"Star Trek: The Next Generation"
Cause and Effect (1992)

Director:

Jonathan Frakes

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator)
Brannon Braga (writer)

TV Series:

"Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987)

Original Air Date:

21 March 1992 (Season 5, Episode 18)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

The Enterprise gets caught in a time loop which always has one result: total destruction of the ship, itself. |

Plot Keywords:

Time Loop | Cause And Effect | Repeated Event | Number One | Visor

US TV Schedule:

Mon. Sept. 1

9:00 AM

SCIFI

Cause and Effect

#5.18

Cast

Patrick Stewart	...	Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jonathan Frakes	...	Commander William T. Riker
LeVar Burton	...	Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge
Michael Dorn	...	Lieutenant Worf
Gates McFadden	...	Doctor Beverly Crusher
Marina Sirtis	...	Counselor Deanna Troi
Brent Spiner	...	Lt. Commander Data
Michelle Forbes	...	Ensign Ro Laren
Patti Yasutake	...	Nurse Alyssa Ogawa
Kelsey Grammer	...	Captain Bateson

Trivia:

The production team had hoped to get Kirstie Alley in a cameo role behind Kelsey Grammer in the USS Bozeman shots, reprising her role as Lt. Saavik from the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982), but her asking price was too high for such a small role. Alley's appearance would have also constituted an in-joke as she was appearing on "Cheers" (1982) with Grammer at the time.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Captain, do you know what year this is?
Captain Bateson: Of course I do. It's 2278.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Perhaps you should beam aboard our ship. There's something we need to discuss.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Life Serial (#6.5)" (2001)

Frakes helms one of the most intense ST:TNG episodes ever!

Jonathan Frakes (better known as First Officer Ryker) directed this time-travel installment that features no less than four spectacular destructions of the Enterprise. Trapped in a time loop, Jean-Luc and crew must discover a means to prevent a devastating collision between the Enterprise and another starship. Each time the mishap occurs the crew is flung back in time to a period prior to the calamity. Data discovers, through small "clues," what is happening and must make right the situations that leads to the catastrophe.

The episode features a last minute cameo by Kelsey Grammar as the captain of the other doomed ship.