“The jury’s still out on that, Picard. Make no mistake.”
Imagine the following delivered by a heavily bearded man in a thick, west country accent: “YOU’RE A Q, HARRY!” It wasn’t till this time through “True Q” that I cottoned to the fact that it’s essentially the Harry Potter story, on the Enterprise – with the “wizard” in question being a young lady who finds out that she’s actually a Q. Oh, Q’s no Hagrid and Amanda’s no Harry, but the first act of the episode is fun, as Amanda goes around the ship, “accidentally” making things happen.
We had neither a Barclay nor a Q episode in Season Five, so we get two of each this year. This is the first of the Qs, and back in the day, I didn’t have much use for it. I liked it quite a bit more this time. It utterly lacks the moment of the earlier Q episodes (and certainly, it isn’t particularly funny), but it’s a nicely staged chamber piece – very nearly a play, actually, with the only roles of significance being Picard, Beverly, Amanda, and Q (with Riker in a walk-on) – and it’s credibly performed across the board. No surprises there, I suppose, but I must have undervalued John De Lancie’s performance somewhat the first time I saw this. He really is an amazingly watchable actor, and Q is easily the best recurring character on Star Trek: The Next Generation. So pretty much any episode featuring De Lancie doing his thing is going to be above-average.
“True Q” is for the most part a Beverly show, at least in the parts where it isn’t a Special Guest Star show. Beverly’s hair has finally arrived at its end-state awesome, a long straight red. I know I shouldn’t be chattering about that sort of thing, but as a teenager I found Crusher’s final look for the show so unbelievably hot; the definition of a MILF before anyone had dreamed up that bit of vulgarity. So here we are.
Speaking of hormones, one of the episode’s questionable runners has Amanda carrying a thumping crush for Commander Riker, which she pushes to its furthest extent when she begins experimenting with her Q powers, by trying to make Riker love her. Normally a monumental skirt-chaser, Will is refreshingly stoic in response. His reply: “You can’t snatch people and put them in your fantasies and expect them to respond,” which struck me as eerily forward-thinking for a piece of Riker writing in 1992. Now, if Amanda had just asked him about that time he almost became a Q, they might at least have had something to talk about.
Blogging The Next Generation runs every Tuesday as I work my way through the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on blu-ray. Season Six is in stores.