ALL GOOD THINGS...

'"All Good Things..."' was the series finale of ''. It was originally shown on May 29, 1994 and, like the first episode of the series, "Encounter at Farpoint", was a two-hour episode that in syndication is most often shown as two one-hour episodes. "All Good Things..." serves as the closure of the first episode's trial of the ''USS Enterprise-D'' (and in a broader sense, humanity in general) by the nigh-omnipotent being Q.

Contents

Plot summary

Notes

References

External links

Plot summary

Following an evening date at the holodeck, Worf is about to kiss Deanna Troi goodnight when Captain Picard, dressed in his bathrobe, walks out of the turbolift, disoriented. Upon asking which date it is, he tells them he is moving back and forth through time. While describing the situation to Troi, Picard jumps 25 years into the future.
As an old man he is tending vines at the Picard family vineyard. Geordi meets him, having come from Rigel III. He admits Leah (presumably Dr. Leah Brahms) told him of Picard's Irumodic syndrome, a neurodegenerative disease. Walking back to the house, Picard suddenly sees a group of people yelling at him (actually individuals from the 21st century trial scene in "Encounter at Farpoint").
When Picard tells Geordi that he's seeing and hearing people who aren't there, Geordi suggests that Picard's Irumodic syndrome is responsible. Picard then finds himself in the past, on a shuttlecraft with Tasha Yar when he saw the ''Enterprise'' for the first time.
He then jumps back to the present with Troi. In Sickbay, Doctor Crusher finds no physiological evidence of time travel having taken place. She does confirm that Picard has a small structural defect in his parietal lobe that could lead to a number of neurological disorders, one of which is Irumodic syndrome. Picard receives a priority one message from Starfleet Command; Admiral Nakamura informs him he has put out a fleet-wide yellow alert as 30 Romulan warbirds are headed for the Romulan border. Romulan and Federation sensors have picked up a spatial anomaly in the Devron System, located in the Romulan Neutral Zone. Nakamura has ordered 15 starships to assemble along the Federation side of the zone and wants the ''Enterprise'' to investigate the anomaly.
Picard jumps back to the future where he tries to explain the situation to Geordi but his condition prevents him from finding the right words. He decides that Data, who is now Cambridge's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, will have the answers. Again, he sees the strange people in his vineyard upon leaving.
They visit Data at the Lucasian Chair residence in Cambridge. Data agrees to help him, starting with a full series of neurographic scans in the University's biometrics lab.
Picard jumps back to the past where he is in a shuttle bay delivering a speech to the crew before taking command of the ''Enterprise''. He again sees the strange people yelling at him. He manages to finish his speech, but surprises the crew by ordering a red alert.
In a Captains log, Picard records that he will not tell the crew of future events in order to prevent contamination of the timeline. On the bridge, Starfleet diverts the ''Enterprise'' from Farpoint Station to the Devron system, where a spatial anomaly has appeared. Picard, however says the ship will proceed to Farpoint as planned.
Back in the present, Doctor Crusher scans Picard's temporal lobe, and reports a 13% increase of the acetylcholine level in his hippocampus, indicating he has accumulated two days worth of memories within a matter of minutes.
Shifting again to the future, he convinces Geordi and Data they need to go to the Devron system. Picard contacts Riker, who is now an Admiral, at Starbase 247 to arrange passage. He declines to help as the system is in Klingon space, but promises to have the ''Yorktown'' run some long-range scans. Data suggests they seek passage aboard a medical vessel. Picard recommends the USS ''Pasteur'', which is captained by Beverly Picard. Onboard the ''Pasteur'', "Captain Picard" tells her ex-husband that they will need clearance to cross the border. Geordi suggests that Worf may be able to help. He was a member of the Klingon High Council, and now a governor of H'atoria, a small Klingon colony near the border.
Back in the past, the ''Enterprise'' arrives at the coordinates where the ''Enterprise'' first encountered Q. Picard calls for Q, but he does not appear. Picard then finds himself in the courtroom where he was put on trial by Q, filled with the people shouting at him he had seen before. Q claims that a verdict was never actually reached from the trial of seven years ago. He informs Picard that the Continuum has found humanity guilty of being an inferior species, and humanity will be destroyed. While Q admits that he is behind Picard's time-shifting, it is Picard alone who will be responsible for the destruction of mankind.
Back in the present, he discusses the situation with his senior staff. Picard thinks Q is giving him a chance to save humanity. They arrive at the Romulan Neutral Zone, and find four Warbirds on the Romulan side. The ''USS Bozeman'' and ''USS Concord'' are holding position on the Federation side. Before Picard can talk to the Romulan lead ship, he jumps to the future.
Picard convinces Worf to allow them passage, who agrees, but only if he joins them. Once aboard, the ''Pasteur'' heads for the Devron system. In the past, Picard seamlessly orders the ''Enterprise'' to set course for the Devron system at maximum warp.
Back in the present, Picard is in the middle of a communication with Romulan Captain Tomalak, and they agree to send both their ships in to the Neutral Zone, providing no other ships enter. The ''Enterprise'' finds the anomaly. In the past the ''Enterprise'' arrives at the location, but finds the anomaly to be much larger. In the future the ''Pasteur'' reaches the Devron system but finds nothing, which casts doubt on Picard's sanity. Data suggests using an inverse tachyon pulse to scan beyond the subspace barrier. Beverly agrees to stay and investigate, but only for six more hours.
In the present, Data finds that the anomaly is approximately 200 million kilometers in diameter, and a highly focused energy source with an output equivalent to 10 G-type stars. Picard has the ''Enterprise'' emit an inverse tachyon pulse from the main deflector to scan the interior of the anomaly. The pregnant Alyssa Ogawa loses her baby due to cell reversion, and crewmembers DNA starts to break down; Geordi's retinal tissue regrows itself, making it unnecessary for him to wear his VISOR. Data reports the anomaly is a multiphasic temporal convergence in the spacetime continuum. He theorizes the anomaly is an eruption of anti-time, the temporal equivalent of anti-matter. In the past, Picard also has the pulse initiated. In this period, the anomaly is approximately 400 million kilometers in diameter.
In the future, the ''Pasteur'' comes under attack by Klingon cruisers. A three-nacelled ''Enterprise-D'', with Admiral Riker at the helm, decloaks (the Treaty of Algeron no longer in effect) and rescues them. It chases off the remaining Klingon vessels, but the ''Pasteur'' is destroyed, and the crew is transported aboard the ''Enterprise''. Despite Picard's objections, Riker takes them back to Federation space.
In the present, Dr Crusher reports that the phenomenon causing Geordi's eyes to regenerate will eventually result in their deaths. Q appears and takes Picard to Earth when life first emerged on the planet, 3.5 billion years ago. The anomaly is so large that it has consumed most of the Alpha Quadrant and covers a considerable part of the nighttime sky. Q shows Picard a pond of amino acids, where the first protein is about to form. However, nothing happens; the anomaly prevented life from ever beginning.
In the past, Data theorizes that a Tomographic imaging scanner capable of multiphasic resolution could scan the interior of the anomaly, but the device is being developed at the Daystrom Institute, and is not yet completed. Shifting to the present, Picard learns the ''Enterprise'' now does have the equipment aboard, and orders Data to use it. Data finds that three tachyon pulses are converging at the center of the anomaly. Data tells Picard that the tachyon pulses have the same configuration, as if all are being generated by the ''Enterprise'' (in fact, one of them is generated by the ''Pasteur'').
Waking up in the future, Picard makes his way to Ten-Forward and attempts to convince Riker to return to the Devron system. Data realizes that Picard is describing a temporal paradox, and that in theory, the convergence of three tachyon pulses could rupture the subspace barrier and start an anti-time reaction. If they were to go back to the Devron system, it is possible they might find the anomaly in its early stages of formation. They head back, and find a small anti-time eruption.
At Data's suggestion, Picard has the tachyon pulses in the past and present shut off, but nothing happens. Geordi realizes they must repair the rupture at the focal point by taking all three ships into the center of the anomaly and use the warp engines to create a static warp shell, which would act as an artificial subspace barrier, separating time and anti-time.

Picard relays the plan in the present, but must ask his past bridge crew to have a leap of faith. All three vessels reach the center of the anomaly, where their warp shells cause the anomaly to slowly collapse. Present and past ''Enterprise''s are destroyed by warp core breaches after their antimatter containment fields degrade, leaving only the future ''Enterprise'' to maintain the barrier. Q bids Picard farewell: "Good-bye, Jean-Luc, I'm gonna miss you. You had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end...". The ''Enterprise's containment field is at critical as the anomaly collapses around the ship.
Picard finds himself back in Q's courtroom, now empty except for Q. Q tells Picard that he has succeeded in saving humanity, although the predicament would have not been created without time jumping. However, the real victory that justified the Continuum sparing humanity was Picard's willingness to consider existential possibilities outside of his experience to solve the problem.
Picard has began to view time in a non-linear fashion and demonstrated that humanity is able to explore the profound nature of existence itself. Q tells him that this is the exploration that awaits humanity - the limitless boundaries of the mind, not the limited reaches of outer space. He tells Picard that "the trial never ends"; in essence, telling him the journey never ends as well.
Picard is returned to the moment his adventure began, exiting the turbolift in his bathrobe. He shares his experience with the crew, now with a deeper understanding of the Galaxy and all the possibilities within. The episode – and the series – ends with the senior staff playing their weekly poker game, which Picard joins for the first time (saying "I should have done this a long time ago") as the ''Enterprise'' slowly glides into space.

Notes

★ Certain elements of the story, such as the jumping in time of Captain Picard as well as the "primordial ooze" scene, are similar to elements of the Doctor Who serial ''City of Death''.

★ The Crusher/Picard relationship is explored further, even having them marry in the future. Crusher is the one that 'leads' the relationship on, in the present, at least, by kissing the Captain and telling him a lot of things can happen.

★ In the 'past', Beverly and Wesley Crusher and Geordi do not make an appearance. The Crushers are not present because they had not joined the crew at that point yet, nor is Geordi because he was waiting at Farpoint Station along with Doctor Crusher. Riker is featured, however the footage of him is taken from the first season episode The Arsenal of Freedom, and he appears only on a video screen.

★ "All Good Things..." won the 1995 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

★ In the past and present timeline, the anomaly grows backwards in time, growing larger as it moves through anti-time, thus appearing to shrink from the perspective of Picard and his crew in normal time. However, in the future timeline, the anomaly does not exist until it is created, showing that at that point it is moving forward in normal time and, presumably, backward in anti-time. The reason for this difference is not explained in the episode. The most likely possibility is that it is growing both backwards and forwards in time.

★ The episode ends with Captain Picard joining the rest of the senior officers at their poker game. He makes a comment saying, "I should have done this a long time ago". This is actually not the first time Picard comes to their recurring poker game, as the other time was in the third season episode Allegiance. However, in that episode the Captain was replaced by an alien, so this episode shows the first time the real Picard joins. Upon joining he immediately starts dealing 5 card stud. He also states that he "used to be quite the card player." In later Star Trek novels it is revealed that Picard is quite the bad card player.

★ This episode is the first in which a Starfleet vessel is shown with an odd number of warp nacelles, something that Gene Roddenberry expressly forbade. However, this design is not incorrect in the context of the Star Trek universe, as the third nacelle contains two warp coils.

★ A fourth time-line, set during the events of "The Best of Both Worlds", was at one point considered by the writers, but ultimately was not used.

★ The two-hour version contains several scenes that were removed for time in the two-part version.

★ Fans were angered when some VHS releases of this story, despite being in two-hour format, accidentally used prints of the two-part version which was missing some scenes.

★ Data deduces that the anti-time explosion seemed to be the result of the ''Enterprise'' emitting an inverse tachyon pulse in three different time periods. However in 2395, the inverse tachyon pulse was generated by the USS ''Pasteur'', not the ''Enterprise''.

★ In the past time-line, Picard refers to Data as "Commander" while in the engine room, however the pips on Data's collar indicate a rank of Lieutenant j.g. This was a costuming error as it is noted on several occasions that Data was a Lt. Commander when he was posted to the Enterprise-D, including the first episode Encounter at Farpoint.

★ During the filming of "All Good Things...," a behind-the-scenes retrospective documentary called "Journey's End: The Saga of Star Trek: The Next Generation" was also filmed, hosted by Jonathan Frakes.[1]

★ The dedication plaque of the ''Pasteur'', as seen in a close-up shot (at 31:38) in the "Journey's End" documentary, reveals that it is a ''Hope''-class ship, NCC-58928, built by the Skywalker Division of the Marin County Starfleet Yards. As on the ''Enterprise''-D dedication plaque, a number of production staff members' names are listed, such as "Admiral" Gene Roddenberry and "Admiral" Rick Berman. The ''Pasteur'''s motto is "I swear by Apollo the healer, by Aesculapius, by Health and all the powers of healing..." (paraphrased from the Hippocratic Oath).

References

External links

★ (Part 1)

★ (Part 2)