TNG Finale: “All Good Things…”

Date: June 3, 2020

Season 7, Episode 25

Musical Accompaniment: Star Trek in concert, from Prague 2016

Interstellar News: Summer has arrived in the South. Also, we watched the credits one last time.

Favorite Quotes:

Worf’s One-Two Punch: “It was…… very stimulating.”

Picard’s Poetry: “I prefer to look on the future as something which is not written in stone.”

Data’s Not Really An Android: “I found that a touch of grey adds an air of distinction.”

Riker is a Raconteur: “A face off. The question is, who’s going to move first?”

Quick Summary: Worf and Troi have a holodeck date and just as they are about to kiss Picard comes running up to them in his Big Lebowski finest and explains he’s moving through time. At various points through the episode we deal with Past, Current, and Future Picard.

The future is about 25 years from current time where Picard is tending to his grapes and has Irumodic Syndrome. La Forge, minus VISOR but add wife and kids, comes to visit and they then travel to visit Data in Cambridge where he is a professor and a crazy cat android. They decide they need a ship, which Admiral Riker denies, but the other Captain Picard (first name Beverly) allows them to tag along. They also find Governor Worf, the most honorable Klingon in politics, who goes with them to try and smooth things over as the Klingons took over the Romulan Empire and parted ways with the Federation. Troi is, apparently, dead and it caused a rift between Riker and Worf. They arrive where the anomaly should be but are attacked by Klingons and then saved by Riker and the Enterprise.

The past begins on the shuttle craft that takes him to the Enterprise for the first time with Tasha Yar as his pilot. They are on their way to Farpoint Station, are ordered to The Neutral Zone, but Picard ignores that orders and goes looking for the first time he met Q. Eventually he is back in front of Judge Q who plays “10 questions” with Picard and proclaims Picard has doomed humanity.

In the present Crusher begins with a scan but there’s communication from Admiral Nakamura that wants to send them to The Neutral Zone because… Romulans. The scan shows a defect and it’s serious enough that lead to Crusher and Picard having a tender moment. At the edge of TNZ Picard hails the Romulan warbird and he and Tomolak agree to each send one ship in to investigate the anomaly. La Forge’s eyes begin to heal and Nurse Ogawa loses her baby because of anti-time. After a lot of back and forth and a bit of nudging from Q, Picard realizes the tachyon pulses are what caused the anomaly. He eventually orders all three ships to enter the anomaly, at which point they all see each other, and one-by-one they explode. Present Picard is then back with just Q in the judge’s chambers where Q explains he’s done well and all of a sudden Picard is back to interrupting Worf and Troi. The episode ends with Picard joining the senior staff for poker night.

My Thoughts and Impressions: When Picard is first in the future and sees people jeering at him, I thought it was weird but was sure I’d find out more soon. The second time it happened I said to my husband “weird, those totally look like the people from the first episode when Q put them on trial”, and he gave a noncommittal shrug. When Q finally reveals himself, I shot my husband a look… I’m sure you know the one.

I really enjoyed seeing how the episode came together. In the past you see how the crew must have felt when Jellico took command, as Picard acts just like Jellico did. Picard makes use of his future knowledge to bring everyone to his side eventually, because he’s Jean-Luc Picard, damn it! In the future, you see how much everyone changed and still kind of stayed the same in some respects. I was thrilled to see Crusher became a captain, sad that Troi died, creeped out that La Forge may have married Leah Brahms, happy that Worf was living his best Klingon life, ecstatic that Data turned into me (a professor with a lot of cats), and not surprised that Riker turned into a jerk when he became an admiral. It was great to see how they got the band back together, it flowed in all the right ways. In the present, and I can’t say it enough, WE NEEDED MORE TOMOLAK! Q is at his best here when he takes Picard back in time to where the first amino acids bumped uglies, because he really has developed a soft spot for Picard and humanity. Q knows deep down that Picard will always make the hard choice, even if it means sacrificing himself and his crew in three different timelines. It was also wonderful that the timelines did not effect one another, it actually made a lot of sense to me.

After the mishegoss that was the last two series finales, TOS and TAS, I was so glad that this was everything I wanted it to be. There are callbacks to just enough things, a bit of the show calling itself out, and enough science fiction and Q continuum foolishness to bring us full circle on this journey and not feel like it was all for nothing. The present day crew has their futures ahead of them because that future no longer exists and, the sky is truly the limit for them. I know I’ll see the crew in some movies and Picard (if I ever get there), but I’m excited for some new faces and a different setting for a while. That’s a wrap at warp 9 for me. Tomorrow, we’ll tackle Generations.

TA Out!