UNCUT - Time's Arrow Part II (TNG S6E1) | Star Trek Journey 235

Both parts were so much worse than I remembered. BRUTAL MARK TWAIN AGONY.

Everyone when this came out knew it Mark Twain. It was such a bad caricature that it was so obvious. Is Mark Twain so gone as a simple historical reference in pop culture that some do not recognize him?!! Really ?? They focus so much on how having real life people does not make it good seems to be over done. It is like they are upset or embarrassed they did not know it was Mark Twain and did not know the other literary references. I was making a joke in my mind that they did not know it was Twain before they said it. It made me laugh once they did say it

I do hate Mark Twain in this. He is annoying. And maybe even worse is the Star Trek love of modernism. It is such bull and disproved by the two World Wars in the first half of the 20th century. Not a fan of Whoopi either. Oh Picard and company meets her centuries earlier but cannot talk about it until after the resolution in their time. Ughh . I have just never liked Whoopi and Guinan much.

I didn’t really know part 1 was supposed to be about Mark Twain at the time I first saw this way back in 1993 nor did I got the Jack London reference I just remember finding it fun - faults and all

As a kid in the 80s...everyone at that time knew exactly who he was. It was really really common knowledge back then. Like shows referenced him a LOT more than they do today.

Even if you two don't give the episodes a specific grade, I think it would be a significant loss if we aren't going to get *some* kind of ratings from the patrons so that we can get a sense of how the community feels about each episode. I think that this has always been a valuable part of each episode.

I'm genuinely by the amount of hate for Mark Twain in the comments here. This is definitely very mid as a cliffhanger season finale and is probably not to high as a Star Trek episode in general, but I have always found Twain to be easily the best part of the episode and probably the best one-off guest portrayal of the series (there are much better guest *characters*, but I'm talking about the portrayal).

Why didn't Data just pay Mrs. Carmichael? He had cash!

The worst reaction you guys have done. Both talked through much of the dialogue. Just like with Darmok and ST VI, it seems like you guys pre-decided you weren't going to like this.

In Disaster, Data seems to function quite well without his body. His head didn’t need reattaching to his body to work. Why didn’t Geordi and or Data get the head working in Part 1? Always bugged me.

I like old-timey Guinan but that's about it from this 2-parter. Skip! And I liked the kid episodes so you know I'm pretty easy to please.

This one is terrible but it is one of my guilty pleasure episodes. I enjoy it because it is so campy.

100% agree about Mark Twain - I always skip these two on rewatch because of how grating and annoying his voice is. I did suffer through it with TA but that'll hold me for another 20 years, lol.

I can testify that 40 years ago it was nearly impossible to graduate high school without having read something by Jack London.

HoalHolbrook is a famous actor who did a famous one-man show on Broadway called Mark Twain tonight this portrayal by Jerry Hardin is pretty much in sync with how Hal Holbrook portrayed him. If you look on YouTube you can see clips of it as well as film versions that he did as well portraying Mark Twain. It's basically the way Mark Twain is believed to have talked at least in his older years.

The actor who played Samuel Clemens is the same actor who plays deep throat in the first season of X-Files, Jerry Hardin.

The Presido (under which is where they found Data's headi) in San Francisco has been the home of Lucasfilm and their subsidiaries (ILM, Sky walker Sound and Lucas Arts among others) since 2005. If you've ever seen the outdoor Yoda statue that's where that is. Of course Jack London wrote Call of the Wild, White Fang and more. It was well known that he had traveled to Alaska and was inspired from his travels to write several books In 1906 there was a huge devastating earthquake in San Francisco. This episode takes place in 1893, 13 years earlier. Although I understand Picard's intentions with the lights isn't that sort of changing history if it saves even one person's life. The same with Dr Crusher trying to help some people medically isn't that effectively changing history as well. I guess after all they're human so it's hard to not want to help when you know there's something bad happening.

Lol they didn't know jack london, we love our non reading bros

Best season of TNG for me! So many great episodes

I just want you both to know, I agree with whatever Alex said. Please read my take now.

TNG The sex scoreboard Dr Beverly in a nurse outfit! Riker dressed as a cop! Geordi clearly as a PIMP!!! and let's not forget, Guinan, who is turned on by bald men, meets for the first time the Bald God that is Pickered. This could have turned into a massive orgy. but no. no scores so we start season 6 with the following board. Riker 14 Troi 4 Dr. Bev 3 Picard 3 Data 2 Ro 1 Worf 1 Geordi 1 Broccoli 2 i Chief/Keiko 1

This season to me is a roller coaster/whiplash kind of season. Some episodes are my favorites, some I always skip. There are definitely some "let's try something new" episodes that happen with a long running show. And as always, sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

Anticipating this reaction, I gotta admit I just jumped to the post-episode stuff. And then kind of skipped through those parts. I always found this episode "just okay" and didn't mind Clemens too much. But it's sure not the kind of episode I need to hear the argument for or against. It's very understandable someone may not like this one. One problem it kind of comes down to is, "too cute." Goofy characters, period costume jokes and stuff, which may not be terrible on their own, but they don't make for a good whole episode. One positive I could find is, it's not boring to watch, as some bland episodes can be.

Nobody cares. How tired. Alex and Josh are. Dance monkeys!

What’s funny about this is that it’s clear the writers didn’t have a clue how to resolve Part 1 and decided to just write whatever they wanted. Some good stuff here but a lot of that is down to costuming. It all gets wrapped up very quickly. It’s a guilty pleasure for me but it’s the weakest season opener since s2.

The Trek writing staff of this era is a little too in love with their profession and I do not appreciate the self-insertions of themselves and their heroes. It's like when an anime features a struggling manga writer as a protagonist. "Write about what you know", does NOT mean write about writers.

As we all love Mark Twain boy have i got the highlights vid from this episode for you. very amusing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uIxSwvmWVM

Guys, for what must be the fifth time: Nobody is claiming historical parallels make an episode good. That has never, not once, been the point.

There is a good continuity moment here between Guinan and Picard, a call back to season 3 episode 6, Booby Trap. Guinan told Geordie that a bald man was once kind to her and took care of her when she was hurting. And in terms of Mark Twain, I also always found him annoying here. But I do like the moment in which he, as an old cynic, realized the future was bright.

I find it somewhat amusing to hear you guys comment that episodes you dislike, such as this one, were disappointing and reminiscent of episodes from season 1 or season 2. As I recall, you were actually very positive about both season 1 and season 2 and seemed perplexed that longtime fans of Star Trek were so negative about those first two seasons. And now here you are, talking down about those seasons, just like the established fanbase. And so the cycle of Star Trek fandom continues...! I just wonder if you realize the shift in your perception of Trek.

It occurred to me when you pointed out that the title no longer has the trails. I'd never really understood why they didn't keep it...but maybe that was just for the 25th Anniversary/Season 5. A little celebratory nod.

Can't wait for Lower Decks... ;)

This episode won two Emmy Awards. Only four other episodes of Star Trek have won this many. It won for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design for a Series (Robert Blackman) and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series. It was also nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Sound Editing for a Series.

I was a little bit scared that this was going to turn into a depressing hate watch, but shame on me for doubting how awesome you guys are. I had fun, and I've found this Two Parter more enjoyable all around than I remember it. But it's still a pretty "meh" B on the Trek scale. I'm not bothered much by Twain, but objectively speaking it's odd that he was the writers' choice of being the legit "VILLAIN" of the episode, if you think about it. I loved what you guys snarked about concerning Riker and Worf. Both got pigeon-holed into being meatheaded idiots at this point in the show, and both of them running a starship together would be hilariously calamitous. Y'all talked about pacing and how something like this could have been a single-parter. I want you to imagine taking something like Time's Arrow, condensing it into 45 minutes of manic dialogue and special effects, and deleting almost all suspenseful exposition and cathartic resolution whatsoever. If that sounds like a brainrotting (yet admittedly entertaining) time... that happens nearly two dozen times a SEASON... then... stay tuned. You just might like a future installment of the Trek franchise~

So, another reactor watched part 1 of BoBW today and I realized, Guinan that whole time knew Picard was gonna be okay, cause he hadn't gone back to meet her yet.

OK, after seeing Alex’s picture snoozing at the beginning of the review and the comments from others how much you liked the episode, I think I’ll skip watching this review with you guys and just start with episode 2. 🙂

Makes part 1 look good. I like Twain as a character, but he is played like a caricature.

I like to think that this two-parter is an in-universe way to explain that Brent Spiner ages normally. His Data make-up from season 1 looks different enough from how he looks in season 6 & you can now chalk it up to 500 years of wear, tear, & grime.

An interesting note: the actor playing the reporter following Mark Twain is the son of producer Jeri Taylor. Don't begrudge Twain too much. He had a very subtle story arc. At the start he bemoaned the nature of humanity, but after his visit to the future, literally said with happiness, mankind turned out well. A real Star Trek moment.

Jack London - The Call of the Wild?! You uncultured swine!

Oh well. I'm still very excited about watching Season 6 with you guys. Lots of TNG all-star moments and episodes, and when they whiff, I kind of think they whiff in fun ways.

If I had only casually watched this episode, and someone had told me it was a holodeck episode, I would have believed them without question. The characters are that unrealistic to me.

Have you guys seen The X-Files? Jerry Hardin (Clemens) is great as a recurring character. X-Files is very much like Trek. There's a lot of it and about 50% of it is good.

With some exceptions among the fanbase, in regards to Mark Twain, I can safely say that to know him was to hate him. And to hate him was to know him. Those who knew him, hated him, while those who did not know him, hated him, from afar. Real talk though, for me this is very mid, but I've never been bothered by it. I get why a lot of people don't like Twain, but his eccentricities kind of just roll off me. Time's Arrow is like a definitive C tier 2 parter IMHO. There's some fun stuff, and I like the time loop stuff and the idea of "history fulfilling itself". Finally addressing the Guinan/Picard backstory was cool. But yeah, it's not TNG's best work by any means.

I've never jived with this two parter. It doesn't help that my older brother recorded both parts on VHS and played them over and over. There are good ideas and I love a good bootsrap paradox, but it doesn't come together. And every time I try to care, Twain shows up, outstays his welcome, and I have to disassociate to get through it. A shame cause that actor was great in X Files.

1:06:48 If it was so easy to "just write a good story" then most every episode of every show would be amazeballs.

Season 6 TNG…several of the best TNG episodes, and a couple of the absolute WORST (imho).

Worst two parter so far? Easily. I always have fun with it tho! A low-key fav, even. Technically kind of a stinker, but it doesn’t take itself seriously. Not very starfleet to just blow away the aliens without communication attempts! Now spoiler-free: an 88 second youtube cut-up - search for “shame on you mr clemens”

40:16 It is NOT a "time loop paradox."

I hate this episode so much. I hated it more having to watch along with you. I should have skipped the episode today

I personally think this is the best episode of season six, so far.

I do think the biggest failure of these two episodes is that it doesn't really deliver too well on Picard saving Guinan as she previously implied. The Twain stuff is simply a relic of early basic cable era TV - these type of dramas of TV characters meeting historical figures were seen in a more forgiving playful light when your average person had to use libraries to really get to "know" such figures. The internet really lowered the effect of such simple narrative devices on a TV show like TNG.

For me what ruins the episode is the actor's portrayal of Clemens. I find myself wondering if I would have liked it better had Clemens been portrayed by a different actor, someone really magnetic and interesting (or just more HUMAN, as Alex says), with no change in the writing. What do you guys think?

2:16 That's all just fine, Alex, as long as you can admit it. 😆

When making these series, the most important direction for the actors was "DLP" Dead Letter Perfect." The actors don't get to improv lines, and if there is a flub made that is liked, it's a huge number pf phone calls to see if it's okay to change and it rarely was. This may sound OTT and restrictive, but it did keep the scripts timeless in a way by preventing potentially dated and awkward current day slang from slipping into these future set stories. Obviously people in the 90s didn't talk exactly the way the TNG crew did. That wasn't a sign of what then modern audiences were like. It was what THIS world of TNG was like. That's good wprld building. Even if it means the actor has to do 15 takes to get it right.

Both Mark Twain and Jack London wrote time travel books, even though that isn't the first thing people think about for either write. Jack London's The Star Rover is far less famous than Call of the Wild or White Fang but many people consider it his best work. I read it some years back...it's extremely "trippy". Gets into reincarnation and dreaming about the past where you're actually seeing the past and all kinds of weird things.

MST3 again.

Ive watched every episode on this journey and this was the first one where 20 mins in I stopped giving a fuck and turned it off. The episode just aged so poorly (not that it was good 30 years go) but now its just awful

If these episodes were a movie, the eye-catch quoted review blurb would probably describe it as "a romp."

Upon rewatch....this episode fucking blows, haha

Infected by Clemens, that's a line lol. Honestly, I get it. I don't mind his portrayal, but I think if he was cut completely, or mostly from the two-parter and we got more scenes building up these mysterious aliens sucking out our lifeforce, that'd have bumped it up a grade or two. Ultimately, I can filter out a sour performance, it doesn't drag down an episode for me as much as it does for you guys. Which is fine though, I get why it would do that if you can't tune him out.

Josh, i'm glad you clarified at the end that you dislike Twain even more than Stubbs, because I actually did wonder about that.

Ugh. It's like the writers' room was brainstorming one day and someone said, "I got it! The crew goes back in time and meets Mark Twain and Jack London! Hilarity will ensue! And let's make it a season-ending cliffhanger!" Well, no. Putting aside the historical inaccuracy of Twain and London being in San Francisco at the same time (they probably never met), the real personality of each man was probably very different than what is portrayed here. I'm a fan of Mark Twain's writing, and while he was a sardonic figure, he was more of a cynical observer of human nature, rather than the annoying busybody shown here. And Jack London wasn't a wide-eyed innocent at 17; in 1893 (when this takes place), he was a sailor on a seal-hunting ship heading for Japan. So both of these characters really could have been just two random guys. We also don't know what Mark Twain's voice sounded like, so I don't understand why the actor would choose to sound so grating and annoying. As you guys said, this could have easily been an entertaining single episode about time travel if they just would have cut out the "celebrity cameos." While I don't usually enjoy watching episodes I don't like, you both made me laugh so much during this reaction that it was totally worth it. Going forward, my opinion of season 6 is pretty low; I think I liked only about six or seven episodes. But I hope you get more out of it than I did, and I'm really looking forward to the pilot episode of "Deep Space 9."

Did you know that old guy was Mark Twain? :)

Yeah... I usually skip this one.

Alex literally made me spit my beer out laughing at his remark that Riker and Worf in that situation was a bad combination.

I understand this two-parter is not the greatest, but I still like it and enjoy watching it. Just a fun time travel adventure. However, I feel like now that I am older I relate more to Clemons in that turbolift scene, disillusioned with certain aspects of society and wanting someone from the future like Troi to tell me things will eventually get better. Sure, Mark Twain can be kind of annoying, but his excitement when thanking Data for "helping a bitter old man open his eyes" was a nice moment.

There is no paradox in this episode. Every object has a straight path. Data's head and body were created in the 24th century. He went back in time. His body came back and his head stayed in the past. 500 years later, the head was recovered and re-attached to the body. Clemens' watch is the same. He left his watch in the cave and re-acquired it in the 24th century. Same watch. The one he got in the 24th century wasn't the one he left. The 500 year old head wasn't the one left in the past.

These TNG 2 part episodes are the test flight ramp for TNG movies.

I have a movie selection for you, Call Of The Wild there are many versions of it. They are adaptations of a novel by Jack London.

This is one that I do not mind you guys tearing into during your reaction. It's a fun episode to me but really couldn't care less about your opinion of it.

The reporter that Clemens talks to was played by Alexander Enberg. He is Jeri Taylor’s son.

Well guys you are here, Season 6. Be ready for some intense and stressful times ahead. Considering your tier ranking of the part 1 i can't imagine you will like this one much more, but i give it A just as i did Part 1.

I don’t care what anyone says, this two parter is a favorite of mine. It’s no Best of Both Worlds or Redemption, but it’s still fun. I’ve always found Jerry Hardin’s portrayal charming and the character didn’t bother me in the slightest. I feel like much of the disdain for these episodes comes from the lack of familiarity with 19th century authors. The O’Brien line was intentional: they NEVER allowed changing words in the script. They had to perform “letter perfect”. Not every episode needs to be perfectly executed to be fun. Sorry you boys hated it, but I’ll always enjoy it. 😁

"We can only go up from here." Famous last words.

This and season 7 and then finally Generations.

I didn’t think u guys would start season 6 this quickly

Like I said before, this is my least favorite 2-parter and at best I give it a C-. Even the sets are bad - San Francisco is not that flat. And I agree with Alex's comment from Worf: belongs better in season 1 or 2.

I wasn't keeping up on the comments, but I was wondering how long it would take before you realize Samuel Clemens is Mark Twain. And then I'll guess I'll start to wonder if you know who Mark Twain is. Lol Update: Well, I guess you did.

It'll be a shame if you guys ditch the letter grades

In Star Trek Online (Not Canon) we fight the aliens in the 25th century and travel to the TOS era to defeat them.

There are some episodes I like where I can't really understand when someone doesn't like them. But this is not one of those. This is an episode that I like a lot, but I can totally understand someone disliking it.

I like to ignore this episode when I rewatch earlier Guinan scenes with Picard.

For me Times arrow is the worst season finale/opener. At least season 2 had zero budget and a writer strike as an excuse.

Since you disliked Clemons so much in these episodes, I thought it would be fun to point out that William Shatner plays Mark Twain in an episode of a Canadian series called MURDOCH MYSTERIES (in the U.S. I think the show is called THE ARTFUL DETECTIVE or something). Episode title is “Marked Twain.” You should look it up. It’ll blow your mind.

It's always sad when the production values are all great, but the story is basically forgettable and the only worthwhile takeaway is Guinan meeting Picard.

Yeah the Guinan payoff in this episode was terrible. Much later when you can watch some of Red Letter Media discussing their favorite episodes, or watch the TNG How It Should Have Ended, this episode gets cracked on pretty hard. "Shame on you Mr. Clemens, SHAME!"

Couldn’t agree with you guys more :) Such a lame two parter 🙄

The final stretch to DS9 begins!

Oh Snap!