10 Most Unique Star Trek Episodes

A confession: as a younger person, this writer watched this episode and thought 'wow, they managed to save time and money here, repeating that act four times.'

I never claimed I was smart.

Cause And Effect is unique in that the first act and the final act are almost identical in structure (throw in the middle acts as well). The Enterprise is stuck in the rift, the Bozeman emerges, they impact, chaos on the bridge.

Despite the new Soyuz-class ship introduced here, itself a redress of the old Miranda-class, this episode truly is a bottle show. Yet it works perfectly, repeating the events just enough to evoke that sense of déja vú in the viewer, allowing the audience to start to figure things out as the characters begin to understand things have gone wrong.

There was almost a cheers reunion in this episode. Kelsey Grammer guest starred as Morgan Bateson, while just behind him stood a dark-haired officer. Perhaps this is something of an urban legend, but the theory is that it was originally supposed to be none other than Lt. Saavik standing there, a role originated of course by Grammer's Cheers co-star Kirstie Alley!