TNG Flashback: True Q

"True Q" is something of an oddity among episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation -- the series seems to be largely re-making one of its own earlier episodes.

Young Amanda Rogers has come aboard the Enterprise for an extended study, hoping to learn what she wants to do with her life. But in the months leading up to this opportunity, strange things have begun to happen around her, spontaneous fulfillment of her own unexpressed wishes. When Q suddenly appears, the reason for this is revealed. Amanda's original parents (who died when she was a child) were members of the Q Continuum, who in human form had given birth to a child and renounced their powers to raise her. Now that she is manifesting the powers of a Q herself, Amanda faces a "choice" to join the Continuum herself... a false choice, as the Q intend to execute her if she refuses.

Coming into this episode, Q had not appeared on Star Trek for an entire season. It wasn't for lack of trying. Several story ideas had reportedly been pursued and abandoned throughout season 5 -- including one dealing with some sort of "Q Olympics," and another in which Q created evil doppelgangers of each of the main characters. These ideas were shot down in part because showrunner Michael Piller felt that the character of Q had become undesirably comedic over time, losing his original sense of menace.

After all those failed ideas originating from the writing staff, the story that finally gained traction was submitted from an outsider. A 17-year-old named Matt Corey pitched a script about a teenager unlocking latent Q powers. (In his version, it was a young man; he'd hoped that he would be able to play the part himself.) The staff bought the idea and gave it to Rene Echevarria to develop. He'd long been a freelancer for the show himself (contributing "The Offspring," among other episodes) and this was to be his first assignment as a newly minted staff writer.

But I have to wonder if the writers were just desperate to bring Q back somehow, since this hardly seems like a story that was worth waiting for. Indeed, it feels like a story the series had already told. The tale of a human suddenly forced to deal with the powers of a Q was expressly depicted early in The Next Generation's first season, with "Hide and Q." I was perhaps a bit hard on the episode when I reviewed it years ago, but the episode was indeed weak in the grand scheme of what the series would become. The characters' behaviors hadn't gelled, the writing was more stilted and prone to awkward pontification, and the pacing was uneven. Produced five years later, "True Q" seemingly wanted to take a second run at the same core idea, with the benefit of sharper characters, more polished dialogue, and tighter direction and editing. And to be certain, this episode does have all of those things.

But there's one very important thing that "Hide and Q" did get right: focus on the main characters. It's one of their own, Riker, who is empowered with Q's abilities, and it's all of them who must deal with how this changes him. Here, the life hanging in the balance is that of a stranger. And while the main characters do get to advise Amanda Rogers (and sleuth around the mysterious death of her Q parents), they ultimately neither affect nor are affected by anything that happens in this episode.

The closest the episode gets to truly intertwining a regular character in the story is in how it casts Beverly Crusher in a very maternal role toward Amanda Rogers. It's a bit odd to have a character other than Picard be the center of a Q episode. (In fact, though Q would appear on the series two more times, this would be the last time he ever interacted with a character other than Picard.) Still, it does give Gates McFadden some decent material in a few scenes, such as when Beverly is asked to contemplate if she would bring her husband Jack back from the dead if she could.

Other observations:

• When Rene Echevarria wrote his first crack at the story -- changing the focal character to a female -- he named her "Samantha." This persisted for several drafts, until producer Rick Berman figured out that he was making a sly pop culture reference to the old TV series Bewitched. Berman ordered the name to be changed.

• Somewhat awkwardly wedged into this episode is a tiny little parable about an alien world that has destroyed its atmosphere with pollutants, a toothless commentary on carbon emissions that probably deserved a whole episode unto itself.

• Q offhandedly remarks in this episode that in the matter of the Continuum's trial of humanity, "the jury's still out." This thread would ultimately form the basis of The Next Generation's series finale.

• The Blu-ray version of this episode includes a long deleted scene, and for the second time in season six, it was Counselor Troi who got left on the cutting room floor. She brings Amanda an adorable puppy to care for, and engages her in a discussion about what she wants to do with her life. None of it feels like essential material, but it does underscore Amanda's curiosity and wide array of interests -- qualities that will ultimately serve her very well in a life as a Q.

While "Hide and Q" approached the story of "a human becomes a Q" from a more compelling place, the execution of "True Q" is better overall. The quality of the dialogue, the acting, and the production values were simply all stronger by season 6. Still, I'd rate "True Q" no higher than a B-.