By 
Title: We’ll Always Have Paris
Airdate: 5/2/1988
Plot Summary
A weird time disturbance causes everyone on the ship to repeat a few seconds of time. A quick check finds this happened all over the sector. The Enterprise gets a distress call from a lab on a planet from a Paul Manheim, a name that Picard recognizes as he is married to a long lost love of Picard’s.
They find Manheim and Jenice, the lone survivors of a experiment with time that has Manheim in an odd state where he is floating between dimensions. Picard finds Jenice, the woman he ended up not meeting at a restaurant in Paris so he could pursue his life in Starfleet.
The time disturbances are increasing. Can the crew shut down the experiment before the spacetime continuum tears itself apart?
Make It So
This is Picard’s episode, him dealing with not only a lost love that he himself jilted, but something that could destroy the universe. He deals with the universe death much better than the lost love.
Number 1
Riker is on the bridge when the first time distortion happens and then afterwards he’s there. Doing stuff. Important stuff I’m sure.
Fully Functional
Data is the one who can properly understand the deal with the time distortions. He assumes Picard wants him to go alone on the away team because he’s expendable but Picard rightly points out that human crewmembers would probably get disoriented where he doesn’t.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf scans the planet and makes sure the codes Manheim gives work so people can beam down safely.
Phase Inducers
Geordi gives Data a countdown when he goes to patch the hole.
Counselor Cleavage
Troi first notices Picard’s emotional reaction at finding out Jenice is there still with Manheim, though she doesn’t know what it is. She does offer some counseling which Picard actually takes.
Dancing Doctor
Doctor Crusher is a little miffed at this woman from Picard’s past coming back into his life. She tries to hide that it bothers her but you can’t hide from Troi.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley is absent this episode.
Canon Maker
Picard is 47 in season one, assuming he’s the same age as Stewart. He would’ve been 25 when he left Jenice. This would be four years after graduating when he gets his artificial heart. He was a lady killer then given what we see later on, but at age 25 finding a serious love and then leaving her for his career makes sense. This time it bothered him for decades and really does help bridge the time as a brash cadet he was to the stern disciplined captain he is now.
Canon Breaker
When the time distortions happen, it seems to affect everyone all over the ship, even other planets. But when Data does his patch work and three of him appear, he’s got an open communication with the Enterprise with Geordi giving a countdown. But we didn’t hear three Geordi’s? Admittedly this is a bit weak, the distortions were chaotic so who knows if it affected the Enterprise too. But I had to put something here!
A Little Bloody Nose
No one dies. I guess Manheim’s other team on the other side of the planet did but it’s hard to tell when.
Technobabble
Picard mentions Holodeck 3. There are 16 holodecks on the Enterprise however in many future episodes, they just say “He’s in the Holodeck” or “I’ll be in the holodeck” implying there is only one. I would assume that people just talked in shorthand, really just never mentioned the numbers most of the time.
The Manheim effect extends several thousand light years.
You can do a security field to not only shield a base like ships shields, but also set up something to scramble transporters.
Library Computer
This is TNG’s take on Casablanca. They even mention the Blue Parrot Cafe.
I Know That Guy:
Michelle Phillips plays Jenice. She of course was part of the 60s group The Mamas and the Papas. She did some more work here and there.
Rod Loomis plays Manheim. He wasn’t in much but you might remember him as Freud in Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Isabel Lorca plays the holodeck girl Gabrielle. I only mention her because she’s a total smokeshow in that outfit. If Jenice looked like her back in the day, Picard effed up royally.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This is an episode that should be a lot more interesting than what it is. You got the time distortions which is really a neat idea rather than just standard time travel “be careful or we’ll fuck up the future” stuff.
There is a nice moment where follow Picard, Riker, and Data discussing what’s going on as they enter a turbolift. While they are pondering the problem, the lift doors open and there are earlier versions of them still in the hall. When the door closes, we stay with the new (or old?) of the trio, rather than with the ones we were with at the start of the scene. It’s disorienting and really works with the problem they are trying to solve.
The problem is that it’s almost a b-plot to Picard’s “I left the love of my life in Paris” bullshit. I don’t have a problem with a story like that in general but we’re talking the fate of the universe here guys. Can we act with a little more urgency? I’m not saying they weren’t trying to solve it but it all felt like just another day at the office. Hell when Picard assigns Data to the away team to do the big climatic deed to fix the universe, he offhandedly does it in the corridor during a conversation.
Michelle Williams does her best but you can’t be happily married and a jilted lover. She can’t be falling into Picard’s arms without looking like a real piece of shit. But then keeping it cordial isn’t exactly lighting anyone on fire either. It’s not the actress’s fault, it’s the writing. I think many of these episodes were falling victim to the writer’s strike at the time.
Overall it’s just a real forgettable episode.
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