Pretty routinely on The Next Generation, we hear a voiceover about how the Enterprise has just arrived at some starbase, planet or rendezvoused with another ship after having just left a previous location that was visited between the previous week's episode and this week's. For example, I watched True Q last night (the episode takes place after Schisms, where they were charting an area of space. So, according to the Captain's Log, between Schism and the opening to True Q, the Enterprise had time to pick up Amanda Rogers and arrive at the polluted planet in dire need of help. This sort of thing happens pretty routinely.
Here's where the problem lies. It's assumed that every season of TNG, DS9 and VOY all equal one year in-universe. This is confirmed in Star Trek Generations (made in 1994). "Farpoint?! Data, that was seven years ago...", corresponding with the 1987 production date of Encounter at Farpoint.
So, we either have to assume that most of the missions we see of the crew are frontloaded into the first of the year (52 weeks in a year, 26 episodes a season), leaving one week between missions. Or, they're spaced out every two weeks between the missions we receive as episodes. Either way, as soon as the Enterprise is done with a random mission, they have anywhere from one week to two weeks to get to the next episode. Space is very big. We actually need to cut the travel time down even more to calculate in the trip from their previous location between episodes to the location that will be shown in the next episode.
The question is, figuring all this in, exactly WHEN does the crew have time to take part in these off-screen adventures we hear about in these episodes?
Here's where the problem lies. It's assumed that every season of TNG, DS9 and VOY all equal one year in-universe. This is confirmed in Star Trek Generations (made in 1994). "Farpoint?! Data, that was seven years ago...", corresponding with the 1987 production date of Encounter at Farpoint.
So, we either have to assume that most of the missions we see of the crew are frontloaded into the first of the year (52 weeks in a year, 26 episodes a season), leaving one week between missions. Or, they're spaced out every two weeks between the missions we receive as episodes. Either way, as soon as the Enterprise is done with a random mission, they have anywhere from one week to two weeks to get to the next episode. Space is very big. We actually need to cut the travel time down even more to calculate in the trip from their previous location between episodes to the location that will be shown in the next episode.
The question is, figuring all this in, exactly WHEN does the crew have time to take part in these off-screen adventures we hear about in these episodes?
