- 30-second episode preview (AVI, 2Mb)
- Q tries to convince Amanda that being a Q is better than being Human.

Synopsis:

A gifted young intern learns of her true heritage and must face the question, "To Q or not to Q?"

While working to save the planet Tagra IV from environmental collapse due to pollution, the crew welcomes Amanda, a young honor student chosen from hundreds of applicants to serve aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. The crew is immediately taken with the young woman's boundless enthusiasm. However, Amanda also has a secret she keeps hidden from her new teammates. She possesses extraordinary mental powers, including the ability to make objects appear simply by visualizing them. She manages to keep this power under wraps until she witnesses a potentially devastating explosion in Engineering. With the destruction of the ship imminent, Amanda summons her powers and stops the explosion while the shocked crew looks on.

When the senior staff meets to discuss this turn of events, a surprise visitor arrives to clarify things for them. Q appears out of nowhere in the middle of the meeting with the announcement that Amanda is a Q. He tells the crew that he created the explosion to test the young woman's powers, and, now that he is convinced, he has come to bring her back to the Q Continuum and save her from life as a lowly human. Picard, however, feels that Amanda should make her own decision, and Q reluctantly agrees. Once the two part, Picard secretly orders an investigation into the death of Amanda's natural parents, who were killed in an accident when she was an infant. Despite their agreement, he doesn't trust Q.

Q visits Amanda in her quarters, hoping to tempt her by showing her the range of her limitless powers. Amanda is only interested in seeing her real parents. With Q's help, she visualizes the couple, and they materialize in front of her. The feeling is intoxicating, and suddenly, Amanda is beginning to like being a Q. Confused, she shares her feelings with Beverly, who is unable to offer any real advice. However, when she uses her powers to complete an experiment she was performing for the doctor, Beverly is displeased and chastises Q. In response, he briefly turns Dr. Crusher into a yapping dog.

Amanda can't help being amused by the trick, and begins to test her powers further by playing a game of teleportation hide and seek with her new mentor. Amanda teleports Riker, whom she has a crush on, into her romantic fantasy, but she is disappointed by the artificiality of the result. Meanwhile, Data discovers that the tornado that killed Amanda's parents was very unusual. Picard confronts Q with the information, and he admits that the couple were executed by the Q Continuum - and that he has come to the Enterprise to decide whether Amanda will be executed as well. 

Picard and the crew decide to fill Amanda in on this disturbing information. Furious, the young woman summons Q and demands to know what right he has to eliminate others. Picard deftly reminds Q of his supposed moral superiority, but Q lightly replies that he has decided not to kill Amanda anyway. Instead, he offers her a choice. She can either accompany him to the Q Continuum, or continue to live as a human - If she will promise not to use her Q powers. Amanda immediately decides to stay aboard the Enterprise with her new friends. At that moment, however, the group is alerted to an emergency - the planet Tagra IV is in immediate danger of destruction. Realizing that thousands of people will die, Amanda summons her powers and saves the planet, turning it from a polluted no-man's land back to a lush, green world. The event forces her to live up to the fact that she is a Q, and she sadly leaves the ship to start her new life.

Timothy Lynch's Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode Reviews

WARNING: This post contains heavy doses of spoiler information for "True Q", 
this week's TNG offering. Those not wishing a minor dose of omniscience 
should probably remain clear.

The TNG staff is now officially forgiven for "Qpid".

It was nice to see Q back the way he *ought* to be done, but I'll get to that 
later. First...well, you know what's coming. Yep, another synopsis.

The Enterprise is busy picking up relief supplies for the pollution-stricken 
planet of Tagra Four, and also picks up Amanda Rogers, an honor student 
interning on board. She is put to work in all departments, but primarily for 
Dr. Crusher, with whom she strikes up a fast friendship. However, strange 
occurrences seem to center on Amanda very quickly; her pet dogs (which she 
didn't bring on board) mysteriously appear and disappear in her quarters, and 
a large container nearly falls on Riker before suddenly being deflected (with 
no visible cause for either). Finally, things fly completely out of control 
when Amanda single-handedly contains and reverses a warp-core breach 
explosion.

Questions fly fast and furious at a conference shortly after this incident, 
but no answers are forthcoming until Q pays a visit. He confesses that he 
was responsible for the warp-core breach and the falling container, but only 
to test Amanda's powers -- for, in fact, she is the offspring of two Q, and 
probably one herself. He announces that he's come to train her and then 
take her back to the Qontinuum, but in the end agrees to let her make the 
choice herself in exchange for Picard introducing them. The initial meeting 
goes very badly, however, as Q informs his superiors. "However, there is the 
possibility we won't have to terminate the girl."

Amanda, reluctantly, decides to allow Q to train her how to use her power. 
This training appears to hone her skills, but also strengthens her doubts 
about how to use it all. In fact, she even finds that in some circumstances 
they do her no good at all; when Q convinces her to speed up a test she's 
doing for Beverly, the artificial enhancement renders the results useless.

As the mystery around Amanda's parents deepens (they appear to have been 
killed by an extremely unusual tornado), Amanda appears to be embracing Q's 
amoral attitude more and more strongly. She joins him in a game of 
hide-and-seek while teleporting all around the ship, and briefly abducts 
Riker in an attempt to be romantic. This last backfires, however, even when 
she forcibly makes him love her. "I thought it would be romantic...but it's 
empty." 

Picard, meanwhile, speaks to Q of his findings, and asks outright if the 
"tornado" that killed Amanda's parents was a tool of execution by the 
Qontinuum. Q does not answer, but suggests that it might have been, and 
insists that Amanda really has no choice in the matter. If she *is* a Q, he 
says, she must return with him; and if not, she is to be killed. When Picard 
asks Q what he's concluded, Q responds offhandedly, "I haven't decided yet."

As the Enterprise arrives at Tagra Four to begin its mission (now including 
the fixing of a dangerously damaged reactor), Picard decides to inform Amanda 
of the situation. She calls Q and demands to know what right the Qontinuum 
has to play judge, jury, and executioner, either for her or her parents. 
After a brief exchange over morality, he tells her that in fact, she is not 
to be harmed. She gets a choice: either return with him to the Qontinuum, 
or refuse to ever use her powers. (Her parents, he points out, chose the 
latter -- and failed.) She chooses the latter, but after an immediate 
emergency on the planet forces her hand, she decides to go with him after 
all. After saying goodbye to both Crusher and Picard, she departs.

Well, that should work out. (It's actually rather shorter than usual; suits 
me, since it leaves me more room to work with my commentary! :-) ) Now, 
onwards:

If this episode is the reason Q didn't appear last season, then I'm all for 
longer absences between his appearances. As I said earlier, it's about time 
we went back to seeing Q the way he was *meant* to be done; the sardonic, 
Machiavellian trickster who doesn't much care who gets in the way of his 
aims. I haven't seen this Q since "Q Who", and I have definitely missed him. 
("Deja Q" *was* a lot of fun, no argument; but it somehow just wasn't the 
same -- and it led to "Qpid", which was awful.) 

This Q is the sort of person who, when asked about the warp-core breach, "and 
what would have happened if she *hadn't* been able to contain the 
explosion?", simply answers "then I would have known she wasn't a Q!" and 
give no sign of recognizing that there even *is* another level to the 
question. He's also someone who will occasionally take a delight in riling 
others; his question to Amanda early on is one of the best examples. "[in 
examples of other things she could do] Telekinesis, teleportation, ... 
spontaneous combustion of someone you don't like [while gazing witheringly at 
Picard], ... *that* sort of thing." 

This is a Q I truly enjoy watching.

But enough about him, since he actually wasn't the focus of the show. The 
center was clearly Amanda Rogers, and I have to say Olivia d'Abo did a lot 
better than I expected her to, given her past work. (Not that I particularly 
*disliked* her on "The Wonder Years", mind you; she was just generally 
unspectacular much of the time.) Amanda felt real to me, probably because my 
wife Lisa is similar to her: bright, well-rounded, and possessed of a large 
number of small animals. :-) Her ambivalence about her powers and new 
situation was nothing I haven't seen before in countless novels and comics 
(omnipotence does seem to be the fashion these days), but was done well 
enough that I didn't particularly mind.

Not that I'm entirely surprised, mind you; the show was written by Rene 
Echevarria, who's given us good stories centered on guest characters before 
("The Offspring" and "I, Borg" being the most-remembered examples). Amanda, 
like Lal and Hugh, was decidedly sympathetic without being cloying about it, 
and that's precisely what was needed here. 

Amanda also acted like a typical teenager in mooning over Riker the way she 
did. Some may think it was a little overboard, but I don't think I'd agree; 
I don't think I was much subtler when I was a teenager, and given my 
students, teenagers of the '90s aren't much better at it. I don't know if it 
was the single most necessary plot complication in the world, but it seemed 
well placed and well played.

The only real problem I had with the plot was that the planet-oriented bits 
seemed *extremely* preachy this week, far more so than we've had lately. 
Other than that, things seemed to fit together in a sensible way, Q's 
double-dealing was built up slowly (if no big surprise), and the ending 
actually *surprised* me. (I'll get to that last bit in a moment.)

A couple of questions leapt to mind, however, only some of which were 
answered at the time.

First, I at first thought that two disasters in such a short time was an 
amazing coincidence. That one was dealt with nicely by attributing them to 
Q; no problem.

Second, I definitely wonder about that tornado. While it made for a very 
effective point, it seems odd to me that such a freak event wouldn't have 
somehow been a talking point when it happened. (Granted, Picard wasn't on 
Earth at the time, but surely *somebody* in the crew was, and might even 
remember the incident.) That's nothing particularly troubling, but I'm 
curious as to what we were intended to think.

My biggest question, though, was how the Qontinuum's policy here tied in to 
Q's attempted shanghaiing of Riker in "Hide and Q". Surely, if the Qontinuum 
had the ability to make human/Q hybrids themselves (which clearly they do, 
given that had only one of Amanda's parents been a Q, that would be the 
case), they would have done so rather than attempt to lure in an 
already-hostile crewmember. I imagine the goals must have changed a little 
bit from year to year, but I'm slightly confused as to how. (Of course, it 
could be that I'm simply too doped-up on cold medication to figure it out 
myself. If so, please ignore this paragraph. :-) )

Back to the ending. The biggest reason this surprised me was that in some 
ways, Amanda's choice reminded me a little bit of "The First Duty", in that 
Amanda was effectively choosing between father-figures here. I believe that 
this is the first time that given the option, someone has *rejected* Picard 
in such a role; and it surprised me. Now, it could definitely be argued that 
she agreed with him in principle but went with Q in practice, and I'd agree 
with that argument; but even so, the event surprised me. (Even more 
surprising was that not only did Picard play father-figure here, but Bev 
played mother-figure, which is a lot rarer. I think they work well together 
as parents, personally.)

Lastly, the directing here was, for want of a better word, a lot *crisper* 
than I've seen lately. Q reporting to his superiors was, well, done very 
fluidly; I got a real sense of things always moving along. That worked well 
for me, as did the Q/Picard scene when Picard ferrets out the truth. The 
close of that scene, with Q looking generally remorseless, and Picard 
underlit in such a way as to look positively *demonic*, jarred me a lot, 
which it was meant to. The hide-and-seek game moved along very well and 
almost breathlessly, and the departure from Amanda's "romantic interlude" 
seemed nicely wistful. All in all, I'm quite impressed here.

Finally, I'm quite curious to see if we'll see Amanda again. It's certainly 
hinted that we well might, and if nothing else, the next time we see Q there 
had better be a mention of her. Given past track records, I realize I 
shouldn't hope that much for following this up, but allow me to play the 
optimist. :-)

I don't think I have that much else to say here. I found this one a winner 
on basically all counts, and I'm glad to see the Q of old back. A few more 
quotes to demonstrate that Q:

"She'll just have to start behaving like a Q."
"If I'm not mistaken, she just did." [*Ouch*. That's a barb that hit home.]

[on the tornado] "If you say so; I wasn't there." [I'm not so sure about 
that. Did anyone else get the impression that he might have *been* that 
executioner?]

[on the trial for "the crimes of humanity] "The jury's still out on that one, 
Picard..."

There, that ought to do it. I'll take my leave of this for now. So, the 
numbers:

Plot: 9. Get rid of the preachy planet-related points and you're in.
Plot Handling/Direction: 10. *Very* sharp.
Characterization/Acting: 10. Ditto.

TOTAL: 10. Now this is more like it.

NEXT WEEK:

Picard and several others turn into children during a Ferengi attack. We 
shall see...

Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET: tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET: tlynch@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.caltech.edu@hamlet.caltech.edu
"However, there is the possibility that we won't have to terminate the girl."
--
Copyright 1992, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
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Related Links:

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VHS, Laserdisc and DVD availability.

Cast:

Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard™
Jonathan Frakes as William Thomas Riker™
Brent Spiner as Data™
LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge™
Michael Dorn as Worf™
Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher™
Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi™

Guest Cast:

John de Lancie as Q
Olivia d'Abo as Amanda
John P. Connolly as Lote

Creative staff: