TNG S6E6 "True Q" Review by AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

The Enterprise picks up an intern that will study with Crusher for awhile. She's cute, and flirtatious, wears monochromatic outfits, and accidentally conjures up adorable puppies from time to time. This is going to be a fun one, kids! Riker is almost killed by a falling barrel, and she whisks it away with her fingers. The warp core begins to breach (which happens way to regularly, by the way) and she stops it with her mind. The appearance of Q himself clues us in to what we already suspect is going on based on the puppies appearing with flashes of light and miracle rescues: Amanda is a Q, but doesn't know it. He informs Picard that her parents were Q but decided to live as humans on Earth, and their biologically human bodies produced a human Amanda. The Q aren't sure what happens in a situation like that, so they sent Q to investigate, since he is the closest to an expert on humanity that they have. Picard introduces the two, and she begins to develop her powers more acutely.



"True Q" comes on the downside of the Q character in my opinion. I like the concept when he's scary. But here he's not putting humanity on trial, or hurling the ship into Borg space, or putting them in any kind of peril at all. He's actually here to help, and the crew shows no fear. The character's arc just becomes more silly and less dangerous in every appearance, and we eventually get to Voyager where he's literally the annoying little brother that keeps getting shooed away while people are trying to run diagnostics.

But there is a twinge of menace in his visit. He's to determine if the girl is just human, or fully Q, or if she's some kind of hybrid. If it's the latter, she must be killed as she would be a danger. At first this seems extremely harsh, but then Q asks Picard if he would like to have a part Q, part human with extraordinary powers in Star Fleet mucking things up. It's an interesting point, and it seems logical that if she is Q that she not pretend to be human. But then, shouldn't Q do the same and stop showing up in uniform and tampering with things? Then Picard orders the team to investigate a region of space rarely explored in the series: Earth. After some digging, Data finds out that Amanda's biological parents were both killed when she was very small by a tiny but powerful tornado. Picard asks why it wasn't dissipated by the "weather modification net." I love insights into future Earth like this! In my opinion it's something that the entire world of Trek is lacking. But anyway, we know what happened to Amanda's parents, the Q had them snuffed out.

"West SIDE!"

Meanwhile Amanda gets bored with being Crusher's lackey and Q shows up to teach her some Q stuff. They play hide and seek, walk around on the outside surface of the ship, and ruin Crusher's experiment by rushing through it. But it's clear that she has all the powers of a Q, and further that she's enjoying them. It seems the only difference between her and Q is that she uses an odd and inconsistent waving of the hands when she does her magic. It's like a cross between throwing up gang signs and the nose twitch from Bewitched. But I suppose it adequately shows that all this takes some effort for her. Later on, while dining, she decides to whisk herself and Riker away into a fairytale setting. He is annoyed and tells her that she can't simply expect him to fall in love with her just because she is manipulating things. Then she proves him wrong, and with another wave of her hands he is instantly in love with her and trying to get to second base. But then she thinks better of it, because she knows it's not real. Riker goes back, and she is alone with her thoughts.

When Picard, Amanda, and Q get together to discuss her fate, Picard gives a fantastic speech. He has asked Q what right he has to be her judge, jury, and executioner. Q claims that it's the Q's supreme moral authority that does so. Picard counters that the Q have shown no superior moral code to humans, or any code at all. They are omnipotent, there's no disputing that, but Picard suggests that the reason the Q are so concerned with humans is a curiosity about the morals held by humanity that the Q lack. It's a fantastic speech, even Q acknowledges it. Seriously, go watch it, it's great. At times it becomes just glaringly obvious how much Patrick Stewart carries this show.

Eventually Q gives her a choice to make: stay with the humans and never use her powers again, or go with him to join the continuum. She chooses to stay despite Q's warning that it will be nearly impossible to resist the temptation to intervene. This arrangement lasts less than about 15 seconds when she saves the planet below from exploding, and then alters its entire environment to eliminate the contaminates that have destroyed it. Q dishes out an "I told you so," and it's clear that she'll be leaving with him after she says goodbye to her (adopted?) parents.

Egads!

This episode is fun because of all the cool stuff we get to see Amanda and Q do. They literally play games with super-powers. It's always fun to imagine what we would do if we had powers like Q, and this episode gives us the chance to live vicariously through Amanda, who has won the lottery of space. By the way, I knew I recognized the actress, but couldn't place her and eventually had to look it up to find out that she's Kevin Arnold's older sister on The Wonder Years. Amanda does some things that we might imagine ourselves doing if we were suddenly endowed with powers that we didn't fully understand the depth of. She plays with puppies, and walks in space, and tries to hook up with her crush. That is all fun to watch. But on the other hand, the episode is so light-hearted that it's difficult to take it seriously at all. There is the climactic debate between Picard and Q that adds some weight to it all, but ultimately we know all along that the girl is not going to be killed. Plus, she's not anyone that we know anyway. For these reasons I found "True Q" to be only Adequate. It's an enjoyable watch, but not important in any way to the series, and will not have you on the edge of your seat. Also I'm just going to throw out there, what the hell is with Troi's hair in this episode. Yeesh.

Published May 12, 2017