True Q (⭑⭑)

This is the worst Q episode since season one’s “Hide and Q,” with which it has entirely too much in common. To be fair, it’s not nearly as bad as that travesty. But I actually find it less excusable, both because this isn’t season one and the writers ought to have known better by now, and because—why would any sane writer think it a good idea to recycle the premise of a terrible early episode five seasons later!? We’ve seen “human acquires Q powers” before. It wasn’t handled well back in season one, and it’s not handled well here, either. Plus, at least “Hide and Q” took the approach of tempting one of the show’s regular characters with the powers of the Q; “True Q,” in contrast, tries to engage us in a story about a random, one-off guest character trying to cope with the same situation. I really don’t get it.

Q is a fun character, but one who only works in certain kinds of stories, and the temptation to overuse him, and/or use him in ill-advised ways, is one to which Trek writers would succumb repeatedly as the franchise continued beyond TNG. Since the whole premise of the Q continuum, as a piece of the Trek universe, is tenuous at best, I’ve always felt strongly that Q only really works as a character when his true motives and agenda are ambiguous. Also, I always saw it as a mistake whenever a story tried to “flesh out” the idea of the continuum. The true nature of beings like the Q ought to defy any attempt at portrayal or definition, so such attempts only end up robbing them of their enigmatic aura, and calling attention to how silly the whole concept really is. Also, prior to this episode, we’ve always been given to understand that “our” Q was unique in being fascinated with humans. So, in short, the idea that two Q “took human form” and went to live on Earth at some point in the past, and had a child there, and were murdered by the continuum, and that their child grew up as a human but then started manifesting Q-like abilities at the age of 18…? Right off the bat, this is not a a premise that I greet with enthusiasm. Nor do I care for the idea of a story wherein Q visits the Enterprise to carry out a prosaic “mission” (evaluate and train the girl) that has nothing to do with Picard or the main characters in general. (Even on a plot level…isn’t it a rather odd coincidence that Q’s errand to evaluate this girl just happens to take him to the Enterprise?) But it gets worse. Seemingly aware that it ought to complicate Q’s agenda a bit, the episode goes through the motions of establishing that he’s “not telling the whole truth”; then, after a trivial bit of research by Data turns up the revelation that Amanda’s parents were killed by the continuum, Q admits that he plans to kill her, too, if she doesn’t prove to be a full-fledged Q. But this doesn’t add ambiguity to what Q is about! In “Q Who,” and in other episodes still to come, Q presents himself as an irresponsible trickster, but it’s always possible to reinterpret his actions as potentially driven by more benevolent motives; here, it turns out that he’s just an amoral and potentially murderous asshole. This makes him boring.

Furthermore, even if I had no preexisting investment in Q or opinions about the right and wrong ways to use him, “True Q” simply fails to tell an engaging story. That it centers on a one-off guest character is one obvious problem. That that character doesn’t come across as particularly interesting is another. Amanda is supposed to be this really bright, well-rounded student, who has beaten out numerous other such students for a prestigious internship; could the episode not have made some effort to show this to us? They could have made her really nerdy, or given her a witty, hyper-literate demeanor, or something, rather than having her mostly seem sort of lost and overwhelmed, couldn’t they? (The show has certainly managed such portrayals before; I’m thinking in particular of Wes and Robin Lefler in “The Game.” Then again, at least we do have a rare example here of an allegedly brilliant female guest character.) Also, I have a hard time getting inside her head at all. Some months ago, this brilliant young woman started having the experience that things she wanted would just magically appear for her, and her reaction, it seems, has been to sort of fret vaguely about it as though it were a mildly embarrassing personal issue. Really!? Then she finds out that she’s actually an alien superbeing, and she’s mostly like “Oh no, what I am going to do? I hope this doesn’t mess up my internship!” Look—I get it. The episode wants to dramatize the fact that change is hard, and that most of us, if we suddenly were handed magical powers or rendered able to do whatever we wanted, would struggle at least a bit to assimilate to this radically changed reality. Our self-concept, our sense of place in the world, and our existing hopes and dreams have formed under the assumption of not having abilities like that. Fine. But still! Not even a single “holy shit, I can do anything!” moment? Or even a generally freaked-out reaction? Nothing but befuddlement and vague anxiety!? It’s a pretty weird depiction! So weird, in fact, that when she eventually does try using her abilities to get romantic attention from Riker, it just feels out of character. It seems like we’re meant to perceive an arc wherein she goes from being in denial about her Q nature, to briefly toying with embracing its full potential for arbitrary self-indulgence, to finally accepting her changed circumstances and shouldering the responsibility entailed thereby, but the beats along this arc don’t track well at all. Q, for his part, doesn’t help, when he dismisses “being responsible” and emphasizes for most of the episode that being a Q means hedonistically doing whatever you want, then turns around and tries to justify the continuum’s policy toward Amanda with an argument about the responsibility that comes with having the powers of the Q. And what possible sense could the “choice” that he offers Amanda in the end make? You can live a normal human life if you promise not to “use your powers,” but otherwise you have to come with me? Why? Because ordinary Q use their powers so responsibly? Besides, if Amanda wanted her normal human life, couldn’t the Q have simply made her human? They’ve certainly done it before…! Also, was the offered choice even genuine at all? Because, obviously, no one with abilities like these (no matter how unimaginative and ordinary) is ever going to go a lifetime never using them. Come on! I may find it incredibly cheap for the episode to have Amanda unquestioningly choose that path in one moment and then immediately prove unable to live up to that choice like two minutes later, but I still can’t see the Q having even the slightest faith in the notion that she might have been able to live up to it long-term!

Another problem with “True Q” is that, not only does it revolve around a guest character rather than a main character—it actually offers up a story that has virtually nothing to do with the Enterprise or any of the main characters at all, beyond the fact that it plays out aboard the ship and the characters have, like, opinions about it and stuff. To a point, this is always a difficulty inherent in stories involving Q, because of course our regulars can’t hope to challenge him in any real way; the power imbalance between him and them is too great. But stories in which he puts them through their paces to see how they respond can and do work (see “Q Who”). Here, though, any pretense that Picard or Crusher or anyone else can actually do anything about Q and his plans, or to help or protect Amanda, is basically a farce. Now, if Amanda herself showed more mettle, and chose to chart her own course in way that actually challenged Q, that might have been…interesting, at least. But as written, the outcome feels like a foregone conclusion, and no amount of bluster from Picard or Crusher (or research by Data) was ever going to make any difference. So, what’s the point? Q reveals that he’s willing to go real dark, but of course ultimately doesn’t because this is TNG after all (and not, you know, because of any clear development within the episode convincing him not to), and Amanda meekly accepts her fate, and that’s the story. No cleverness, no hard choices, no real stakes. Boring.

One other thing: This is one occasion when Q’s signature quasi-fourth-wall-breaking meta-commentary rubs me the wrong way, and serves the show poorly, in my opinion. For one thing, the contrast between his dismissal of Crusher as “growing more shrill with each passing year” and his much lighter mocking of Picard’s “wonderful speeches” mostly comes across as sexist…and the moment in which he briefly replaces the doctor with a barking dog only reinforces this impression. I’m sorry, but that just wasn’t funny. Secondly, I don’t actually think that having Q lampshade the captain’s tendency to speechify was a good idea. It’s true that the show frequently presents Jean-Luc Picard as something of a paragon, but most of his best moments are actually not morally superior speech-making; in fact, those actually tend to be many of his worst moments (with, perhaps, a few notable exceptions, such as to Wesley in “The First Duty”). At any rate, even on my first viewing of this episode way back in the 90s, my enjoyment of the show (and of Picard as a character) was diminished, not enhanced, by this comment from Q (not to mention by the somewhat underwhelming speech about morality in response to which the comment is delivered). Instead of eliciting a rueful chuckle and a thought like “Sure, it may be a little cheesy, but that’s what I love about Picard, too,” it instead provokes from me a reaction of “No, that’s not who Picard is, or what makes him cool! Is that who the writers think he is!?” It really feels like a misstep.