Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite ones?

[junkdata]

Id like to get a list of episodes involving time travel, and if possible to get peoples opinions on the best one.

I remember one from when I was a kid, of TNG where Data memorizes the number 3. Its a good example of an episode that involves time travel, but where the concept of time travel itself is the focus.

I also know there are a few that go back to earth, where the focus is as much on the planet as crew.

Also there were the films where they went back in time on like 3 different occasions.

Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite ones?

 

[2takesfrakes]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

The VOYAGER episode "Future's End" is my personal favourite, of the lot. It's well-written, well-directed and well-produced. Well-acted. The script is in shape, with all of the main characters in focus and in their proper positions. And the cherry on the top, if you will, is Sarah Silverman's essay of Rain Robinson, in this adventure. At the time, certainly, she ranked amongst the most beautiful, the most talented of leading actresses and went on to become an A-List celebrity in her own right. What she brought to "Future's End" was a truly remarkable and memorable performance. One I would rank right up there with the most famous Women of STAR TREK, like the Edith Keeler character, for example. And this episode had a lasting impact on VOYAGER, as well. I would definitely make it a point to watch this episode ... you'll be glad you did.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

These are the time travel episodes

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

From TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday," "Assignment: Earth," "All Our Yesterdays," and, of course, "City on the Edge of Forever."

And I think the TNG episode you're thinking of is "Cause and Effect."

 

[junkdata]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

The VOYAGER episode "Future's End" is my personal favourite, of the lot. It's well-written, well-directed and well-produced. Well-acted. The script is in shape, with all of the main characters in focus and in their proper positions. And the cherry on the top, if you will, is Sarah Silverman's essay of Rain Robinson, in this adventure. At the time, certainly, she ranked amongst the most beautiful, the most talented of leading actresses and went on to become an A-List celebrity in her own right. What she brought to "Future's End" was a truly remarkable and memorable performance. One I would rank right up there with the most famous Women of STAR TREK, like the Edith Keeler character, for example. And this episode had a lasting impact on VOYAGER, as well. I would definitely make it a point to watch this episode ... you'll be glad you did.

watching it now, its really weirding me out that 1996 is now almost 20 years in the past. We are kind of time travelling with them. ST is timeless, but 1996 sure as fuck aint.

These are the time travel episodes

nice one, cheers.

Favorite?

From TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday," "Assignment: Earth," "All Our Yesterdays," and, of course, "City on the Edge of Forever."

And I think the TNG episode you're thinking of is "Cause and Effect."

looking at the exhaustive list, there really is a lot of them out there.

I guess we cleared up the how many are there question.

The best ones are the ones people remember I guess.

I do wonder if they all follow the same understanding of time travel, or if theres different rules in different episodes?

 

[Push The Button]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

TOS: The Naked Time, Tomorrow is Yesterday and The City on the Edge of Forever are my favorites, beyond these three I feel that the concept was overused, much like the holodeck would also be overused in later Trek series.

In The Naked Time, the time travel aspect is an unexpected side effect of the cold restart. In Tomorrow is Yesterday it was the result of an accident, and in City it takes place through the actions of a "third-party", if you will, the Guardian of Forever.

Once it reached the point where the process could be done relatively easily by just about anyone, the "magic" was lost. And of course, this spurred the creation of the DTI to deal with the aftermath of careless overuse.

 

[Lucky]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

My favorites are "City on the Edge of Forever," "Tomorrow is Yesterday," "All Our Yesterdays," "Cause and Effect," "Timescape," "All Good Things," "Visionary," "The Visitor," "Trials and Tribble-ations," "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night," "Relativity," "Carpenter Street," "Twilight"

 

[Melakon]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

I generally like time travel stories, probably due to The Twilight Zone's "Back There", which I saw on first run. For Trek, one I liked that didn't seem to make that list is VOY: Year of Hell, which was a different take than what we usually think of as time travel.

 

[Robert Comsol]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

It's worth noticing that for The Twilight Zone, although anything was possible there, Rod Serling sided with the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle, except for this one episode whith the female devil (a good morality tale).

Star Trek on the other hand, with Spock as the icon of logic, sided with Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemens according to which changing of the past is possible.

Interestingly, while several episodes appear to start as "Twain Stories", they finally end as "Novikov stories" (like the TZ ones).

As for the OP's straightforward question, I don't have to hesitate a second, my favorite is "Time's Arrow" because it illustrates that you can have a great "Novikov Story" without predestination or causality-void loop paradoxes.

Bob

 

[Last Redshirt]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

Definitely The City on the Edge of Forever, Tomorrow is Yesterday for TOS. TOS handled time travel the best, IMO.

For TNG, Cause and Effect and All Good Things are the two that stand out for me. There was plenty of others but I thought those two really put the best spin on it.

DS9, obviously Trials and Tribble-ations as well as The Visitor. Both were probably the best time travel stuff we saw since TOS. Those four were the strongest, IMO.

Voyager had Future's End and Year of Hell, both of which were definitely strong episodes, but not to the same vein as DS9 or TOS.

I can't think of one Enterprise time travel story I liked.

 

[Melakon]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

It's worth noticing that for The Twilight Zone, although anything was possible there, Rod Serling sided with the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle, except for this one episode whith the female devil (a good morality tale).

Which episode would that be? There is no devil character in "Back There".

 

[Mytran]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

In terms of TOS it has to be Naked Time if only because the time travel aspect is so short! Logic problems usually plague time travel plots but here the only question is whether the crew overlap their earlier selves (leading to two Enterprises in the quadrant, if only for 3 days) or if the vortex somehow rewinds the entire universe whilst allowing the crew to retain memories of now non existent events. Personally, I vote for the former

 

[Robert Comsol]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

It's worth noticing that for The Twilight Zone, although anything was possible there, Rod Serling sided with the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle, except for this one episode whith the female devil (a good morality tale).

Which episode would that be? There is no devil character in "Back There".

"Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" is the episode.

But among the time travel episodes "Back There" is probably the best, and a perfect example of the Novikov Self-Consistency principle, here is the opening narration:

"Witness a theoretical argument, Washington, D.C., the present. Four intelligent men talking about an improbable thing like going back in time. A friendly debate revolving around a simple issue: could a human being change what has happened before? Interesting and theoretical, because who ever heard of a man going back in time? Before tonight, that is, because this is - The Twilight Zone."

Bob

 

[tomalak301]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

Since all the series involve time travel to an extent, I'll go for favorites from each series:

Star Trek: City on the Edge of Forever
TNG: All Good Things...
DS9: Past Tense
VOY: Relativity
ENT: E^2

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

The VOYAGER episode "Future's End" is my personal favourite, of the lot. It's well-written, well-directed and well-produced. Well-acted. The script is in shape, with all of the main characters in focus and in their proper positions. And the cherry on the top, if you will, is Sarah Silverman's essay of Rain Robinson, in this adventure. At the time, certainly, she ranked amongst the most beautiful, the most talented of leading actresses and went on to become an A-List celebrity in her own right. What she brought to "Future's End" was a truly remarkable and memorable performance. One I would rank right up there with the most famous Women of STAR TREK, like the Edith Keeler character, for example. And this episode had a lasting impact on VOYAGER, as well. I would definitely make it a point to watch this episode ... you'll be glad you did.

watching it now, its really weirding me out that 1996 is now almost 20 years in the past. We are kind of time travelling with them. ST is timeless, but 1996 sure as fuck aint.

These are the time travel episodes

nice one, cheers.

Favorite?

From TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday," "Assignment: Earth," "All Our Yesterdays," and, of course, "City on the Edge of Forever."

And I think the TNG episode you're thinking of is "Cause and Effect."

looking at the exhaustive list, there really is a lot of them out there.

I guess we cleared up the how many are there question.

The best ones are the ones people remember I guess.

I do wonder if they all follow the same understanding of time travel, or if theres different rules in different episodes?

If you're interested, Christopher Bennett has written a couple of Trek novels that try to make sense of the rules behind pretty much every Star Trek time-travel episode. The books are:

Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock

Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Forgotten History.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

The VOYAGER episode "Future's End" is my personal favourite, of the lot.

watching it now, its really weirding me out that 1996 is now almost 20 years in the past. We are kind of time travelling with them. ST is timeless, but 1996 sure as fuck aint.

You ain't just whistling "Dixie."

>>SNORT!!!<<

But you do bring up an interesting notion that's been brought up before, in The Media, how old movies are like looking back in time. STAR TREK is stylized entertainment, so we're not getting crystal clear vision with that look back in time, but I like how you put it. It's like we're going back in time with VOYAGER, as 1996 may not be 400 years ago, but it still might as well have been. To me, it just adds to the appeal of it ...

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

Absolutely. I watch way too much TCM and part of the appeal, besides the stories and actors and films themselves, is the time capsule effect. At this point, watching an old movie from the thirties or forties or fifties or whenever is like looking back in time. (I'm particularly fascinated by the way the War is forever part of the background of forties movies; even when the movie isn't actually about the war, even if it's a romantic comedy or musical or whatever, the War is lurking in the background with talk of USOs and rationing and war bonds, etc.)

Heck, I was watching some second-season X-Files eps last week and it was striking just how much has changed since the early nineties. There's the technology, of course: giant cell phones, fax machines, etc. But also the realization that X-Files was pre-9/11. Despite all the sinister government conspiracies on the show, there's no talk of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, or even much about terrorism at all.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

I'll just go down the list at Memory Alpha posted upthread, and tick off my favorites.

"The Naked Time"
"The City on the Edge of Forever"
"Assignment: Earth"
"All Our Yesterdays"

"Yesteryear"

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek (2009)

"Yesterday's Enterprise"
"Captain's Holiday"
"All Good Things..."

"Accession"
"Trials and Tribble-ations"

"Azati Prime"

 

[urbandefault]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

My favorite time travel episodes?

TOS: Assignment: Earth
TNG: Time's Arrow
DS9: Trials and Tribble-ations
VOY: Timeless

No rhyme or reason, I just enjoyed them.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Re: Which episodes involve time travel, and which are your favorite on

I watch way too much TCM and part of the appeal, besides the stories and actors and films themselves, is the time capsule effect. At this point, watching an old movie from the thirties or forties or fifties or whenever is like looking back in time. (I'm particularly fascinated by the way the War is forever part of the background of forties movies; even when the movie isn't actually about the war, even if it's a romantic comedy or musical or whatever, the War is lurking in the background with talk of USOs and rationing and war bonds, etc.)

Old Movies are such a niche market, it seems like, I'm kind of amazed they're still around. Especially when the DVD/Blue Ray quality on most of these movies continues to spiral down, like there is absolutely no Quality Control on it. You always see these lists of The Top 100 Movies of All Time, with these ancient movies on there and I'm like, "who the hell other than this author knows these movies even existed?" It's like a deliberate effort is being made to constantly remind the public that movies were made before The Turn of the Century - how effective that is, one wonders.

And we have so few celebrities still around from The Golden Age of Hollywood, yet, I never really hear too much about them. Lauren Bacall has never stopped working - never stopped! And I'm damned if I can name anything she's been in, recently. Olivia de Havilland is pushing 100 and who knows who she is? When the last of these Greats goes, The Public's going to be like, "... who???" So, definitely, enjoy these old movies, whilst we've still got them, because many of them are being lost to Time.