Posted:
19:11:59 on April 12 2001
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: Reviews - Voyager
Reviews Ex Deus
Written for TrekWeb by O. Deus
Summary: Q2 indulges in Deja Q, revisiting a far superior TNG episode with a weak and clumsy imitation
centered around a character with none of Q's charisma.
The first problem with Q2 is that essentially it
delivers exactly what its title suggests it does, an
episode not about Q but about a second Q. The problem
of course is that the second Q isn't all that
interesting of a character. Q works mostly because of
de Lancie's charisma and over the top personality that
allows him to dominate a scene with a single look.
This allows for the kind of over-the-top material and
dialogue that make the Q episodes entertaining to
begin with. Corbin Bernsen as Q wasn't quite his equal
but had a certain amount of presence and so did the
actress who formerly played K'helyar returning as
Worf's mate. The actor playing Q2 on the other hand is
competent enough but completely uninteresting in that
sort of way.
Q2 (the episode) revisits Deja Q, the far superior TNG
episode that featured Q stripped of his powers by the
Continuum for abusing them and left in a human shell
to function on a Stafleet vessel and then prove his
worth by offering to sacrifice his life to save his
human pals at which point his powers are restored. Sound familiar? Well it's essentially a
workable synopsis of Q2. Without even addressing the
lack of originality behind the episode (bemoaning the
lack of originality behind recent franchise material
is as useful and as commomplace as complaining about
the weather, those with sharp eyes will note that
DS9's entire Pah Raih arc sprang from a single TNG
episode just recently rerun), Q2 fails simply because
once again Voyager tries to redo a TNG episode without
understanding the facts that made that episode work.
By the point of Deja Q, Q was a malign, greedy,
childish God. He was all those things but he was also
superior and omnipotent in more than just powers. Q Who
demonstrated that he had something to teach humanity
and so did TNG's own finale, All Good Things... In other
words, he was a true antagonist to the TNG crew and to
Picard. He was also dangerous. Rather than the benign
wish-granting, amusing genie he later became, Q was
quite capable of killing the crew. He genuinely
disliked and felt contempt for humanity. This made his
transformation into human form all the more dangerous
and his sacrifice meaningful. The chilling scene
that features Guinan stabbing Q with a fork to prove
his humanity is genuinely disturbing. The only thing
Q2 has to offer is Q2 removing Neelix's vocal cords
(an action most people agree with anyway) and all is
quickly forgotten and forgiven. And that's the trouble
with Q2; Q2 far too quickly becomes a model human and
Starfleet officer.
With Q having been thoroughly contaminated by TNG and
Voyager episodes that have weakened and diluted him
as thoroughly as the dreadnought Borg he introduced,
introducing Q2 as a new Q with all the edge and
darkness the original Q had lost was not a bad idea
but instead the new Q is an even weaker model than the
old. But this was only to be expected. Voyager has
focused its Q episodes on having Q come to Janeway and have her
help him with Q problems. Where Picard and Q struggled
over human issues, Voyager was too insecure to allow Q
to challenge Janeway in that manner and so Q quickly
ran for help to her every time there were problems in
the Continium. So of course it's not likely Voyager
would allow the new Q to challenge Janeway, anymore
than the old Q could.
And so stripped of any edgy or challenging material,
Voyager's version of Deja Q quite literally becomes a
babysitting episode with Q2 learning to be a better
person thanks to the Voyager crew. His transformation
is pretty meaningless since he never had the darkness
of Q. He's just a kid and Q's description of him is
apt, he means well and you just have to get to know
him. This is ultimately quite true but it also gurantees that the episode will lack any dramatic or
comedic value.
Furthermore, where original TNG episodes like Deja Q
were laser-guided and focused on what they wanted to
achieve, Q2 stumbles as if it's not quite clear on
what it wants to accomplish or how it wants to get there.
Voyager's writers believe the Q are funny and popular
but as with so much else of the ST franchise, they
don't quite understand why and so they go to the
equivalent of having the Q doing juggling tricks. They
try one thing and then another and throughout it all
they have the distinct feeling that something is not
right and not working just right. And so the focus is
lost and the result is yet another poorly thought out
episode. The writers clearly believed that simply
having a kiddy Q would be entertaining by its very
nature, failing to understand that like the Borg,
nothing is entertaining by its very nature. It
requires work. It requires understanding the
essentials of the original and building on it.
This can also be read as a summation of the reasons for the failure of the Voyager franchise itself.
Next Week: Evil Voyager characters in the HoloDoc's novel. Now that should be entertaining.
