“All Good Things…, Part I” is episode twenty-five of season seven of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the first part of the two-part season and series finale.
Troi and Worf are leaving a holodeck program, a romantic one by the sounds of it, though Troi objects to his more clinical description. Worf talks about not wanting to hurt Riker’s feelings. They arrive at Troi’s quarters and are about to kiss when Captain Picard comes up and asks what the date is. He thinks he’s moving back and forth in time.
In Troi’s quarters, he explains that he was in another time and place, in the past, but it’s slipping away. Years ago, before he took command of the Enterprise. Then he was an old man in the future, outside, doing something. It was more than a dream. The captain can’t say how long he was there. There was a moment of confusion and distortion, but then he felt as if he belonged in that time.
Suddenly, the captain is an old man tending grape vines as Geordi approaches. It’s nine years since they last met and 25 since they were last on the Enterprise. Picard asks what brought Geordi there; Geordi claims he was passing until pressed and he admits Leah has some friends at Starfleet Medical. They heard about the neurological condition. Geordi felt he had to stop by. As they’re talking, Picard sees three people gesticulating at him. Geordi doesn’t.
Then he’s on a shuttle, along with Tasha Yar, heading towards the Enterprise in spacedock for the first time. Then he’s back in Troi’s quarters.
In sickbay, Dr Crusher has scanned him; she’s not finding evidence of anything temporal or of hallucinations. He’s also been breathing the ship’s air for weeks. The doctor asks Troi to excuse them, then confirms to the captain that she found a small structural defect in his parietal lobe that could cause the condition he supposedly had in the future.
Riker arrives; Worf has found nothing and no indication the captain left the ship. Then Worf contacts the captain; there’s an incoming transmission from Admiral Nakamura. The captain takes it in Dr Crusher’s office. Nakamura says there’s a fleet-wide yellow alert. 30 Romulan warbirds are heading for the Neutral Zone. There’s something happening in the Devron system in the Neutral Zone; a spatial anomaly has been detected. Starfleet is sending 15 starships to their side of the Neutral Zone, including the Enterprise. Wait and see what the Romulans do. Scan the Neutral Zone, send probes, but don’t enter it unless the Romulans do.
Picard is then back at the vineyard; he tells Geordi he doesn’t belong there. He realises that Geordi thinks the illness is affecting him, and says it isn’t. Geordi asks him what he wants to do. Data. He wants to see Data. Picard thinks Data can help. Then he sees people again.
They head to see Data in Cambridge; he has Isaac Newton’s old house, as it came with his chair. Data admits that there’s nothing to disprove what Picard claims; it’s possible something is happening. Then the captain is boarding the Enterprise for the first time. He sees the people again and orders a red alert.
Captain Picard’s consciousness is somehow crossing between three time periods. In his present, people are far more willing to believe there’s an issue. In the past, they’ve only just met and in the future, he has a neurological disease. However, that doesn’t mean those in the other two periods aren’t willing to try and fight out what’s happening.
Events continue in the next episode, “All Good Things…, Part II”.