This episode... I go back and forth with it. It's a good and clever episode, but I hate to see my crew being so seemingly easily duped.
The Enterprise is on it's way to a planet to help them with the extreme weather issues they've been having since an asteroid collision. Worf picks up a space time distortion and a little shuttle craft appears. When they hail it, the occupant asks for Picard to specifically move over on the bridge so he can beam over. He is Berlinghoff Rasmussen, played by Matt Frewer of Max Headroom fame. The part was originally supposed to go to Robin Williams who had to opt out to make Peter Pan. Would it have been much different? I think not in this case, though Williams would've been better at the fast talking aspect of Rasmussen's personality.
He tells everyone that he's from the 26th century and is a researcher that specializes in 24th century history. Picard doesn't really know what to make of him so he takes him to the observation lounge where everyone wants to know more. They start asking questions about future events that he obviously can't answer just as a matter of ethics. Troi is suspicious and claims that he's hiding something, but as he seems harmless and at this point only wants people to fill out questionnaires that don't probe into guarded intelligence, Picard greenlights cooperation. Some are more suspicious than others and most of them are uncomfortable at his presence and even Data is curious to know what becomes of him in the future. You see Rasmussen make the mistake of comparing him to a Model T Ford car when the more accurate comparison would be to call him a Model A, but it's also something that could be considered a common mistake that people adopt when generalizing and romanticizing such as saying Columbus was the first to find America, when most people are aware that the Vikings had been trading on the North American continent long before Columbus. So this mistake is easily overlooked and the excited look on his face as he's sitting alone in his quarters could be considered as one of sinister intent, or of genuine wonder.
Most of the crew is annoyed with him for the obvious reason that although he keeps dropping hints that important things are happening, he won't be specific about any of it. It's like teasing kittens with a laser pointer, but it does provide some provocative dialogue about the past seen through the eyes of the present from different viewpoints . Still, he's quite obviously overplaying his hand and I think the thing that aggravates me the most about this episode is that Beverly of all characters is so anxious to believe him. You don't need Troi's empathic abilities to see that he's playing a game. A child could see that he's up to something. But thankfully they don't spend too much time trying to fool the audience. In fact I think the timing of how this character unfolds is actually pretty good writing. After he goes to engineering to talk cryptically of Data's involvement in the events taking place, you see him lifting a tablet; a PADD. Meanwhile the ship's targeted phaser bursts to release CO2 to counteract the nuclear winter brought about by the asteroid collision seem to be working and Geordi on the planet with Dr. Moseley are pleased.
Rasmussen's game is becoming more obvious to everyone else too as he seems pleased with how events have turned out... but then conditions on the planet begin to worsen due to volcanic activity caused by the help that the Enterprise was trying to give. Many of Rasmussen's scenes are kept comical so that the extent of his deceit remains an unknown. The scene with Data listening to several musical compositions at once is fun and also displays Rasmussen's particular interest in Data which is a foreshadowing of his intentions since he's stealing various technologies. Yes, the writing was actually pretty good in this episode.
It also got some well deserved awards for special effects as their solution involves ionizing the atmosphere and redirecting the excess energy into space so that the planet will neither burn nor freeze. Of course the calculations have to be hair line precise and that makes for a nice philosophical debate where Picard, even though he's not entirely convinced of Rasmussen's authenticity, asks him to advise based on his knowledge of the future anyway before they proceed. Rasmussen ultimately balks but he doesn't seem like he actually knows what's going to happen anyway and Picard takes the situation in hand like he always does, relishing the freedom of choice and risk taking that he has. He also displays the point that Data had made in Data's Day regarding how unlikely Picard is to choose a safe, by-the-book course. They save the day as always.
So, once again acting like he knew what was going to happen all along, Rasmussen turns to leave. This part of the episode disrupts the flow a little though because Picard immediately orders everyone to intercept him which must mean that he knew about his criminal activities even as he was asking him what he should do about the planet. That makes Picard look foolish for asking his advice. But, even if he did know that things were being stolen, that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't who he said he was and I think that asking him about their role in saving the planet was merely a test to see if he was actually a historian, or perhaps just someone like Vash who steals relics, only he's traveling through time instead of crawling through excavation sites like her. The quickness of it all is a little awkward to watch though and is briefly confusing. But, the last scene is the best part of the show and makes it all worth it because even though everyone is aware that Rasmussen is a con man, it still manages to take another interesting twist. The shuttle really is from the 26th century and was piloted by a person who really was doing historical research... in the 22nd century which is the time Rasmussen is actually from. His charmingly quirky personality suddenly becomes frighteningly psychotic when he confesses that he killed the historian and decided to travel forward in time and steal technologies in order to take it back to his time period to "invent" them and become rich. He explains all of this to Data after telling the others that only Data would be allowed inside the shuttle to search for the missing materials since he is the only one that could be trusted not to speak of the 26th century tech of the vessel. And then he overplays his hand one last time, deciding that he'll take Data back with him too, eventually figure him out, and "invent" him as well. But once his shuttle was opened, the Enterprise's security field disabled his phaser. Data's cold and emotionless (but polite and subtle!) threat to knock him unconscious in order to leave the pod is epic as is the look on his face when the shuttle disappears back in time, stranding Rasmussen in the future forever.
It's a fun episode. I don't have too many complaints and the writing as far as the particular con being played out was quite appealing. I'll give it four stars.
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