OK, let’s begin again fresh and anew. This column will not turn into a rant. We’re going for one, people!
I know Drake was really looking forward to Q-less. At the time I’m writing this, I have not read his column and we have only briefly touched on the episode together, so I’m not entirely sure what his take on this is going to be.
I am familiar with Q. I’ve seen at least two episodes of TNG with Q, and I even had a TNG novel involved Q given to me as a gift in late middle school or early high school. I’m pretty sure it was Q-in-Law, but I can’t really recall. The only thing I remember about the book was that Q’s communicator worked perfectly. It interfaced with the Enterprise’s comm system, both surprising Q, and also boring him, because he made it to be exactly like the real ones, so why wouldn’t it work?
Anyway, I generally like Q episodes. Let’s see how this one does.
Primary Plot
The intro scene with the doctor trying to charm the skirt off of some Bajoran girl is rather boring and a little sad, but it isn’t even tangential to the plot and is not mentioned again, so we can skip it. Hero O’Brien was rather disgusted by the doctor, and we can be disgusted with the writers for doing something with no bearing on anything in a boring way. This isn’t a rant, though, so, like O’Brien, we’re moving on.
Dax returns from the wormhole with a passenger (or two) on her runabout with her, but the ship is disabled. It has lost power, life support is gone, and they’re all going to die any minute if DS9 doesn’t save them. Hero O’Brien does the Hero thing and opens up the nearest bulkhead, where, conveniently, they keep a spare capacitor that is always receiving a charge and also has a perfect match on a one-way orientation plug to shunt power not to the ship itself, but just to the door so they can unlock the clamps. Then the crew can manually pry the door open and rescue everyone.
Kudos to the safety-first engineering of the 24th century. If you’re going to have overly convenient capacitors to save crew from disabled ships, stashing them all over in bulkheads were ships are likely to be on a space station seems like a wise idea. I’m glad the writers saw through that one and made it happen. If it made sense to have universal attachments for hoses on the Martian, I am glad humanity kept that good idea centuries later to enable quick rescues for just such a rare occasion in Star Trek.
The horny doctor reads three life signs on-board, although apparently Dax only told them about two. They find only two individuals inside when they go in to save them, and the third is unknownst to them but knownst to us as the camera passes by Q, again dressed in a Starfleet uniform, kneeling by the capacitor. He is missed by Sisko, Dax, Hero O’Brien, and some random woman I’m meeting for the first time. This foreshadowing, that isn’t actually foreshadowing since they revealed it to us on camera immediately, is never mentioned again, and never plays a role in the outcome of the show. I believe we’re compiling more circumstantial evidence that the writers on this show were clearly all big fans and loved Star Trek a lot. They may also have never finished high school or had taken any kind of course on creative writing.
Back to the unknown female passenger. I gather that she was on at least one TNG episode, and perhaps more than one. It sounds like she was also bedding Captain Picard, so maybe she was around for more than that. I don’t really recall Picard’s sex life ever being a big plot device on TNG, except for that time where it was revealed that he still loved (and had a past relationship with) Dr. Crusher.
Q
Q is both a highly entertaining, and a highly annoying, character. He is masterfully brought to life in a way that no other actor on Star Trek ever could. Star Trek has had some very fine actors on them, but I can’t conceive of anyone of them ever hitting Q out of the park so perfectly. It makes sense that they turned to a soap opera actor to get it right.
Q is an annoying, passive-aggressive, petulant, whiny, highly-intelligent semi-demi-god with some amazingly blind spots to just about everything. I always get the feeling that he was originally conceived of an pitched by an atheist trying to illustrate what a dumb idea was the Christian spaghetti monster in the sky. He is nearly all-powerful, he is nearly omniscient, but he has no love for anyone but himself. He is, however, plagued with temptations. He’s belligerent, bellicose, preening, insufferable, prideful, boastful, and the most spoiled little man-child ever. And again, he is played masterfully, to perfection, by someone who really knew how to spin gold from straw-level writing.
The long and the short of everything is there is a MacGuffin in the form of several objects/artifacts from the Gamma quadrant beyond the wormhole, brought back by the woman who bedded Picard. She wants to sell them for filthy lucre that humanity has moved beyond, so she ensnares Quark. She seduces him with an ear rub that results in acquiescence well beyond expected, as Quark agrees to her terms only if she will not stop rubbing his ears. Of course, she immediately stops, but Quark is now both greedy for the lucre and also thinking with his ears, apparently, and still goes along with the deal.
One of the MacGuffins is causing power outages and emitting graviton particles. Combined, these two effects may destroy DS9. Everyone is blaming Q, and Q doesn’t even bother trying to deny it. Squabbling with humans is beneath him, unless it is for his own amusement. There is a fantastic scene where he is antagonizing Sisko and challenging him to fisticuffs. Sisko punches him out, and Q is stunned and shocked that anyone would do that to him, particularly a member of Starfleet. He says, “Picard never punched me,” and seems genuinely bemused and befuddled, to which Sisko replies simply, “I’m not Picard.”
Q, of course, turns this again, or tries to, into a win for himself. Sisko punching Q means that Q won because he can manipulate Sisko. Secret Kings always win, even when they lose.
Q also knows what is going wrong with the station. He tells no one, but lords it over the woman who came back with Dax. Q fancies her as his girl friend, and he wants her back. He wants to continue touring the galaxy with her so he can live vicariously through her and enjoy her sense of wonder at everything.
She’s tired of his crap, though, and wants him out of her life. Q points out he won’t save her anymore if that happens, but she doesn’t care. Q is selfish enough that he eventually saves her (and DS9 as well) because he still wants to play with his toy and doesn’t want her to die on him before he’s finished with her.
Q isn’t really an antagonist in this episode, nor in most, as I recall. But he is not really an ally either. He a nuisance, a speed bump, and a very colorful character who is a lot of fun if you get past the initial obnoxiousness.
The entire episode is brought to a short and pointless conclusion where the source of all the problems was a space manta being born from one of the MacGuffins. It then flies away into the wormhole.
Other Thoughts
Quark does his usual bang-up job of delivering exceptional performances under a lot of prosthetics. His body language and facial expressions come through perfectly, showing amazement, greed, lust, and a failed attempt to hide each of these emotions throughout this episode. He truly shines during the auction of the Gamma quadrant MacGuffins.
No space boobs update again this show. They had plenty going on with Q, and didn’t need them this time.
What is the deal with using tritium as a trace gas to try to track the origination of leaks via the power loss and the gravitons emitted punching holes in the station? I mean, anything would have worked. I suppose tracking it via radiation detectors maybe was helpful? When they talk about it as a scientific plot point, the thing that most came to mind was Doc Brown explaining to Marty that “while I’m sure plutonium is available in every corner drug store in 1985, in 1955 it is a little hard to come by!” By the 24th century, I’m sure every ship and station has a supply of tritium available just in case they have a sudden need to rapidly boost their non-existent nuclear warheads into thermo-nuclear versions.
Final Grade: C+
This is a reasonably enjoyable episode. It has much less objectionable and/or stupid parts that must be ignored, and it does have a wonderful, iconic, and fun character returning to the Star Trek universe. But ultimately it goes nowhere, does nothing, and means nothing. The plot just kind of happens in the background, and the characters do their character things without really affecting anything. This isn’t a bad thing. It can be very enjoyable.
This episode wasn’t bad at all. I just wished for something a little bit “more.”
They didn’t explain in the show very well at all, but the 3rd passenger (actually 2 crew one passenger, but for some reason crew are called passengers) was Vash, and Q was not detected.
That whole capacitor thing was weird, thought it could be safely stored and charged immediately prior to using.
The ear thing Vash does is called Oomox, I’m not verifying the spelling of that.
I love space mantas! LOL
Great analysis!