 The story was originally pitched by Hannah Louise Shearer and Deborah Dean Davis , who were also given the job of developing the script . The writing of the episode suffered from the timing of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike , with Shearer and Dean Davis completing the script in five days . The premise of the story was a combination of their idea of a story " about a professor whose work wasn 't appreciated and had to go off on his own " and that of Maurice Hurley who wanted a story with a time anomaly . The final draft was dated 22 February and featured numerous differences from the filmed version , including Jenice being called Laura , a number of different interactions for the crew , and Riker , Worf and Data all being involved in shutting down Manheim 's equipment . The script was finalised a week before the episode was filmed , but the writers strike caused further issues when it was discovered during filming that the scene where Data was to fix the time distortions hadn 't been completed . 
