“Death Wish”
Written by Shawn Piller and Michael Piller
Directed by James L. Conway
Season 2, Episode 18
Production episode 130
Original air date: February 19, 1996
Stardate: 49301.2
Captain’s log. Voyager encounters a comet that does not seem to be following a natural path—it’s unaffected by gravity or anything else, just kind of going its own way. Janeway is curious, and so has Torres beam a fragment of the comet on board for analysis.
To Torres’s surprise, what materializes is a humanoid form in a Starfleet uniform who walks through the force field and who identifies himself as Q. Upon hearing that, Janeway calls for red alert and goes to the transporter room.
This is not the same Q that tormented the Enterprise, as he’s a bit more scattered. (At the episode’s end, he takes on the name “Quinn,” and for ease of reference and to distinguish him from the other Q, he will be referred to as Quinn throughout this rewatch entry.) He brings himself and Janeway and Torres to the mess hall, and creates a sumptuous repast for them. He is fascinated by the mortals on board, particularly Kes with her short lifespan, but he also needs to act quickly before the rest of the Q-Continuum knows he’s out of the comet.
He gives a speech that he’s been practicing for three hundred years as his last words (“I die not for myself, but for you”), and then gestures. But instead of him dying, he instead makes all the male crew disappear. Janeway angrily demands he restore them, but Quinn says he doesn’t know how.
Buy the Book
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Then Q shows up, wondering what Quinn did this time. He thinks Quinn brought Voyager to the Delta Quadrant—a good hundred years ahead of schedule for the Federation to be there—but Quinn protests his innocence and says they freed him from the comet. Q realizes that Quinn tried to commit suicide and instead got rid of all the men. Q restores the male crew and then is about to take Quinn away when Quinn asks Janeway for asylum.
Quinn then takes Voyager away from Q, bringing the ship to the Big Bang. However, Q himself has hidden there from the Continuum and finds them, and he also finds them when Quinn makes them subatomic particles and into a Christmas tree ornament. (Ooooh, meta.)
Finally, Janeway asks them to please stop playing cat-and-mouse with her ship. Quinn has requested asylum, and standard procedure is to hold a hearing. All parties agree, with Quinn agreeing to return to the comet where he was imprisoned if he loses, and Q agreeing to make Quinn mortal so he can commit suicide if Q loses. Quinn also asks Tuvok to represent him at the hearing, as Quinn believes that Tuvok will be a strong advocate for him.
Quinn was imprisoned in the comet for wishing to commit suicide. Q calls himself as a witness and creates a duplicate Q so he can question himself. He testifies that the Q are immortal and for a Q to choose to end his life would be a disruption of the Continuum—the exact consequences of which cannot be predicted, because it’s an unprecedented event. Tuvok points out that other Q have been executed for crimes committed against the Continuum, and that’s disruptive, but Q retorts that it was the crimes that were disruptive and the capital punishment ended the disruption—and those executions were last resorts.
Tuvok also brings up that Q himself was cast out of the Continuum and considered unstable, but he’s been exonerated.
Q brings three more witnesses: lives that were affected in a positive way by Quinn, all humans from the past. Q promises Janeway that they will be restored to their proper times with no memory of being there. They include Sir Isaac Newton, a hippie named Maury Ginsberg, and Commander William T. Riker.
Quinn is the one who jostled the tree that led to the apple falling on Newton’s head, the alleged inspiration for his theory of gravity in the 17th century. He gave Ginsberg a lift to the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in 1969, where Ginsberg was a spotlight operator, and where he also noticed a bit of bad wiring that, had Quinn not gotten him there, would have torpedoed the festival. And Quinn also saved the life of Colonel Thaddeus “Iron Boots” Riker in the Civil War, and had he not done so, Riker, his descendant, would not have existed.
Quinn requests that they go to the comet itself, so they can see what an awful punishment it is to be trapped there, but Janeway says she can’t consider that. She needs proof that his life outside the comet is so awful that suicide becomes an option.
Quinn and Tuvok talk during a recess in the mess hall. Quinn is grateful to Tuvok for his advocacy, though Tuvok assures him that he does not share Quinn’s beliefs on the subject. As far as Tuvok is concerned, Quinn is just bored with life in the Continuum, which is not a good enough reason to end his life. This inspires Quinn to ask that the next session have them go to the Continuum itself.
The Continuum cannot be perceived as it is by mortals, so their minds interpret it in a manner that they can understand. Tuvok and Janeway see it as a desert road full of bland people who have lost all interest in speaking to each other. They just read their books or play their games alone. They have traveled the road of the universe so often they’ve lost all interest in it. Quinn has always admired Q because he was more of a rebel, but now he’s become the Continuum’s errand boy also.
Janeway says she needs to deliberate. Q tries to inveigle her to rule in the Continuum’s favor, even dangling a free trip back home as incentive, but that’s bribery and she won’t stand for it. Q also says he has spoken to the Continuum, and they have agreed not to send Quinn back to the comet if she finds in the latter’s favor, but instead will assign someone to care for him in his mortal form.
The next day, Janeway rules in Quinn’s favor, though it wasn’t an easy decision. Q agrees to make him mortal and Janeway agrees to let him become part of Voyager’s community and hopes that he’ll give mortality a chance before taking his own life.
Even as Janeway and Chakotay are salivating at the chance to have someone with the Q’s knowledge as part of the crew, the EMH calls from sickbay—Quinn is dying, having ingested poison, which was supplied by Q. After all that, Q has remembered that Quinn was one of his inspirations for his rebellion, and he needs to go back to being that guy. So he gave Quinn the gift of dying.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? When the ship is subatomic and being battered by protons, Janeway orders Tuvok to have the ship emit a positive ion charge to repel the protons, which is actually kinda clever.
There’s coffee in that nebula! As already seen in DS9’s “Q-Less,” all Starfleet command officers have been warned about Q, and the nanosecond Janeway realizes that there’s a Q on board, she calls for red alert.
Mr. Vulcan. We find out that Vulcans do believe in assisted suicide if the person’s quality of life is sufficiently poor, which is, well, logical, I guess. Meanwhile, for all Tuvok’s protestations that he’s not a lawyer, he represents Quinn quite skillfully.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. When Quinn arrives in the mess hall making meals magically appear, including Welsh rarebit (one of Janeway’s favorites), Neelix wonders what a rabbit is, and also wonders if Quinn is a new chef she’s interviewing. Just when you thought Neelix’s stupidity, self-centeredness, and lack of observational awareness couldn’t get any worse, he goes and lowers the bar.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. After initially making lots of sexist comments about how Quinn was accidentally freed because there was a woman in charge of Voyager, Q then flirts with Janeway a lot, which is both creepy and pointless. Apparently, the only way Michael Piller could come up with to differentiate how Q treated Janeway from how he treated Picard was to make him hit on her, because hey, she’s a woman, right? Sigh.
Do it.
“I am curious—have the Q always had an absence of manners, or is it the result of some natural evolutionary process that comes with omnipotence?”
–Tuvok taking the piss out of Quinn
Welcome aboard. John deLancie is back for the first time since TNG’s finale, “All Good Things…” as Q, and Jonathan Frakes, last seen in Generations, is back for a cameo as a slightly time-displaced Riker.
Gerritt Graham plays Quinn; he last appeared on DS9’s “Captive Pursuit” as the lead hunter.
Peter Dennis plays Sir Isaac Newton—the scientist was last seen in holographic form played by John Neville in TNG’s “Descent, Part 1.” Maury Ginsberg appears as a hippie, imaginatively named Maury Ginsberg.
Trivial matters: This episode was held back to be aired in the midst of February sweeps, as they felt the return of both John deLancie and Jonathan Frakes to Trek would be a ratings bonanza. As a result, the ongoing plotlines of Paris’s insubordination and Jonas’s spying for the Kazon isn’t seen, as those subplots hadn’t yet started when this episode was produced.
With their appearances here, deLancie and Frakes joined Armin Shimerman and Richard Poe as the only actors to appear as the same character in three different Trek series. (Frakes on a technicality, as he was really Thomas Riker in DS9’s “Defiant,” but he’ll also appear as William Riker in Enterprise and Picard, so whatever.)
Riker appears with the older-style combadge used on TNG and the first two seasons of DS9 rather than the one that was in regular use on Voyager, the third season forward on DS9, and in the TNG movies, indicating that he was pulled from the past—it can’t have been too far in the past, though, as Riker knew Janeway was captain of Voyager. Having said that, we don’t know when, exactly, Janeway was given the assignment, and it could have been up to a year before the ship went into the Badlands, what with shakedown cruises and whatnot.
Both the production staff and Kate Mulgrew (who is an old friend of deLancie’s, though they’d never worked together prior to this) had been wanting to bring the fan-favorite Q to Voyager, but it was a matter of finding the right story. Michael Piller’s then-twenty-three-year-old son Shawn made a suggestion at the dinner table, and Michael brought his kid in to pitch it to the rest of the writing staff, who loved it. Father then wrote the script over son’s story, marking the first of many collaborations between Piller père et fils between 1996 and Michael’s death in 2005. Among their projects were the TV shows Wildfire and The Dead Zone, the latter of which they developed together, based on the Stephen King novel and the 1983 film.
Several TNG references here: Q mentions that Riker was responsible for keeping the Borg from assimilating the Federation, referring to his being in command of the Enterprise in “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II.” Janeway reminds Q that he was responsible for Starfleet’s first encounter with the Borg in “Q Who.” Tuvok references other Q who were executed for crimes they committed, referring to Amanda Rogers’ parents (and which fate almost befell Amanda herself) from “True Q,” and also mentions when Q was kicked out of the Continuum in “Q Who” and “Déjà Q.”
The episode ran long, and many scenes and bits of dialogue were cut. An opening scene with Kim and Paris was saved and used at the top of “The Thaw” instead.
The consequences of Quinn’s suicide within the Continuum will be seen in “The Q and the Grey” in season three.
Your humble rewatcher established in the novel Q & A that Q deliberately left Voyager in the Delta Quadrant even though he had the power to send them home because he knew that the crew would encounter the Borg in the near future and do a great deal to curtail their activities and cripple them.
Set a course for home. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re angry when you’re beautiful?” When they first announced that John deLancie would be appearing as Q in an episode of Voyager that would air in February 1996, I sighed very loudly and deeply.
A friend expressed concern that it would open a can of worms, but I think that’s the wrong analogy. What introducing Q to Voyager does is squeeze toothpaste out. You ever try to get toothpaste back in the tube? It won’t work.
The microsecond you bring Q into this, you have to come up with reasons for him not to send them home. Before you even start thinking about a plot, you have to have that as part of it, and it hobbles your story from jump.
Of course, Q is capricious and whimsical and a spectacular douchenozzle, so it shouldn’t be that hard to come up with a way to have him not send them home—
—but then “Death Wish” can’t even manage that, because the episode ends with Q happy and grateful and in a good mood! While it makes sense for Janeway to refuse Q’s offer of a lift home in exchange for a favorable ruling in the extradition hearing—that’s an ethical line she should not cross—after it’s all over, when Q decides to be what Quinn admired in him, why does he not then get all these people home? Hell, leaving aside any other considerations, Q’s first words upon arrival on Voyager were that Federation folk shouldn’t be in the Delta Quadrant for another hundred years, which is in keeping with comments made by Q in both “Encounter at Farpoint” and “Q Who” about how humans were moving too far, too fast through the galaxy. Shouldn’t he send them home just so they’re not where they’re not supposed to be?
What makes all of this even more frustrating is that, independent of Voyager and its setup, this is actually a really good Q episode. It’s a strong, powerful, thoughtful look at the Continuum, and about the downside of immortality and omnipotence. It plays along nicely with the general Trek theme of finite life forms who seek out new experiences and try to improve themselves precisely because their lives are short and precious and how immortality can rob you of that.
It even has character growth for Q himself, which goes back to TNG. After he was let back into the Continuum following his selfless act in “Déjà Q,” he was a good little Q, doing things that the Continuum wanted him to do like go after Amanda Rogers and follow up on Picard’s trial and find out how Quinn got out of his prison. In interviews, deLancie himself described Q as being similar to how Lord Byron was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb: “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” and Quinn’s pleas during his hearing bring him back to that mode.
Both deLancie and Gerritt Graham are superb in this. Graham plays the disenchanted philosopher very well, with a nicely subdued passion, and deLancie is never not wonderful. While Kate Mulgrew’s banter with deLancie is nowhere near as transcendent as deLancie’s is with Sir Patrick Stewart (it isn’t even close), she does hold her own very well in her scenes with him, and Tim Russ is his usual excellent self as Quinn’s advocate. The rest of the crew gets, basically, nothing to do, another reason why this barely even works as a Voyager episode.
And, truly, it makes no sense that Q wouldn’t send them home. We’ve seen him send ships tens of thousands of light-years in the past, after all. Why wouldn’t he do it here? Better to have never posed the problem in the first place.
Warp factor rating: (as a Q story) 8 (as an episode of Voyager) 2
Keith R.A. DeCandido wrote the ultimate Q novel, Q & A, a Next Generation novel from 2007 which ties all of Q’s appearances together, including this one.
Because OBVIOUSLY we can’t have a mortal Q on board, no stories there right? Anyway status quo is God.
Yep, a really good Q story sandwiched into a Voyager episode. I like how the episode ends with absolutely no mention of Q sending them home. Umm ok…
But I enjoyed the plot behind the episode. I’ve had similar thoughts about immortality before. So good stuff there. And Mulgrew continues her outstanding acting with just facial expressions. I loved the look of longing on her face when Q shows her the Earth.
@krad: Technically, this isn’t Shawn Piller’s first collaboration with his father. He had already pitched the story that became TNG’s Journey’s End, two years before this.
All it would have taken was some snarky comment about trying to learn from Picard (another namedrop for an episode with a bunch of them), and taking “his” Prime Directive and applying it to the Q not interfering with Starfleet and the Federation, since from the Q point of view, the Federation is an under-developed society. Bang, done. Doesn’t even have to be true, just a line of BS for Q to sling to get out of messing with the show’s status quo.
This is probably the best Q episode ever. The Q are a perennially ridiculous concept — let’s face it, Q is basically the same character as The Great Gazoo, right down to the finger snap — but John DeLancie’s sneering charisma made the character work, and Gerrit Graham is utterly sublime as a more soulful and sympathetic Q. (If the regular Q is Gazoo, this Q was more of a Winnie-the-Pooh. Ooh.) I was moderately familiar with Graham before this, but never realized what a gifted actor he could be. And Quinn’s story is heartfelt, though I very much disagree with his goals.
I have mixed feelings about the Q/Janeway banter. It was a lot of fun seeing two actors who were dear friends having a blast playing off each other, but having Q be flirty and seductive with her didn’t make any sense. I mean, I can see the appeal of giving the very Katharine Hepburn-esque Janeway her own Spencer Tracy to trade romantic banter with, but Q is not actually male or humanoid. He should find Janeway no more attractive than I would find a blue-green alga. Not to mention that the immense power imbalance between them made any semblance of romantic pursuit on his part mega-creepy. So as a double act between two performers enjoying each other’s company, it worked, but as an interaction between Captain Janeway and a member of the Q Continuum, it didn’t.
Otherwise, my main regret is that they couldn’t get John Neville back to play Newton. Well, that and their perpetuation of the “hit on the head by an apple” myth. Newton did claim that observing the fall of an apple prompted him to muse about its cause, but the idea that it hit his head is an embellishment of folklore. (Although I suppose if it had actually hit his head, he might have left that part out of his anecdote to save face, and folklore just made a lucky guess.)
@5
“He should find Janeway no more attractive than I would find a blue-green alga”
Hey now, no need for kink-shaming!
;-)
Personally, I try not think too much about the logical narrative implications of having a superpowered entity like Q aboard Voyager. It was obvious they were going to have to address the possibility the can snap his fingers and send Voyager home. Janeway’s explanation for choosing not to is satisfactory enough for me. Otherwise, it gets in the way of what I consider to be an excellent take on the Q Continuum.
Quinn is both a fascinating and tragic character. He has that mischievous streak we’re used to seeing from the original Q, but at the same time I can instantly sympathize with his plight. This a textbook case of depression, and Graham plays it beautifully. It’s not often we deal with this issue on Trek, and seeing Janeway’s willingness to give Quinn the freedom to make his own choices (even taking his own life) to be one of the better uses of the Prime Directive (you could call this a PD issue, right? Despite the Q’s more advanced state of being).
Having said that, this isn’t really a Voyager episode. It’s a TNG episode that takes place in another starship with another crew. With Janeway and Tuvok being the only ones properly used in the episode, the rest of the crew gets as sidelined as Takei and Nicholas were back in TOS. I do give props for making good use of Tuvok, using his logical strenghts in the trial.
Q and Janeway play well against each other, and it’s very easy to see the chemistry between DeLancie and Mulgrew. But I agree that Piller’s choice in writing Q here was poor. Having Q hit on Janeway was both cheap, uninspired and borderline sexist. With Sisko at least, we had the boxing arena bit to illustrate the differences between him and Picard, and it served to provide a much needed lesson for Q. But here? No nuance, nor any attempt to create something new and interesting. I’m surprised the writers went along with this, especially in a room that included Jeri Taylor and Lisa Klink.
Even Riker being involved was pure stunt casting. Frakes can be charismastic in any setting, and he plays well with Mulgrew. But it’s literally a forced plot moment, to the point of having to include a memory wipe, preventing him from even remembering his encounter with Janeway and the Voyager crew. I thought this was actually more problematic than Q’s ability to teleport starships across galaxies.
My biggest problem with this episode is that it sets the bar so high for Q stories that any subsequent Q stories would fall woefully short in comparison, as we’ll see in the abysmal The Q and the Grey next season. A Q Continuum Civil War would have been a natural progression from Q assisting on his fellow Q’s suicide. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
Q isn’t borderline sexist. He’s sexist, plain and simple. Not a good guy, remember? Above all a jerk at all things.
So I had no problem accepting he wouldn’t end up sending Voyager home on a whim, either. Why send them home now when he can watch them struggle for several more seasons? Infinite observation of infinite problems. The Q are the television audience.
I’m not entirely sure I follow Janeway’s logic that “she needs proof that his life outside the comet is so awful that suicide becomes an option.” I don’t know what the Federation’s criteria for asylum is, but if Quinn is claiming fear of persecution or torture (imprisonment in the comet) on account of religious/poltiical/philosophical beliefs (that a Q who wishes to die should be allowed to do so), it seems odd that Janeway needs to assess the validity of his beliefs before she can make a ruling.
I liked the depiction of the Continuum here, and “Shown to you in a form you can understand,” is an old chestnut of the “Dealing with phenomenal cosmic beings,” subgenre, but I think it unfortunately sets up for my major complaint about “The Q and the Grey,” which is that it appears to oblige the Q to abide by the limitations of the Voyager crews perceptions.
While this easily my favorite installment of VOY’s Q Trilogy, and deLancie’s always great, I still wish “All Good Things” had remained Q’s sendoff.
Yes, the joy of a shared universe means you can have characters cross over and pit them against different dynamics, situations, etc. But I think “Q-Less” had shown that Q worked best crossing swords, so to speak, with Picard and the 1701-D. Even with deLancie’s charisma, neither of his non-TNG appearances really worked.
It’s perhaps fortunate for Quinn that the EMH lack’s Julian Bashir’s approach to the debate, lest he find himself sedated, memory wiped, and fostered off into a family on the next likely planet Voyager passes.
@8/JFWheeler: “Q isn’t borderline sexist. He’s sexist, plain and simple. Not a good guy, remember? Above all a jerk at all things.”
But that doesn’t make sense. Q isn’t humanoid, doesn’t have gender as we define it. He would have no reason to perceive any difference between human males and females. He considers all humans his inferiors to an equal degree.
@9/CuttlefishBenjamin: “I’m not entirely sure I follow Janeway’s logic that “she needs proof that his life outside the comet is so awful that suicide becomes an option.” I don’t know what the Federation’s criteria for asylum is, but if Quinn is claiming fear of persecution or torture (imprisonment in the comet) on account of religious/poltiical/philosophical beliefs (that a Q who wishes to die should be allowed to do so), it seems odd that Janeway needs to assess the validity of his beliefs before she can make a ruling.”
That would be true if it were only about asylum, but the fact that his stated goal was to kill himself complicated the matter. Granting asylum from persecution is supposed to be about making someone safer. In this case, it would’ve had the exact opposite effect.
Besides, suicidal tendencies can be evidence of compromised judgment or mental illness, in which case you don’t just grant someone the “freedom” to kill themselves, but try to restrain them from hurting themselves until they can recover their senses. Janeway needed to be convinced that Quinn was in his right mind and had a rational motivation for seeing suicide as his only alternative to living free.
What’s interesting about all three of Voyager‘s Q episodes is that all three introduce a second Q to pair off with deLancie — Graham here, Suzie Plakson in “The Q and the Grey,” and Keegan deLancie in “Q2.” Plakson is the best thing about “Grey,” though that’s in part due to a lack of competition, but deLancie’s kid isn’t really up to the same standard as Graham and Plakson, sadly.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Quoth Edward: “@krad: Technically, this isn’t Shawn Piller’s first collaboration with his father. He had already pitched the story that became TNG’s Journey’s End, two years before this.”
Except a) Shawn Piller didn’t even get credit for his story contribution and b) Michael Piller didn’t write the script for “Journey’s End,” Ronald D. Moore did. If anything, it’s a collaboration between Piller fils and Moore……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@12 ChristopherLBennet- That makes a certain amount of sense- except that quality of life for Quinn outside the comet is, at the time Janeway’s weighing it, a moot point, because there’s no path to him returning to that life. The two possibilities are that Quinn is denied asylum, and returned to the comet, or granted asylum and remains with Voyager (where he intends to take his own life). If granting asylum is meant to make him safer, then the comparison needs to be between his death and his quality of life trapped in the comet, which comparison Janeway explicitly rejects.
Now, the question of Quinn’s competence to make the decision is interesting, (and its a shame Voyager doesn’t have a ship’s psychologist to try and assess that) and I could see Janeway agreeing to extend asylum to Quinn only if he cooperates with whatever the Federation’s standard procedure for physician assisted suicide is, but, again, there’s no suggestion that Quinn is going to be sectioned to whatever the Q Continuum’s equivalent of a psychiatric hospital is- if he’s denied asylum he’s going back in the comet and, again, Janeway refuses to investigate the nature of that imprisonment and determine whether or not its likely to be therapeutic.
So the comparison here might be a mentally ill person who seeks asylum- because the treatment for mental illness in their home country is to lock them in a small room and forget about them for years on end.
@14/Krad: I just perused Journey’s End on Netflix. Shawn Piller was definitely credited for the original story material alongside Antonia Napoli, Their names appear during the end credits, squeezed in just below Herman Zimmerman’s credit.
Moore did write the episode itself; That’s very much true.
@15/CuttlefishBenjamin: ” If granting asylum is meant to make him safer, then the comparison needs to be between his death and his quality of life trapped in the comet, which comparison Janeway explicitly rejects.”
Janeway spelled out her argument in dialogue:
“You were confined only to prevent you from doing harm to yourself… Can you show this hearing that you suffer in any manner other than that caused by the conditions of your incarceration?”
http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/210.htm
In other words, if someone suicidal is confined to a psychiatric ward and monitored to keep them from killing themselves, that is not persecution, it’s protection. So it would hardly be grounds to grant someone asylum, because they aren’t being wronged. Janeway was asking if his life in the Continuum was really so intolerable that death was the only way to ease his suffering. If his life was not genuinely intolerable, then his desire for suicide was not rational and the Q were only protecting him from himself.
“because the treatment for mental illness in their home country is to lock them in a small room and forget about them for years on end.”
Remember the Q are billions of years old. To them, a 300-year confinement is little more than letting someone sleep it off in the drunk tank overnight.
Quinn was also ridiculously dangerous to other people. He (temporarily) killed dozens of people moments after arriving on Voyager. The Continuum locked him up because his suicide attempts were causing havoc.
@18/noblehunter: I don’t think he killed the men in the crew. It seemed as if he just “sent them away,” a la Charlie Evans.
@12
I think Q will use any advantage to get under the skin of anyone he encounters (again, he’s a jerk). Sexism is just one weapon in his arsenal to make himself feel superior. Also, I think it’s a holdover from Trelane.
“There’s coffee in that nebula! As already seen in DS9’s “Q-Less,” all Starfleet command officers have been warned about Q, and the nanosecond Janeway realizes that there’s a Q on board, she calls for red alert.”
And exactly what is a red alert good for against an immortal, all-powerful being with a known history of being capricious?
ragnarredbeard: Probably not much, but better to be on alert than not on alert….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@17 ChristopherLBennet-
First, thank you for linking the transcript- I was partially laboring under a misapprehension from my reading of the summary above, and believed that Janeway had absolutely no knowledge of the condition of Quinn’s imprisonment. Now that I see that’s not the case, I’ll have to rewatch the episode before I can reasonably comment on its equivalence to a psychiatric hospital. Certainly, though, there’s no indication that he’s been receiving treatment, and I’m not aware of (and wouldn’t think very highly of) any treatment that boils down to “Lock them in a room by themselves and just wait for them to stop being suicidal.”
@20/JFWheeler: “Also, I think it’s a holdover from Trelane.”
No, I think it’s more meta than that. The writers tended to use Q as a surrogate for the critics in the audience, having him say the things that the bashers in fandom were saying. For instance, in his DS9 appearance he was comparing the crew to Picard and the Enterprise and insisting they didn’t measure up (and he was the first character in Trek to use the word “technobabble” onscreen — the only other one being Neelix in “Parturition”). So here, he’s the stand-in for the sexists in the audience who pre-emptively hated or dismissed Janeway or viewed her purely in sexual terms.
@23/CuttlefishBenjamin: The actual conditions in the comet are hardly the point, though. The point is that you don’t just accept a suicidal person’s assumption that life is intolerable. Janeway wasn’t so callously legalistic as to be only concerned with the rules of an asylum hearing. She was trying to get Quinn to reconsider his desire for suicide, trying to show him there were other options. That’s nothing to deplore.
Ooh, split rating by KRAD! I’ve never seen that before. But I get it: this does indeed feel like a TNG storyline shoehorned into VOY.
Nitpick: After Janeway declares red alert, we cut to the mess hall filled with officers just casually eating. I guess red alert means you can take your time finishing your meal before hurrying off to your duty station.
I get that this is a solid Q story but it never did much for me. For one thing, it just felt too chatty. And I’ve enjoyed other chatty Trek episodes too like “The Measure of a Man.” But I think the difference for me is I actually care about Data’s fate and here I’m just not invested enough to care about this Quinn character. Also, I really really did not like Q’s sexist language and then the subsequent romantic banter with Janeway. Regarding the sexist language, it just felt forced and unfunny and like the show was trying to make some clever commentary to the audience, but what place does it have in this enlightened 24th century setting where obviously women are equals with men? Why would Q be engaging in sexist comments? And then the flirting stuff felt forced too. Like CLB commented, though Q appears like a humanoid male, why should he take on the sexuality of one and be attracted to a female humanoid? It was obviously all just a ploy by Piller to generate some sparks between the characters which was dumb. I’m in agreement with @10/Mr. Magic that “All Good Things” was the prefect send-off for Q and should have remained as such.
@25
Why would Q be engaging in sexist comments?
If I had to guess an in-universe, in-character explanation, it’s the same reason he first showed up dressed as ancient Earth explorers and military men. He learns just enough about outdated human culture to use it in needling and belittling whoever he can find, usually those in authority.
Why would sexism be any different in his mind? Even when he has only a vague understanding of women and sex? In other words, like an internet troll.
I really enjoyed just how done Janeway was with Q after 10 seconds.
@12 Chris wrote:
“Q isn’t humanoid, doesn’t have gender as we define it.”
While that is certainly true. the writers seemed to ignore that point enough times. A few counterexamples are Amanda’s parents who behaved (in Q’s words) “in vulgar human fashion”; and later on in Voyager, Q himself with Suzie-Q.
@28/richf: Amanda’s parents gave up their Q powers and became human, which is different from just assuming a human appearance as a disguise.
And yes, I’m aware that the writers repeatedly made the mistake of confusing his illusory appearance for his real identity, and that is exactly why I’m complaining about it. The fact that a dumb thing is done more than once does not make it less dumb.
I had a crazy little fan theory up until this episode. I’d wondered if Chakotay’s name was supposed to be a variant pronunciation of coyote. Coyote is commonly represented as a trickster. Coyote–Q-yote. I wondered if Chakotay’s people would turn out to have had some kind of contact with Q and had stories about him. If so, did Chakotay’s name imply some connection? Maybe Q would turn out to be his meddling, evil fairy godfather.
I wanted Chakotay to take one look at Q and say, “Oh, no. Not you again.”
I knew it never stood a chance of being right, but it’s still on my list of things that would have been better than Q trying to flirt with Janeway.
On the episode itself, there’s a lot of good stuff. But, to me, it handles the central issue of suicide very badly. I had a friend who suffered from depression who took her own life. That what I see Quin as suffering from. Loss of interest in activities a person had previously enjoyed is one of the warning signs of depression. Q eventually getting on the bandwagon and assisting him just makes it worse.
Welcome to the Delta Quadrant, Q. Feel free to visit once in a while. What’s with the lipstick, by the way?
After a rather frenetic opening few minutes with the two Qs trying to one-up each other in a chase across the cosmos, this settles down to a rather talky episode with a lot of the action taking place in one room. Given how long most of the cast get benched for, it does feel as though the idea of all the male crewmembers disappearing could be stretched out for longer than it is. There’s some sparkling dialogue, much of it from John de Lancie: There are times, especially early on, when it seems like Janeway’s being played more staid than usual in order to act as a better straight man for him. (I’ve heard it suggested this was originally a TNG script with Worf in Tuvok’s role, since ritual suicide for the aged and infirm seems like more of a Klingon thing than a Vulcan one. I’m not sure if that’s true but it might explain Janeway being a bit Picard-like in some scenes.) Gerrit Graham matches de Lancie well as the second Q, adding a gentleness to the portrayal: The moment where he thanks Tuvok for surprising him is actually quite sweet. And also one of the great silly Star Trek lines with Torres’ pronouncement “This ship will not survive the formation of the cosmos!”
As a piece of drama, it holds the attention. Trying to read meaning into its ethical debate is a bit more murky. I may be on a cultural precipice again here: Tuvok’s comment on “a state which outlaws suicide but practises capital punishment” has less resonance in a country that basically outlaws both. But it does feel like the situation is unique to the Q. When us mortals have done our life’s work, we can relax into a quiet but limited retirement. For the Q, retirement stretches into an eternity of nothingness. While Voyager’s crew see Quinn’s death as a tragedy, Q comes to understand his point of view: “He was truly irrepressible.”
A few unfortunate timeline problems. The idea that the Vulcans and Romulans fought a hundred year war that began in the 21st century or earlier is difficult to fit into established continuity: Not impossible, but everyone involved seems to have decided to forget they ever mentioned it. It sounds like Quinn’s describing Q’s actions in the early seasons of TNG when he talks about how he inspired him, but of course he was imprisoned long before that.
Riker’s cameo seems to confirm that no-one back home knows about Voyager (I’m afraid I’m not convinced by the combadge as evidence he’s from the past and Janeway certainly doesn’t talk to him as if he is), but the lack of a reference to the events of “Eye of the Needle” is disappointing. I guess it’s worth noting that Harry Kim visited an alternate Earth in “Non-Sequitur” where Voyager’s fate was unknown, but then he and Paris weren’t on Voyager in that reality so it’s possible the ship never encountered Telek. Janeway starting to explain what’s going on to Newton and Ginsbury, then giving up and telling it’s all a dream is quite amusing by the way.
As noted, this was filmed earlier on and held back, hence the ongoing plotlines have disappeared for a week. Mind you, that probably benefits the episode: It would have broken the tight focus on the hearing to cut away to a scene of Paris backchatting Chakotay or Jonas gossiping to the Kazon.
Nitpick: “Q also says he has spoken to the Continuum, and they have agreed not to send Quinn back to the comet if she finds in the latter’s favor, but instead will assign someone to care for him in his mortal form.” That doesn’t actually make any sense: The whole point is that Quinn was only going to be sent back to the comet if Janeway found in the Continuum’s favour and he wasn’t mortal and if he was (which is what happened) then he’s on his own. What Q actually says is that if Janeway finds in the Continuum’s favour, they’ll assign someone to supervise Quinn and make sure he doesn’t do anything else dangerous or suicidal instead of imprisoning him again.
@13 Let’s not forget that it’s also entertaining, even if only for a few moments, to see John deLancie paired with John deLancie during the hearing
@29
The fact that a dumb thing is done more than once does not make it less dumb.
Hey, you can’t just dismiss the core philosophy of Star Trek: Voyager like that! ;)
@32:
Let’s not forget that it’s also entertaining, even if only for a few moments, to see John deLancie paired with John deLancie during the hearing.
Heh. The “Ugh, Vulcans!” groan from the DeLancies in that bit always makes me laugh. :D
Mr DeCandido, it seems a little unfair to mock Mr Neelix for not knowing what a rabbit is and wondering if Quinn might be auditioning for the role of new chef – given just how weird his experiences on VOYAGER have been and will continue to be, a Magical Food Genie doesn’t exactly seem out of the question for the Good Ship NCC-74656 (isn’t that technically what a replicator is, from the perspective of someone who never previously encounter one after all?).
With regard to the former, how in Hades would Mr Neelix be expected to know what a rabbit is, given he was literally born on the other side of the Galaxy from rabbits and has no real reason* to learn about them? I accept your right to dislike the character, but find it more than a little unfair to whack him on this nose for this minor failure of knowledge when he has rather more than a shortlist of more serious offences for which he may be held to account.
*No more reason than the crew of Voyager has to study the various minor species of lagomorph analogues which can be found on the moons of Talax!
The insult to Neelix was specifically directed at his incredibly stupid and self-centered question about whether or not Quinn was a new chef she was interviewing. Because it’s all about Neelix. :rolls eyes really hard:
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
When the series started I was convinced I would loathe the Neelux character. But with each successive season I ended up liking him more. With the exception of the episode where he is blackmailed by an old friend in a smuggling scheme, he’s loyal, compassionate, and genuinely interested in the well-being of his crewmates. His relationship with Tuvok is fun to watch evolve over the seasons.
@37 Actually I love that episode precisely for that reason. True, Neelix did not mean to get into trouble, he was tricked, but all of it could have been avoided if — he — had — just — told — the — truth. And that, that was his choice. He tried to avoid having to tell the truth. I love the episode because I, a Neelix hater, got to see Neelix goofing up big time and Janeway showing him the error of his way.
The sexism felt like a lazy anachronism. I know there are possible explanations but to be honest it throws me out of all of the Q stories with Janeway. That kind of reaction: ooh look, a woman!!! As if he hadn’t seen one in command before, makes no sense in that century, and makes no sense from a being like Q. It was cheap even for a 1990 era audience critical stand-in. Though to be honest the entire Q concept kind of falls apart with too much scrutiny anyway and is mostly saved by DeLancie’s gleefully asinine portrayal…but it also gets tiring quickly, and by this point in Voyager and certainly by later Q stories in Voyager, that jerk has really worn out his welcome with me. Probably should have let the concept die off with TNG.
Is it weird that I think they have the most obvious excuse for why he didn’t send them home, but I’m still on board with krad because they could easily have just have Q say “the rest of the Continuum would just send you back after THAT ruling” or “they wouldn’t let me send you home after that”? I know, Qs do what they want, but the Continuum could threaten to strip his powers again, something like that… there are a dozen valid reasons why he wouldn’t send them back, but we got none of them stated onscreen.
Interestingly, they took some time getting back to Q coming back because belatedly, the showrunners thought, “Wait, he could end the series with a snap of the fingers”, and John DeLancie came to them and basically said, “Well, he just would refuse to do it” all confidently and that’s why we got the other Q episodes. That last episode where he goes and says “Well, if I did ALL the work for you, what kind of example would I be?” really does fit his character, but it’s still weird that it took that long for them to just have Janeway ask ‘why not?’
@39 It feels off-target. As I recall, Q’s banter with Picard was about puncturing self-importance and reinforcing Q’s superiority over humans. His banter with Janeway should be tailored to her leadership style which the sexism decidedly isn’t.
@CLB- I think we may be arguing past each other, so let me break down my argument and you can tell me which point(s) you disagree with.
1) The Continuum’s ‘treatment’ of Quinn apparently consists of imprisoning him in solitary confinement either eternally or until such time as he recants his suicidal intention, with no therapeutic intervention.
2) Indefinite imprisonment in solitary confinement is not a reasonable treatment for suicidal ideation, and may in fact constitute torture.
3) Therefore, even if Janeway concludes that Quinn’s intention to commit suicide is the result of mental illness, she cannot conclude that the Continuum’s treatment of him is reasonable or proper.
4) It’s established that if Quinn is granted asylum, he will have his powers removed.
5) Without his powers, on a starship which Janeway commands, he will be substantially within her power.
6) It is likely that Starfleet has some procedure for dealing with crewmembers or passengers experiencing mental illness.
7) Therefore, in the scenario in which Janeway grants Quinn asylum, she has the ability to make whatever medical or therapeutic intervention might be appropriate.
8) In conclusion, even if Quinn is mentally ill, Janeway should grant him asylum and therefore determining his mental health is not relevant to the asylum hearing, although following it with some sort of psychological assessment would almost certainly be appropriat.e
@42: I just don’t see why it’s so wrong to try to gather all possible information before making a decision. You don’t know going in what might be relevant or not, so it just makes sense to gather all the information you can get, rather than just pre-emptively assuming something’s irrelevant. Better to ask too many questions than too few.
I love how Q remarks that had it not been for Quinn, (completely ignoring woodstock) the hippie guy would never have been a successful orthodontist, and my favorite Q line in all of trek, that without Riker, Q ‘would have lost so many opportunities to insult him over the years’ I found that purely hilarious.
@36. krad: Worrying about whether you’ll still have a job tomorrow is definitely self-centred, but I’m not sure it counts as stupid – given Mr Neelix’s established history as a man who saw his birth-world swept away in a single, terrible instant it’s perhaps unsurprising that he has a certain lingering existential dread of seeing everything good in his life suddenly lost to some unanticipated development.
Like a magical super-chef who makes him instantly redundant.
@@@@@ CLB, 43: And if it were merely a case of Janeway covering all her bases and and wanting all the information possible, that would be a different matter. But explicitly, the question of whether Quinn’s suffering justifies suicide is the grounds on which she makes her decision.
JANEWAY: It states, an action that has the principal effect of relieving suffering may be ethically justified even though the same action has the secondary effect of possibly causing death. This principle is the only thing I can find that could possibly convince me to decide in your favour, Q. And yet, as I look at you, you don’t seem by our standards, aged, infirm, or in any pain. Can you show this hearing that you suffer in any manner other than that caused by the conditions of your incarceration? Any suffering that would justify a decision to grant you asylum.
@46: And explicitly that doesn’t include some Catch-22 situation where he’s allowed to commit suicide because of the measures taken to stop him committing suicide. As Q says “You could live a perfectly normal life if you were simply willing to live a perfectly normal life.“
@47: But, as I’ve argued above, most in detail @42, I don’t believe that the question of whether Quinn should be allowed to commit suicide is what the asylum hearing should turn on.
@48/Cuttlefish: But it is what the episode turns on. This is a work of drama. It isn’t about asylum hearing technicalities, it’s about characters and ideas. The hearing was just a means to the end of exploring the questions the episode raised.
Good grief, you’d be hard-pressed to find any courtroom or hearing scene in all of fiction that doesn’t violate some technical rule for the sake of drama. There are many that contain far huger errors than this (if it is an error), even in Star Trek alone.
@49: So, to be clear, we’ve moved on from the question of whether it’s reasonable for Janeway to make the question of asylum contingent on the question of whether Quinn’s suicidal intentions are justified, to whether it’s reasonable for the show Voyager to do so?
In that case, I would respectfully suggest that if the central question of your episode is not whether the principles of asylum should apply in a given case, it might be better not to frame the episode around an asylum hearing.
@44, personally I don’t see how attending an iconic concert would contribute to the professional success of any body except a musician or roadie.
@50/Cuttlefish: “So, to be clear, we’ve moved on from the question of whether it’s reasonable for Janeway to make the question of asylum contingent on the question of whether Quinn’s suicidal intentions are justified, to whether it’s reasonable for the show Voyager to do so?”
Those are the same question, because Janeway only exists as a character within the show Voyager, not as an actual entity independent of it.
“In that case, I would respectfully suggest that if the central question of your episode is not whether the principles of asylum should apply in a given case, it might be better not to frame the episode around an asylum hearing.”
It’s called dramatic license. Practically nothing in fiction actually works the way it’s portrayed on the page, stage, or screen — court trials, police investigations, medical procedures, military service, space exploration, sports, you name it. Even books, TV shows, and movies about the making of books, TV shows, or movies often totally misrepresent how it works, even though everyone involved knows better. Because fiction is not meant to be a documentary. It only needs to create a sufficient illusion of reality that the audience is willing to suspend disbelief and play along for the sake of their entertainment.
Good grief, if you can suspend disbelief about something as absurd as the Q’s very existence, or about scientific implausibilities like humanoid aliens, warp drive, transporters, and universal translators, it should be easy to suspend disbelief about some niggling technicality of asylum hearings.
@51/roxana: Q’s line was, “Mister Ginsberg would never have met his future wife, the groovy chick with the long red beads, and he would never have become a successful orthodontist, settled in Scarsdale with four kids.” I presume that means that falling in love and getting married motivated him to settle down and pursue a career.
@52 What an odd set of arguments.
“Those are the same question, because Janeway only exists as a character within the show Voyager, not as an actual entity independent of it.”
That would seem to suggest that it’s impossible for a show to portray a fictional character acting incorrectly, irrationally, or in bad faith.
For the rest of it, you’ve suggested several times that I’m concerned with ‘some niggling technicality of asylum hearings.’ That’s not it at all. I went into this episode with no idea what the proper procedure for a Federation asylum hearing is. They could have required Janeway to assemble a tribunal panel of experts, or made everyone wear powdered wigs, or required that every claim be submitted, with documentary citation, before arguments began. It’s a fictional show depicting a fictional organization with legal precedent drawn not only from multiple nations on Earth across centuries both past and projected, but the laws of numerous other member species as well.
What I object to is that it disregards the basic question on which I would consider any reasonable asylum process to rest- is the applicant facing unreasonable persecution in their homeland? If Janeway held a criminal trial and declared that the factual actions of the defendant were not to be considered a decisive factor in the ruling, I would take issue with that as well, and hardly consider it ‘niggling’ to do so.
@53/Cuttlefish: “That would seem to suggest that it’s impossible for a show to portray a fictional character acting incorrectly, irrationally, or in bad faith.”
That is a truly bizarre misinterpretation of the elementary point that fiction is not required to be slavishly accurate in its depictions.
@@@@@ 54, it would be, if that were anything like the point I was answering. Let’s review.
I said,
“So, to be clear, we’ve moved on from the question of whether it’s reasonable for Janeway to make the question of asylum contingent on the question of whether Quinn’s suicidal intentions are justified, to whether it’s reasonable for the show Voyager to do so?”
To that specific text, you replied,
“Those are the same question, because Janeway only exists as a character within the show Voyager, not as an actual entity independent of it.”
So, according to you, if the showrunners are acting reasonably, it is impossible for the character Janeway not to be?
@Cuttlefish: I think I’m going to revisit your list at Point 42 and break it down a bit.
1)Can’t argue with that one, that is what the Q Continuum have done.
2)Isn’t it? There seem to be plenty of precedents in history. If someone is considered suicidal, and considered to be mentally ill, then locking them up for their own safety and that of others (eg the Voyager crewmembers disappeared by Quinn with no way of bringing them back and no intention to stick around and try) doesn’t seem a 100% unreasonable assertion. So considering whether or not Quinn actually is mentally ill, and therefore incapable of making decisions about his own well-being, seems to be a factor.
3)See Point 2. That is an option that Janeway has and which she considers.
4)Yes, can’t argue with that, it is.
5)As the ending of the episode demonstrates, not so much. Janeway can’t control the actions of everyone on board, which is why there was a murder on the ship two episodes ago.
6)Yes, they probably do, but do they really apply here? They’re on one ship, 75,000 light years from Federation space, with no psychologists, no access to medical facilities and very limited medical staff. If Quinn is mentally ill, what exactly can they do to help him?
7)See Point 6. Given the distinct lack of medics and complete lack of therapists, she doesn’t.
8)Well, I…guess that’s what Janeway does? However, opening up the proceedings by saying “Federation law states you can’t imprison someone on an asteroid, therefore asylum is granted, case closed” seems rather reductive. They need to have the hearing and she needs to consider the Continuum’s argument, which is basically that Quinn is under their jurisdiction and their treatment of him is better for him and the rest of the universe that leaving him free to commit suicide.
Therefore, the factors do seem to be: Whether or Quinn is rational enough to make his own choices or should be sectioned for his own good. Whether or not the Federation is willing to grant an apparently healthy individual the right to commit suicide. And whether or not the Continuum’s treatment of him is fair even if he should be detained on mental health grounds.
It’s obvious it’s the third point that you have a problem with and think the answer should be “Of course it’s not!” But there tends to be a hearing with all arguments presented before they get to that point. You also seem to be overlooking the option that Janeway also considers: Leaving Quinn in the custody of the Continuum but petitioning them to improve his condition.
@25:
I’m in agreement with @10/Mr. Magic that “All Good Things” was the prefect send-off for Q and should have remained as such.
Yeah, and as tempting and fun as it would be for him to pop up in Picard and get that crackling interplay with ‘Mon Captain’ going again, I honestly hope it doesn’t happen.
Their final scene together in “All Good Things” was at least the perfect sendoff to the Picard-Q dynamic and relationship. Revisiting it would merely dilute Q’s canonical post-TNG history even more.
@5 – Chris: Quinn is more like Eeyore, maybe, although I haven’t seen the episode in a while.
@58/MaGnUs: In attitude, perhaps, but I was thinking more of his voice and gentle manner.
@@@@@ cap-mjb 56
“”But there tends to be a hearing with all arguments presented before they get to that point.”
Well, yes, but Janeway explicitly rejects the argument that the Continuum’s treatment of him is a basis on which to grant asylum unless he’s also demonstrates to her satisfaction that his suicide attempts are justified.
“You also seem to be overlooking the option that Janeway also considers: Leaving Quinn in the custody of the Continuum but petitioning them to improve his condition.”
Not so much overlooking as setting aside- once she says that the only condition under which she’ll grant him asylum is if he demonstrates to her satisfaction that his suicide attempt is justified, asking the Continuum to improve his condition is just a nice gesture- her reasoning dictates that he be surrendered back to them even if they decline to do so, and it is that reasoning that I object to.
I will admit to overlooking the idea that Quinn’s imprisonment can be justified not merely for his own safety and the preservation of Status Quo in the Continuum, but for the safety of others, given the side-effects of his failed suicide attempt. A point well taken- but not one that Q makes, or that Janeway seems to give much consideration herself- they both state that Quinn was imprisoned only for his own safety.
It’s unfortunate the crass way they handled it, but I think having Q and Janeway having a relationship with a sexual tone, or I guess “sexist” tone, was almost inevitable. I think that they just couldn’t resist and it’s too bad.
As for Voyager remaining stranded in the Delta Quadrant, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest because it was a given that Q would not be sending them home in the first place. Taking that as absolute, it didn’t matter to me what the explanation or lack thereof was going to be from the beginning.
Beyond that, I pretty much agree with the 8 rating from Krad on the Q aspect, although I’m much more inclined to consider the whole episode worthy of that. I especially loved Garritt Graham’s performance as a member of the Q Continuum.
So all for these many years until this review, I was always under the impression that Maury Ginsberg was supposed to be some important historical figure. Because you have Sir Isaac Newton, Commander William Riker who only saved the Federation from being assimilated by the Borg, and then this other hippie guy. I think in my mind I had conflated this character with Allen Ginsberg who I had recently studied in high school English class. I was like, “oh, he saved Woodstock, too.” Lol
This could be filed away under “Trivial Matters” but deLancie’s return to Star Trek here is also a relatively quick return to collaborating with Michael Piller as the latter man created a show for UPN called Legend which premiered the previous year from this episode (and was cancelled after its short 12-episode first season) and starred deLancie along with MacGyver’s Richard Dean Anderson.
@62/garreth: Legend was a wonderful show that deserved a longer life. How does a show whose premise is basically “Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla become steampunk crimefighters” not become a smash hit? UPN botched things by failing to schedule or promote it properly.
@62/garreth: I actually love how they didn’t even give the hippie character a name beyond just the actor’s real name; it’s brilliant! He’s a totally made up character who solved a totally made up show-stopping technical issue that would have changed history if it were not for Quinn’s timely assistance in getting the hippie to Woodstock on time. Actually, was it a made up problem? Ah, whatever, it doesn’t effect my point. Maury Ginsburg could have been anyone, even someone doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat over a young boy’s shoulder to let him know the world hadn’t ended… Wait, sorry, wrong franchise.
Where was I? Ahh yes, Maury Ginsburg could have been anyone for the purpose of this episode.
@63/CLB: Legend does indeed seem to have a unique premise but I’ll admit I never checked it out myself. It does seem like the type of series that nowadays would find its own niche audience on a streaming platform.
@64/Thierafhal: That is pretty cool regarding the character actually being named after the actor. I’m sure that’s something the actor treasures or should anyway. And your comment also reminded me that I had also thought for the longest time that what the hippie did at Woodstock was an actual historical event. I thought it was some well-known event that Voyager was recalling for its audience. I didn’t really know too much about the Woodstock concert and still don’t so I was pretty ignorant on the matter. What’s the franchise where a coat is put over a young boy’s shoulder
@65/gareth: The Dark Knight Trilogy. It’s a line at the end of the 3rd movie, Dark Knight Rises. Jim Gordon wants Batman to reveal himself because Gotham deserves to know who the hero is that saved them. Batman simply tells him the line I wrote in my last comment: “a hero can be anyone…” His point is that anyone can be a hero and it doesn’t matter how spectacular a heroic act is. The people who benefit from someone’s selflessness is what matters, not the hero. Heroism is in the eye of the beholder. That was my interpretation of the scene in question anyway. Batman was the hero that saved Gotham and Jim Gordon was the hero who comforted Bruce Wayne after his parents were murdered.
Legend is available on DVD, as it happens……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@66/Thierfhal: Ah, that makes sense. And yes, a hero can indeed be anybody.
In response to the notes about Riker’s appearance, and surprised KRAD didn’t note this in the trivia…That scene was originally to have been done with LaForge, but Levar Burton had his head shaved at the time, and the look wasn’t felt to looks right within continuity, so they got Frakes to do Riker instead…And supposedly Q’s dialogue in the scene would have included an inside joke referring to Tim Russ’s runner up status for the part of LaForge…
@69/Capt_Paul:
Hmm, interesting, I’d never heard that. I’m just trying to envision Geordi saying the line: “Old Iron-boots!” Frakes’s delivery was so awesome! I’m not suggesting LeVar Burton wouldn’t have said it as well, only that it would have been interesting to see his take on that line.
Capt_Paul: Didn’t know that. It didn’t turn up in my research for the episode. Also, that’s a really dumb reason not to use him……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@71/krad: LaForge being the original choice to appear instead of Riker, intrigued me, so I looked it up. Apparently it is true. I’m not suggesting you denied it, I’m just being thorough. Apparently that was the genesis of LaForge appearing in “Timeless”. Burton was owed a cameo and he got one with that episode.
I’m not surprised Q didn’t send Voyager home because if he did it would mean the end of the series and that just comes with the territory – to dangle a way home in front of the crew only to snatch it away at the very last second.
Quinn doesn’t bring Torres to the Mess Hall, just Janeway and Tuvok is the one who recommends they visit the comet. They liked Maury Ginsberg’s real name so much that they decided to use it. Did Q inspire Quinn to rebel or was it the other way around? Your favourite quote is the same as in Delta Quadrant, the episode guide to VGR, Krad. Maybe Quinn should be in an asylum instead of requesting it? Q&A is the ultimate Q novel – if you do say so yourself, Krad?
5: Careful, Mulgrew doesn’t like Hepburn comparisons. 7: That all depends on whether or not you believe in omnipotence. 29: I think they promised never to use their powers again and when they couldn’t keep that promise, that was what got them killed by the Continuum. 31: That’s on a par with “Get the cheese to Sickbay!”
Leaving aside the question of whether Q should appear in anything other than TNG I quite liked this, strong performances and a good story too. Obviously Q is never going to send them home. as that would be the end of the series so personally didn’t have a problem with that. Most of all it’s an Interesting tale and in Voyager’s first couple of seasons we should grab them when they appear.
I don’t agree with your harsh rating of this episode which is based mostly on the fact that Q didn’t send them home. Despite all of the wacky mischief that Q has caused, he almost always reverts it to the status quo. That probably speaks more to the showrunners’ desire to keep everything “normal”, but I also think it’s one of Q’s personality traits. He generally prefers to leave things as they are and let events run their course without his interference, and I see this as a noble trait (along with his honesty, as discussed in this same episode).
I mean, why should he even bother entertaining the asylum proceedings at all? He can literally will Voyager out of existence, yet he goes along with it and accepts the decision. He plays fairly, and this is not the first time he’s done this. I think he knows on some level that it’s ultimately better for humanity to overcome their own challenges without being given shortcuts, not unlike a parent teaching a child. (And yes, I know he doesn’t always clean up ALL of his messes, but to him, it’s probably the equivalent of overlooking a single toy hidden under the bed.)
I also disagree that any Q story automatically has to answer the question, “Why won’t Q give all the characters what they want just because he can?” It feels like a faulty premise on which to build an argument — especially considering all the other plot holes and weird character actions that have been (either officially or unofficially) plausibly explained by other events or theories. I know that having a “why” is a very compelling piece of storytelling, but it’s easy to find reasons to explain why Q left them there. I don’t think we have to be spoon-fed a specific reason every time a character makes a choice (as long as it makes sense for that character). At the very least, it shouldn’t so dramatically affect the rating of the episode.
And sure, all of this relegates the main Voyager plot to just a bargaining chip, but I don’t see why that makes it a “bad Voyager episode”; lots of Voyager episodes don’t focus on their journey home.
P.S. I’ve been reading your reviews during my own Trekathon since the beginning of TNG, and I find them quite entertaining! Your work is very much appreciated. Oddly, this is the first review that I felt compelled to comment on.
Another note: In a future episode, “The Q and the Grey”, Janeway and Q discuss the events here, and Janeway says, “We are not looking for a quick fix.” This is in reference to his offer to send them home. Surely Q knows this about her and considered that in his decision to not send them back.
I enjoyed this episode back in the day, but now find it almost unwatchable due to the horrendous sexist remarks and behaviors. Q’s aggressive and unwanted comments and touches are honestly repulsive going by today’s standards. It’s a real step backwards from were the show was going and finally landed. It’s a real shame that’s the most interesting thing they could think to do with Q.
Was the Christmas ornament hiding place, the same as seen in the Nexus in Generations?
Not sure if this has already been brought up elsewhere, but further proof that Janeway did not assume command of Voyager in “Caretaker” but had already been its captain is right here in this episode: when Riker appears in TNG-era uniform and combadge and immediately recognizes Janeway and that she’s the captain of Voyager.
Just a FYI, Legend is also available on YouTube. It is a little hard to find but if you search on Richard Dean Anderson you can locate it.
I tend towards the opposite view: Everything that Q has done from “Q Who” on down has served to promote the survival of the Borg Collective. So yes, throwing the Enterprise into the path of an oncoming cube did have the immediate effect of preparing the Federation for the approaching invasion; but by preventing the Federation’s assimilation (and by not sending Voyager home), Q also effectively ensured that the Borg wouldn’t be wiped out by Species 8472. If you really want to get deep into the “Epileptic Trees,” you can argue that, by so doing, Q also ensured that Seven of Nine would leave the collective, that Seven of Nine would eventually meet Agnes Jurati, and (very nearly with Q’s dying breath), that Agnes Jurati would reform the Borg, using Seven of Nine as her example.
I’m fascinated by everyone upset with Q flirting with Janeway, as though Q didn’t flirt outrageously with Picard all the time. The god was obsessed with this one human. Hell, the writers made the subtext into text by having them appear in bed together in Tapestry. I agree that any of the more straightforward sexism is unfortunate (though I would say it could be explained as part and parcel with Q calling Worf “microbrain” every chance he got), but the flirting is just who Q is. He would have been the same way with Sisko if the commander had given him the chance. Q is an omnipotent god – that does not make him some sexless being, quite the contrary. He can explore all varieties of pleasures throughout all and time and thought – and has, hence the issues with the Continuum being dullsville. Obsessing over mortals is what this Q does – we have seen other godlike beings in Trek that are far more detached and passionless, but Q has never been that. He’s always been arrogant, petty, jealous, and fascinated with anything he does not know. If you’re saying it doesn’t make sense that he would want to flirt with a bit of algae, then you’d have to explain why he’d want revenge on algae or want to reward algae.