[Nate the Great]

Since I want to enjoy my Thanksgiving weekend and there's no TOS episode this week, I'm going to do the TNG episode a day early.

November 23rd, 1987, "Hide and Q"

Fiver (by Kira)
Memory Alpha
Transcript

The Episode

PICARD: Additional information. The number of colonists at the site is five hundred and four. Are you prepared for that many, Doctor?
CRUSHER [OC]: We believe so, sir.

I repeat earlier remarks in the TOS thread about small colony populations. Also, there are over a thousand people on board the Enterprise! Five hundred is hardly another drop in the bucket, but it's not so large that people would be sprawled out in the corridors...

PICARD: You're no Starfleet Admiral, Q.
Q: Neither am I an Aldebaran serpent, Captain, but you accepted me as such.
RIKER: He's got us there, Captain.

Yeah, he does. I've long liked Q's zinger here.

RIKER: Where are we?
DATA: Obviously a class M world. Gravity and oxygen within our limits.

Obviously, Data, since nobody's in pain. I think Riker meant "is this a planet that we already know about?"

(Glasses appear in everyone's hands. Worf ostentatiously pours his onto the ground)
Q: Drink not with thine enemy. The rigid Klingon code. That explains something of why you defeated them.

Phil Farrand commented in his coverage of the fifth movie how weird it would be for the Klingons to party with our crew if this code existed. Furthermore, we still seem to be in the period where people are treating the Klingon Empire as a mere subset of the Federation. Cue rants about series bibles here. And by the by, why would the Federation conquer the Klingon Empire, instead of just rendering their military useless?

We could have such discussions about other times where Worf drank with someone he believes to be a possible enemy.

Q: You see, of all species, yours cannot abide stagnation. Change is at the heart of what you are. But change into what? That's the question.
DATA: That is what humans call a truism.
Q: You mean hardly original?

I'm a sucker for quotes and aphorisms. But I still have a sense of humor about hackneyed sayings, so Q's line does make me smile.

DATA: His uniform is that of a French Army marshal.
RIKER: And a marshal outranks even an Admiral
Q: Well, do you think I would go from a Starfleet Admiral to anything else?

I miss Q's costume antics, it's a shame he defaults to Starfleet captain so often...

Q: Fairness is such a human concept. Think imaginatively! This game shall in fact be completely unfair.
TASHA: You've gone too far!

Is Q here to test our crew or just poke them with sticks for his own amusement? You can't have it both ways!

TASHA: What the hell am I doing? Crying?
PICARD: Don't worry. There's a new ship's standing order on the Bridge. When one is in the penalty box, tears are permitted.
TASHA: Captain. Oh, if you weren't a captain.

Never did like this scene. Tasha could express tenderness and vulnerability without flirting with her captain.

PICARD: A marshal of France? Ridiculous!

Oh, there's another example of Picard's early season "France is supreme" mentality. I guess I was wrong before.

RIKER: Geordi, can you see Worf?
LAFORGE: I'd see the freckles on his nose if he had them, sir.

Given what we know about how the VISOR works, no you couldn't, Geordi. For that to happen the visual input would have to be full photorealistic reconstructions with an infinite zoom lens. And you don't.

PICARD: Oh, no. I know Hamlet. And what he might said with irony, I say with conviction. What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god.
Q: Surely you don't really see your species like that, do you?
PICARD: I see us one day becoming that, Q. Is it that what concerns you?

Given what we'll learn in later episodes and novels, yes, that's what concerns the Q.

DATA: Muskets are appropriate to the 1790 to 1800 French army uniform, sir. But it is hardly a weapon by our standards.

I hate that line. A weapon is a device meant to cause bodily harm on an enemy. So muskets qualify. Make the usual first season pompous declarations about the lack of accuracy and power compared to contemporary weapons, but don't pretend that a gunpowder musket is in the same category as a water gun or rubber knife!

WORF: Sir, what they're wearing may be old Earth uniforms, but what's inside of them isn't human at all. More like vicious animal things.

I've been waiting for this one. "Animal things." Here are a few closeups of these guys. These aren't animals, they're aliens. "Yellow-skinned aliens covered in fur and warts." It's not complicated.

(Wesley gets bayoneted from behind. I confess, I cheered)

Assuming Chakotea/Chrissy wrote these, I have to give her kudos for this.

DATA: Yes, sir, that is true. But I never wanted to compound one illusion with another. It might be real to Q, perhaps even you, sir. But it would not be so to me. Was it not one of the Captain's favourite authors who wrote, This above all, to thine own self be true?

Thank you, Data.

(A Klingon woman is kneeling at his feet. She gets up, tries to swipe at Tasha, and gets knocked down by Worf)
WORF: No! She is from a world now alien to me!

One wonders if the illusion attacked Tasha for being the closest or if "she" saw Tasha as the alpha female that had to be conquered. Chalk Worf calling the Klingon Empire "alien" up to early installment weirdness.

The Fiver

Captain's Log: We have received a distress call from the Sigma Three system requesting medical assitance. I certainly hope the rest of the Federation's colonies aren't this helpless, or we'll be spending the next seven years chasing after mining disasters and hostage situations.

Another typo that got past Zeke (or was Marc in charge back then?) Picard's hopes will be dashed here. "Does anyone remember when we were explorers?"

Picard: Security? Engineering? Anyone? What is this, some kind of shrinking-bubble alternate universe?

My opinion of "Remember Me" has fallen steadily over the years. Blech. I'll wait until we get to that episode in three years to go into further detail.

Q: Sit, Commander. Refresh yourselves before the games begin. Can I offer you something to drink?
(FLASH!)
Riker: Wow! Old-fashioned lemonade! Just what I wanted!
Worf: Prune juice?

Nice joke, but the whole point of the prune juice scene is that Worf's never heard of it. I have no reasonable alternative for TNG, but if I was writing this scene in a DS9 fiver I would've done one of my "Year X bloodwine is good, Year Y bloodwine is awful" jokes. Y'know, Q's a monster for giving him a substandard vintage of bloodwine...

Yar: But sir, I'm too young to die!
Picard: Yes, I know. But don't worry -- I'm sure you won't always feel that way.

Now there's gallows humor for you. Would a "How can this happen, we stopped wearing redshirts a hundred years ago!" joke have worked here?

Picard: This must be some form of torture Q has devised.
Data: What is your reasoning for that, sir?
Wesley: Where are we? What's going on? Why am I here?
Data: Ah. I see.

It would've been hilarious if Picard had said something along the lines of "that's torture all right, but hardly Q's fault".

Memory Alpha

* Second and last usage of the Q grid (although mentioned in "All Good Things" in reference to "Encounter at Farpoint" events). It would've been nice if it had reappeared in Q's appearances on Voyager, right?

YouTube

* Possibly Q at his hammiest. "Did someone say games!" Where did all these bitemarks on the scenery come from?
* Monk Q, and Picard asks what's with the costumes.
* A duel of Shakespeare quotes.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil asks why the story of Gary Mitchell was never brought up as a comparison to Riker's situation.
* If Geordi can see Worf's freckles (he can't), why is Worf there? Can't Geordi just look at the enemy camp directly from a safe location?