Nerding Day: Star Drek - "Hide and Q" (Patreon)

To me, Trek Drek has become so much more than just a series of columns. In the same way the pillars supporting the roof of a great house must necessarily negate the usefulness of the space they take up - yet are crucial to the structure as a whole - these articles are meant to strengthen your love of Star Trek, not diminish it. So really, they’re more like a series of pillars!

This one’s called “Hide and Q.”

Look, if they’re not going to try with the title, why should I? Literally every other Star Trek episode starring John Delancie as the omniscient alien Q has a name like “Eye Q” or “What’s it to Q?” or “Q Wants to be a Space-Millionaire!” Simple puns that were easy to decode. In contrast, “Hide and Q” fails to work on every level, like an elevator operator’s strike. “Q” definitely doesn’t sound like “seek,” and I’m pretty sure “hide and few” isn’t an expression. “Hide and two?” “Hide and you?” “Haydn queue?” It’s MADDENING.

Warping past that minor annoyance, this episode opens with the crew of The Enterprise on an urgent mission to provide medical aid to a bunch of Sigmas. Real mavericks, these broken people on this dying planet. It’s a whole injury-stricken colony of based chads. Forever the scholar and never the jock, Captain Picard attempts to counterbalance this vibe with the thing we all love most about sci-fi: word problems.

“If Troi has a fight with Lwaxana and shuttles back at warp 4.7 three and a half hours after arriving at starbase G-6, while nine twinned Miradorn inoculate the Sigmoids at a rate of 3.6/hour - dammit Riker, where are my schematics?!”

It’s as thrilling as primetime network TV gets…or was allowed to get in 1987, anyway. You can’t show an explosion, but you can reference one while you go over schematics! Try not to swallow your tongue from excitement.

We soon learn that the small mining colony they’re flying toward suffered massive casualties in a sudden mining accident. It’s interesting to ponder what the colonists of Sigma III might have considered worth risking their lives to dig out of the earth in a post-need society with abundant matter replication technology. More replicators? Genie lamps? Riker tries valiantly to save the episode by setting up a real sweet fart joke…

…but Fate has other plans. And by “Fate” I mean Q, and by “other plans” I mean “a big net.”

Yep, Picard is immediately able to identify Q as their interlocutor because even though he’s whimsical and omnipotent, he’s also very loyal to this specific pattern of lasers whenever he decides to trap a spaceship in the manner of a cartoon dog catcher. Q himself can also take on any form, so naturally he first appears to the Enterprise crew as the dumbest one he can muster. Dana Carvey in a turtle disguise would have been a step up. Steve Buscemi’s dismembered torso would have at least had that non sequitur factor. Go on, try to guess it. Did you guess three ghostly cobras on a levitating crystal ball surrounded by lens flares? You did? Well, it sounds like you might already be passingly familiar with this episode.

Q refers to that semi-translucent monstrosity as “an Aldebaran Serpent,” which I guess means we’re expected to believe it’s a real animal on some planet somewhere that evolved like that. Okay! Darwin’s really mad, but okay! He called and said even though he’s dead he’s really mad. Which is as good a segue as any to Michael Dorn being directed to “jump over this wooden swoop with a wetsuit pinned to your body and a latex yarmulke on…and make it look RAW AS HELL!”

“Not balletic. Do you know that word? Forget it. Forget that’s a word, un-know that. RAW AS HELL. Action!”

Nailed it. Flailed it, even. Q quickly exhausts the episode’s effects budget and turns into his humanoid form, but dressed as a Starfleet Admiral. You can tell he outranks Captain Picard because of the additional gold fringe he’s had ripped from the rim of a card table welcoming students to their Junior High Winter Formal and sewn to his uniform.

Worf’s not onboard.

Despite having an equally stupid forehead situation on display himself, Q has the temerity to throw shade at Worf’s stately pleasure-dome.

Honestly, Q? Pretty embarrassing when you have access to all knowledge that has ever or will ever exist and that’s the best burn you can muster. Remember, this man can freeze time. He could summon the entire Simpsons Season 3 writers’ room and make them do it. Instead, he opts for a diss on-par with a Sesame Street bit where Grover teaches your kid the difference between small and far away. Q and Picard then bicker about their last adventure together, testing their diplomacy skills in that age-old contest of “who can stick their lips out further to punctuate a point.”

This episode marks Q’s second appearance, so rather than use his unlimited magic powers to mess with stodgy old Captain Picard, this time he’s come for Kirk. I mean Rikirk. I mean - you know who I mean. He’s the dude to the right of the guy in the muumuu in this picture:

Since he’s already dressed like a chess piece, Q decides to challenge Commander Riker to a game that will presumably decide the fate of humanity or something. It’s unclear. Fortunately, the game isn’t to stretch your face out further and further every time you say the word “game,” because Riker wouldn’t have stood a chance. Q’s frankly untouchable.

He’s got the vertical stretch mastered, the horizontal squash, whatever you need in terms of an animation “walking cycle” but for the human head.

Yeah! Chew that head-gum!

Q teleports an assortment of Enterprise crewpeople to the surface of a planet that looks like it was designed by that planet-making race from Hitchhiker’s Guide as a reference to Star Trek. When it comes to achieving a compelling alien world on TV, it’s not Class-A.

What is that, like the 13th-lowest Class out of 26? That’s a 50% planet. This world is an F.

Hey man, everything’s relative! As I discussed last time on Star Drek, in this era of The Next Generation the Producers are eager to prove both that Picard is a “new kind of Captain,” staid and professional, while showcasing that Riker - a classic space cowboy - is also there. “Hide and Q” is probably the most Kirk-y and “also there” Riker episode there is, so please try to hold it to that standard. This shit on the planet? This Q game? That’s supposed to be SO NOT BORING that Riker just said the line “this won’t bore you, I swear.” They even cut to Picard right then being EXTRA-boring to make what’s about to go down on the planet exciting if only by comparison.

Oh wow, Picard’s in a pickle. Better write someone a letter about it.

Oh no, your signature maneuver! Maybe try a door?

Nope. No help there. Shit, Q really is omnipotent huh? He can lock one door, even! Okay, back to the planet…and after that little palette cleanser, you should be primed to rip-roar. We have the premise! We have the stakes! The game is afoot! ARE YOU READY FOR THRILLS?!

Good, because we’ll get there! You hold onto that feeling! For now, let us discuss the game’s ruleset in a Napoleonic battlefield tent and sip glasses of old-fashioned lemonade. THE EXCITEMENT DRINK!

I’m not sure how much longer I can pretend this stuff is exciting just by GOING INTO ALL CAPS AT THE END!

Wow, two moons, fuckin’ call the fuckin’...Imagination Awards. They’d probably have a more creative name than that, but you get my slander.

Immediately violating the rules they never agreed to, Q penalizes Lieutenant Yar by making her go spend time with Captain Picard.

He further declares the Enterprise bridge will serve as the game’s “penalty box,” and that if more than one person is ever sent to the penalty box, then the current penalty box resident will be destroyed. This is the only concrete system of play ever devised over the course of the game, Tasha is the only person ever put in the penalty box, and she’s released minutes later without consequence. Actually there is one consequence, which is making Denise Crosby say some words that have stuck in my head all my life in a horking-down-a-chicken-bone sort of way…

It isn’t strange! It definitely isn’t, because it sounds strange, so it must not be!

What?

The rest of the scene doesn’t unfold as much as it kinda falls out of your TV while you sit there asking yourself “Was Denise Crosby’s face always half-grey like that? Is that a makeup issue, or did Q kill all the nerves on that side of Tasha’s face? Is that part of the penalty?”

Picard tells Tasha it’s okay to cry, Tasha tells Picard it’s okay if he wants to bone her down…

…and Q appears to invoke one of the most famous Kurt Vonnegut lines of all time like they’ve done absolutely anything to earn that.

No, not true! There’s still like thirty minutes of awful episode left! Aboard the Enterprise, Q and Picard will continue attempting to showcase the moral and political savvy of Next Gen, while those below try to prove the show still works as a raw action vehicle and effects spectacular. These attempts fail on all fronts, like an elevator operator’s strike that caves to management after they threaten to install buttons.

Here’s some of the key action bits:

It’s mostly recon, which yields the below closeup of what Worf refers to as a “vicious animal thing” even though he’s an alien monster who works with several other varieties of alien monster every damn day.

These guys are such a dire threat that Riker points a phaser at them and makes them go away like Adam Sandler fixing his marriage with a remote control in Click.

Brutal! Like, truly an upsetting way to die. Q, briefly taking over Data’s body, “reveals” to Riker that this was never a game at all, but rather a test of what he’d do if granted the ultimate power of the Q Continuum to reshape existence at will. Shoot people, I guess.

To which Riker’s all: “What, to melt dudes with lasers? I could already do that! S’why I joined Starfleet! …hey, are there any Ferengi on this planet?” At the same time, the version of Q up in orbit hangs out with Picard and they pretend quoting Shakespeare’s Top Ten is what diplomats do in first contact situations.

Sure Q, edit Shakespeare; that’s always a strong writing choice. Even worse is Captain Picard’s “big rejoinder,” which is to recite one of the more famous monologs from Hamlet, but sincerely instead of ironically as in the original text - WHICH WAS WHAT MADE IT AN INTERESTING MONOLOG.

Rhetorically, it’s the exact opposite of clever. Picard is dumbing something down in order to try and brag to a being who not only contains all knowledge, but could turn his nipples into ears of corn with a single thought. Dicey strat, Jean-Luc! When the alien and the astronaut finally tire of misunderstanding literature at one another, Q transports everyone back to the planet to force Riker into a situation where he’ll use more magic powers, or, failing that, shoot some more folks.

If you’re a student of story structure, you might recognize this as a comically redundant beat. You might recognize it as that even if you aren’t a student of story structure too, because the writers go out of their way to have a character loudly draw attention to how much of the viewer’s time they’re wasting.

Back off, La Forge! Star Trek may have come a long way since the '60s, but what do you want - TWO sets? Nah, this shit takes place on one planet per episode, max. In fact, let’s get those vicious animal things back! They’re already in wardrobe and we paid them SAG-AFTRA scale for the day!

Hell yeah! Same scene as before! Only this time, to force Riker into Q’s moral trap, Worf makes a suicide run at the enemy soldiers and is immediately put down like a dog in the dirt.

Longtime Starkies (Star Trek fans) will know that this follows in a well-established Next Generation tradition of treating Worf terribly, but I’d like to point out that Worf’s humiliation here doesn’t just come down to being bayoneted by a Napoleonic ape-man. Even worse is the fact that it’s actually Wesley’s ensuing death that convinces Riker to unleash his powers.

To me, this heavily implies he wouldn’t have done it just for Worf. He would have let his pal rot on some dream planet Q made with his mind and never lost sleep over it. Yet Wesley gets the full “let’s rewind time and rewrite reality” treatment just because of a little torso kebab.

Walk it off! Builds character.

Picard agrees with me, and quickly gets Riker to promise he’ll never use Q magic again no matter how tempting the situation. Even if Q warps reality to make it virtually impossible to resist, he must stand firm for the sake of propriety. It’s the exact same setup as a cartoon character telling their friend “and once I’m in there don’t open the door no matter WHAT.”

Because the writers wasted so much time setting up this very simple moral quandary, there are now only eight minutes left in the episode and the pacing becomes insane and broken. It’s kind of awesome. For example: BAM dead crushed girl!

I’d explain how she got crushed but there’s no time!

BOOM Riker has second thoughts! He made this vow nine seconds ago!

BING BANG BOOM FUCK YOU Riker’s mad with power the very next scene! The credits are looming like a tsunami wave, make story go now!

Of course in Star Trek: The Next Generation terms, “mad with power” equates to “walks away from his boss in the middle of a sentence,” but you get the idea.

Within a couple minutes, Riker has called a big meeting to show everyone his new superior way of standing and promise them he’s not a monster. Ah, “I’m not a monster,” the thing so many people who aren’t monsters feel the need to say out loud to prove it’s true!

Somehow, unbelievably, this fails to set everyone at ease…

…as does Q reappearing on the sidelines in monk robes to watch with a weird leer.

At Q’s encouragement, Riker tries to change Picard’s mind by gifting the crew things he thinks couldn’t possibly cause harm. He reasons that if he can use the powers responsibly, in moderation, then perhaps he could be trusted with keeping them. The whole thing is an obvious con by Q to make him look corruptible, though; so it’s less “Gift of the Magi” and more “Grift of the Magic.”

First he makes Wes an adult, which I’m technically in favor of but only because it shaves years off the little twerp’s lifespan. Thinking his Mom would be chill with it is pretty damn dumb on Riker’s part, though; and of course he should have also foreseen that Geordi would immediately hit on the resulting twink.

Don’t freak out though, Geordi’s not a pedophile. He’s just EVERYTHING ELSE. Like, it takes knowing the whole series to fully comprehend all the stuff Geordi would post “would” under - machines, holograms, a bucket of mud - but even this one disastrous episode will hammer home what I’m talking about. Which reminds me, Geordi would also def fuck a hammer.

Wesley declines the gift, because that’s the parable we’re doing here, but hold onto that Geordi thought for me. Riker then suggests turning Data into a human would be an easy win, because it totally would be, but Data complies with the underlying morality Picard wants him to and reverse-engineers a tortured explanation of why becoming human “this way” wouldn’t count.

Wow, Data…denying yourself your most coveted dream in favor of duty to Starfleet by quoting a deep cut off of NOW! That’s What I Call Poetry? Picard has trained you well.

But apparently HR didn’t make Riker watch the “ableism” part of the DEI corporate training holo, because his next move is to turn to the blind guy like “don’t tell me, let me guess and/or define you by your disability…vision!”

This is especially odd because the show has already established that Geordi doesn’t resent his VISOR and has vision far superior to organic human eyeballs. So it’s not that surprising when he refuses the downgrade.

What is a little shocking is that he uses his one moment of being able to toss an unadulterated “do me” look at another crewmember…

…to harass Tasha Yar, a woman he’s never spoken to on the show before who grew up the victim of “roving rape gangs” and has already expressed that she’s into Captain Picard! Weird pick, Geordi.

It’s a real Russian nesting doll of “who’s most wrong here?” Clearly getting desperate and on some kind of perv tip, Riker makes Worf’s gift even more transparent: a sexy lady Klingon already on her knees and growling around her sensuously bulky teeth prosthetics. She bites Worf’s ankle, he knocks her ass-over-teakettle with a pimp slap so hard she snaps a clavicle…

…usual Klingon flirting stuff. Yet again - and here’s where you can let go of that thought I asked you to hold earlier - Geordi is VERY interested.

He’s got his VISOR back on, and thanks to being brain-poisoned by the rise of Meta’s pervert glasses I must now assume they are taping the proceedings for him to turn into CSAM later on Twitter. Ugh. You know something? Speculating on the future based on our current reality was a lot more fun when our current reality wasn’t already the future.

Anyway, Worf declines to hate-fuck the dream woman at work in front of his friends. For some reason I will never understand beyond the logic of “oh look at the time, the episode is almost over,” this is enough repetitions of the lesson for Riker to “get it” and relent. He officially abdicates the power of the Q and apologizes for being such an omnipotent scamp.

Even though Q never mentioned that the powers could be abdicated or Riker could win or lose the test or when the test would be over or what the stakes were of this test that was originally a game, he accepts defeat with the grace and dignity common to religious institutions when called out on their hypocrisy.

The other members of the Q Continuum suck him off The Enterprise and Geordi loudly wonders if they might all be having a cosmic orgy somewhere, maybe with a cybernetic dog or computer simulation of a toasted tuna sub. He then excuses himself to “consult with Dr. Leah Brahms,” if you know what I mean. Riker finally understands that old axiom that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and Captain Picard eases us out of the story with some more light mathematics.

Of course, the lesson of the episode being “power corrupts” means that if the series as a whole ended by revealing, say, that Q was good all along, then “Hide and Q” would be not only especially stupid, but in retrospect as nonsensical as its title. Oops! Tune in next time on Star Drek to see what might ensue.

Wait…”might ensue,” “Hide and Q.” Or “tried and true?” But what does “tried and true” have to do with “hide and seek?” AAAAAH I’M GOING INSANE ARTICLE OVER.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Max Baroi, whose only request from the Q Continuum was a second set.

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