Star Trek (TNG): Q Who

[Koshundheit]

Good review and analysis, as usual. Agreed it was great The Gorgon was absent. Whoopi Goldberg has always been my favorite part of this episode, even more than it being a great outing for Q, and it was cool there was time for Guinan to do more than dispense drinks and wisdom.

One thing that jumped out at me though: Chuck really had someone send him a box with a dead rodent in it? At least that didn't sound joking. I thought that was a crazy rare sort of behavior outside of fiction. No matter how mad someone has been at me, happily I've not had such a bizarre experience... so far.

[PerrySimm]

Good review and analysis, as usual. Agreed it was great The Gorgon was absent. Whoopi Goldberg has always been my favorite part of this episode, even more than it being a great outing for Q, and it was cool there was time for Guinan to do more than dispense drinks and wisdom.

Indeed, solid all around! The main thing that has always bugged me about this episode is the lack of the question mark in the title. Is that just an 80s thing or what?

Giving Guinan space wuxia powers, though... It's a fun moment despite the fact that it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Someone who can face down Q could have come in handy, right? In this episode, even?

[Koshundheit]

I presumed it was play on 'yoo-hoo' rather than a question. It is a great title, and helps me instantly recall it is one of my favorites.

I'm torn on the Guinan powers thing. On the one hand, it doesn't make sense she could do much in the face of Q unless she has crazy power, and I might have enjoyed seeing her use that. On the other hand, that would raise the question regularly of why she didn't just solve the plot problem of the week. There would be ways to temper that like limited energy that gets depleted or whatever, but it would have required clever writing. No matter how much I enjoy Trek, I don't want to see them go somewhere that requires a stream of different writers understand points of show continuity well and not manage to mangle it. Writers give us too much inconsistency as it is. It is probably best it was left to the imagination instead.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I'd rate this one higher than Chuck did. The writing isn't as tight as in The Best of Both Worlds (certainly not part I), but I love it because it's the Borg in their purest form. It's remarkable how consistently the Borg decline in each subsequent appearance- with the exception of First Contact and the first couple Voyager appearance being better than the Borg in their I, Borg and Descent form. Even in BoBW, the Borg are diluted ever so slightly from the original.

Throw in Q and you have a rare episode with some real exploration of something truly alien.

[Koshundheit]

I'd rate this one higher than Chuck did. The writing isn't as tight as in The Best of Both Worlds (certainly not part I), but I love it because it's the Borg in their purest form. It's remarkable how consistently the Borg decline in each subsequent appearance- with the exception of First Contact and the first couple Voyager appearance being better than the Borg in their I, Borg and Descent form. Even in BoBW, the Borg are diluted ever so slightly from the original.

Eight is still quite a good score. Presumably he dinged it two points for what he called irrelevancies in the beginning. Much of the first ten minutes is stuff with the Gomez character that they, happily in my view, jettisoned later, and a 'Search for Picard'. I see the point that the introduction of the Borg is so good and they are so pure here that it could be argued to deserve better, but I also see the point that it could provide a better 'hour' if it jumped into the action sooner with less time spent on a character it was said they dropped due to fans' reception. It was unfortunate, as Chuck has talked about more in other reviews, that the show took such a genius idea as the Borg as diluted it so, first in First Contact in Chuck's opinion and mine, with the introduction of an unnecessary and premise-ruining queen, and then so much more so in Voyager. It is frustrating that Voyager both gave us an interesting character in Seven thanks in part to her dessimilation from the Borg, yet also repeatedly and increasingly tore the Borg down as a way, in my view, to build Janeway up.

[MerelyAFan]

Its interesting because the Borg here are both more and less horrifying than what they became later.

The assimilation angle definitely added a creepy vibe of them as the predatory figures believing they're doing their targets a favor. And yet the complete and utter indifference to life in general they have in Q Who has such a great dark element to it, scooping up technology and discarding the biological elements that happen to be there as if they were bothersome ants at a picnic. The nursery room alone (demonstrating the truly disturbing future life to come for a single Borg) is such a striking image that few stories featuring them ever quite topped.

[Darth Wedgius]

I liked the Borg better as assimilated humanoids than the insect-like beings. As much as I liked Stargate's replicators, the prospect of being assimilated adds a new dimension to the Borg's threat, one worse than death IMHO.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I think assimilation is fairly well in line with Q Who. It might not be explicit there (and there was the creepy nursery), but as Q points out the Borg are the ultimate users. Taking a clinical interest in organic beings and using that material would fit that.

My problem with subsequent interpretations is that the writers just can't resist giving individual Borg personalities. To me, the Borg are most interesting (and most terrifying for individualistic Americans) when they're a true collective with no queen (the most egregiously poor choice that really cheapened the Borg), no spokesman, no Borg who go rogue or escape in dream life, or any other watering down of that basic concept. TBoBW is so well put together that I can't hold it against that episode.

With that said, I do think the Borg needed to change if they were going to keep doing more episodes about them. Faceless, nameless, unstoppable Borg would only be good for maybe three episodes tops before they would become redundant and pointless. Artistically maybe it would have been best to leave the Borg as a mysterious, seldom-used race, but I understand why you'd just go ahead and use them.

[Artabax]

I'm torn on the Guinan powers thing. On the one hand, it doesn't make sense she could do much in the face of Q unless she has crazy power, and I might have enjoyed seeing her use that. On the other hand, that would raise the question regularly of why she didn't just solve the plot problem of the week.

Guinan's powers versus Q were never defined.
My guess is that she was garlic versus Vampire!Q or kryptonium v Superman!Q.
If there are no Qs about garlic is only useful as food.

[turbo_sailor67]

I'd rate this one higher than Chuck did. The writing isn't as tight as in The Best of Both Worlds (certainly not part I), but I love it because it's the Borg in their purest form. It's remarkable how consistently the Borg decline in each subsequent appearance- with the exception of First Contact and the first couple Voyager appearance being better than the Borg in their I, Borg and Descent form. Even in BoBW, the Borg are diluted ever so slightly from the original.

Throw in Q and you have a rare episode with some real exploration of something truly alien.

Yes! Thank you! I wouldn't say they declined in each subsequent appearance, I think it was Best of Both Worlds Part 2 actually with the whole Data can hack into the collective via Capt. Picard and just mouse over to the "sleep" menu and click on that. What a waste of an awesome character. I Borg was interesting, but then Descent was indeed a step down, and only Scorpion on Voyager was any good. The Borg go from pursuing technology to basically just chanting "braaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiins" and vacuum up any and all humanoids.

I'm not sure if Voyager ruined the borg because they just didn't care, didn't know or watch Q, Who? or did it because they had an inferiority complex vis a vis Capt. Janeway and they were just trying too hard to try and make her a bad ass. In fact, it was re-watching Star Trek after completing active duty that lead me to SF Debris because I had to look online and see if anyone else could see what an insane and AWFUL leader Capt. Janeway really is; the kind of epiphany that is only available in hindsight.