Which TNG episode features the time-loop collision with the USS Bozeman?

The TNG episode featuring the time-loop collision with the USS Bozeman is “Cause and Effect.”

First aired on March 23, 1992, the episode opens with the Enterprise-D trapped in a temporal causality loop. The crew repeatedly plays poker, encounters a spatial anomaly and collides with the USS Bozeman, destroying the Enterprise before the cycle begins again. At first nobody understands what is happening, but Dr. Beverly Crusher hears voices from earlier loops and the senior officers begin experiencing déjà vu.

The crew eventually realizes that the voices are their own transmissions from previous cycles. Data uses his positronic brain to send a brief message to himself in the next loop. The message appears as repeated threes in the cards he deals, allowing the crew to interpret the clue and use Riker’s proposed maneuver instead of Data’s failed tractor-beam plan.

The successful maneuver moves the Enterprise clear of the Bozeman and ends the loop. The crew determines they have been trapped for 17 days, while the Bozeman has been missing for more than 90 years. The episode is often confused with other TNG time stories, including “Time Squared,” but only “Cause and Effect” centers on this repeated collision with the Bozeman.