132 – True Q

Grade: B-

Summary

The Enterprise is on its way to Starbase 112 to pick up supplies and an unusual passenger. She is an accomplished student, and it turns out, she seems to have some special powers. Apparently, her parents died when she was 2 years old, under some rather unusual circumstances.

Commentary

Here’s another disappointingly mediocre episode. True Q features good performances from Oliva d’Abo and John de Lancie, but the plot just feels flat to me. There are some good arguments and some good discussion here and there, but the storyline is practically non-existent.

Near the end, Picard gives one of his famously long speeches. I am really getting tired of hearing these. In this one, Picard says that he thinks Q must be interested in humanity only because they have a moral center – as if none of the other Star Trek species do. It just goes on and on. Luckily, de Lancie saves the entire scene when he says “sometimes I think the reason I keep coming back is to hear these wonderful speeches of yours.” It was very funny, but not quite enough to save the entire episode, unfortunately.

Despite the mediocre acting and the weak plot, there are some decent parts to this one. The concept of having a Q on board who has to decide between being human and being a member of the Q is actually a pretty good one. There’s only one problem – we’ve already seen this play out in the first season of the series when Riker is given the same choice.

Also, I love the character of Q. He’s so unprincipled and undisciplined and irreverent that his mere presence is often a breath of fresh air on this series, where everything is always so serious.

Oliva d’Abo gives a very good performance here, and it’s fun to see her in this role. But I think she was a bit too old to be playing a teenager. She falls for Riker, but he isn’t too interested in her since she’s supposedly so young. I’m not sure why. I mean, he’s usually with a different girl in every episode. Someone should have told Amanda that Riker would eventually fall for her too, if she just gave it enough time.

So overall, it’s not a great episode. It’s not one that I care to see too often, unfortunately.

Of Note

At one point in the episode, Captain Picard mentions having been put on trial for the crimes of humanity. Q reminds Picard that “the jury is still out on that”, and we’ll see the results of this in the final episode.