Star Trek TNG: Season 1, Episode Twenty-Four “We’ll Always Have Paris”

Stardate: 41697.9
Original Air Date: May 2, 1988
Writers: Deborah Dean Davis and Hannah Louise Shearer
Director: Robert Becker

“I want you to put a stitch in time and save much more than nine.”

The Enterprise is en route to Sarona VIII for some much needed shore leave. The entire crew is looking forward to the diversion. In his captain’s log, Picard notes that he has allowed himself a degree of personal luxury as a head start –he has been fencing with a Lieutenant aboard the ship for fun. However, his fencing practice is suddenly interrupted when the whole ship experiences a strange loop, akin to a repeated moment in time (not unlike the feeling of déjà vu).

Worf receives an emergency transmission from the Pegos Minor System. It is from someone named Dr. Paul Manheim and he is requesting immediate help. Fifteen years ago, Dr. Manheim assembled a team of scientists and they went off to work on experiments relating to non-linear time. He was a highly respected scientist who put forward several theories, such as a theory on the relationship between time and gravity, though none of his theories ever gained serious consideration (even though he was highly respected?) Dr. Manheim taught at the university while Picard was in Paris.

Picard then heads to holodeck 3 for a recreation of Paris in the Café Desartistes twenty-two years ago where meets a beautiful young woman waiting for a him, a younger Picard who has not showed up to meet her. But Picard quickly abandons this little “self-indulgence” and he heads back to the bridge where Riker informs him that the freighter Lalo and a farming colony on Coltar IV have both described the same time distortion issue experienced by the Enterprise.

Next, the Enterprise arrives at the coordinates provided by Dr. Manheim’s recording, it is Vandor IV, a planetoid in elliptical orbit around a binary system. After opening hailing frequencies, Picard makes the odd decision to announce himself as the “captain of the Enterprise” rather than “Captain Picard.” After communicating with the surface, the Enterprise is able to beam aboard two survivors from Vandor IV. One is Dr. Manheim who is unconscious and convulsing and the other survivor is a woman named Jenice Manheim, an old friend of Picard and the wife of Dr. Manheim.

As time passes, the crew begins seeing mirror representations of themselves in real time at different points along the time continuum, and the effects of the time distortion are now being felt in the Ilecon system. Data traces all of these strange occurrences to a huge energy surge to Dr. Manheim’s laboratory on Vandor IV, but there is a strange “bouncing effect” malfunction within the transporter when Riker, Data, and Worf attempt to beam down inside Dr. Manheim’s lab. But Dr. Manheim awakens in an agitated state while claiming he has attached an alternate dimension. He was able to locate an energy source in the middle of Vandor IV, and along with the energy from the pulsar, Dr. Manheim was able to open a crack in the universe, a window into another dimension. The Enterprise must now race to stop this rip in the fabric of reality from expanding throughout the galaxy.     

However, after some awkward moments of romance between Picard and Jenice –his long-lost lover from Paris twenty-two years ago– Picard sends Data alone down to Dr. Manheim’s laboratory to investigate the situation. Once inside, Data discovers a sealed room with a time distortion and canisters to balance antimatter that allows him to briefly see an alternate reality with three different versions of himself. And rather quickly, the crisis is resolved.

Picard recreates Paris in the holodeck for Jenice, wanting to say goodbye properly this time. In the end, the Enterprise heads at Warp 5 for Sarna VIII for shore leave. Riker recalls a great club that serves blue concoctions, it is located across the square from the Zanza Men’s Dance Palace… Picard remembers that it is called the Blue Parrot Café, “and you’re buying” (to Riker).

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My Thoughts on “We’ll Always Have Paris”

This techno-babble heavy episode was somewhat reminiscent of TOS’s “The Alternative Factor.” It is filled with weird dialogue (“I expect you to always come charging to my rescue”) and awkward chemistry between Jenice Manheim and Jean-Luc Picard, and their love triangle with Dr. Manheim comes across as strange and off-putting. There is also a strange tone in this episode as a highly volatile rip in the fabric of reality is contrasted with the unexpected arrival of Picard’s long-lost lover (Picard’s one who got away). Oddly enough, nothing really seems to matter in this episode. It’s all very low stakes –Dr. Manheim doesn’t seem to mind Picard’s personal interactions with his wife, Dr. Crusher only marginally seems to care about Picard’s ex-lover, and none of the characters seem to be alarmed about an alternate dimension that has been unleashed. Everything is resolved in the end without much depth or complexity.

Despite this being a fairly superficial episode, there were definitely some great ideas worth exploring if not for the haphazard production process courtesy of the 1988 Writers Guild strike.  

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Writer/Director

This episode was written by Deborah Dean Davis and Hannah Louise Shearer.

It was directed by Robert Becker.

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Star Trek Trivia:

• The title of this episode is a reference to Casablanca.
• The Blue Parrot Café, as mentioned by Picard at the end of this episode, is another nod to Casablanca.
• Jenice Manheim was played by Michelle Phillips, famous for being a vocalist in The Mamas & The Papas musical group.
• The image of 24th-century Paris in the holodeck was a matte painting which was re-used in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, where it was hung outside the office of the Federation president.
• This episode was hampered by the 1988 Writers Guild Strike which forced the script to be rapidly written in five days. It was incomplete at the time of filming. Hannah Louise Shearer was dissatisfied with the final episode.
• The menu from the Parisian cafe in this episode is titled “Cafe des Artistes.” Among the entrees listed are: Croissants D’ilithium, Tribbles dans les Blankettes, Targ Klingon a la Mode, Cheveau avec Sauce Brun, and Jean Cougar Mellencamp –with plenty of little in-jokes listed under the ingredients.
• A jokey message at the bottom of the menu reads in French: “la management reserve le droit a expulse le personnes qui no comprend pas a menu. si vous require le prix, vous n’affordez pas a mange dans cette restaurant. Ne pas de chemise, ne pas service. Cinquant million Francais ne’s pas wrong. Gauling, isn’t it?” (which roughly translates to: “Management reserves the right to expel people who do not understand the menu. If you ask the price, you can not afford to eat in this restaurant. No shirt, no service. Fifty million French people aren’t wrong. Gauling, isn’t it?”).