Summary

An engineer and his alien boyfriend come aboard to improve the Enterprise’s engines. Something goes wrong and the ship is hurtled across the universe, eventually to its very edges. It becomes clear that the engineer’s partner is the one that makes things happen. He is some kind of inter-dimensional being that can move the ship with thought. He is weakened by the trip, but can get them home if everyone just thinks happy thoughts. He also tells Picard that Wesley is special and that he should nurture his growth. With the happy thoughts the Enterprise makes it back to where they were before things started, but the mysterious inter-dimensional traveler has disappeared.

Observations

A brand new chief engineer. Not the lady from episode 2. In my head cannon they keep dying in horrible accidents in Engineering.

The engineer’s boyfriend is making eyes on Wesley. I’m sure it’s totally innocent, but today they would be forced to film this differently.

In 300 years they’ve charted 11% of the galaxy. Just an interesting fact that gets tossed out there in this script.

Once again Picard listens to his crew as they offer opinions.

Wesley has the inside scoop and nobody will listen to him. Grownups just don’t understand!!!

They set off again with the super speed, but don’t really make any comment about setting a course. If their angle is off by even one half of one degree they could end up hundreds of thousands of lightyears away from where they started.

Worf had a pet targ as a child. They hadn’t established yet that he was raised on Earth by humans.

Bad noise at the end of the universe. Grim visions. Menacing vibrations. A Starfleet officer learns to cope with the image of their dead grandmother serving them tea in the hallway, but nobody can handle this trip. The end of the universe is what the whole hep galaxy would be doing on a Saturday night if the Klingons had won the war.

Tasha explicitly mentions being chased by a rape gang on her home planet. Really makes the whole “kidnapped for rape” plot in episode 3 look dumber.

Good thing nobody had sex fantasies that Picard wandered into.

Picard is all on board with the space thought magic. I dig it.

Everyone needs to send positive vibes to get the ship back. Where’s Tinkerbell?

For the second time we see a man wearing the women’s skirt uniform. Cool little background detail.

Wesley is invited up to the bridge and everyone acts like it’s this brand-new thing and totally unorthodox. He was flying the ship two episodes ago.

Wesley is made an acting Ensign. Hundreds of Academy trained officers all over the ship release a collective “WTF? I spent years at the academy for this.”

At maximum warp it would take them 300 years to travel 2 million light years. This is actually the basis for how fast Warp 9.9 is in current Star Trek cannon. There’s nothing consistent about the chart, but this is the best reference for how fast “maximum warp” is.

Nitpicks

They travel two million light years, but the visuals show them passing several galaxies.