Title: Q Who
Airdate: 05/08/1989
Plot Summary
Q returns to the Enterprise to try to be a member of the crew. Picard rejects his offer on the grounds he doesn’t trust him. Q says that he needs him and to prove it, he sends the Enterprise 7000 light years across the galaxy to encounter the Borg. The crew is resolute in meeting this new challenge but they may be in over their heads.
Make It So
Picard is steadfast in his belief that they are ready to meet what’s out there, to which Q accuses him of arrogance which Picard rejects. But Q was right and Picard had to swallow any and all pride to save his ship and basically beg Q to save them.
Number 1
Riker makes the trip over to the Borg cube, much to Guinan’s dismay.
Fully Functional
Data is impressed with how the Borg become one with their ship, figuring out how they don’t read as life forms when connected.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf has to kill one Borg, but the second one adapts and his phaser is useless. Q also calls him “Microbrain” again, asking if he’ll growl at him. Worf does not.
Phase Inducers
Geordi keeps the engines running at top speed but it’s not enough to outrun the Borg cube.
Counselor Cleavage
Deanna can kind of sense that there is only one “mind” over on the cube, reinforcing the idea of a hive mind.
Doctor Not Bones
Pulaski is actually not in this one.
Shut Up, Wesley
Neither is Wesley.
Guinan?!
Guinan gets a bit of backstory here. Her homeworld was overrun and destroyed by the borg. She wasn’t there but she’s clearly afraid. She even takes up the role of old man telling the teens don’t go to the cabin. Turn back, Captain.
Enlisted Man
O’Brien makes sure the away team gets beamed out of the cube with his usual efficiency.
Canon Maker
The cities removed in Conspiracy were confirmed as to be removed by the Borg in this episode.
This episode introduces the Borg formally to the Trek universe. They would continue to be a problem in this series, the movies, Voyager, an episode of Enterprise, and of course Picard Season 3. Weirdly never showed up in DS9.
Canon Breaker
When Picard mentions the trial from Farpoint, Q says they were completely exonerated. That would turn out to be untrue as later on when Picard mentions the trial, Q says the jury is still out. Finally in the series finale where the Q continuum puts them on trial again, or at least says that the trial never ended. Of course Q could be lying, but while Q is a pain in the ass, he generally is not a liar.
This episode is supposed to be the first contact with the Borg. But they make a point to mention that the Borg were the ones who took the colonies near the neutral zone. This would imply the Borg already know about the federation and starfleet, based on what they assimilated from those colonies. What one knows, they all know. And what happened to that ship? Is this the same one? Did it have an accident and this one is trying to find it?
Guinan and Q know each other and there’s some implication she has some sort of power to fight him. She also has apparently called herself something else in the past. But really when we’ve seen her in the past, there’s nothing that says she has that kind of power. While I don’t doubt Q might be embellishing since he doesn’t like her, I don’t think it’s an act or a complete fabrication that she can do something to hold her own. Weird.
A Little Bloody Nose
18 people died when the Borg pulled out a small section of the saucer like a cork from a wine bottle. This is the episode that inspired my heading for this section.
Technobabble
The Borg can beam through their shields, take out their shields, but are also able to be damaged by their phasers pretty well. This will not be the case later on. They adapted.
Please Repeat Your Communication
Picard: I understand what you’ve done here, Q. But I think the lesson could have been learned without the loss of 18 members of my crew.
Q: If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it’s not for the timid.
–Picard understandably upset but an unmoved Q gives a blunt response.
Library Computer
The Borg were originally supposed to be an insect hivemind and the insects from Conspiracy were those insects. But that turned out to be a budget breaker, so they went back to the drawing board to create the borg.
I Know That Guy:
John DeLancie makes his return as Q.
Lycia Naff makes her first of two appearances as Ensign Sonia Gomez. She was the three boobed hooker in Total Recall and the hooker Dixie in Lethal Weapon. No wonder she tried to change it up by going Star Trek. She was supposed to be a recurring character like O’Brien but it didn’t work out.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This is a true banger of an episode and an amazing way to introduce the Borg, as well as bring back Q. Here Q is more than just screwing around with the crew. It’s the first time we realize (at least in hindsight) that he is more than just an imp. He’s pushing humanity, and Picard in particular, in a direction. He’s more than just funny, there’s a menace and earnestness to what he’s saying. He pulls no punches either. He has no sympathy whatsoever for either Riker’s or Picard’s concerns about the deaths of the crewmembers.
Because he understands that those 18 are merely a taste of what the Borg will do to all of humanity. He and Guinan weirdly have the same goal, but Guinan’s answer is to run and hide while Q is to push their face in the dirt in an attempt to make them stronger.
The Borg themselves are terrifying, even at this early stage. In fact, I would say they were terrifying until they introduced the Borg queen, a decision I will never agree with. Q calls the Borg the ultimate user, but that’s incorrect. They are the ultimate expression of communism. They are true equality of outcome. There are no individuals, you are a cog in a machine, meaningless in the grand scheme of their civilization, if you can even call it that.
Look at their ship. The genius of the writers and production designers of coming up with a cube for their ship is how utterly without artistic merit it is. There is no one person with a vision, it’s the entire Borg collective coming up the design, which is the lowest possible common denomenator, a geometric shape. There’s no side different than any other, so cube. It’s lined on the outside with nothing but function and decentralization.
Clearly that has its benefits, they are powerful. But they are as souless as any living person can be. It’s worse than the zombie horde in a lot of ways. I find the whole idea completely horrifying since day one.
It’s so brilliant, and it’s no wonder they became probably the most known villain of Star Trek outside of Khan.
The story is also so good, the crew does not win. They get their asses handed to them and without Q, they would all be Borgified already or dead. They had zero chance. Picard doesn’t believe he was being arrogant telling Q they are ready to meet what was out there, but he WAS. He represents the Federation as a whole. They are taking children out on deep space missions and pretend nothing will happen. Here they lost 18 people in the saucer section. I have no idea who, but there’s nothing to say it couldn’t have been some kids in their quarters.
Picard acted arrogant and now is limping home with his tail between his legs. What Q does is get them on the road for what’s ahead. The Borg, the Dominion, and others. He did the right thing and it’s unclear, unlike what Picard says, that he did it for the wrong reasons. Q is mecurial.
I find this is a endlessly rewatchable, and definitely required viewing if you’re working your way through Trek for the first time. It’s so good.
