Star Trek: The Next Generation - S01E24 - We'll Always Have Paris

Today as part of the Star Trek Fuck Report we will be examining the 24th episode of season one of Star Trek: The Next Generation, We'll Always Have Paris. If basic cable in the 1990s taught me anything it's that if a movie has Paris in the title there are probably tits in it. While I doubt that extends to syndicated sci-fi shows from the late 80s I'm hoping that there is at least some horniness and possible implied fucking in this episode.

Preexisting Prejudices
Another episode I do not remember at all. I've got hopes for this episode, but don't harbor any preexisting prejudices to speak of.

Plot Synopsis
The Enterprise is en route to Sarona VIII for shore leave. Jesus Titty-Fucking Christ how often do these people get vacation? It seems like every third episode is them going somewhere for some "much needed rest and relaxation" before getting waylaid by whatever the actual plot of the episode is.

Anyway Picard, in the Captain's Log, informs us that he gives so few fucks about doing his job that he's started his vacation before they've even arrived at Sarona VIII and we find him in the Enterprise's Battledome fencing with some random ass dude that is apparently named Dean. Dean bests Picard and scores the first point but Picard gets the second one. They salute each other and Dean is like, "Interesting move, sir, but what technique was that?"

Picard dryly admits that it was "the technique of a desperate man," and then things go wonky. Things go blurry as time seems to reverse and the two men then repeat the exchange verbatim.

Dean and Picard both realize that this is weird as fuck and Picard calls up to the bridge to ask them if any goofy shit happened up there. Riker tells him that it did and so Picard, still clad in a sweatsuit, heads up to the bridge. Data informs the captain that the had a brief moment in time repeat itself and Geordi comes dangerously close to dropping a "it was like deja vu all over again," because he is the worst.

Worf then informs the Captain that he's receiving a distress call from the Preggo Minor System. It's some guy named Paul Manheim. Captain Picard gets all weird looking when he hears the name Paul Manheim, but plays it off like he's totally cool. He informs the bridge crew that Paul Manheim is a time scientist and he believes that Manheim's time science and the weird deja vu they've been experiencing are related.

The recording of Paul Manheim gives out some coordinates and Picard tells Geordi to input them and haul ass at warp 8. Geordi does this and we get that good, good opening theme song.

We check back in on the bridge where Riker admits to having never heard of Paul Manheim. Data explains that he had several intriguing theories about time and gravity but his theories never found widespread acceptance. Picard then adds that Manheim left Earth fifteen years earlier with a crew of men and women of science to go do time science out in the cosmos.

Riker asks if Picard knew Manheim. Picard says that he knew of him since he was teaching at "the university in Paris" when Picard was there, but he never actually met him. He then excuses himself to go change out of his sweatsuit and tells Riker to see if the time wonkiness was localized to the Enterprise or if it happened elsewhere as well.

As Picard leaves, Troi stops him and says that she has something she'd like to discuss with him in private but Picard tells her that whatever she has to say she can say to him there on the bridge. She tells him that when he heard Manheim's name she reacted with "intense emotion." She says that she doesn't want to interfere with his personal life but advises him to use the remaining travel time to analyse his feelings so it doesn't later affect his judgement. Picard thanks her and tells her that if he needs her again he will let her know.

Picard goes back to the Battledome to clean his saber and then gets changed. He then gets in an elevator and starts for the bridge but then tells the elevator to stop. He asks how much time he has before they arrive in the Preggo Minor System. The computer tells him that he has two hours so Picard instead goes to the holodeck.

He has the computer run a program recreating the Café des Artistes in Paris, 22 years previously on April 9th, "a warm spring day," he adds. The computer makes it so and Picard enters where he is greeted by the waiter. Picard tells the waiter that he isn't hungry and just wanted to admire the view.

" Perhaps what you hunger for is not on the menu," replies the waiter.

Picard tells him that he was supposed to meet a woman there many years before but never showed up. He then sits down at a table and overhears a conversation between two women. One of them dressed in an outfit that barely contains her boobs complains that her date hasn't shown up. Her friend gets annoyed with her and storms off.

The woman with the barely contained tits then asks Picard why he's staring at her and if he knew her. He tells her that he did not but admits that she reminds him of someone. She then asks him what she did to drive her date away.

Picard tells her that maybe she did nothing and that maybe her date was afraid. The woman is poleaxed by this explanation, "Of what? Of me?!" Picard tells her that maybe he's afraid of commitment or just doesn't know what he wants to do yet on account of being so young. He then gets fed up with this stupid self-indulgent holodeck program and bounces.

Back on the bridge Riker tells him that the USS Lalo and a farming colony also experienced the same time fuckery that they had experienced on the Enterprise. The Enterprise then arrives at the coordinates from the distress call but find nothing there. Worf suddenly gets another transmission from the same source. It provides a new set of coordinates that will lead them to Vandor, a binary system with a red giant and a pulsar.

Some time later they arrive in Vandor. Data detects something going on on Vandor IV, "a planetoid in an elliptical orbit around the binary system." They determine that there is a forcefield on the planet that is impenetrable. They open hailing frequencies and Picard intentionally avoids using his name when he announces himself.

A woman responds and tells Picard that there are only two of them left and that the other person is having convulsions. Picard tells her that they can't beam them up unless she turns off the forcefield. The woman does so and Picard has the two people beamed directly to sickbay. He tells Dr. Beverly Crusher to prepare for a medical emergency and then heads to the sickbay with Data and Riker.

A man and a woman beam into the sickbay and Dr. Beverly Crusher and her staff help the man into a bed. Picard and his posse enter. The woman turns and says, "Jean-Luc. I thought the voice sounded familiar."

Picard introduces the woman as Jenice Manheim which I assume means the other dude is Paul Manheim. Picard asks her what happened and she explains that there was a second lab that was destroyed in an accident a few weeks earlier that killed everyone else who was on Vandor IV with them.

They do some hard sci-fi talk about the nature of Paul Manheim's work that was boring as fuck to me. Something about time and gravity and doors to other dimensions. I don't give a shit. Give me space magic over this high school physics class lecture bullshit any day of the week. Anyway she's surprised that their experiments were having such far reaching effects and then tells Picard that Manheim became more and more obsessed as he worked but kept her in a "protected room," so she wasn't effected by any of the time fuckery.

Dr. Beverly Crusher comes in and Jenice asks if her husband is worse. Dr. Beverly Crusher tells her that he's resting and that she wants to run some tests on Jenice as well. She thanks her and kisses Picard on the cheek because they're Europeans I guess.

Picard sheepishly tells Dr. Beverly Crusher, "She's an old friend..."

Dr. Beverly Crusher's not an idiot so she realizes that but is more concerned with Paul. She thinks he's dying but doesn't understand how or why. Riker asks her how long he has. The prognosis does not look good! Dr. Beverly Crusher tells him, "maybe a couple of days."

Picard and his homeboys leave the sickbay and get in an elevator bound for the bridge, but the doors open back up and they see themselves standing in the hallway right before they got in the elevator. Both parties are like, "This is weird as fuck," but they really missed a great chance for a hammered Riker to utter something like, "I'm seeing double...four Datas!" and for that I'll never forgive them.

In Picard's office, Data tells Picard that there's a shit ton of energy emanating from the core of the planetoid and it's being focused at the non-exploded lab but they can't figure out what the fuck it is that Manheim is doing down there. Riker, being a man of action, tells Picard that they need to go down to the lab and see if Manheim kept good notes since the man himself's brain is completely fucked. Picard agrees and Riker assembles his away team for the day: Data and Worf.

The trio of space heroes go down to the teleportation chamber and some rando beams them down to the lab but shit is all fucked up. There are some real wacky failing teleportation sound effects as Riker and Company fade in and out of existence. Back on the Enterprise Teleportation Lord Rando is like, "AW FUCK I'M LOSING THEM!" as we head to commercial. PRODUCTS!!!!!

Back from the break Teleportation Lord Rando just beams everyone back in the most anti-climactic fashion possible.

Down in the sickbay Manheim wakes up. He tells Jenice that he has been to another dimension and that's why his brain is all fucked up. Part of his mind is still in that other dimension.

(Cue The Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?")

Picard and Data show up and Manheim does more science talk at them about how he used the power of the planet to open a window to another dimension. Picard explains how far the effect has spread and Manheim agrees that the window needs to be closed. He provides them with coordinates that will allow them to beam down safely and security codes to shut off the defense systems in the lab.

Later in the conference room, the bridge crew talk about what needs to be done to prevent the universe from being torn asunder by the interdimensional window that Manheim opened. Jenice comes in as everyone is leaving. Picard stays behind to talk with her.

She asks him why he didn't come that last day in Paris. Picard is like, "I was afraid," but she gets mad at him and tells him that she wanted him to lie so Picard makes up a bunch of ridiculous bullshit about getting the date wrong. They joke about it and again Picard tells her that he was afraid that he would have lost his resolve and given up on his dream. She tells him that he's leaving out his biggest fear, "that life with [her] would have somehow made [him] ordinary."

Down in the sickbay Dr. Beverly Crusher expresses admiration for Manheim when Troi comes in to see how he's doing. Dr. Beverly Crusher tells Troi that she knows that's not the real reason she's come. "And I thought I was the empath!" says Troi...goddamn this dialogue is really bad in this episode.

Dr. Beverly Crusher tells her that she can't compete with a ghost from Picard's past. Troi says that Jenice is there in the flesh and thus is not a ghost but Dr. Beverly Crusher tells her that the flesh and blood version of Jenice might be there now, but it's the ghost Picard sees. She then excuses herself to tend to Manheim again.

Back on the bridge Data tells Picard that the next distortion will occur in 28 to 47 minutes. That is a pretty specific and yet overly large time period. Dr. Beverly Crusher then calls the bridge to tell Picard that Manheim is awake and wants to speak with him.

Picard goes down to the sickbay and talks to Manheim who tells him that he might have forgotten about some of the lab's security systems and wants whoever goes down there to be careful. Manheim then confesses that the real reason he asked Picard to speak with him was Jenice. He asks Picard to take care of her if anything should happen to him. Picard agrees and Manheim tells him how shitty a husband he has been to her the past few years opining that she deserves better.

Picard tells him, "You underestimate her. I know, because I once did," which doesn't really make sense in the context of what Manheim just said. The dialogue in this episode is a mess.

Later in a hallway Picard tells Data that he wants him to go to the planet by himself. Data assumes it's because he's dispensable on account of being a machine, but Picard tells him that it's because the time fuckery doesn't seem to effect him as badly as it does the others. Did I miss something? No one got badly effected by the time fuckery. They were all like, "Wow that was weird," and then moved on with their lives. What a dumbass third act plot development.

Anyway Data agrees to leave at once and is beamed down to the planet. Once he arrives he gets fired on by some random lasers. Data puts them on blast and destroys them. Picard tells him to keep an open com channel as he heads to the lab.

Data inputs some code to open the door to the lab (which consists of a bunch of sliding fluorescent light tubes). They only open partially so Data has to slide between them into the lab. In the middle of the lab there's some kind of big device or distortion or something. I'm not entirely sure what it is that I'm supposed to be looking at.

When we return from the break we learn that there is only 90 seconds until the next time distortion. Data tells Picard that he needs to dump some antimatter into the machine to realign the system. He picks up a tallboy of antimatter with one of those robot grabber toys that every child in the 1980s had (see fig. S01E24-001 below) and approaches the device telling Geordi to count him off on his mark.

fig. S01E24-001

As Geordi begins to countdown two additional Datas appear and they are suddenly confused as to which of them is in the correct timeline to dump the antimatter into the machine. One of them suddenly bellows, "ME! IT'S ME!" and dumps the antimatter into the machine, saving the universe for collapsing in on itself or whatever was going to happen if he didn't dump the antimatter.

Isn't Data supposedly unable to use contractions? Isn't that a fact we learned about him in Datalore? This goddamn show really needed a Lore Master to keep all this bullshit straight...

Anyway Data tells Picard that the hole is patch but it could become a problem again in the future. Picard tells him he did a good job and to prepare to beam back to the Enterprise. Data is happy to.

Back on the Enterprise, Manheim has miraculously returned to normal. People ask him to describe what he experienced but he says he can't yet because it's so different from anything anyone has experienced before but he is certain there is a sort of life there. He then asks Picard about the state of his lab.

Picard tells him that its mostly intact so Manheim says that he needs to return there to continue his work. Jenice is like, "Wait what?!" but Manheim tells her that they've come so far and owe it to their friends who lost their lives to finish their work. Jenice agrees and Picard said that he's certain the Federation will be willing to assist him. Manheim promises his wife that this time will be different and she says that it always is.

Later, Troi brings Jenice to the holodeck, where Picard awaits in the Paris program. He tells her he wanted to say goodbye properly. She thanks him for Paris.

Later, Troi brings Jenice to the holodeck where she finds Picard waiting for her in fake Paris. She is impressed by how good the recreation is and Picard tells her that he wanted to say goodbye properly this time. She says that she'll expected him to always come rushing to her rescue and he says that he'll do his best. Jenice then goes to leave but there's no door so she declares, "Well, so much for my dramatically romantic exit," and the door appears and opens.

Picard then returns to the bridge and orders Geordi to set course for Sarona VIII since they are all long overdue for shore leave. As Geordi plots the course Riker tells everyone that he's only been to Sarona VIII once but recalls there being a great club, the name of which he has forgotten in a haze of alcohol and women.

"They serve these blue concoctions," he offers.

Troi then exclaims, "IT'S ACROSS THE SQUARE FROM THE ZANZA MEN'S DANCE PALACE!" but she too cannot recall the name of the venue.

Picard then says its called "the Blue Parrot Cafe." He then adds to a sheepish looking Troi that she's buying. Of for fucks sake...we've got yet another dumb ass 20th century American pop culture on some alien planet in the 24th Century. For those of you that aren't film buffs, the episode title is a reference to the 1942 movie Casablanca and the Blue Parrot Cafe was the name of the bar in that movie, and on top of this this dumb-ass line of dialogue includes yet another reference to money in a "post-scarcity society." Fuck this show.

How Rikered Was Riker?
There was insufficient data to determine whether or not Riker was half in the bag or not in this episode or not. He did, however, imply being completely hammered on Sarona VIII the one time he visited when he said "they've got this great club. I don't remember the name of it."

Final Thoughts
Weren't there time travel episodes of the Original Series? Didn't Spock get flipped off by an 80s punker in San Francisco while riding a bus once? Why is this episode acting all weird and implying that in-universe the idea of time being as malleable as space is some new concept? I mean they kind of end up getting into weird stuff with parallel universe and time being broken here but the starting point seems kind of flawed to me.

As is often the case in these first season episodes, the scoring is easily one of the best things about this episode which had a pretty dumb plot and absolutely no fucking, making it yet another completely worthless episode for the Fuck Report.

Fuck Count
I very rarely talk about behind the scenes stuff for these episodes, but here I have absolutely no choice since it is tied so closely to this extremely scientific study. According to the book Trek: The Unauthorized Behind-The-Scenes Story of The Next Generation in the original draft of the episode, writers Deborah Dean Davis and Hannah Louise Shearer wanted Picard to, and I quote, "do the wild thing" during a commercial break but the idea was vetoed by Patrick Stewart and other men involved in the production. Thanks for nothing you fucking assholes...

Total Fucks for Episode: 0
Total Fucks for Season: 6
Total Fucks for Series: 6