Movies - TV
An Outside
The-Box
Star Trek
Script Put
Jonathan
Frakes'
Directing
To The Test
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Jonathan Frakes began directing episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" starting in its third season, including “Cause and Effect,” a clever episode written by Brannon Braga about the Enterprise becoming caught in a repeating time loop. This story was a difficult challenge for Frakes who wanted to make sure that they could tell a story about time repeating without the episode becoming stagnant or repetitive.
Given the limitations of a time loop storyline, Frankes felt a bit stymied until he discovered he had some creative wiggle room, saying, “stylistically, we tried different things for different scenes — and J.P. Farrell, who cut the episode — deserves a lot of the credit for making those sequences work.” Frakes also proved the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention, by finding new shots in the oft-filmed sets.
It would also be up to Frakes to visually indicate when each of the other characters had a subtle moment of realization about time repeating itself. Noting, "We did a lot of those Spielberg-style push-ins and close-ups. So there were enough kind of signature, visual metaphors for [the characters] figuring it out and agreeing on what was going on."