UNCUT - Cause and Effect (TNG S5E18) | Star Trek Journey 225

1992. A year where zero people in a dusty 3000 person farm town ever talked or thought about time travel, time loops, multiverses, wormholes, etc... Concepts like this were rare and completly mindblowing to 13yo brains seeing them for the first time. Best WTF cold open. A big reason I got into physics. Fav episode ever. S+

My interpretation of how Data knew to send the message "3" (referring to Cmdr. Riker) is that sometime (off-screen) Data continued to analyze the recording of their voices from the previous loop, and heard both Riker and himself give suggestions to Captain Picard. Logically, if Picard went with Data's suggestion (which he did) and the ship still exploded, Data would know that this was the incorrect decision. So he programmed "3" into the next loop deducing that Riker's suggestion would save the ship. I don't think he "knew" for a fact that this would be the case, but realistically it was the only other thing they could have done. Since he knew that his idea was definitely going to fail, MAYBE Riker's idea would work. Basically, it was an educated guess, and therefore the rational decision.

I know a lot of people think that the Bozeman ALSO went through the time loop (for nearly 90 years), but I don't think that's the case; for all we know, it was only the Enterprise that went through it. Maybe the Bozeman, from their point of view, really did only go through the time fissure just the once

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_15NPEoA5K/?igsh=MXdsbDFweWF5c3hvZg== This explains the beard lol. Also no worries, no spoilers

A great meme came from this episode

The Bozeman came from 2278 which is seven years before “STII: The Wrath of Khan” which is set in 2285 and about five years after “ST: The Motion Picture” (according to the 2019 timeline video released on startrek.com). “Cause and Effect” takes place in 2268, so the Bozeman traveled ninety years into the future.

In the fourth loop when they had their discussion in the observation lounge, it was at the normal meeting time of 07:00 that we also saw in the first and second loops. It was held early in the third loop. That gave them the extra time to set up the dekyon field emitter in Data’s positronic matrix.

I believe that “Aunt Adele” is named after TNG production crew member, Adele Simmons.

It has always been my headcanon that Beverly has a little bit of the spacetime awareness/genius that she passed on to Wesley. I don't know if it was intentional by the writers, but Wesley got that whole "warp field Mozart" speech from the Traveler and there are multiple times where Beverly is the first to notice something like this going on. In this case, everyone eventually started having deja vu, but Beverly was having it right from the first loop.

I've always thought this episode is somehow related to The Twilight Zone episode called "Twenty Two". A woman has a repeating dream while in the hospital where she keeps ending up in the morgue (room 22) with the nurse always saying "Room for one more, honey". She keeps breaking a glass like Dr. Crusher does as well. When she's finally out of the hospital, she goes to get on a flight that has the same number as the room number of the morgue (flight 22). She notices some other coincidences, including a glass breaking. When the flight attendant welcomes her on the flight she says "Room for one more, honey" and that triggers her to run off the flight screaming. The flight explodes on take off, but she escaped. If it's not based on this, they must have at least seen it. The repeated glass breaking is too much of a coincidence.

I guess I have a different opinion here. I always thought that the Bozeman was also trapped in the loop. If you take the idea that the Enterprise repeated the loop 50 times then the Bozeman's loop would have been something like a year and a half. So perhaps that is too long of a period of time to make the connection as the crew would probably have had an even more difficult time remembering that many events to start connecting them to the explosion. Especially since the "cause to explosion" event for them would have only been a few minutes in a 20 month series of Deja Vu feelings. That's how I always thought the two ships were connected.

The message Data sent makes perfect sense to Data. His mind creates it and his mind decodes it. Cause And Effect predates "Groundhog Day" which came out in February 1993. And might instead trace it's origins to a short film that aired on Showtime in 1990 called "12:01 PM", based on a book by Richard A. Lupoff, that recounts the story of man reliving the same hour (his lunch hour) over and over. A made-for-TV movie (12:01) that aired on Fox Network, was produced at the same time as "Groundhog Day" but aired after it (and BTW is one of my all-time favorite movies), recounts the same idea but as a repeating full day. And is based more directly on the Lupoff book and is a more serious take on the idea. Perhaps the TNG writers were Sci-Fi fans and had read the book that spawned two sequels by the author. The book and the Fox film are worth checking out, although the DVD of the Fox movie regularly sells for $50 to $100.

this episode was mind blowing when it aired

Guys, I don't know if you are readers, but there is a wonderful, WONDERFUL novel called "Ship of the Line" by Diane Carey that tells the story of the fate and continuing mission of the U.S.S. Bozeman in the TNG era. It is a damn good story and Scotty is in it as well (this takes place after "Relics"). I know many of the younger generations like yourselves aren't into reading (which is a real shame) but there is an audiobook narrated by actor Kevin Conway, who does a damn good impression of Kelsey Grammar, James Doohan, and Patric Stewart. You can easily picture Kelsey as Captain Morgan Bateson. The audiobook is an abridged version and I highly recommend the novel itself but if you don't have time for reading, audiobooks are very convenient. Writer Diane Carey is one of the better and more prolific Star Trek novelists.

One of my top 5 or so favorite episodes.

In the discussion, you mention multiple times that they figured it out in 17 tries. That's probably not correct. The episode said they figured it out in 17 days. From what we see, the loop starts during a late night poker game and ends just after the 7am staff meeting the next morning. So it's probably closer to 8 hours per loop rather than 24, and it took them around 50 tries to escape.

To be completely honest, I hated this episode at first - I'm one of the guys who gave it an E grade on your poll. The time loop thing just bugged me, so I actually have not seen this a 2nd time because of it. I was surprised you both gave it an A. (I fast forwarded this initially to see what grade you gave it) So I decided to give it another look and it made me look at it differently. This is a big part of why I love this channel. Thanks guys!

I made the “ok, see ya” joke when I first saw the cold open 30 odd years ago.

Alex, if you’re already getting into Cheers and Frasier has yet to show up, that show will just keep improving. One of my very favorite shows. That would be an interesting reaction series, but it’s a lot of seasons to commit too.

I had always assumed the Bozeman was in that loop, too, just for all those years. But I’m rethinking the whole plot. Geordi, I thought after this rewatch, said an explosion could have caused the anomaly. But if the ship only exploded after the collision with the time traveling ship, wasn’t the anomaly there BEFORE the explosion?

One of my favorite episodes.

As a director JF had the nickname “Two-Takes Frakes,” but this script required a lot more than that!

Data could stack the deck however he wants anytime he wants. Keep that in mind.

I’m more understanding to data figuring out the meaning behind the message because he was the one to send himself the message. We understand our own way of thinking better than others would. As an example, I would often use coded reminders for passwords that would be gibberish to others, but make perfect sense to me. (For example…not one I actually used, but that I would understand. If I read a reminder that said “Amazing, fantastic, more than meets the eye”, to a stranger it’s crazy nonsense. But I would know it’s a two word password “spiderman4transformers”. I might use other codes if one word was capitalized too, but you get the idea). As long as it made sense to Data, I’m fine with the idea. 🤷‍♂️

To me, this is the exact same phenomenon that brought the Enterprise C into the future, except that the Bozeman didn't have a historical role to play to prevent an all out war with a major superpower. The crew of the Bozeman were not in the loop 80 years, they were just in it the same 17 days the Enterprise was. It is just that every time they collided, the Bozeman went back to the past. There wasn't an 80 year in limbo, they just started over, went through the time rift, and struck the Enterprise. An episode from their perspective might also be interesting. Also, I remember seeing the TV trailer for this episode when it came out, and that is how I learned I was the only Star Trek nerd in my class. When I asked some classmates if they had seen the trailer and how the Enterprise blew up, some of them didn't care, and some were like "good, I hope they cancel the show."

He didn't know for sure. But it was the only alternative course of action available.

"it felt like a bit of a reach" I don't think so, because recall Data thinks much faster then we do. He correlates the contents of his own subconscious mind- it even takes HIM a few seconds, but he realizes that had they setup a system like this before, that is what his message must have meant. This wouldnt be true for any other character, but Data knows how his own heuristics worse, so once he sees the three pips, he puts it together fast enough to do the action that he was signaled himself to do- by realizing he was in the same situation and what the signal must have been referring to by means of what he would have sent in the same situation. (sorry again for all the posts, I make these as I'm listening and hear something I want to respond to. Maybe I should wait till the end in the future, but I don;t want to forget the point I want to make.

oh, also, another "they should have listened to worf" Logically, since they woudnt have known to reverse course the first time around, reversing course could not have caused them to enter the loop. You would think someone would have realized that and said "yeah, we should reverse course because the first time we did this, we wouldnt have reversed course as there would have been no reason to do that" But Picard gives the same reasoning he gave in the "Q caused it" two Picards episode. In that case you could say he was being infliuenced by Q. Here its just something where they should have been able to do the logic since they already knew they were stuck in a loop.

well, the "abandon ship"line occurs just before the explosion, so presumably at that point the inertial dampeners have completely failed

My speculation as to why Crrusher was most in tune with it was her experience with the warp bubble in remember me. She is wesley's mother so she may have had some of whatever Wesley has. Which makes me wonder where Guinan was in this episode, you think this is the sort of thing she would pick up on. Maybe not, or maybe she realized they could figure it out without her help. Or maybe she had a premonition and decided to go on vacation before this time loop occurred. I thought of why they didn't check the federation time beacons before, but I guess they couldn't while they were in the loop. The bozeman crew must have had hella deja vu, but not being our crew and not having data, they couldnt figure it out. (it's funny when you think about it, how many episodes the crew only survives because of Data. I guess you could say the same for Spock in TOS)

A few notes. The theory you talked about in the beginning is called "quantum immortality". Indeed, all the shots were unique, they made it a point not to reuse shots. In the loop before last, Crusher called them earlier then the previous meetings. She said "sorry, this couldnt wait". That accounts for the extra time they had in that loop to set up Data's transmission band.

I think Data had to explain the pips to the rest of the crew. He made a command decision and saved the ship he had to explain the 3’s..

This episode represents the very best of pure science fiction. Asimov could have written it. Bravo!!! S all the way.

fun fact in the last episode Levar wanted a beard and the producers said no. so one day he showed up with a beard and they let it go. but afterword they made him shave, I think the logic was Riker is the one with a beard you cant both do it .

Star Trek where you can die, come back to life, sacrifice your life, and become your own mother. In this case you can get blown up and not get blown up.

top 5 of the series for sure

Since they repeated 17.4 days worth of the loop, the very beginning of the episode where Beverly calls Rikers bluff could be because she always did, but it also could have been because of the deja vu. The nice thing is you can believe whatever you think makes the episode and characters more enjoyable, in fact, you can believe both.

The theory Josh was talking about at the start is called Quantum Immortality, and it is fascinating indeed, basically we have almost infinite lives and if we die in one universe our "souls" jump into another body in a different universe. It makes some sense too, given how fragile our bodies are and how easy it is to die... As for the episode, I think A+ or "baseline" S if that makes any sense, fits perfectly. It's where the tier-list on its own breaks down because I think this is a fantastic episode, but like Alex, you don't really feel anything. It's just a fun, well-executed science fiction episode. Nothing wrong with that, but even though it's great, I think it's incorrect to give it the same kind of rating as, say, Measure of a Man or Redemption Part 2, or The Wounded, etc... those are meaty S-tiers. Maybe that's it, there's a "fun" S-tier and a "heavy" S-tier.

MVP of this Episode was Jonathan Frakes creative direction. He single handedly kept that episode engaging. Agree with the A grade.

A+ episode. Awesome concept, very eerie. Watching our team uncovering the mystery. Frakes directing. You can’t cut out any scenes. They’re all vital, and its a tight script. So well done.

I like to think Pulaski’s greatest contribution to the series was introducing the poker game to the crew.

There's a novel out there that has the bozeman in it

I think it interesting that Picard changes the recipe for the steamed milk. Sort of shadowing the small changes that allow them to escape the loop.

On the bluray, there’s a great commentary with Brannon Braga and Seth McFarlane and it’s hilarious

I watched this episode when it came after the friend of mine and we had the best time at every commercial break lol

Data: 1000 people talking at the same time. So, no one is listening? 🤔

They could have been in that loop for 100 years and Picard would have never listened to Worf.

It's fortunate that they did NOT get Kirstie Alley to play Saavik here, as it would have been wrong. The Bozeman disappeared in 2278. Wrath of Khan happened after 2283!

I was watching a talk show where Star Trek actors were being interviewed. They talked about a silly thing they had to do that they called starship acting. When asked what it was they started shaking back and forth in their chairs. Your remark about Patrick Stewart shaking back and forth in his chair reminded me of that. So now you know what he was doing. His timing was probably a little off.

Still not really getting why it would be better if the episode was longer? I love the ep but it was already stretching into repetitive by the final iteration.

"Colm down!" - I hope not! :O

I never noticed in the first poker game, after Crusher says Riker raises his eyebrow whenever he's bluffing, you see Data in the next shot looking at Riker like "is she right?". Even though it can be repetitive, this really is a fantastic episode. The subtle changes as the crew slowly picks up on the loop, the adrenaline packed hook, the fun poker game scenes, the creepiness of the voices in Crusher's quarters. It's just a great watch. I was debating on the discord the other night whether Riker's solution would have worked or not. Based on the official blueprints and some guesstimation, and with air at sea level pressure and about 20 celsius weighing about 1.2kg per cubic metre, I figured there was roughly 130 tons of air in the main shuttle bay. The Enterprise weight 4.5 million tons. However fast that air comes out, the Enterprise will be moving about 35,000x slower. So even if that air came out at supersonic speeds, they would only be moving about 1 metre every 100 seconds or so. Still it's an S for me. Not much to say beyond that.

RLM bought one of the destroyed Enterprise D models. They have a video about them mounting it.

I think the reason the crew always did the collision scene the same way was that their training was kicking in. "Standard procedure" would dictate a lot of their actions once the emergency situation began.

We’re getting closer to the end of season 5 and I’m not ready for a season 6 song yet, warp factor chaos ROCKS 🤘🏼 even my kids enjoy listening to it in the car 🤣

"Calm down" and the following 10 seconds of Alex being flustered like a Jr High kid denying a crush is absolutely a top-10 TNG reaction moment for you guys. Had me howling.

I agree it could do with some more time but I think rather than having more loops they could have had more dialogue with Frasier at the end

Why would you think Ro had a wig? I believe that was Michelle Forbes' actual hair style at the time. This was filmed in 1992, and there is a movie California from 1993 (presumably filmed in 92 as well) in which she appeared as well, and she had a similar hair style. I couldn't really find any reference if she was indeed wearing a wig at that time in her life, but also this hair style was popular in the 90's.

One of my all time favorite episodes. The idea of time loops is such an interesting one, and this one handled it so very well. For another TV episode that does some time looping, and coincidentally also stars Michelle Forbes, look to the Outer Limits "A Stitch in Time" from 1996. It's utterly amazing.

Appears we need 5 unnamed couples added to the porking rankings for this one

I like how in the last briefing when they're discussing all the 3s, Picard wonders what 3 could mean. It cuts immediately to Riker with his 3 pips in full view.

I’m going to disagree that the ending is rushed. The episode ended at the end of the story. Could we see more on the Bozeman? Sure, but that’s not what this episode is about. This episode is about OUR characters being stuck in the time-loop and how THEY figure out how to get out of it. Once that happens, the story’s over. If there’s anything about the ending that doesn’t work it’s that the way out of the loop was literally the Enterprise stepping aside. In that sense it is a little anticlimactic.

One of the rare episodes I feel suffers just a tiny bit from digital/home media formatting. It added to the tension of the episode to have each repetition perfectly framed by an ad break. Now, without that 2-3 minute gap between loops, there's less opportunity for the audience to fully reset and something a bit undefinable is lost.

This episode was part a very early internet debate on the old Bad Astronomy site concerning whether a few hundred pounds of escaping air from the shuttle bay could actually move a few million tons of starship. It obviously wouldn't even budge it an inch.

Data says, "I determined Commander Riker's suggestion MIGHT be the correct one." He doesn't know that it is, only that his is the wrong one.

I agree the ending seems a bit rushed, but I would not want to see anymore iterations. If I was to see anything more, it would have been Kelsey Grammer as the Bozeman captain and his reaction to what he and his crew have been through.

This was worth wasting a Saturday afternoon.

I have a feeling Josh will move this to an S by the end of the season rankings. I think it benefits from time; no pun intended. I always liked it but didn't love it until later, as I was spoiled growing up by being familiar with some really good classic Doctor Who paradoxes (Day of the Daleks, Mawdryn Undead, etc). But as time went on, I liked it more and more and by the time Redlettermedia rated it as one of their favorites, I was in complete agreement.

Noooo it's a day early and I'm out doing stuff!!

S-Tier!

How would you say "Hey, we tried the shuttle bay. It didn't work. Try this..." by using one word. AKA, the writers simplified it.

If they had another 1 or 2 segments, I think there's a strong possibility you would've said it was starting to get repetitive. Plus, how many camera angles do you want? Lol But, seeing more of the Boseman would've been great.

Riker: What if turning back is what caused the collision. That's a bit silly, since you can imagine the first time it happened there would have been no reason to think about turning back.

It's amazing how little things can sometime have a big impact. I think the glass breaking really made this episode punch. It sort of paced each cycle while also adding an air of inevitability to events.

In Star Trek, Riker is considered a grandmaster poker player. But everyone always calls his bluff and wins!

Great episode, a definite A. For any statisticians out there, how did you like the ridiculous line: "I'm going to run a pattern recognition algorithm on the number 3".

It's a little unfair to say that this is repeating the premise of all those other things, which actually came after it? But I assume it's not a new premise even back in 1992.

When I watch this one I wonder if the other ship was actually trapped for years, or if the temporal anomaly dropped them out in the same spot as the enterprise; so they jumped forward in time before looping due to the crash. If so, then it may have only been trapped in the loop for the same time period as the enterprise. The temporal anomaly in that case only caused a loop b/c of the technobable effects of the two warp core explosions and whatnot, but prior to that it still acted as a gate between the 80 year gap. I like this as head cannon if only b/c it makes the other ship seem less stupid--and answers a plot hole of if we really believe they were looping for 80 years, what else caused them to loop; if not the crash? Since enterprise was only looping for short time.

Good call on the glass, Alex. Ofcourse, it still broke.

But ... it's Saturday. Damned timeloops.

Good call Josh on guessing it was using Riker's choice.

What took me years to get is that the first poker scene is a repeat loop as well, you can just hear a slit-second hesitation when Worf says "I hope... so" to the cards being sufficiently shuffled.

Guess I have something to look forwad to after work. Just hope I don't get caught in a time loop.

By God Yes. We are finally here :) Remember Me S4E5 and Cause and Effect S5E18 are my favorite episodes of STNG. I call them the Double Crush.

I love everything about this, but especially Frakes' direction in making each pass through feel fresh. Absolutely top tier, I've lost count of how many times I've watched this one.

Top 10 April Fools Jokes on the Enterprise #5. Put a tiny speaker in Dr Crusher's bedroom to play garbled voices.

SH*T F**K SH*T F*CK!!! It's happening. EVERYBODY SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! IT'S SUPER TREK SATURDAY! 🖖🖖🖖🖖

Yes! Can’t wait to watch this

Yes! Can’t wait to watch this

Yes! Can’t wait to watch this

Does anyone feel like we’ve done this before?