“The Q and the Grey”
Written by Shawn Piller and Kenneth Biller
Directed by Cliff Bole
Season 3, Episode 11
Production episode 153
Original air date: November 27, 1996
Stardate: 50384.2
Captain’s log. The crew of Voyager witnesses a supernova, and they got to do so from very close up. Everyone on the bridge is giddy—well, Tuvok is his version of giddy anyhow, while Neelix is goofy as hell—and then Janeway goes to her quarters to get some rest, only to find Q waiting for her.
Q has changed Janeway’s bunk to something out of a honeymoon suite, with silk sheets and pillows shaped like hearts. He wants to mate with Janeway, a concept Janeway finds utterly repulsive. Q continues to inveigle her to absolutely no avail. Convinced she’s just playing hard to get, he buggers off, and Janeway warns the crew about him.
Over the next several days, Q tries many different things to win her heart, which all crash and burn rather spectacularly. Q even tries to get advice from Kim, Paris, and Neelix, but they all tell him he’s wasting his time.
Finally, he tries to bribe her with a puppy, which is incredibly adorable. He tries faking sincerity, but she sees through that. Since she doesn’t believe that he’s lonely as he’s gotten older and wants to settle down, he tries playing on her loneliness—and then another Q who presents as female shows up. (We’ll call her Lady Q for ease of reference.)
Buy the Book
The Relentless Moon
It turns out that these two Qs have been a couple for some time, and Lady Q is not happy at being thrown over for a mortal biped. Janeway tries to get them to take their domestic squabble elsewhere, but then the bridge calls Janeway. There are a ton of supernovae in the sector, which is unprecedented. Q allows as how he might know what’s going on, and then he takes himself and Janeway away just before a shockwave hits Voyager.
Q has taken them to the Continuum, which is in the midst of a civil war. Just like last time, Janeway sees the Continuum in a manner that her mortal brain can interpret, and she sees it as the American Civil War. The war started after Quinn’s suicide, with Q himself leading the charge for individuality and freedom. But his side is losing and he thinks that what the Continuum needs is new blood—hence his desire to procreate with Janeway.
At one point, Q is wounded. Janeway manages to get him to safety with what’s left of his own troops. She thinks his idea is a good one, but maybe he should procreate with a Q instead? Have actual new blood come from the Q itself. (This notion is reinforced by Q’s declaration that he has no intention of raising the kid, figuring he could leave that to Janeway, who makes it abundantly clear that that ain’t happening, and also that you can’t save the Continuum by being an absentee father.)
On Voyager, Lady Q has found herself unable to access her powers and return to the Continuum. Chakotay convinces her to help them get there, and she provides Torres with the appropriate technobabble to get the ship into the Continuum—though it does mean flying into a supernova…
Janeway takes a white flag to the other camp, and speaks to the Q in charge of the other side. (We’ll call him Colonel Q for ease of reference.) Colonel Q is uninterested in a peaceful solution, but wants to simply execute Q and be done with it. He condemns both Q—who follows behind Janeway to surrender himself—and Janeway to death.
Just as Q and Janeway are about to be shot, Lady Q shows up with Chakotay, Tuvok, Kim, and Paris, whom she has armed with the Q’s weapons. They free Q and Janeway and take Colonel Q prisoner.
Q then puts it to Lady Q that the pair of them procreate. She accepts, and the two of them touch fingers, and the deed is done.
The crew is all back on Voyager on their original course, with no sign of any supernovae. Janeway goes to her ready room to find Q with a baby. He finds he’s enjoying fatherhood and is thinking about the universe differently now—and seems to have saved the Continuum. He also asks Janeway to be the child’s godmother, which she happily accepts.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Lady Q is able to make the shields ten times more effective by taking the warp drive offlline, and then remodulate the shields to emit a beta tachyon pulse, then emit a series of focused antiproton beams to the shield bubble. Somehow, this works. No indication as to why this method was never used again…
There’s coffee in that nebula! Janeway steadfastly refuses to mate with Q for fairly obvious reasons (well, obvious to everyone except Q), and never once rises to his bait. Once he tells her what’s really going on, she immediately tries to find a better solution than the one Q’s dumb ass came up with.
Half and half. Torres greatly enjoys snarking off Lady Q while adjusting the shields and engines to her specifications.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Neelix’s response to the supernova is “Wow.” Tuvok is unimpressed. Neelix also defends himself to Q as someone Janeway trusts because he is loyal, respectful, and sincere. Come to think of it, that self-description of Neelix is probably where Q got the idea to bring Janeway a puppy…
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH gets to watch the supernova from the bridge thanks to his mobile emitter, and then isn’t seen for the rest of the episode, which seems like a missed opportunity, as a snark-off between John deLancie and Robert Picardo would be epic…
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Q spends the entire episode trying to get into Janeway’s pants, then finally does the deed with Lady Q which consists of touching glowy fingers. When Janeway asks, “That’s it?” Q scoffs and says she had her chance…
Chakotay also gets his back up at Q’s pursuit, a little reminder of the events of “Resolutions.”
What happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck. Kim and Paris display their tremendous professionalism by doing crew performance reports at the Paxau Resort on the holodeck while getting massages from holographic women in bathing suits.
Do it.
“There is one possibility, but somehow, I don’t think this rickety barge or your half-witted crewmembers are up to the challenge.”
“May I remind you, madam, that this ‘rickety barge’ and its ‘half-witted crew’ are your only hope?”
–Lady Q and Tuvok bantering
Welcome aboard. John deLancie is back again as Q after “Death Wish,” while two other Q are played by Suzie Plakson and Harve Presnell. Plakson previously appeared on TNG as the Vulcan Dr. Selar (“The Schizoid Man“) and half-Klingon K’Ehleyr (“The Emissary,” “Reunion“), and will also appear on Enterprise as the Andorian Tarah (“Cease Fire”). Lady Q makes comments about both Vulcans and Klingons in the episode as a minor tribute to her prior two roles.
Trivial matters: The episode title is a play on the American Civil War poem “The Blue and the Gray” by Francis Miles Finch.
The episode was based on a pitch by Shawn Piller, son of Voyager co-creator Michael Piller, about Q wanting to mate with Janeway.
Your humble rewatcher’s novel Q & A established that there was more to the Q civil war than Quinn’s suicide, as the Continuum was also in disagreement about the role of humanity in the possible end of the universe.
While this is Lady Q’s only onscreen appearance, the character also appears in the novels I, Q by John deLancie & Peter David, Before Dishonor by David, The Eternal Tide and A Pocket Full of Lies by Kirsten Beyer, and the Q-Continuum trilogy by Greg Cox, as well as the aforementioned Q & A. She also appeared in the short story “‘Q’uandary” by Terri Osborne in the New Frontier: No Limits anthology alongside Dr. Selar (another character played by Suzie Plakson), which takes place during the civil war in this episode. Lady Q recruits Selar to treat injured members of the Continuum who’d never been hurt before.
The child of Q and Lady Q, often referred to as q, will next be seen onscreen in “Q2,” and also appear in many of the aforementioned novels and stories.
Janeway says they’re only the third Starfleet crew to witness a supernova, and we’ve seen the other two: the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701, who witnessed two—one in “The Empath,” one in “All Our Yesterdays“—and the Enterprise NCC 1701D, who witnessed one in “Tin Man.”
Set a course for home. “I’m not talking about the puppy.” Having Q show up once was problematic enough, as I discussed in the rewatch of “Death Wish,” but making him a recurring character just compounds the problem. Which is frustrating, because the notion of a Q civil war in the abstract is a good one, and I like that Janeway works to try to find a peaceful solution, and even talks Q into going along with it. (Colonel Q is, sadly, more recalcitrant.)
But before we get there, we have to suffer through the inane, idiotic, imbecilic pursuit of Janeway by Q that was written like a bad 1960s sitcom but without the gravitas. The lack of imagination continues to frustrate. When Q is paired with Picard, it’s a battle of wits, with superlative banter. But when they bring Q to the spinoffs, it’s got nothing to do with the personalities of the leads in question. “We’re pairing Q with the black guy, so he’ll deck him!” “We’re pairing Q with the female captain, so he’ll hit on her!” It’s reductive, it’s stupid, and it’s uninteresting. What might ameliorate it is if it was funny—that’s why Sisko decking Q is great, because it’s hilarious—but most of the humor here falls completely flat, mostly because the jokes are all so tired. When Q tries to show off by giving himself a more complex facial tattoo than Chakotay’s and declares, “Mine’s bigger!” it’s embarrassing rather than funny. We won’t even talk about that idiotic double take when Lady Q shows up, which makes for a dandy GIF, but as a moment of comic shock fails utterly.
Suzie Plakson is a delight, as always, and the episode would have been far better served bringing her in sooner and actually showing more of the conflict among the Q, instead of wasting all of Act 1 (and far too much of the rest of the episode) on Q’s futile pursuit of Janeway. As it is, the episode is only even watchable because of her delightful snottiness, which is necessary, since deLancie’s been denied his delghitful snottiness in exchange for his tiresome sexual antics.
Oh, and Chakotay, Kim, Paris, and Tuvok look really cool in Union uniforms…
On top of all this, the solution is completely nonsensical. We’re given no good reason why Colonel Q would surrender, nor why just the act of procreation would end the war. It just stops because the script says it stops. Yes, the Voyager crew are supposedly using Q weapons, but we’re still talking about mortal humans against omnipotent beings, and the truth of the matter is that no action any of Voyager‘s crew could take can compare to what the Q can do. It should have been just Janeway’s convincing the Q to create new life—but even then, the jump from that to the end of the war is vague and unconvincing. Which is pretty much what this episode is.
Warp factor rating: 3
Keith R.A. DeCandido moderated a couple of panels at the virtual Shore Leave 41.5, and they’re up on YouTube now, including a talk on The Mandalorian (in which the panelists amazingly did not talk about Baby Yoda for the whole hour) and the Author Summer Book Release Party, in which thirteen authors discussed their new and upcoming work.
I blame this rewatch for not buying any of Q’s explanations for picking Janeway. Though it’s not surprising since he can’t say “you’re the Captain of the show’s titular starship.”
I kinda miss being a kid and just enjoying Q-related shenanigans. Though I still like the dog joke. The puppy is basically the only reason to watch this episode.
I found this one adequate, but nowhere near as good as “Death Wish,” and of course the pretense of a 5 billion-year-old cosmic being who occasionally cosplays as a human male having any interest at all in a human female is absurd. Out of all the beings in the universe, why pick Janeway to pursue? (Although I presume Vash already turned him down.)
I also have a problem with the supernovae. A supernova isn’t some ooh-ahh spectacle, it’s a massive natural disaster that can exterminate all life on planets for a dozen or more light years around. So many supernovae going off at once in the same region of the galaxy would be a tragedy of inconceivable proportions. But the writers didn’t realize that, so the characters didn’t react accordingly. (Well, I suppose maybe the Q could’ve taken action after the war to shield the endangered worlds, but I’m talking about the Voyager crew’s reactions before they knew that the supernovae were caused by the Q.)
I think it makes more sense for Q to procreate (or at least attempt to) with Picard who he has more of a history with. Also, the Q don’t have gender or sexuality, at least in human terms so we don’t have to get into the whole, “but Picard’s straight and Q’s a man!” argument.
Is this the only Voyager episode where Robert Picardo gets no speaking lines?
I did find meta-humor in the scenes with Plakson and Dawson interacting and specifically the line that Lady Q always liked Klingon females for their spunk because obviously Plakson played K’Ehleyr who is basically the inspiration and template for B’Elanna Torres.
This episode (the last of the November ‘96 sweeps month)was dumb and silly and Q pursuing Janeway, just as with his gender-related comments in “Death Wish”, is nauseating and reductive because she’s a lady and he only appears as a human male. The use of Q on the TNG spin-offs has been a law of diminishing returns and the character really should have been put out to pasture after “All Good Things” on TNG.
The puppy was indeed adorable.
Gotta disagree with noblehunter, 2 other good things come out of this episode. “Bar Rodent” & “Chuckles, both of which gave me a laugh.
I recall looking at old Trek forums in the 1990’s, during that period between Generations and the movie that would eventually become First Contact. Rumors were flying everywhere back then. Rumors of a massive Borg invasion, of DS9 being involved, of Lwaxana Troi embarking on a suicide mission, and even the possibility of a Q intervention in an actual feature film. While none of these ever materialized, I’m left wondering whether a Q appearance in a TNG film would have been worth it or not.
I’m of the mind that Q is a classic television character, completely built with all the TV-specific aspects and stereotypes that come with it. His type of comedy and theatrics likely wouldn’t lend itself well to the big screen adventures.
As for Q and the Grey, it goes without saying that Death Wish set a pretty high bar for Q stories. It would have been very hard to live up to those expectations, let alone overcome them, and this episode doesn’t even come close. For one, the pursuit of Janeway is a tired cliché and running gag, even though DeLancie as usual makes the best out of these scenes. They’re at least somewhat watchable thanks to the skilled actors involved.
Second, using an American Civil War visual analogy to depict the Q Civil War is a lazy shorthand, and a little too derivative of TNG’s Qpid (at least Robin Hood is more of a myth than an actual event, which makes Q’s medieval scenario easier to digest).
Plus, the idea that the Voyager crew would be able to overpower the Q makes no sense. These are godlike beings. I don’t buy that premise for a second, even with Plakson’s Q arming them with Q weapons. What’s stopping them from snapping their fingers and vanquishing Chakotay and crew? Did Female Q set up an anti-Q forcefield around the crew? That’s never explained.
Still, I like the ending well enough. The notion of Janeway being chosen as Q2’s godmother, that is. While it sets up season 7’s woeful Q2, it’s a sweet enough of a scene to end the episode on.
This non-American viewer never caught the reference in the title, so explanation much appreciated.
From a distance, the Q episodes on Voyager have interesting premises and dubious executions (whereas TNG managed to make a few work against the odds). I’m pretty sure I’ve seen all or almost all of them, but none more than once apiece. And even if they were all well-written, you’d still have to deal with the fact that you wouldn’t be able to have either an overly angry Q (who might erase the crew from existence) or an overly happy one (who might send Voyager home in an instant and end the series).
garreeth: No, because Picardo does have lines and a speaking part in this episode — he’s there for the supernova, and after Kes geebles about how awesome it is, the EMH says that the real action on board is in sickbay. He and Kes then go off and aren’t seen again for the rest of the episode.
joyceman: Argh! I meant to mention Q calling Neelix “bar rodent” and Chakotay “chuckles,” as well as Lady Q calling Paris “helm boy.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Keith, Harve Presnell’s character was uniformed as a Confederate colonel, not a general.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Q_(Colonel)
@5/Eduardo: Yeah, the American Civil War is a problematical analogy here, because the Q represented as “Confederates” weren’t enslavers, just the forces of conformity and tradition. If anything, Q was the rebel, so it was odd to put him in Union garb, though of course the producers obviously wanted to code him as the good guy. But using the analogy played too much into the revisionist, sanitized version of the war that Americans have often been taught, that it was about two equally sympathetic sides having a clash of values and ultimately reuniting into one society, with the whole slavery and white supremacism aspects being glossed over.
I like this episode in terms of it being a “fun” episode…
But yes, Q’s pursuance of Janeway is annoying. And he seems to be lacking rational thought or reason. (“Did it ever occur to you that she just doesn’t like you?” “*scoff* No.” Um…Q…are you that stupid?) Plus, why on Earth, for goodness sake, does he need to hide from Janeway his true intentions instead of just telling her right out “I’m offering you the opportunity of a lifetime, to be the mother of peace?” Oh, perhaps because he thought he could win Janeway’s affection…*sigh*…
And Colonel Q…sigh…there was no reason to execute Janeway apart from “It’s a Civil War story, and we need a climax.” It’s cruel and beneath the Q. Do something else to Janeway, but don’t splatter a mere mortal all over the wall with your Q weapon!
Still, Suzie Plakson is indeed a delight. We all love the puppy line…but I also love her snide yet true remark about Vulcans stating the obvious.
By the way Krad, do you have a favourite Q (John de Lancie) quote or moment from his appearances on Star Trek?
@5, they try to justify using the American Civil War by saying that Janeway is of American descent, but I also think this is fairly nonsensical. The American Civil War is a bit of a misnomer, in that there weren’t two sides vying for control of the central government– the south would have had no chance of winning an offensive war and didn’t even try, hence almost the entire conflict occurring in the Confederancy. The Q Civil War appears to be more of a classic civil war with two sides vying for control of the whole thing. What’s more, Q is the rebel here, so if anything he should be in the grey. I understand why they didn’t want to put the protagonists in Confederate uniforms, but then they just should have picked a different conflict. The War of the Roses would have been a good choice, even to an American audience it’s almost as famous and more on point.
My main problem with this episode was the lack of imagination about how the Q operate. I can buy that Q cannot individually reproduce because he would essentially just be duplicating himself, but the idea that he can’t come up with any way beyond reproducing with one specific human woman is bizarre. (Heck, even in the episode, I seem to recall him pointing out that he could have chosen any number of species, and yet he remains fixated on Janeway.) Really, here’s no reason he needs only *one* person to reproduce with- he could mix and match genetic information from any number of donors to produce someone truly new and uniQue.
And then we have Starfleet officers affecting the outcome of the Q Civil War. I get that the US Civil War setting was meant to be a ‘Version your minds can handle,” situation (1), and the weapons they were wielding were not in fact Civil War era firearms, but while that more or less worked for Death Wish, where we were seeing the Q going about their daily activities, it falls apart as soon as they come into conflict with the Q, and the latter are apparently bound by the crew’s limited perceptions.
If they wanted the crew to influence the outcome of the civil war, that’s entirely possible, but rather than directly taking part, why not have the Q use them as proxies? Putting them through some sort of Secret Test of Character, were they can represent the principles the Q are fighting over (either pitted against another group of aliens, or divide the crew between Conservative and Progressive teams, although the latter could be tricky). And then, when the two sides decide to work together, have Q and a conservative Q agree to do likewise, and merge their fingers to create a baby Q, if you really need someone to show up in a couple seasons and sexually harass Seven of Nine.
Incidentally, this would have been an interesting time to bring back Amanda from True Q, but, you know, wibbly wobbly timey-wimey, maybe that hasn’t happened yet from the Q Continuum’s perspective.
1: Incidentally, I understand the reasons, but I am always a little disappointed when “historical metaphor that makes sense to the crew,” means “American and English history, specifically.” Humanity has engaged in an awful lot of Civil Wars, and it’s not as though Vulcan history isn’t without major ideological conflicts- the adoption of Surak’s philosophy and the events surrounding the breakaway of the Vulcans who would eventually found the Romulan culture spring to mind.
So happy for the shoutout to Cox’s Q-Continuum trilogy. That one was absolutely bananas, and even if the events are not cannon, I certainly view the implications as such.
Nothing to really add, other than cracking up laughing at some cheesy camera work. When Q and Janeway are tied up and about to be shot, the camera does this quick jerk to a closeup of Q’s face, cuts away, and does a quick jerk to a closeup of Janeway’s face. It was just so cheesy lol.
Christopher: Thanks for catching my abject failure of research. I’ve edited the post so he’s now Colonel Q.
erikm: My favorite onscreen Q moment is really more Worf’s moment than Q’s, from “Déjà Q.” When Q plaintively asks what must he do to convince the crew of the Enterprise that he’s mortal now, Worf says, “Die.”
(My favorite Q moment all together is my own: “I just wanted to see you in tights, Jean-Luc,” from Q & A.)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@7/Krad: Ah, I stand corrected. The EMH appearance was so brief I didn’t even remember his dialogue but your correction made me recall his banter with Kes.
@6/allthewayupstate: I’m an American and I still never knew of the literary allusion from this episode’s title until this review. I think literature originating from the American Civil War isn’t something one typically learns about in general American public school education. In specialized college curriculum is another story.
Of course it would never happen but you’d think Q would reward Janeway (and her crew) for their significant assistance in ending the Q civil war/saving his life by uh, sending Voyager home to the Alpha Quadrant, maybe ?
Alternate episode title: “Frankly, Q, I Don’t Give a Damn.”
@15/garreth: I’ve been familiar with the phrase “The Blue and the Gray” as long as I can remember, but I don’t think I ever knew it was a poem title. I thought it was just a common way to refer to the two sides by their uniform colors.
@17- Likewise. I didn’t recognize it as a literary reference, but did understand it referred to the American Civil War via the uniforms of the two sides.
There was an old network miniseries about the civil war way back in the day titled ‘The Blue and the Grey.’
@19/joyceman: Ah, from 1982, I see. I probably saw it, so that must be where I knew the phrase from.
Anyway, it’s odd that the episode title uses the British spelling “Grey” instead of the usual American spelling “Gray” used in the poem title.
@joyceman: make that Gray. The other is considered a British spelling.
Whoops. CLB beat me to it by a millisecond.
I’ve always referred to her as “Suzie Q” instead of “Lady Q”.
Not sure why Q not sending Voyager home is such a thing. More than likely Q perceives them as a combination toy and ant farm. “Look at the mess these ridiculous little creatures have gotten themselves into! And they actually imagine they can get back to their own region of the galaxy on their own? Hah!” Q probably watches with amusement not only whatever adventures and disasters the ship gets into but their spreading effect upon the areas of space through which they travel. Then pokes them in deliberately annoying ways when things are quiet and not sufficiently entertaining.
@23/Lisa Conner: Yeah, exactly. Why would we expect Q to help them? He’s not a nice person! In “Death Wish,” and again here, he only offered to take them home as a bribe to get something in return. He’d never do it out of pure altruism, because he has none.
I don’t think he ever offers to send them home in this episode. I kept waiting for it, so I was quite surprised it never came up.
@25 he hints at it when pursuing Janeway but gets shut down instantly.
@23
Indeed, Q once threw the Enterprise far out of their comfort zone just so he could prove a point. I think he enjoys watching little Voyager struggle, and he would probably be satisfied seeing a Starfleet crew get themselves in this trouble without him making it happen for once.
@10
The Wars of the Roses don’t really occupy much space in the American imagination.Keeping with the notion that the Civil War stuff is meant for Janeway’s benefit, The American Revolution would have been a good fit. Depicting Q as a Rebel in the Revolution would have made a better symbolic fit than a Union officer in the Civil War.
“As far as you’re concerned, Q, I’m impossible to get.”
The first half of this one basically comes across as a kind of screwball rom-com, with Q’s increasingly over the top attempts to win Janeway over. It’s a barrage of one-liners, with a few good character moments mixed in like Chakotay’s embarrassed jealousy and Paris and Kim refusing to have a blokes’ talk.
Then the plot kicks in and things get a bit more serious. Q demonstrates an oddly noble streak at times, trying to get the Continuum to spare Janeway and sincerely apologising for dragging her into it. But mostly it’s just a romp, a chance for John de Lancie to strut his stuff and for Trek veteran Suzie Plakson to get in on the act while the regulars roll their eyes a lot.
Q’s second appearance on Voyager: He won’t be seen again until Season 7. Voyager’s crew defeat the Q in a fight, albeit with Q weapons: That makes their later successes against the Borg pale in comparison. Tom Paris captures the Continuum leader and has a good claim to ending the war, because he’s just that awesome.
The Doctor is still getting used to being allowed on the bridge for important stuff, although he’s promptly absent from the main action. Neelix creates a new holodeck hang-out for the crew and then waits tables: Talk about a busman’s holiday. As with “Future’s End”, an opportunity to get home is dismissed in a couple of lines. (Janeway’s “We’re not looking for a quick fix” might be more symbolic than literally true but still prompts hollow laughter.) And I’ll add another shout-out to Janeway’s bewildered response to the Q’s G-rated sex: “That’s it?!” (Is G-rated an American term, or am I getting mixed up with Australia? [Checks Wikipedia] Ah, it’s both.)
@10: At the risk of being ethnocentric, English Civil War is probably more visually recognisable: Q’s lot being the Roundheads and the status quo types being Cavaliers would work quite well.
@8:”Yeah, the American Civil War is a problematical analogy here, because the Q represented as “Confederates” weren’t enslavers, just the forces of conformity and tradition. If anything, Q was the rebel, so it was odd to put him in Union garb, though of course the producers obviously wanted to code him as the good guy. “
As I said elsewhere on the thread, the American Revolution would have worked better. Q would have been on the Rebel (Revolution and change) side (natch), and his opponents would have been Tories (Tradition, sticking to the tried-and-the true).
Of course, that would have meant ditching the whole “The Q and The Grey” business. Anyone have any thoughts on a Q-esque Revolutionary War title?I’m drawing a blank.
@29/cap-mjb: Honestly, I only learned about the English Civil War from Doctor Who, not from school (though we probably covered it in History of Western Civ in college). I don’t think it’s that well-known to American audiences.
@30/Jane: “Anyone have any thoughts on a Q-esque Revolutionary War title?I’m drawing a blank.”
“Q if By Sea”?
@31:”Jane: “Anyone have any thoughts on a Q-esque Revolutionary War title?I’m drawing a blank.”
“Q if By Sea”?”
That’s great!
“Q if By Sea”
Ha! Nice!
@29/cap-mjb: I wasn’t aware England had a civil war either. Wow, I learned something new today. I guess it isn’t surprising though as I suppose many if not most of the nations of this planet have had some kind of internal conflict at some point in in their history. Hell, it often feels like lately the U.S. could devolve into a civil war between liberals and conservatives but I don’t think that’s actually feasible since there are no hard geographic lines anymore for differing political statuses (i.e. the North vs. the South).
#2, I’ve always thought that the crew probably surveyed the system to see if there were any inhabited planets there before the supernova occurred. Not that they could’ve done anything about it anyway, but I digress.
And yes, I realize Trek has blown this a few times, but don’t most scientists these days believe any star massive enough to become a supernova wouldn’t be around long enough for life to form, much less intelligent life?
Boy, I’m sure hoping I’m remembering Cosmos correctly…..!
Not that we really need any more reasons to think Q’s cajoling Janeway is silly, but Amanda demonstrated in True Q that a Q can make a human desire them in an instant. (She does it to Riker.). Why would he waste so much time with Janeway if that is what he really wanted?
@36 Maybe because Q wanted “real” affection from Janeway, as well as wanting her “to want to” take care of a newborn Q/human baby. Amanda found that making Riker desire her wasn’t as pleasing or rewarding as she thought it would be.
EDIT: No, I take that back. If he felt he needed to bribe Janeway by offering to send Voyager home, he was probably saying “I want you to do this even if you aren’t too happy with it.” So yes, the only reason would seem to be that the story shouldn’t allow Q to do that. Except that maybe the Q as a whole think it’s unethical to simply change a human being’s thoughts.
@krad:
Should that second “Neelix” be “Tuvok”?
@38 bad_platypus Nope, Krad is correct. Tuvok has absolutely no interaction with John de Lancie Q in this episode. Neelix, to Q, describes himself as being loyal, respectful and sincere.
@38/bad_platypus: As written, I also was not sure whether it’s Tuvok or Neelix the “he” Krad refers to, but recalling what actually happens in the episode it becomes apparent it’s Neelix being the subject of the third sentence
I think this review is on point. The ending is nonsensical and, in my opinion, insulting to the audience. I love DeLancie but I cringe at his performance here. The writers turned the character of Q into this comedic parody — the books are far better.
@41/CDA: Agreed regarding Q. By this point I was missing the menacing Q of “Q Who?” and “True Q” which is why I think “All Good Things” was about as perfect of a final note for the character as you could get. That he was reduced to bad rom-com hijinks and banter on Voyager is indeed cringe-y and disappointing
@34. garreth If you want to be pedantic about it, the English have had several civil wars of varying levels. The one being talked about here is either the last or the penultimate one, depending on how you count it and when you think it ends.
As for this epsiode, I’m fairly sure I must have watched it when it originally aired but it left no impression on me whatsoever. However, viewing it through the lens of 2020, I can’t help think it’s on of the Voyager episodes that really, REALLY hasn’t aged well and/or demonstrates how badly mangled the teaching of American history is that anyone thought this was a good metaphor.
@43/athersgeo: That is interesting to know as well regarding England’s civil wars. In American grade school, history lessons are primary geared just on the history of the United States from the colonial era on. Beyond that, I’ve learned more about conflicts in other areas in the world based on my own initiative, current news, and various media. An example of the latter source: I learned about the French Revolution after seeing the musical Les Miserables as a child. And another of that type of example is in becoming a fan of Game of Thrones and the books they were based on, I became interested in historicalevents of England’s medieval era that inspired events that took place in the show/books.
@31 and @34: Fair enough, guess that wouldn’t translate very well. I only mentioned it because the War of the Roses came up and it’d be hard to visually identify Yorkists and Lancastrians. Yes, England/Britain had a number of civil wars, although not since the 18th century. The one that’s normally considered the Civil War is the 17th century one (although I’m not sure if that name is still popular, they were trying to call it the War of the Three Kingdoms at one point).
@44/garreth: Hating to be That Guy but, er, you know Les Miserables is set 20-40 years after the French Revolution, right? It involves one of the many rebellions that occurred after Waterloo and the (ultimately temporary) restoration of the monarchy?
@46/cap-mjb: Get out! Lol. I don’t mind being corrected when it comes to getting historical facts right. I guess the revolutionary themes of Les Miserables had me inadvertently mixing it up with the actual French Revolution of which I still have some understanding of the events
@34/garreth: “Hell, it often feels like lately the U.S. could devolve into a civil war between liberals and conservatives but I don’t think that’s actually feasible since there are no hard geographic lines anymore for differing political statuses (i.e. the North vs. the South).”
That’s true of many civil wars. That’s the whole point — a civil war is a war within a single nation or people, between different political or social factions of its population (e.g. Royalists and Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, or different ethnic groups in many civil wars). The US Civil War was atypical in having such a clear geographical divide between the factions.
And the geographical divide today is between urban and rural populations. That was true in the Civil War too — the North was more urban and industrial, the South more rural and agrarian, and they were effectively two different societies as a result, with different values. That cultural divide is still present, just laid out a little differently. (The news talks about “red states” and “blue states,” but if you break it down to counties rather than states, it’s generally the urban areas that are blue/liberal and the rural expanses that are red/conservative.)
@35/leandar: “And yes, I realize Trek has blown this a few times, but don’t most scientists these days believe any star massive enough to become a supernova wouldn’t be around long enough for life to form, much less intelligent life?”
Of course, but the point is that a supernova can endanger life in neighboring star systems for dozens of light years around. It’s a regional threat, not a local one. That’s what I’m saying — that the writers made the mistake of assuming a supernova is harmless beyond its own system, which it really, really isn’t. (For all of nonsense in the 2009 movie’s portrayal of a supernova, at least it got that part right.)
bad_platypus: I thought it was obvious that I was talking about Neelix there, since it’s the “Everybody comes to Neelix’s” section of the rewatch, but I edited the paragraph to make it clearer that I was talking about Neelix there rather than Tuvok.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Just for everyone’s edification, and because I was proud of the way I made it work, here’s a paragraph from my novel Q & A, which explains why Q left Voyager in the Delta Quadrant:
“He supposed he could have shown his gratitude by sending Voyager back home, but he knew what lay ahead for them. Kathy’s little band of starlost simpletons would do much to curtail the Borg’s activities in what humans called the Alpha Quadrant, which was, he thought, necessary. If the Borg discovered Them… He shuddered. That was why he had sent the Enterprise to meet them in the first place a few moments ago.”
As for who “Them” are — you should read the book. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@50 Wow, that’s a great and reasonable argument for Q to not be so obliging. (And it means Janeway was justified / correct in saying Q’s credibility “is more than a little suspect,” since Janeway could have gone to bed with him and he wouldn’t necessarily have kept his end of the bargain due to the Borg.)
Thanks for satisfying our curiosity with the snippet! :)
Supernovas are cool. Q is not. But give him credit, he isn’t into rape. I remember Chakotay’s concern over Q hitting on Janeway, he half apologizes that maybe he’s out of line but imo he has every reason to be concerned as an officer and gentlemen and a friend and colleague.
Janeway should have kept the puppy.
@48/CLB: I realize that geographically in the U.S. the most recognizable social/political divisions are most evident between cities and the surrounding rural areas (“fly-over” country in the vast interior of the nation). But even hypothesizing a “secession” of these “red” areas from the U.S. you’d end up in effect with two new oddly-shaped nations which just seems impractical. Plus, I feel like “conservatives” and “liberals” are often inter-mixed to varying proportions within areas and communities that making a “clean” geographical break from each other is also impractical and really we should all just try to be civil with each other despite heightened political/social divisions in these modern times
@53/garreth: ” I realize that geographically in the U.S. the most recognizable social/political divisions are most evident between cities and the surrounding rural areas (“fly-over” country in the vast interior of the nation).”
And those of us who live in major cities in the interior hate having the whole region caricatured as “flyover country.” It’s not all farmland between the coasts. There are plenty of blue enclaves here and there. Why, here in Cincinnati, we haven’t had a Republican mayor for something like 40-plus years, despite being saddled with a terrible GOP Congressman forever thanks to extreme gerrymandering that sticks half the city into the same district as a huge rural county adjacent to it.
“But even hypothesizing a “secession” of these “red” areas from the U.S. you’d end up in effect with two new oddly-shaped nations which just seems impractical.”
Just because the 1861-65 United States Civil War involved secession doesn’t mean every civil war has to. Civil wars are often fought over who gets to control the entire country — which is where we seem to be headed right now.
@54
Just because the 1861-65 United States Civil War involved secession doesn’t mean every civil war has to. Civil wars are often fought over who gets to control the entire country
Right – if we go back to the example of the British Civil War/ War of the Three Kingdoms, although some regions skewed more to Parliament, and some more to the Royalists, it was never absolute, and in fact some towns and cities that were close neighbours took different sides. Take Manchester and Salford, twin cities separated by a relatively narrow river, and now almost indistinguishable – but Manchester was for Parliament and Salford was for the crown (and each city put guns on the tower of their parish church, the better to fire at each other).
And of course it shouldn’t be forgotten that even in the US Civil War, there were plenty of people who sympathised with ‘the other side’, or chose to fight with that other side. For instance, every single state that joined the Confederacy saw some of its men serve on the Union side.
@54/CLB: No offense intended by using the term “flyover country” (I myself lived in several Midwest cities for over 16 years), I was just utilizing a generally understood geo-political descriptor.
And I understand a secession doesn’t have to be the result or instigator of a new American civil war. I was just making the conjecture how such an action seems pretty unlikely. But the opposing social/political factions in the U.S. are roughly 50/50 and so hopefully most people understand our opposing viewpoints shouldn’t manifest itself in actual violence but should be settled through the ballot box instead
@56/garreth: Most Americans do understand that. But all it takes is a minority willing to use violence to force its will on everyone else. At that point it becomes useless and disingenuous to say “Can’t we all just get along?,” because one faction has already decided the answer is no, and that leaves those they endanger with no choice but self-defense.
The fact that Q never sent Voyager home despite having the means to do so was never a problem for me. I always saw Q’s lack of intervention as a response to his previous troubles with the Q Continuum.
Sending Picard and the Enterprise prematurely towards Borg space on Q Who? was definitely one of the reasons why he was banished and stripped of his powers on Deja Q. From Qpid onwards, Q does very little in regards to interfering with humanity’s pace of exploration. He’s more focused on Picard himself, and other than his nudging the captain across the three timelines on All Good Things…., he allows mankind to flow in its own pace.
The USA is definitely headed for civil strife, but not civil war. A civil war would require some degree of organization and agreement on one side or another, and that’s not something we do in this country any more. Headless chickens would mount a better effort than your average band of modern American citizens. And the federal and state governments for that matter.
This review misses the two highlights of the episode.
1) Q referring to Neelix as “bar rodent”; and
2) Lady Q referring to Paris as “helm boy”
Those are almost enough to make the episode worth watching.
@55 –
“And of course it shouldn’t be forgotten that even in the US Civil War, there were plenty of people who sympathised with ‘the other side’, or chose to fight with that other side. For instance, every single state that joined the Confederacy saw some of its men serve on the Union side”
And not just individuals, large sections of the C.S.A. were pro-Union, Appalachia in particular. Western Virginia (hence the creation of the state of West Virginia) and eastern Tennessee were largely pro-Union. The general rule in the Confederacy was the smaller the slave population the more likely an area was to have Union sympathies.
Geekpride: see my comment #7 above.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
krad @49: I haven’t seen this episode since it originally aired, but of course if I’d thought about it I would have realized that the quote had to be Neelix’s; that’s not something Tuvok would have said. My confusion was that I read the “he” in the third sentence as referencing Tuvok in the 2nd sentence, rather than Neelix in the first.
And, also, if I’d been thinking I would have realized that this was Neelix’s section.
Ah, well. There’s a reason I’m statistician and not a writer. :-)
Suzie Plakson makes quite an impression as Q, because I could have sworn that she was a recurring character. I’m surprised that she was only in this episode! I guess she sticks out in my mind because she’s the best part of this episode for me.
I’ve never enjoyed this “Q tries to romance a woman” plot. It didn’t work for me when they tried it in “Q-Less” where he spends the entire episode pining for Vash. It was only moderately more successful here, possibly because it was only a portion of this episode and this one at least had an adorable puppy.
@30 & @31: “Anyone have any thoughts on a Q-esque Revolutionary War title?”
How about “Yankee Q-dle Dandy?”
A friend of mine once described the climax of this episode as “the mortals beat God by pointing a God gun at him.”
I like a lot of the suggestions here about how a Q civil war could have been handled better. I think it would have been better to have never shown the Continuum on the show.
—And
*Loooong deep sigh* I was happy to defend the decision to bring Q into Voyager in Death Wish. I felt that accepting that the crew was not going to get home from the very beginning and not really caring about whatever reason the writers came up with, was worth having Q in a Voyager episode. This time it is unconscionable. It’s a shame because the underlying principle of a civilization at the pinnacle of existence and in eternal stagnation is intriguing. Also as a Civil War buff, I was delighted to see everyone in period costumes with the crew naturally on the “Union” side. Although I could have done without the “we have Q weapons so we’re a match against the Confederate Qs!” contrivance.
The episode was an interesting concept, but problematic in so many ways, not the least of which is the fact that it’s not the last Q episode of Voyager. Sadly we have to suffer through an even worse Q episode down the road: The Itchy and Q-ball showwwww! *insert Simpson’s Itchy and Scratchy music*
@67/Thierafhal: Yeah, the idea of “Q weapons” is ridiculous on the face of it. Why would omnipotent beings that can reshape reality with a whim require any kind of force multiplier?
I guess by this point, even a “Q episode” was no longer a ratings draw as the viewership for “Q and the Grey” was pretty flat with the rest of the season unlike last season’s “Death Wish” (which also featured William Riker). The only ratings spikes in the third season were for “Basics, Part II” (the series premiere and conclusion of the prior season cliffhanger), “Flashback” (featuring Captain Sulu), both parts of “Future’s End” (time travel to our present gimmick), and “Unity” and “Scorpions, Part I” (the Borg episodes). In fact, after next season’s “The Gift” (Seven debuts in the sexy silver catsuit/Kes leaves the show and the second episode of the 4th season), the ratings would be in free fall and never rise above 5 million viewers again until “Endgame”, the series finale.
@67/68: Supplying the senior officers with Q weapons was pretty silly and was just a way of justifying giving those cast members something to do including playing dress-up in Civil War Union Solider garb. If anything, it should have just been Lady Q and whatever other Q allies she had (basically nameless extras on the show) showing up and saving Q and Janeway.
@2 and @48 — suddenly Star Trek 09 and Picard are one clarifying line away from making sense to me and to each other. I never knew that supernovae had a reach of multiple lightyears normally, I just thought it was something weird about Hobus as established by STO.
While that game has to be in a different quantum reality by now (Picard changed a few other things about the timeline), I had a serious time trying to reconcile “ordinary supernova” with “swallowing it up in time would save Romulus”. There’s still the problem of “surprised by something that takes at least a half a year to get to your planet” though, but maybe the red matter stuff wasn’t stable until literally a day before the fallout reached Romulus. Or something. I dunno.
@71/wizardofwoz77: Well, of course, realistically the radiation from supernovae propagates at only the speed of light (for the initial gamma burst) or slightly below (for the particle radiation), so while they can devastate worlds for dozens of light years around (at least), it takes dozens of years to get there, so a warp-capable civilization should have time to evacuate or shield a planet in advance. That’s why Picard‘s revelation that it was Romulus’s own sun that went supernova makes enormously more sense than the Countdown comic/STO’s apocryphal “Hobus” idea (the name Hobus was never used in the actual film) that it was in a different star system and somehow magically went faster than light. (Although supernova effects propagating FTL is already Trek canon due to Generations, in terms of their instantaneous gravitational influence on distant starships and the Nexus.)
But yes, it’s entirely plausible that the supernova would endanger a large part of the Romulan Star Empire over the ensuing years and would require the massive evacuation effort established in Picard. The most implausible thing about that show’s revised scenario is that it makes no sense for the Romulans to have settled around a supernova-capable star in the first place, but that ship sailed with “The Empath,” “For the World is Hollow…,” and “All Our Yesterdays.”
“There’s still the problem of “surprised by something that takes at least a half a year to get to your planet” though”
In the Picard scenario, with Romulus’s own star exploding, it would take only minutes to reach the planet. They had years of advance warning, but predicting the exact moment of the supernova would be as hard as predicting an earthquake, so it’s plausible that the Vulcans were caught by surprise. Although you’re right that it makes no sense for Spock to use the Red Matter after the explosion, because there’s no way it could draw the expanding radiation front back in.
Yeah… I think the actual problem is that they had to realize just what they needed the red matter to be capable of, and said “red matter can do X”, instead of just saying it creates tiny black holes, which wouldn’t do any good. I mean, as noted elsewhere, just killing Romulus’s home star’s supernova by swallowing it up would still leave a lot of dead Romulans from the cold.
But to me this still gives the justification for the whole swallowing-up in the first place; just have an inhabited star nearby enough to be in the line of fire. And fix the line ‘threatened the galaxy’ with “Spock exaggerated”. Doesn’t explain the urgency unless, say, Spock wanted to buy just a little more time for the Romulans to evacuate… It’s a work in progress.
@73/wizard: Again, Picard establishes that the Romulans had years of advance warning and were evacuating their core systems ahead of time — although the tie-in novel The Last Best Hope explains, prophetically, that the corrupt, authoritarian Romulan government was more concerned with covering up its shortcomings than saving the people, which was why so many people were still on Romulus and died when the star blew up. But in theory, if the planet had already been evacuated, then it wouldn’t have made any difference — heck, it would’ve become a black hole or neutron star after the supernova anyway. Spock’s mission would’ve been to save the rest of the Romulan Empire.
“But to me this still gives the justification for the whole swallowing-up in the first place; just have an inhabited star nearby enough to be in the line of fire.”
Again, that only works if he does it before the actual supernova. What happened in the movie — Spock still deploying it after the supernova had happened — is nonsense, because the radiation front has already expanded beyond the star and can’t be called back.
I confess to having a soft spot for this one. The ridiculous notion of Q pursuing Janeway aside, their banter is always fun to watch and Mulgrew and deLancie always seem to have a great deal of fun with it. (I read somewhere they were friends outside of Star Trek but I don’t know if that’s true). But mostly I love this episode for Suzie Plakson, whom I would happily watch read the phone book. The snark between her and Tuvok is a delight.
Lesley: As I said in the “Death Wish” rewatch, Mulgrew and deLancie were (and are) friends, though prior to Voyager they had never actually worked together, and that friendship was one of the reasons why there was a push to have Q show up.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@76 Ah thanks, Krad. I jumped in on the Voyager rewatch just recently and am still working my way through the DS9 rewatch so haven’t read any of the previous episode posts yet. :)
@73: I have an idea for revising that line: “the galaxy” is used elsewhere to describe the known galactic community, although that’s still a bit of a stretch since TNG-era largely used “the alpha quadrant” for that purpose instead.
But if we assume that the supernova’s effects would affect galactic shipping lanes, if it’d reach across the neutral zone with abandon and mess up Fed worlds too, or maybe even just the power vacuum from Romulus’s core worlds disappearing/being vacant causing political strife all over the place… then I think Nimoy’s line could be slightly, kinda, postjustified.
Indeed, it helps that the plot of “Picard” hinges somewhat on there no longer being a neutral zone and that the power vacuum has indeed had ramifications very far away.
For me, the fact that all of Spock Prime’s exposition about the supernova was presented in a very dreamlike mind-meld sequence makes it easy to gloss over its problems and absurdities. I just assume that what we saw and heard was filtered through Kirk’s perceptions, his brain’s attempt to interpret the alien and unfamiliar thoughts Spock fed him, and so he interpreted it imperfectly. So I don’t stress over the exact details. Anything that doesn’t make sense, I take to be figurative or symbolic or misunderstood.
A pretty stupid episode, particularly “entering the Q Continuum via a supernova” and the worst offender, “given them Q weapons”; but deLancie is always a joy to watch. I had never tought about a idea of a Q/Doctor snark-off, but it sounds awesome. Didn’t he do some sort of convention stage show with another Trek actor, reprising his Q role?
And yeah, act 1 and Q hitting on Janeway is tiresome.
(I read the comments over a couple of days when I have free time at work, so now I write this following part some time later than the above parts.)
Thinking it better, the “Q weapons” and them menacing the other Qs with it were probably the characters temporarily getting actual Q powers like Riker did; but they were conditioned to think it was just “Q weapons”. Okay, I’m good now with that part.
It doesn’t save the episode, but eh, it makes it a bit better.
Quoth MaGnUs: “Didn’t he do some sort of convention stage show with another Trek actor, reprising his Q role?”
Leonard Nimoy. The two of them did a couple of Spock vs. Q routines at conventions, which were later made into audios. Having both seen them do it live (at a Slanted Fedora convention in 2001) and heard the audio, the audio does not do it justice. It needs to be experienced live, which, of course, will never happen again. Sigh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Q should not be on anything but TNG.. but…. this is worth it for Q calling Neelix “Bar Rodent” and Suzie Plakson “I’m not talking about the puppy” The Civil war references are somewhat ridiculous and for me didn’t work.
Why does Q waste his time trying to have a baby with Janeway when there’s a civil war going on? Wouldn’t it make more sense to convince one of the female Qs on the opposing side? Despite great guest stars like John DeLancie and Suzie Plakson, Harve Presnell is the only one who bothers to sound like a Southerner.
3: Death Wish was a classic Q adventure and unlike the ones on TNG, the three on VGR are like a trilogy: a beginning, a middle and an end. 5: De Lancie didn’t care for Q-Less because of all the “skirt-chasing” and I didn’t care for The Q and the Grey for much of the same reason. 11: Q2 is not for another four years. 14: Mine’s “Morning Darling!”
15: Q does shave a few years off they’re trip in Q2. 17: It probably took them all of four seconds to come up with that title. 22: The fans refer to Plakson as Suzie Q (and Chuckles has stuck as well!). 26: Also in the Continuum too, Q thinks his son might return Voyager home as an incentive to get Janeway to cooperate.
37: I think the Q would find the whole concept of ethics boring. 38: I don’t think Tuvok was unimpressed – that was just Vulcan stoicism. 50: I’ll have to read Q & A again sometime, because I love the way it ties together all of Q’s past appearances into one rich tapestry (no pun intended). 63: Who cares? 64: Suzie Plakson is a ST regular.
65:
66: I liked the way the Continuum was depicted in Death Wish because it was a potent example of how the Q have to come down to our level in order to show it to us. 81: That must have been quite a show. 82: I much preferred Chuckles.
@83/David Sim: “Wouldn’t it make more sense to convince one of the female Qs on the opposing side?”
That’s kind of the point — it never occurs to Q to consider that, because the Q have never procreated and he sees it as a humanoid thing. He’s had the clever idea that what the Continuum needs is a new approach from outside, but it doesn’t occur to him that they can do it for themselves. Even godlike superintelligences can have mental blocks, especially about themselves. Hard to break a habit of thought you’ve had for billions of years.
84: True, and if Q decided to leave the child in Janeway’s care (and that was his plan), what could she do to stop his neglect? He could never get away with that if the mother were another Q, someone just as omnipotent as he is.
I imagine that the writers are occasionally encouraged to visit costume warehouses and studio backlots for inspiration when the budget gets tight.
I finally caught this episode when it was broadcast, appropriately, on Valentine’s Day.