Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Episode: 1.09 Hide & Q (11-23-87)
Rating: 3/5
Redshirt Status: 0/1
Notable Guest Stars:
John De Lancie – Q. This is his second episode for this season. He will be a reoccurring character on Trek for the next decade.
Review:
I should probably admit that even though I love John De Lancie when I see him on any show, Q on TNG I find annoying. He’s not quite as annoying to me when he appears on Voyager and DS9, but on TNG he is.
I can see where people get the idea that he is based on Trelane. He does not quite seem such a child as Trelane, but he does have that carelessness about him.
Q quotes David Hartley, an English philosopher from the 18th century. I decided to look that up to see if it was an actual human being or a fictional philosopher from the future. In this case it was actually someone from the real past. Hartley was the founder of associationism psychology.
Side note: I forgot how tall Jonathan Frakes is in comparison to the rest of the cast. Most of them are between 5’5” and 5’10” making him about five inches taller then most of them. Michael Dorn is also the same height, so at least one person is the same height. This has nothing to do with the episode, I just was watching Data talk to Riker and realized how much shorter Brent Spiner is then Jonathan Frakes.
Now back to our regularly scheduled reviewing.
Tasha gets to show her emotion without simply going “Captain, I’m scared,” which is a great improvement on TOS where Uhura was basically only allowed to show her fear if she announced it to the Captain. Tasha basically tells Picard after he comforts her that if he wasn’t a Captain she’d happy show some physical affection (I’m thinking she’d hug him, which is not really regulation on how to treat your captain) but Q decides to imply its more sexual. Both Tasha and Picard are vastly annoyed.
This episode is basically about Riker, and seeing if he would take the power. He plays with it for a while, but ultimately He chooses to not take the power.
The episode gets a 3 out of 5. Still not likeling this season too much.
Interesting Notes:
- Written by C.J. Holland (Maurice Hurley) and Gene Roddenberry on C.J. Holland’s story. There was apparently a minor problem between the two of them after Roddenberry changed quite a bit of the script. They eventually solved things between them. It seems a reoccurring problem in early TNG that Gene Roddenberry would rewrite the scripts.
- Directed by Cliffe Boyle
- Tchaikovsky’s 1812 is sampled in the music here.
Pros:
- Riker focus
Cons:
- Q is annoying. No more tests.
Sokorra Lewis 