“Time Squared” Ep. 13 Season 2 TNG

This episode is REALLY creepy in that there is a mute, almost non-functioning duplicate of Picard. It is very, incredibly disturbing. 

1) A cloud is consuming planets.

2) The cloud threatens to destroy a planet called “Mantilles.”

Wedge? Wedge Mantilles? It strikes me as a RIDICULOUS name.

3) I believe Captain Kirk only invokes the prime directive when it serves his own, selfish purposes.

4) While Captain Kirk is talking to a planet’s governor, he tells the governor that Katie will be alright. When McCoy asks “Who’s Katie?” Kirk says: “He’s daughter. She’s eleven.” WTF? How do you KNOW that? I barely even remember my middle name. And yet Kirk is just galavanting around with all the knowledge of his acquaintances’ children floating around in his head. WTF?

5) This episode is actually a fascinating examination of what people think antimatter is. And, two quick questions:

first, does antimatter explode if it touches ANY form of matter?

second, if that’s the case, air is matter, so wouldn’t antimatter explode if it was in something other then a vacuum? 

6)  At the end of the episode the Enterprise has to remove itself from an energy being which is pretty much organized like the human body. Spock informs the Captain that they can exit from a grit (?) at the top of the brain, saying that this is a place where sensory information is received. He must be talking about the cribiform plate! Thru which olfactory nerves pass. MEDICAL ANATOMY FTW.

SUBTITLE
“This is just like that drug trip I saw in that movie while I was on that drug trip!” -Futurama’s Philip J. Fry, from “The Farnsworth Parabox” episode

QUOTES
“Very typical, Captain. Iron-Silicon base. Oxygen-Hydrogen atmosphere. Largely arid. No discernible life. No surprises.” - Spock commenting on the planet at the center of this episode… FAMOUS. LAST. WORDS. 

SPOCK: “Twice, for a split second each time, every thing within range of our instruments seemed on the verge of blinking out.” - Spock
KIRK: “I want facts not poetry Mr. Spock.” 
SPOCK: “I have given you the facts, Captain… the entire magnetic field in this solar system simply blinked. The planet below, the mass at which we’re measuring, attained zero gravity.”
KIRK: “That’s impossible. What you’re describing…”
SPOCK: “Is nonexistence.” 

“I don’t know Jim. This is a big ship and I’m just a country doctor.” - McCoy

“Jim, madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal. He must be stopped, destroyed if necessary.” - Spock talking about Lazarus

PLOT
While gathering data on a new planet (blase stellar cartography), the ship is shaken twice. Spock recounts to the captain that twice everything around the planet, and thus, themselves, nearly blinked out of existence. Also, a humanoid entity appears on the planet at the same time. So a landing crew goes down to check it out. On the surface, a man starts yelling at them from a cliff. He seems to be yelling nonsense, and then he falls off the cliff. They take him back to the Enterprise’s sick bay. The bridge receives a message from central command. A disturbance in normal magnetic, gravimetric, time warps, and radiations were felt in all quadrants of the galaxy, and all appear to have come from the planet the Enterprise was studying. The man who fell down the cliff, Lazarus, is briefed by Kirk as soon as he leaves sick bay, and he tells Kirk that there is an evil monster, in humanoid form, who wants to destroy everything in existence, and he resides on the planet’s surface. Back ON the planet’s surface, Spock informs Kirk that there is no evidence of anything living on the planet, and that Lazarus is most likely lying. Then there’s another disturbance. Lazarus is found on the verge of unconsciousness after the phenomenon, but he is incredibly aggravated and just keeps yelling the word “Kill!” Very annoying. Lazarus is brought back to sick bay, and McCoy notes that Lazarus has what appears to be ridiculous recuperative powers. There’s a deep scratch on Lazarus’s forehead. Then there isn’t. Then there is again. McCoy is deeply puzzled by this. Back on the bridge, there’s a rip in space near the Enterprise. Spock suggests that they can determine the extent of this rip in space using Dilithium crystals. Lazarus freaks out, saying that if he isn’t given Dilithium crystals, the evil entity is going to destroy the Enterprise. 

So Lazarus knocks out two scientists and steals dilithium from the ship. Although, when they question Lazarus about them, he no longer has the dilithium crystals. Lazarus argues that the evil entity has taken the crystals. So they beam down to the planet to try and locate the stolen dilithium. Unfortunately, but predictably, there is another attack.

This time in sick bay, Lazarus explains more things, although it only makes him sound even more crazy. The planet is actually his ship, for travelling through time.

Spock and Kirk theorize that Lazarus is actually two people, and that at least one of those persons is insane. They also theorize that Lazarus is actually two entities, one of matter, and one of antimatter. Meanwhile, at least one of the Lazari is f*cking around with engineering, causing a distraction to steal dilithium crystals. He then assaults someone in the transporter room and beams down to the planet and installs the stolen dilithium crystal into his starship. Kirk gets to Lazarus just in time to stop him, but somehow Kirk is transported to the antimatter universe. There he meets the not insane Lazarus, except, SURPRISE! The not insane Lazarus is in the parallel, antimatter universe. There, finally, everything is explained. This Lazarus discovered a way to travel in between the two universes. Once the other Lazarus discovered that this was possible, he went insane and devoted his entire life to finding and killing his parallel self. Antimatter Lazarus then tells Kirk that what must be done, to avoid the two Lazari meeting in any context besides the pathway between the two universes (which would obliterate everything within the universe), he must send matter Lazarus into the pathway and then destroy the pathways entrance. Essentially, the solution is locking the two Lazari together, even though, due to the one’s madness, they will be fighting for all eternity. Womp Womp. The end.

OBSERVATIONS
This entire episode makes me feel like I’m hypoglycemic. I still have no idea what’s going on, and I’ve seen it two times. SO ANNOYING.

Also, the antimatter universe is basically portrayed as being exactly the same as this universe, except in inverted color.

Also, the Lazari have schizoid personality disorder, if you were curious.