Star Trek: The Next Generation — 7x26 — All Good Things... Part II

Aired 1994-05-23

SpaceOpera.com rating:10

Average reader rating:8.1

Synopsis

Picard tries to prevent the destruction of humanity.

Remarkable scenes

A clean-shaven Riker!
Picard investigating the anomaly in all 3 time periods.
The three nacelled Enterprise!
Geordi's regenerated eyes and Ogawa losing her baby.
Q showing Picard the primordial soup.
Picard senilely describing a temporal paradox and Data catching what he's actually talking about.
Picard manipulating the Enterprise in all 3 time periods.
Picard: "Mr. Data, you are a clever man in any time period."
The sight of all 3 Enterprises together.
Q: "I'm going to miss you Jean-Luc, you had such potential. But then again all good things must come to an end..."
Picard thanking Q.
The crew discussing the changes in the timeline.
Picard joining the Poker game.
The last line on of TNG TV series: Picard: "So, five card stud, nothing wild, and the sky's the limit!"

Review

This episode finishes off with a bang, much more exciting than the first part. The issue of Troi and Worf's relationship is neatly tied up here. It would have been nice if in the TNG movies it was at least somewhat addressed, but it's certainly better than no explanation at all. The series ends making just as grand a point as it began with. Humanity is evolving and its collective mind is expanding. I like the sense of camaraderie at the end of the episode, both between Q and Picard regarding their relationship; Q really is a good guy, guiding humanity, and protecting humanity as they grow. Also the camaraderie between Picard and his crew as he finally plays Poker with them for the first time. This episode is a wonderful conclusion to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

16 reader comments

I give All Good Things a 10 overall. I did not rate Part 1 and Part 2, since I watch it on DVD and have no idea where the halfway point is.
The episode itself is actually better than all the TNG movies. Everything about it is genius. Having the episode take place in three time periods is genius. Having the episode be a sequel to the very first episode is genius. I always look forward to watching it again.
by Orion Pimpdaddy | 07/09/2006 at 1:16 am

The whole idea of working among diferent time periods and Picard in that "one moment" open to new posibilities and things to explore is great, but there is one problem: the movies and series set after this episode in time seem to show that humanity didn't expand in ways predicted in this episode and just settled back into their old ways. Admittedly, our current minds are not highly evolved enough to comprehend such endevers, but it does seem odd that both humanity doesn't advance (except maybe in VOY: Relativity dealing with an even farther future) and that the Q doesn't seem to care. This is not a strike against this episode, but a strike against future episodes relating to this episode.
by Tony | 09/09/2008 at 4:23 am

I just finished the entire TNG series, so this is a review of the series as a whole as well as a comment on this episode.
"All Good Things" is phenomenal. It's intelligently written, fleshes out the characters well, and filled with fanboy fun stuff that doesn't get in the way of a good episode. I gave it a 10.
TNG overall was also solid. Like the original series, it had its lame moments, but it was able to take the original concept and turn it into a sleek, intelligent show that took itself seriously but was still still fun. The best moments of TNG ("Measure of a Man," "The Inner Light," the Klingon saga episodes, the Borg invasion, Wesley's continuing journey to higher astral planes, et al) get at the heart of what Trek was really about. Now I'm looking forward to seeing DS9. I've seen a good bit of it, but a lot of it will be new to me.
by JRPoole | 11/05/2008 at 8:09 pm

I loved the 3D space battle scene. Unfortunately throughout most of Trek, the potential allowed by the three dimensions of space is wasted and most everything is in two dimensions, as if they were in a ship on the ocean. The brief battle scene here with the Enterprise arriving from a totally different angle and orientation was brilliant, and I wish we could have seen more battle scenes like that.
by DJB | 04/03/2009 at 8:20 am

I love this episode too, but I think the science is a little bit iffy.
Since Picard establishes that changes in timelines don't affect each other (i.e. Deanna doesn't recall him ordering a red alert on his first mission), then the fact that the first amino acid doesn't bond in the past shouldn't affect their known future or present…
Multiple Universe Theories generally say that if an event is changed in the past, it will not alter the present; rather, create a new alternate Universe with that decision. And since there are infinite universes that exist where life did not end up occurring on earth, it wouldn't be that amazing. Life would have continued as normal to their perspective…
by Ali | 04/12/2009 at 4:21 pm

If it's a 10, why isn't a candidate for your "Best TNG Episode" award?
by Jadzia Guinan Smith | 10/01/2011 at 1:49 pm

Both parts of the episode would have had to be rated 10 for it to be considered.
by Eric Newport | 10/07/2011 at 6:49 am

This is one of my favourite episodes in all of Star Trek, but one little problem kills the magic for me…
An early draft of the script, which was discarded for budget reasons, had the future crew stealing the Enterprise from a museum. Which meant that they started the search for the anomaly in the Enterprise and not the Pasteur.
In the final version of the script they were on the Pasteur.
Later, present-day Data says that the resonance pulses (or whatever they were called) inside the anomaly were identical "as if all three originated from the Enterprise".
But they didn't!
Anyway, aside from this little nitpick I have with the episode it's a fantastic send-off for TNG.
by Vlad Taushanov | 02/13/2012 at 3:49 pm

If the anti-time reaction in the future goes backwards in time - how were they able to see it in the future? From the point of origin it travels backwards. From the perspective of linear time it would be impossible for anyone perceiving the forwards movement of time to see a reaction that moves precisely in the opposite direction?
by Michael | 08/07/2012 at 10:03 pm

I loved this episode, just saw it on 26.12.2012 and thought it was brilliant, I gave it a 10.
by Captain Keogh | 03/17/2013 at 10:38 am

This is a great send-off for TNG. It's obvious a lot of thought was put into this episode. For example, I love the shot of Baby-face Riker they lifted from the 1st season. It was ingenious how they had new audio from Frakes while the shot shows Picard looking at the monitor, and then cuts back to Riker actually saying something from the season 1 footage. It was seamless and shows a lot of attention to detail. But the bigger aspect here is that All Good Things is what Star Trek is all about - pushing frontiers and going where no one (man) has gone before. Plus there's a lot at stake here - the existence of humanity (and the existence of every species between Earth and the Neutral Zone). This is awesome science fiction and TNG at its best!
by thaibites | 04/16/2013 at 11:41 pm

This definitely was a great finale, epic and exciting. But a little frustrating too.
Why do the Q continuum continue to torture Picard? They create some nonsensical dilemma and accuse Picard of being the cause when it was solely due to them that the crisis existed in the first place, just so they can force him to make some grand act they approve of. I thought the dilemma and its solution was totally irrational and may as well have been a dream, but it is implied that to evolve humanity must stop exploring real world science and technology and devote more time to this sort of thing. It seems they want to hold them back more than anything. I was annoyed at Q seeming to revert back to his earlier character after all they'd been through together, but felt better when it turns out he was acting under orders and did try to help after all.
It was awesome seeing how irritable Picard was as an old man, and seeing Troi in a mini-skirt. It was a shame Guinan didn't make an appearance for the last episode. The last scene was perfect and uplifting.
by L | 05/09/2013 at 12:32 pm

This episode first aired when I was in middle school, and I remember being very annoyed at the fact that the anomaly, which is supposed to be moving backwards in time, was somehow moving forward in time after it was created. It was the first time I ever noticed any logical inconsistencies in my favorite show (which is kind of funny now, looking back on all the various logical inconsistencies throughout TNG's run), and it still hinders my enjoyment of this episode. But I guess it would have taken too much screen time for the future crew to create the static warp bubble in the past by slingshotting around a sun or something.
I've always wondered why star ships always seem to be on the same plane when they run into each other, so it was good to see the future Enterprise approach and attack perpendicular to the Klingon Birds of Prey. Shame future Star Trek's didn't continue with this.
Everyone thinks future Picard is crazy, but they inexplicably (or perhaps touchingly) humor him because he is Jean-Luc Picard. He refuses a brain scan at Cambridge, insisting instead that they immediately get a ship to the neutral zone. The "present day" crew, on the other hand, believe Picard completely, in part because Beverley was able to show (via two brain scans) that he had accrued two days worth of memories in a matter of hours. Why didn't future Picard immediately insist on the same brain scans? Wouldn't it have been much, much easier to get everyone on board with him (and to avoid being sedated) by easily providing evidence that what he was saying was true?
Future Geordi is married to a woman named Leah. Leah Brahms, perhaps?
by Dstyle | 09/23/2013 at 3:03 pm

After a generally disappointing Season 7 TNG ends with a massive bang! Easily the best finale of any Trek series and 20 years on this is still one of the best grand finale's of any TV series IMO.
I just wish they'd left the story here, rather than trying to reinvent TNG as a series of half baked sci-fi action films with a horribly out-of-character Picard at the helm.
As with the Star Wars prequels I pretend the TNG films didn't happen and it ended with "the sky's the limit!"
by Jai Parker | 07/10/2014 at 2:11 am

The only thing I'll add is that the previous episodes were all setting up for this, outside of summing up loose characters (as fan service).
Many of the derided episodes (when taken on their own) are in fact building the audience to this climax…
Where Picard finally loses his mind.
It was a quite brilliant story arch, across episodes, while still paying fan service to characters in interesting ways as they writers knew the show was dead after this season.
Extremely well done.
by englanddg | 08/02/2014 at 8:40 am

This has already been mentioned by another commenter, but I want to reiterate. The one thing that always bothered me about this otherwise amazing finale is, if the anomaly only grows backwards through time then how the heck were they able to go back several hours into the future and see it??
It's been a while since I've watched this, so maybe I'm forgetting something but I don't recall any explanation for it. Seems like a pretty massive oversight.
by Mike Chambers | 08/25/2016 at 2:55 pm