quote: “Originally, I was staff writer at the time, and I was pitching to [the late TNG showrunner and executive producer] Michael Piller a Rashomon-style idea I wanted to do,” Braga tells THR about how he came upon what would end up being “Cause and Effect”.
Braga had always wanted to tell the same story from several points of view, one that would unfold several times. But he couldn’t quite figure out how to expand that kernel into a full hour of TV, until it dawned on him: “Why not just tell the same story over and over? That seemed like something I haven’t seen before.”
“The early reactions to the script were similar to the reactions that the audience had when watching the episode, which was confusion,” Braga remembers. “Because you’re reading that script and you’re like, ‘Wait a second. There’s got to be a mistake here. The acts just keep repeating. Is this a joke?’”
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
It really is a very clever episode, one that (ironically) holds up to rewatching. It’s funny that everyone on the production staff didn’t get the idea at first, either. I loved Frakes’ quote: “Once I realized that [Brannon] wasn’t fucking with me, it was fun.”
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I vaguely remember right when TNG ended, but also during ST:Generations production, Frakes hosted a top 5 episodes special. Each week they'd air an episode with Frakes doing a pre-episode intro and I'm almost certain this was one of them.
A lot of series, especially sci-fi, have a Groundhog Day episode...the best being the SG-1 episode 'Window of Opportunity'. Except this came out a year before the movie and not sure if there was a term for it.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
I just wish they had the budget to build a TOS Constitution class ship and bridge for the Bozeman like what was originally envisioned.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I rewatched this episode today, and there's something I hadn't noticed before.
Both Data and Riker's solutions were necessary to avoid the Bozeman. In the final act, Picard orders the tractor beam -- we hear an alarm indicating it's been activated, and then Data realizes that he's subconsciously been trying to tell himself "Riker" and decompresses the main shuttlebay.
The exterior shot we then see is, after the shuttlebay effect, largely the one we've been seeing several times over the episode, with the Enterprise now pushing forward and avoiding the collision with the Bozeman. The implication is that the tractor beam had activated, and the shuttlebay decompression is what pushes the Enterprise far enought to avoid disaster.
So I don't know if it was deliberate or not, but my read is that if the only solution used had been the shuttlebay decompression, the collision likely still would have happened.
**
Okay: one other thing to note.
After they avoid the Bozeman, Picard orders Worf to check the ship's chronometer with a Starfleet time beacon. But in this and the previous act both crews realized they were in a time loop -- Geordi states that for all they know, they'd been stuck in the loop for years. Picard could have ordered Worf to check a time beacon and they would have known immediately how long they'd been in the loop.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
That’s one thing that never made sense to me - the timeline continues unaffected while they’re in the loop. But then it’s equally nonsensical that they remember events from previous iterations, even subconsciously. Or that they hear voices from previous iterations but only when it’s dark.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The thing I always wondered about it is, if it only took the TNG crew a few loops to start noticing all sorts of weird shit going on and figure out that something was wrong, how oblivious was Frasier's crew that they stayed in for decades and came out still thinking nothing had ever been amiss?
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Ninety years of sensor upgrades.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I’ve always assumed - we’re getting into serious wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey here - that, just like the rest of the universe wasn’t in the loop, the Bozeman wasn’t either. Its entrance into the rift, emergence and collision with the E-D was what created the loop, but for the E-D itself only.
Or rather… I posit that it is not in itself the encounter/collision which generates the loop, but that it is merely the catalyst to restart it. The conditions which make the loop possible are present from the time the Enterprise enters the Typhon Expanse (right at the start of the episode proper, as per the Log entry). And the localised conditions in that area also allow for the premonitions and auditory hallucinations.
Another thing that annoys me is that when the Bozeman emerges from the rift, the crew are all like, there’s an unknown ship, what is this ineffable vessel of mystery? Dude. It’s a fucking Miranda (or variant thereof), you know, the same type of ship you see literally every bloody day (when it’s not a California-class, which are apparently everywhere), even I can see that!
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:how oblivious was Frasier's crew that they stayed in for decades and came out still thinking nothing had ever been amiss?
You know, I've thought the same thing, but I think there's something that I know I missed:
There's two separate time events happening here.
One is a temporal wormhole, that delivers the Bozeman to the future. But when the Enterprise blows up, that creates the time loop.
For the Enterprise, they're repeating -- I don't know -- maybe a day.
But for the Bozeman?
They're likely only experiencing it for about a minute.
But even if they weren't, they would not have been repeating it for ninety years. They would have only repeated it as many times as the Enterprise-D's crew did. Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:Dude. It’s a fucking Miranda (or variant thereof)
They were probably stunned by what appears to be a gigantic laser canon off the aft. Turns out it's a giant sensor pod. No wonder the Soyuz class got retired.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
That’s one thing that never made sense to me - the timeline continues unaffected while they’re in the loop.
They establish that they're in a sector of space not previously explored by the Federation, so presumably they're fairly far away from the nearest starbase.
I think it's reasonable to expect that Starfleet is probably wondering why the Enterprise keeps sending the same daily update, with a progressively wrong stardate, and is trying to find ships to head out and see if they can figure out what is going on, especially if the Enterprise is on the fringe of subspace communication.
Any investigative ships would be able to break the loop, if they, say, found the Enterprise and said "Hey, ya'll okay? Why don't you stop for a bit."
And then the Bozeman comes out of the wormhole, doesn't crash into the Enterprise, and everything gets sorted.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I also figured that the Bozeman jumped forward in time and only then became part of the loop.
I’ll tell you what *I’ve* always wondered… in one of the later conferences, the crew speculate about whether they should reverse course to avoid the unknown disaster. And Picard dismisses that option because they don’t know what causes the disaster, and reversing course could actually cause it instead. BUT… when the loop started, there was no way they would’ve known about a disaster that hadn’t-will-have-happened even once yet, and so wouldn’t have had a reason to change course the first loop. So reversing course should’ve been a perfectly reasonable way to break the loop.
(I love nitpicking temporal mechanics, even if it gives me a headache.)
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
That's a really good point. Of course, if memory serves, by that point they're just about too late to do anything different.
Why didn't they inquire of a time beacon earlier, though, I wonder? Or why not send a message to Starfleet? "Uh, hi, we might be in a time loop. Send help."
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: I also figured that the Bozeman jumped forward in time and only then became part of the loop.
I’ll tell you what *I’ve* always wondered… in one of the later conferences, the crew speculate about whether they should reverse course to avoid the unknown disaster. And Picard dismisses that option because they don’t know what causes the disaster, and reversing course could actually cause it instead. BUT… when the loop started, there was no way they would’ve known about a disaster that hadn’t-will-have-happened even once yet, and so wouldn’t have had a reason to change course the first loop. So reversing course should’ve been a perfectly reasonable way to break the loop.
(I love nitpicking temporal mechanics, even if it gives me a headache.)
I get what you’re saying but I think it’s implied they don’t necessarily know when the loop started, only when they started observing artefacts of previous loops. And it would thus be easy to posit that in previous iterations they might have changed course as a result of the phenomena. So it really is impossible for them to know which track to take.
What is harder to swallow is that a) for the duration of the loopings, they were totally out of contact of any Starfleet beacons which would have pinpointed the chronological discrepancy; and b) the complete absence of any such contact (update pings, message transfers etc.) wasn’t noticed or identified by Starfleet either. It’s the bloody flagship not a deep-space explorer.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:What is harder to swallow is that a) for the duration of the loopings, they were totally out of contact of any Starfleet beacons which would have pinpointed the chronological discrepancy; and b) the complete absence of any such contact (update pings, message transfers etc.) wasn’t noticed or identified by Starfleet either. It’s the bloody flagship not a deep-space explorer.
Regarding the beacon, this could easily have been addressed. When they realize they're in the loop, Picard orders Worf to check the nearest Federation time beacon (presumably, this is not automatic). Before Worf can do this, WHAM!, Bozeman!
Regarding Starfleet, for all we know, Starfleet Command was wondering why the Enterprise kept sending the same status update, was unable to reach the ship via subspace (for "reasons"), and was sending ships to investigate. Picard does state that the Typhon Expanse is previously unexplored, so it may be quite some time for a ship to arrive. I believe at the end of the episode its revealed they've been in the loop for about two and a half weeks, so if we assume it takes Starfleet maybe about a week to realize something's fishy with the Enterprise, it may take them a week or two to get another ship or two out to look for her.
And then, if those ships are within the geographical "region" of the time loop, they may themselves wind up caught in it!
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Yeah, the Bozeman was kinda screwed. In fact, the Enterprise's loop may suggest the Bozeman folks were *never* repeating any pre-loop activity on their side of it.
As for subspace, we basically have to assume they weren't connected for the plot to work. Otherwise someone would receive a reply like "dude wtf you sent this yesterday". They were close to the Cardassian border shortly before this, so perhaps this lack of signals outbound or even inbound (the time check requiring an order) was intentional SIGINT / anti-hack stuff.
Of course, by the next episode they were back at Earth, just a few stardates later, so YMMV.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Have we ever found out how subspace communication works?
Like, maybe if a starship is within range of a communication relay, they get real-time updates when there's a subspace transmission for them.
But if they're out of range, maybe they have to proactively reach out and establish comms with the nearest beacon, and then find out if they've got any messages waiting for them. If this were the case, of course, it would make sense to be doing this on an almost hourly basis, so it's hard to figure out why no one at Starfleet was trying to hail them.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
How long was each loop? 18 to 24 hours ish? I suppose if they were expecting to be out of range of normal handshake connections and data transfers then the lack of communication wouldn’t be a noteworthy issue. But once they figure out they’re in a loop, they don’t try to signal for assistance, suggesting perhaps they knew they were out of range of any subspace relays )and could only correct that by reversing course, something they’d already talked themselves out of doing).
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
I don't think we know how long the loop was. My sense was, if not a full day, then "the bulk of a day." With a 17 day discrepancy noted by Worf at the end, that implies either 17 loops, or 22/23 (if we go with 18 hours per loop).
Once they figure out in the loop, they're already pretty close to colliding with the Bozeman. Story wise, this could be handled by Picard ordering Worf to check the nearest time beacon, and to establish subspace communication with Starfleet, during the briefing scene ... which of course gets interrupted when they encounter the time distortion.
This assumes that, in theorizing they're in a loop, Data doesn't proactively order someone to establish subspace comms. Of course, no one tries to access a Federation time beacon, which seems like it would've provided some necessary information to give to the captain when briefing him.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I think the loop could be even shorter, though the previous thoughts are certainly plausible. The captain’s log and poker game are probably close to the start of the loop, because it’s when we see the characters reacting to familiar events. And the poker game is probably in the early evening (say 2000h), then Crusher is getting ready for bed (say 2300h). The briefing room scene is probably early morning (say 0800h). In act one, that scene feels like an early morning meeting as they’re starting their day. That gives the characters time to research overnight once they start figuring things out.
That points to a loop that could plausibly be as short as 12 hours.
That also could provide an excuse for why they didn’t contact Starfleet for a regular check in, maybe at that distance it only happens once every 24 hours. If their scheduled ping was for 1200h, there was never a chance for it to happen inside the loop.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
quote:That also could provide an excuse for why they didn’t contact Starfleet for a regular check in, maybe at that distance it only happens once every 24 hours. If their scheduled ping was for 1200h, there was never a chance for it to happen inside the loop.
But to be affected by the loop, you have to be caught within its sphere of influence. If Starfleet is sending a subspace transmission, it should still be able to reach the Enterprise, regardless of where the ship is in the loop.
For example, let's say Starfleet can't raise the Enterprise (maybe the loop is causing interference with long range communications). So they send the USS Ranger to go to the Typhon Expanse and look for her.
The Ranger enters the Expanse (let's say on day 14 of the loop), and detect the Enterprise on long range sensors. They proceed to start warping to the Enterprise --
-- and the Bozeman collides with the Enterprise.
Now the Ranger starts experiencing the loop, but only from the point of time when they first entered the loop, so they're only experiencing a few instances of a few hours each time.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Hmm. This hypothetical ship sent to investigate could be a potential solution. A second ship dropping out of contact while investigating the first's disappearance would likely cause Starfleet to escalate to a broader but more cautious response.
Making the "USS Ranger" almost akin to Wigner's Friend in this scenario!
