By 
Title: Hide And Q
Airdate: 11/23/1987
Plot Summary
Q returns to have a game with the crew but it’s all a ruse to offer Riker the powers of the Q. It now becomes a test to see if Riker can control himself, if absolute power corrupts absolutely. But as they come to realize, it’s not always as simple as just not using power for one’s own selfish purposes, it’s far harder to deny the power when you can you use it to help.
Make It So
Picard is the only one who doesn’t get offered a gift. He expertly manages Riker and Q and easily figures out what Q’s deal is and how it will backfire on Riker.
Number 1
This is Riker’s episode. He gets the power of the Q and becomes something. He’s not evil but no one likes him anymore. They accuse him of power corrupting him but how? Did it?
Fully Functional
Data comments on what’s going on and rejects Riker’s attempt to make him human.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf gets called “Micro brain” by Q for the first time. It won’t be the last. Worf can apparently move fast enough to astonish even Data.
Phase Inducers
Geordi can track someone from a great distance thanks to his VISOR. Geordi actually gets his gift and is able to see for a few minutes like we do, but ultimately rejects it.
Counselor Cleavage
Troi is absent this episode. As a side note, Sirtis thought she was being dropped from the show but obviously wasn’t the case.
Dancing Doctor
She mostly shows up for the rescue operation to let Riker know that they were too late to save some people.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Yar gets put in the penalty box, where if someone else gets a penalty, she gets put into oblivion. This obviously unnerves her. Q makes Yar feels more helpless than the others and it rattles her. She also has a moment where she looks like she might jump Picard’s bones before Q interrupts.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley gets to be 10 years older but rejects Riker’s gift.
Canon Maker
This begins the tradition of any Q episode having the letter “Q” in its title, except for the first episode, the last episode, and one other that may or may not have Q in it.
Canon Breaker
Q mentions to Worf the Klingon code, drink not with thine enemy, musing no wonder the humans defeated them. As we will find out, they weren’t really defeated by the Federation but a series of events that pretty much forced peace, though it did take a while.
Riker gives Worf a woman. While I have no doubt Worf would like a companion, is that his deepest desire? I don’t think so.
A Little Bloody Nose
Wesley gets killed, Worf gets killed. Fortunately Riker brings Worf back. Oh he also brings back Wesley.
Technobabble
Not a lot here. Most of the weirdness is Q doing his thing.
I Know That Guy:
John DeLancie returns as Q. We’ll see him more over the course of the series.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This is a pretty bad episode but even a bad Q episode is usually entertaining, and this one is no exception. You get Picard and Q bandying Shakespeare back and forth, Q doing his Q nonsense, and of course Q having the best lines. “Ah your species is always suffering and dying.” “Well one takes the jobs one can get.” Just brilliant.
But it still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Over the course of the show, it became apparent that Q in his own way was doing all this because of an affection for humans and Picard specifically. He knew the Q were afraid of humans but in his own weird way, he was trying to protect humans and nurture them on their evolutionary path. Which makes this episode so off-putting as giving Riker the power of the Q is a shortcut to all that.
He gets taken by his Q brethren at the end for some sort of punishment but for what? Was he directed by the Q to do this whole thing or was he going rogue in some misguided attempt to protect them?
Really the worst of it is trying to pair Q and Riker which just has none of compelling back and forth that Picard and Q have and they wisely stopped trying in future episodes. The motivation on all this makes no sense from Q’s perspective.
If the Q can move back and forth in time and space, the idea that the only saw us as savages makes no sense. They know more and the idea that they decide humans are worth giving a little push here and there to get them on their way really clashes with whatever is going on here.
In the original series, Gary Mitchell went from decent man to power mad maniac in about an hour. While I have no doubt some people would definitely get corrupted, I find the idea of someone who gets corrupted by wanting to help others an interesting idea. Can we shortcut our way to learning and growth? But even so, why shouldn’t Riker save the people on that planet while he has the power? I can’t think of a single reason why Riker couldn’t save a little girl like that. And then when he decides to break the promise with Picard, he does the whole gift thing. Why didn’t he save the child anyway?
Alas, none of that is explored enough to really come to any answers to any of this. He just decides to give the crew gifts, they reject them, and Q fucks off. Or rather the continuum decides to have a little word with him. What did we learn here? I don’t know.
I find DeLancie entertaining as always but this episode is definitely the worst of the Q episodes. Fortunately they improve greatly as time goes on.
The post Trek On: HIDE AND Q appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
