Review of "Yesterday’s Enterprise," season 3 episode 15 of Star Trek The Next Generation

 Review of

Yesterday’s Enterprise, season 3 episode 15 of Star Trek The Next Generation

Five out of five stars

One of the best episodes in the series

 This is another one of the episodes in STTNG where it is strongly hinted that Guinan has enormous powers. Her intuition is so acute that it can detect a change in the timeline. The premise is that some form of rift forms in space/time and the Enterprise C passes through it. In the normal timeline, it was lost with all hands, in fact it was destroyed by the Romulans.

 The Romulans were attacking a Klingon outpost and the Enterprise C was responding to the distress call when it was destroyed. When the Enterprise C passed through the time rift, there was a dramatic change in how history unfolded. In the normal timeline, the Klingons were impressed by a Federation starship defending them to the death and a peace treaty was signed between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Absent the treaty in the new timeline, the Federation and the Klingon Empire have been at war for over two decades.

 Guinan somehow senses this and convinces Picard that all is not right, for the Enterprise D is now only a warship. Tasha Yar is alive in the new timeline and she plays a major role in the attempt to reset the timeline back to what it should be.

 This episode is a strong one, indicative of what should have been given more emphasis in the series, what Guinan really is. While she clearly does not have the powers of Q, there are aspects of her existence that should have been more thoroughly explored.