3x13 Déjà Q

[9.5/10] Someone like Q shouldn’t work as a recurring character. He’s nigh-omnipotent, so you can’t ever truly best him. He’s all-seeing, so you shouldn’t be able to outsmart him. He doesn’t really want anything beyond amusement, so him coming to pester Picard and company from time to time should get old fast.

But it doesn’t. Some of that owes to John DeLancie’s brilliant performance. His puck-lie presence levens the stuff confines of the starship Enterprise every time, and he’s a particularly marvelous foil to Patrick Stewart’s Picard. But Star Trek: The Next Generation also finds new wrinkles for him every time, different angles to motivate his darkening the ship’s doorstep every season, that give the character new life with each and every appearance.

“Deja Q” may be the peak of those new takes on a familiar character. Making Q human as a punishment for his mischief isn’t just a setup that opens tons of story possibilities; it’s the negative image of the last two Q episodes we’ve seen. While rushed, “Hide and Q” explores what it would mean for a mortal to suddenly find themselves with god-like powers, while this episode explores the reverse. Likewise, in “Q Who?”, the trickster god’s role was to teach Picard and, by extension, Starfleet and humanity writ large, some humility as they traverse the stars. Well this outing centers on Q needing to learn the same lesson, to humble himself through the experience of what being human entails.

The episode has fun with the practical implications of that transformation: hunger, exhaustion, back pain, forks in the hand from wily foes. But it also touches on the more profound implications of it: the sobering prospect of non-existence, physical and emotional vulnerability, a desire to do something worthwhile, that allows you to be remembered and cared for when eternity is no longer a guarantee. And most keenly, it centers itself on the notion of human compassion.

Q’s arc in the episode, beyond losing his powers and gaining them back again, is to come to understand the value of Picard and Data’s brand of selflessness. He comes in trying to take advantage of it, banking on the hope that this “weakness” in humanity will force Picard to grant him sanctuary despite the awful things he’s done in the past. But over the course of the episode, Q sees the benefits of the kindness and charity he’s shown by his hosts, and even adopts some of it to save them.

That’s what really elevates “Deja Q”. The setup of “Q becomes human” is enough to fuel and episode all on its own, and a talkier, more navel-gazing episode about the implications of going from immortal being to a lifeform with an expiration date could still have been great. This episode takes things a step further though, adding stakes to Q’s transformation. For one thing, there’s the planet of the week, which is about to be crushed by its own moon if the Enterprise isn’t able to figure out a way to save them. For another, Q’s very presence complicates that effort, as the Calamarian, a group of powerful energy beings, seek revenge on Q now that he’s mortal. It gives form to the challenge before Q and his barely-accepting compatriots here, and provides a backdrop for Q to be both a help and a hindrance in human form.

Amidst all of those grand threats, “Deja Q” is arguably TNG’s funniest episode. Q’s antics are always a delight, but his interactions here are particularly uproarious, thanks to the balance of Q still thinking himself superior while being in an unexpectedly inferior bargaining position for once. The show has a lot of fun with him adjusting to the limitations of a flesh and blood body and other human hindrances. His matter-of-factness about how the solution to the problem at hand is to simply change the gravitational constant of the universe is delightfully absurd. Plus there’s some truly clever lines: from putdowns like his “Eat any good books lately?” barb for Worf, to more profound bits of wordplay like “The king who would be man,” to fourth wall winks like Q grousing that Riker was nothing like this “before the beard.”

It also helps that our heroes respond to a humanized Q about how you’d expect. Riker is keenly skeptical that this isn’t just part of some ploy by Q. Guinan, who’s seen more of the universe, buys it, but also gives the fallen god some wisdom the same way she’d do any patron in Ten Forward. Worf enjoys pushing him around a bit. Geordi gets perturbed at having to make Q listen to orders. Dr. Crusher has a particularly amusing back-and-forth with him over reciprocal pains in backsides. And Picard, despite his high-minded largesse, seems perpetually irked by his houseguest’s very presence. There’s good reactions from everyone that emerge organically from the character and the situation.

But no one more than Data. The smartest choice “Deja Q” and writer Richard Danus make is to pair these two characters who are on opposite sides of becoming human. For Q, humanity is a last resort, only mildly preferable to oblivion; whereas for Data, it’s his fondest wish. That makes the two of them the perfect vehicle for exploring what it means to be human, from the things that Q disdains to the things that Data aspires to. The irony of having an android as a “humanities professor” isn’t lost on Q, but as two characters who come to the human race from the outside looking in, they provide a superb medium to examine the foibles and merits of our humble species.

Their relationship comes to ahead when, once again, the Calimarian stage an attack on Q, and he’s saved in the nick of time by Data risking his life to save Q’s. It is a noble gesture, one the disgraced deity hasn’t exactly earned through care or consideration to his chaperone, but one that moves him nonetheless. The gesture puts things into focus for Q, who realizes he’s no good at being human, especially in the shadow of this unfathomable thing called mortality, and maybe even that he doesn’t want his mere existence to create the prospect of more folks having to put their lives on the line on his behalf.

So he goes on a suicide mission, stealing a shuttle in the hopes of turning himself over to the Calimarian and sparing the Enterprise. To thwart a rescue attempt from Picard (if only to retrieve his shuttlecraft), Q protests that if this didn’t kill him, he would be bored to death as a human anyway. But in an encounter with a secret Q Continuum minder (who does a good job replicating our Q’s “higher being” vibe toward messing with other species and complaining that these “aren’t my colors), Q admits that there was some selflessness to his decision. Data’s teachings, and a neck-deep understanding of human frailty, convinces him of values he’d written off to this point. It’s a vindication of the central ethos of Star Trek -- the fumbling but worthy potential of man -- and enough to gain him readmittance into the Continuum.

Despite his return to godhood, he internalizes the lessons he took in from his time with Data and his fleshy prison. He demurs from giving Data the curse of being human as a reward for his kindness, in characteristic fashion, but instead gives him a different sort of gift -- a feeling. Watching Data caught up in uproarious laughter is a sight, and the type of treat that feels true to the sort of gift Q would give to his android friend. At the same time, he pulls the nearby planet’s moon into a regular orbit, sparing the population and showing a little of that vaunted compassion he seemed to disdain in Captain Picard and humanity writ large, even as he promises his playful shtick isn’t done with and the status quo can remain.

It’s a wonderful script, an outstanding central performance, and the perfect conclusion to our god-in-residence’s dalliance with humanity. It finds new dimensions to Q, a brand of humility and altruism we didn’t know he was capable of, but which feels like the natural outgrowth of this unique experience. Q will return to simultaneously pester and assist Starfleet captains of all stripes in the future, to great effect, but “Deja Q” may very well be his peak as a character. It’s an episode that builds on everything we know about Q, while also turning all of it on its head, to show that even the most self-centered being in the universe can learn to show compassion, and to change.

(As an aside, this episode reminded me of The Royal Tenenbaums of all things -- a story of a shitheel come home to a family that doesn’t especially want him, who pretends to be decent as a last resort, only to discover that there’s genuine, life-enriching merit in it. Maybe we need Wes Anderson to write a Q episode of a latter day Star Trek series while there’s still time.)