CULT TV FLASHBACK #84: Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Q-Who?"

Although I very much enjoyed watching Star Trek: The Next Generation during the original syndication run (1987 - 1994), it's not my favorite Star Trek series by a light year. I'm an old-school Trekkie, I guess you'd say. Just talking personal taste here, I find The Next Generation a little sedate and passionless compared with the colorful Original Series. It's so very...beige.

That personal bias established, there are a number of outstanding episodes in the Next Generation canon: "Yesterday's Enterprise," "The Measure of a Man," "The Inner Light," "A Matter of Honor," "The Outcast," "The Best of Both Worlds," etc.

One of my personal favorite episodes is the sixth-season two-parter, "Chain of Command," which lands the belligerent - but gloriously colorful -- Captain Jellico (Ronny Cox) aboard the Enterprise in the absence of Captain Picard...and has him run roughshod over our easy-going crew. Jellico even tells Counselor Troi to put on a real Starfleet uniform instead of one of those damned purple jump suits.

I recently watched another terrific Next Generation installment from the second season. Point of fact, it held up remarkably well on its twentieth anniversary. It was taut, exciting, surprising and scary as all get out.

But Maurice Hurley's brilliant "Q-Who?," directed by Rob Bowman, is famous, I suppose for one dramatic reason. It introduces a new and awesome villain to Star Trek lore: The Borg.

Equally as important, however, Hurley's economical and inventive teleplay injects a much-needed sense of creeping uncertainty, doom and terror into a sci-fi series that too often came across as safe and self-satisfied.

"Q-Who?" commences as a new engineering crew member, Sonya Gomez (Lycia Naff), spills hot-chocolate on Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart). The good captain heads to his quarters to change uniforms, but steps off the turbo-lift to find himself on a shuttle under the control of Q (John De Lancie), the mysterious and enigmatic entity that has twice before challenged the crew of NCC-1701-D (in "Encounter at Farpoint" and "Hide and Q").

Because he's been kicked out of the Q Continuum, Q apparently wants to join the Enterprise crew. Under guidance from Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) the bartender, however, Picard rejects the offer, calling Q "next of kin to chaos." Q points out Picard's hypocrisy in his out-of-hand decision, pointedly asking him "where's your adventurous spirit?" When Picard won't relent, Q informs Picard that he will live to regret his choice, that the Federation is "not prepared for what awaits" it in space. He claims that the Romulans and Klingons are but "pitiful adversaries" compared to "what's waiting."

With the snap of his fingers, Q then transports the Enterprise 7,000 lights years distant to the J25 solar system. It will take the starship nearly three years at maximum warp to reach the closest Federation starbase.

Picard decides to investigate the system before starting the long trek for home, and soon the Enterprise encounters a spacehip that is "strangely generalized in design" -- meaning that there is no bridge, no living quarters, no engineering deck. The ship is, in fact, a gigantic cube.

A worried Guinan informs Picard that the ship belongs to a race called "The Borg," which "swarmed" into her system and "scattered" her people across the galaxy. The Borg have been developing their brand of human/machine hybrid for "thousands of centuries." Picard attempts to communicate with these aliens, but to no avail. And then a Borg Drone, an enhanced human -- part man and part machine -- beams aboard the Enterprise. The drone promptly identifies the ship's technology as something the Borg "can consume."

Q informs Picard that he has met his match in this new adversary, that the Borg are not interested in "political conquest, wealth" or territorial gain. That Picard can't "outrun them or destroy them." That they are "relentless."

They're also apparently hungry, because they promptly attack the Enterprise and -- in the words of Riker (Jonathan Frakes) -- proceed to "carve up" the ship like a "roast." The Enterprise breaks free, but not before 18 crewmembers are presumed dead in the confrontation.

After an Away Team mission to the Borg ship -- one that involves the discovery of an unsettling Borg Nursery -- Picard comes to realize that he may very well have no choice but to beg Q for help. All too soon, the Borg take out the Enterprise's shields and keep coming. They take out the warp drive, and keep coming. They survive blasts from the aft photon torpedoes and keep coming...

At the end of "Q Who?" Captain Picard concludes that perhaps Q did them all a favor by giving them a "preview" of the Borg threat. He realizes that "what we most needed was a kick in our complacency."

And you know what? You can accurately conclude the same thing of The Next Generation as a series, at least previous to the introduction of the Borg. The good-natured series wasted a tremendous number of episodes and airtime devoted to silly holodeck adventures (with the crew relaxing in a virtual reality setting), "Love Boat in Space" stories (with family members coming on board to solve the soap opera problem of the week), and other blind alleys. The crew hardly ever seemed to break a sweat, and it never seemed as though they were in real danger.

The villains up to that point generally weren't worth the Federation's time or energy either: the silly Ferengi ("The Last Outpost"), manipulative drug dealers ("Symbiosis"), petty warlords ("Code of Honor"), and feuding aliens by the boatload ("Lonely Among Us," "Loud as a Whisper," "The Outrageous Okana.")

Yep, it seemed like Star Trek: The Next Generation had forgotten that the final frontier was dangerous territory, and that it was no fun at all if the good guys were always the most powerful kid on the block. What Q reminds Picard so brazenly in "Q Who?" is that -- in his words -- "it's not safe out here." "There are terrors," he concludes" to "freeze your soul."

"It's not for the timid."

In very deliberately putting these lines into Q's sarcastic mouth (and also by explicitly asserting the smug, sometimes arrogant nature of characters like Riker and Picard...), Maurice Hurley successfully addressed one of the core drawbacks of The Next Generation. In the process, Hurley also gave the franchise an indisputably classic villain.

From the iconic cube design of the Borg ship, to the relatively fresh (for Trek) notion of a hive intelligence, the Borg represented a whole new direction for the franchise. The Borg had no individual leader; no "agenda" except technological and biological consumption, and they simply could not be reasoned with or talked to. Enlightenment, diplomacy, and mediation -- Picard's specific portfolio -- were no good against them. How do you reason with someone who doesn't acknowledge your existence?

Inevitably, the franchise blew it with the Borg and tried to shoe-horn the novel alien threat into a more mainstream, conventional form. "Descent" made the Borg mad-dog individuals instead of a cerebral, calculating hive mind. And 1996's (admittedly spectacular) First Contact introduced the ridiculous idea of a Borg Queen...as individual leader of the Collective(!?) Then, in Voyager, Captain Janeway -- a character I genuinely like -- began to outsmart and outfight the technologically-superior Borg almost every week (even without Starfleet behind her...), and the Borg lost even more of their initial power.

But for "Q Who?" none of that matters. Star Trek was dangerous again, and the audience felt invested in the crew's plight. Thanks to a good script, a powerful foe, and Ron Jones' militant, pushing soundtrack, the episode's sense of fear is palpable. For once, our heroes are out of their depth,and there's a feeling of unpredictability...that all the crew's assumptions (and our assumptions about Star Trek) are really and truly out the window.

"Q Who?" features some great creepy moments. When Riker, Worf and Data beam aboard the Borg ship and are confronted with "frozen" Borg, the tension begins to rise. There's a feeling here that the quiescent drones could come to life any second...and do our crewmembers real physical damage. And the moment in Engineering when a pale-as-a-ghost Borg drone turns from a panel and dispassionately (perhaps malevolently...) eyes Geordi (and us, in the audience) is positively chill-inducing. There's no humanity there. No mercy, no empathy.

Star Trek's finest quality, in some sense, is the diversity or individuality of the characters. Data is an Android, Worf a Klingon, Troi a half-Betazed, Geordi is blind, and so on. But each one of these unique personalities "contributes" to Starfleet in a powerful, individual and unique way. The great menace represented by the Borg is that, as a hive mind, they possess no sense of individuality. And worse, they want to rob you of yours. In the colorful, diverse world of Star Trek, that's a fate worse than death. Identity is a core concept of Star Trek and the Borg chillingly act as identity robbers.

Finally, "Q Who?" ends with Picard's realization that the Borg are now aware of the Federation; that they "will be coming." This admission -- played against the backdrop of endless stars in Ten Forward -- evokes shivers and a remarkable sense of anticipation and foreboding.

It's just the kick in the butt that the Enterprise D and Star Trek: The Next Generation needed going into its third and best season.