TNG · SEASON 11×23

We'll Always Have Paris

NOMADIC PICK · FOR PICARD FANSA wistful romance out of time.
FIRST SHOWN (US)
2 May 1988
ON
First-run syndication
STARDATE
41697.9
DIRECTED BY
Robert Becker
PRODUCTION NO.
124

WRITTEN BYWritten by Deborah Dean Davis and Hannah Louise Shearer

IN BRIEF

SPOILER-FREE

Strange time distortions lead the Enterprise to a reclusive scientist whose experiments have gone badly wrong, and to his wife, the woman Picard once left behind in Paris.

SYNOPSIS

SPOILERS
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSISHIDE SYNOPSIS

Moments of time briefly repeat themselves aboard the Enterprise, and a distress call follows from Dr Paul Manheim, a brilliant scientist expelled from the Federation Science Institute for unauthorised experiments. Picard knows the name for another reason: Manheim's wife Jenice is the woman he walked away from in Paris years earlier to pursue his career in Starfleet. At Manheim's base on a remote planetoid, the scientist lies gravely ill, and Picard and Jenice resume an awkward, tender conversation. Manheim explains that his research into time and other dimensions has opened a rift he can no longer control, and the distortions are getting worse. Data, judged least vulnerable to their effects, goes alone into the laboratory, where he briefly meets other versions of himself, and seals the rift with a carefully measured amount of antimatter. With Manheim recovering, Picard and Jenice share a final visit to a holodeck Paris before she leaves with her husband.

DID YOU KNOW?

  1. 01Because of the 1988 Writers Guild strike, the script was written in five days, and the scene where Data fixes the distortions was found to be unfinished during filming.
  2. 02The story was influenced by the film Casablanca, which also inspired its title.
  3. 03The matte painting of 24th-century Paris was reused in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, hanging outside the Federation president's office.
SOURCES WE CHECKED