the time is not entertaining.
"Starting with the assumption that I'm not nuts," she begins. "Majel, read me off the crew roster."
"Just you."
"Have I always been the only crew member of this big-ass ship?"
"Uh-huh."
Sassy Crusher Moment: "If this were a bad dream, would you tell me?"
Majel makes a noise like she's having trouble computing. "That's not a valid question."
"The fuck it's not."
Crusher walks down the corridor, asking Majel questions about herself to confirm what is still true, while opening doors and checking for other people.
"What's the primary mission of the starship Enterprise?"
"To explore the galaxy," replies Majel.
"Am I qualified to do that alone?"
"No."
"Then why am I the only crew member?"
Majel makes that noise again.
"Uh-huh," says Crusher.
"Um, that info isn't available," Majel tries to recover.
"Whatever." She waves off Majel's response, but you know that if this were not a "family" show playing during prime time that she would have flipped Majel off.

Crusher goes back to the bridge and sits in The Big Chair.
"Majel, do you know Tau Alpha C?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. There's this guy I need to talk to from there, or someone from his race. Are there any nearby?"
"Nope."
"Okay, how long to Tau Alpha C from here at warp 9.5?"
"Like 4 months."
Crusher sighs. "Okay, do it. Tau Alpha C. Warp 9.5. Engage."
Nada. No va.
"Majel, what the hell? Go."
"Where?"
"I just told you! Tau Alpha C!"
"Are you high?" asks Majel. "No such place."
"Fuck," says Crusher.
No crew, no galaxy.

Picard's Log 44162.8: "Going back to starbase 133 and the exact location where the warp bubble was first made."

The Traveler is down in Engineering with Wes, telling him that they have to go beyond the equations to form the gateway.
"You gotta let go of your guilt, too," he tells Wes.
"Still my fault," objects Wes.
"Immaterial," says TT. "You gotta be present, or this mystical shit will not work. Close your eyes."
Wes gives him a "bullshit" look, but does so anyway.
"See past the numbers," says TT. "See the blondes, brunettes and redheads."
Wes tries typing in the numbers with his eyes closed, but he immediately snaps them open after like zero effort and proclaims that he can't. Bitch, you have to try.
"When the time comes, you will," says The Traveler.
Um, when is that, exactly? They don't really have all the time in the world, TT.

Back in the warp bubble, Crusher has decided to call the starbase. No one is picking up.
"Turn on the viewscreen."
Majel turns it on, and there's a weird blue mist outside.
"What is that?"
"An energy field about 705 meters in diameter."
"It surrounds the ship?" Because she just knows the exact dimensions of the ship.
"Yep."
"Maybe I'm not crazy. Maybe there's something wrong with the universe." Pause. "Majel, what's on the other side of that mist?"
"Dunno. Can't see beyond it."
"Okay, here's an impossible question: what's the nature of the universe?"
"The universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter."
And now she's fucked, because the entire universe is an empty ship. What a nightmare. It's like she's that poor astronaut from The Royale. Only she doesn't even have Sam Anderson to talk to.

The E approaches Starbase 133, and it's a damn nice composite shot.

They're swinging back into the exact position they were in before, and TT and Wes are standing at the pool table with their eyes closed.
"There's the bubble," says TT.
Wes sees it too.
The Traveler makes a Hmmmm face, because The Traveler does not panic. "The bubble is collapsing."

Crusher goes to the science station and asks Majel to show her a drawing of the universe. It looks familiar.
"Is that... Wes' warp bubble?" Pause. "Oh! I'm in Wes' warp bubble!"
The ship rocks.
"Majel, what was that?"
"A flaw in the ship's design. I'm sealing off the forward decks."
"Show me, with one image superimposed over the other."

That's one hell of a ship flaw, not designing or building the forward decks like that.
It's similar to this flaw in the Titanic:

"Aw, crap. It's collapsing."
Yes, ma'am.
"How long until my life support fails?"
"Like four minutes."

The actual E that isn't a figment of Crusher's imagination is now in position, and the rescue is ready to begin.
You know that comment The Traveler made about "when the time comes..." and it sounds like Wes has years to work on it?
No, it's now. The Traveler meant like two minutes. Two minutes to achieve math nirvana.
Wes punches in numbers with his eyes closed.
The Traveler coaches him like a martial arts master.

In the meantime, Crusher asks herself about The Traveler and his ability to make thoughts into reality. She then reviews what she was thinking about when the warp bubble probably formed, and it was her friend Dennis Quaid and his thoughts on people going away forever without knowing how you felt about them.
"I started losing everybody because I was thinking of losing everybody! I created this reality! Can I think my way back out?"
"That info is not available," says Majel.
"STFU," replies Crusher.

Wes and The Traveler are working at the pool table, and The Traveler starts phasing in and out of time again.

"Hey, Majel: if I were in a static warp bubble, how could I get back out?"
"I dunno, you'd have to create a threshold between the bubble and the outside world."
"Okay, what would that look like?"
"It's never been done. How would I know?"
"Bitch, theorize!" barks Beverly. She only has three minutes of life support left.
"I guess like a vortex?" suggests Majel.
"Aw, shit," mutters Crusher. "They kept trying to get me out."
Nothing sucks more than the realization that you could have been done with this bullshit a long time ago.
She decides that if they're going to set up another vortex, it'll probably be in Engineering again, so she hops in the lift.
"I can't take you to Engineering," says Majel. "There's a problem with the lift."
Crusher is over it. "Anywhere on deck 36!"

Whoa, now Wes is phasing, too.

When the lift stops, she gets out just in time. The bubble has pretty much reached exactly where she is now, and is following her down the corridor. She hits Engineering, and lo and behold, there's a fat-ass vortex, just for her.

Crusher head-dives through it, and comes out the other side, a heap in front of a bulkhead. Wes faints. Picard helps Crusher up, and she hugs him.
She asks The Traveler if she should thank him. He humbly says no, and gestures at Wes, who is struggling to get up. Wes tries to be all professional, and even pulls out a Picard Maneuver before allowing his mother to hug him.
"How many people on board?" she laughs.
"Um, 1014," says Picard, "including your friend."
"That's the exact number there should be," she smiles.

*******

Some stuff about this episode that were pretty cool:

- This is a Crusher-centric episode. I like that. We don't get very many of those, and I think she's an interesting character.
- Gates McFadden carries a lot of this episode by herself. That's pretty impressive. It's not quite on par with "Brothers" where Brent Spiner not only does scenes by himself but plays three different characters in heavy make-up in each of those scenes, but it's still cool that she's able to carry a large part of a 50-minute show on her own.
- The return of The Traveler was nice. I like Eric Menyuk, who brings an otherworldliness to the character.

Otherwise...
...this episode is a bit meh. I mean, I want to like it more because of the above stated reasons, but I feel like those things were not enough to not only hold my interest, but keep me wanting more. The sci-fi was good, and the psychological parts interesting, but I generally forget this episode exists.

Here's a weird general question: as the audience, we're asked to suspend our disbelief at certain things in order to make the show work. There is a Normal setting for the show that does not quite jive with Real Life As We Know It. The show wants us to believe that there is a fleet of ships in the future that explore the galaxy and beyond, and that we meet and live with other species. Okay. Also, there is one governing body of Earth and we all generally get along as a species. Okay. No money. (Sometimes.) No religion. (We'll see.)
But the show has to have these Normals established in order to establish what is not normal, so that we might understand the conflict. In this case, a warp bubble swallowing a person, who then creates her own reality within it, is not within those established Normal parameters. Okay. And I get that Dr Crusher is a trusted member of staff, as well as being Picard's personal friend. But he let her go on for a really long time before suggesting that maybe the problem was with her.
And so, my actual question: how much weirdness is considered too much to be outside of the show's Normal? Like, this show hits a lot of weirdness. A LOT. And while I know that's necessary for plot, it sometimes seems like too much. What are the parameters for weirdness in space travel? Is it Anything Outside The Realm of Aliens And Space Fleets?


- Fun Facts:

- A cut scene establishes that Dr Hill's first name was Richard, and that he was an osteopath. He had come aboard six months earlier with his wife Cara, who was an exobiologist. When questioned about Dr Hill, Cara could not recall ever having been married, just that she was an exobiologist who had come aboard the Enterprise six months earlier, alone. Dr Selar's family was likewise questioned and did not remember her.
- Gates McFadden did several of her own stunts for this episode, then discovered that she was pregnant.
- This is a bottle show, but you've figured that out already.
- This episode is considered 2 of 3 of The Traveler arc.
- This episode was originally the B Plot for "Family" but the writers felt that there was too much going on in this episode to cram it all in with Picard's PTSD story.
- The Traveler wasn't added to the story until the third script. The first script ended with it being all a dream, but that was unsatisfying. (Um, yeah.) They had wanted to bring The Traveler back for another episode, and thought, "why not here?"
- Director Cliff Bole felt that the impetus for bringing back The Traveler was that he was popular at conventions.
- Starbase 133 was reused footage of Starbase 74 from "11001001."
- Dr Crusher's uniform is a bit lighter than Dr Quaice's. This may either be a difference in fabric, or in laundering. Dr Crusher is seen more than any of the other science or medical officers on the show, so her uniform would naturally get washed more often.

- The Traveler's make-up was modified for this episode, and the third that he appears in. It is lighter here than in the first episode.

- Reality weirdness: Dr Crusher was not wearing her lab coat when she got sucked into the bubble. She then put it on while inside the bubble. When she dives through the vortex and into actual reality, she is still wearing the lab coat.

- Rick Berman felt this episode was a bit confusing. It involves tricking the audience into thinking there is only one reality at work for most of the episode, and tricking the audience isn't his cup of Earl Grey.

- Cliff Bole has said that this was not his favorite episode, but noted that he got a lot of positive feedback from the fans about it.

- This is the first episode to feature the black outlines on the transporter pads. All other transporter pads across the franchise will feature these lines going forward. (Despite the fact that I never noticed those before.)

- This is the third instance that I can remember off the top of my head where Wes was playing with some experiment in a way that was inadvisable for most people, that ends up fucking up the shit  ship, The other two being "The Naked Now" and "Evolution."


Red deaths: 0
To date: 0
Gold deaths: 0
To date: 0

Blue deaths: 0
To date: 0
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0
To date: 11,000

Obnoxious Wes moments: 0
To date: 0

Legitimate Wes moments when he should have told someone to go fuck themselves: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Geordi moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Wes Moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Worf Moment: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Riker Moments: 0
To date: 2
Sassy Picard Moments: 1

To date: 3

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Data Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 0
Sassy Crusher Moments: 1
To date: 1
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 0
To date: 0

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 1
To date: 3

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 1
To date: 4

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 0
To date: 0
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 1
To date: 1
Picard Maneuvers: 2
To date: 8
Tea, Earl Grey: 1
To date: 2