Clues

The entire premise of this episode makes no sense. The ship's crew spends more than two whole days dealing with the Paxans, and then carefully setting the ship up so that it seems that only thirty seconds have passed. So what happens when the Enterprise reaches its next destination two days late? The people there are bound to ask what caused the delay, Picard will reply with astonishment that as far as he is concerned the ship is on time - and the whole can of worms will be opened again. The problem could have been avoided by claiming that the wormhole had thrown the ship forward in time, but neither Data nor anybody else makes this claim.

Picard at one point states that if Data is shown to be lying with no explanation, he will likely be court martialled and then adds "you would most likely be stripped down to your wires to find out what the hell has gone wrong". Um... really? Data has been found to have the right to make his own personal choices specifically so that he cannot be treated as simply another machine. Picard was the advocate who won the case for him! Can you imagine when Picard had Riker thrown in the brig in "The Pegasus", if he had added "And Commander, Starfleet is likely to have your brain dissected to find out what went wrong with you!"

None.