Oh, and everyone planned that several years before Generations was written? I think not. She was there due to a lack of imagination on the part of the writers, and a lack of confidence in the audience to be able to understand a plot without someone holding their hand. It was a damn good story, I just think it would be a much stronger story if Tasha and Picard had acted through their own consciences and intuition without Guinan's unneccesary "guidance."
The original version of the story had some alien probe carrying the information of the old timeline, somehow (I think it was sent by the Guardian of Forever) that they use to figure out the truth. As it stands, they wouldn't have been able to figure out the truth without Guinan. They'd have just assumed the ship was pulled forward in time and it's actions wouldn't have had any impact on history at all. Picard did mention to Garret when they first met that if the Ent-C had succeeded the war would've been averted, but that was AFTER Guinan had already told him history had been changed. They wouldn't have figured it out on their own.
The only far fetched thing about this episode is that the ENT-C appears when a vessel just happens to visit the rift, and that ship just happens to be the ENT-D of all ships. Not to mention that being true in the other timeline as well.
I can buy Guinan's presence: someone's got to man the bar and, during wartime, a bar is gonna see a lot more action than in peace. Now if we'd seen kids on the ship, that would have been nuts. Hell, it was nuts during the rest of the series. Actually, though, I wish Yar wasn't in the episode at all. I always hated her character and thought Crosby played her poorly. Captain Garrett, OTOH, made a very strong impression on me. I wish the doomed love affair had been between her and Picard, with her making the hero's choice to go back and die and battle and he (just like in the aired ep) sacrificing ship, crew and life to guarantee her success. IMAO, a better episode would have resulted and we'd have been spared the monstrous emabarassment that was Sela. Still, one of the very few TNG episodes that still holds up for me.
The only thing I don't like is when Yar is reading off the C's registry, and doesn't find anything odd until she says "Enterprise"...as having another 1701 there is just another day at the office.
Not just that, but you'd think the registry would show up all at once on the console. Instead I wonder if it was coming up one character at a time. N... C... C... 1... 7... 0... 1... C. U... S..., etc. You'd think, "NCC 1701-D USS Enterprise" would've shown up all at once and she'd have more reaction right away. There's a similar moment like this in Season 2's "Times Squared" when they bring in the shuttle from the future. It was clear to anyone in the audiance who read the shuttle's markings as it was on the view-screen or being tractored in where it was from. Yet we're given Riker spelling out the markings on BOTH shuttles like a retarded 2 year old.
It's for the benefit of the audience and drama. I remember Berman said that if he had known they'd be making TNG Movies back in 1989, they'd have saved the YE script for the movie series.
I'd say yes and no. A) I don't see how they couldn't expect TNG to do movies once it ended it's run. It was already fairly popular when it was in its third season and certainly the TOS actors weren't going to keep doing movies forever. B) As great of a movie it could've been, it'd need to be tweaked a bit to allow it to remain "our" heroes in the movie. Otherwise we'd be watching a 2-hour movie about people we don't really care about.
Where a time jumping Picard rescues James T. Kirk from the Enterprise-C's doomed maiden voyage in order to help save humanity from Q's trial. Meanwhile, Data activates his emotion chip and experiments with an alternate universe Tasha Yar, and Geordi gets to do two almost identical "coolant leak, we have a coolant leak!" scenes.
Naked Now: Perfect Lines between Yar and Data. I liked the costume that she took from Troi... Nice and Skimpy... (Although I thought it woulda been Troi and Riker getting on with the action)
One of the many permutations that YE took was the idea of making it into a two-parter and the season finale. Suffice to say, I really enjoyed this episode. The look, the feel, the story and the characters. It's interesting to note that the characters were really interesting in this episode and they weren't even "themselves." Here there was tension between Riker and Picard. I always felt like there should've been more tension between the two, not downright disobedience or hatred but a conflict that steamed out of seeing how to solve a problem from two different command styles. I loved the uniforms and the darker bridge in this one. I always felt the bridge was way overlit. On a military vessel, the lighting is a bit more subdue in order to make the readouts stand out better. Leaving aside that "realistic" look, the lighting gave the characters a more dynamic look that made them pop out more on screen than the usual lighting of the sets. IIRC, the collars on the uniform in this episode were also from an alternative sketch that Blackman did for his redesign of the TNG uniforms. He came up with several collar options and TPTB choose the one that we are most familiar with. (This was showcased in an issue of the defunct Paramount Star Trek: The Magazine.)
That work as full-time bartenders during wartime? I don't think so, htough I'll yield to an actual squid with better info. Nice attempt at a gross overgeneralization of my specific point, though.
And another in V'ger's "The 37s" when Janeway very carefully reads, letter by letter, Amelia Earhart's name tag, then sounds it out, and takes about ten full seconds to do what most first graders do in an instant.
My point is, they didn't need to know "the one true timeline" at all. All we needed was Picard's conversation with Capt Garret in the sickbay: She tells him what happened; he (our smart, noble hero) realizes that sending the C back just might avert 20 years of war; she agrees it's worth a try. Bingo. Guinan become redundant and 10 minutes of airtime opens up for real character performances instead of mystical plot exposition.
Picard wouldn't have known that the Ent-C was meant to go back until Guinan told him. He only had Data check to see if they could go back after she told him. If Guinan hadn't told him, then Picard would've just gone "It's too bad you didn't save the Klingons. Oh well, might as well get you adjusted to living in this war-zone. Well take you to a Starbase." Because he wouldn't have known that time was "wrong" and wouldn't have checked to see if the anomaly was symmetrical.