The Last Temptation of Riker.
Ugh, I thought, another Q episode.
I'm none too fond of Q as a character. He's a capricious plot device with powers that the writers can just make up as they go along. There is no way to defeat him. The best they can do is demonstrate some moral superiority and hope he goes away.
This one promised to be just as bad. Picard is left alone on the ship while some of the other regulars are down on a possibly imaginary planet fighting some wtf monsters wearing Napolean uniforms. Oh -- the Enterprise is on its way to a medical emergency. Today, our crew serves as an interstellar ambulance service. This story, like so many before it, gets shunted to the background. But then a funny thing happened.
I started to like it. The medical emergency plot becomes relevant to the main plot -- which turns out to be Riker being tempted with Q like powers.
I found the climactic scene involving Riker's "gifts" being thrown back in his face to be strangely compelling. Riker is a much nicer person than, say, Gary Mitchell from TOS. It seems as if he would be less susceptible to corruption but the story demonstrates that, even with good intentions, a good man with too much power can have his mind be negatively effected. A timeless message -- with some Shakespeare thrown in for good measure. It's not everyone's cup of Earl Grey, but, to me, this is the stuff that Star Trek should be about.
Worf gets something to do. He gets to kick some butt on the Napoleanic ugnaughts, and shows off some violent foreplay with a magically conjured Klingon floozy. He seemed to know what he was doing. Perhaps he has had some practice on the holodeck. (Do all Klingons engage in such rough love play, or is this a Worf-specific fetish?)
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Reply by revengine
on February 21, 2018 at 12:17 PM
I find Q to, far and away, be my favourite TNG villain. I'm not sure if I'd even really classify him as a villain because he doesn't really serve as a type of "threat" like the Romulans (probably because the Q have long outgrown the desire to conquer or colonize like the Romulans or Federation) it's more like what kind of mischief is he up to now? And IMO it usually turns out to be pretty entertaining.
Reply by TheTenth
on February 27, 2018 at 3:45 AM
I feel Q as some kind of twisted Gemini Cricket, he poses situations that makes the crew grow up and take very difficult decisions to make them better after.
Reply by Knixon
on February 27, 2018 at 2:20 PM
Jiminy.
Reply by Nexus71
on September 7, 2018 at 7:09 PM
Wondered always why they made the soldiers look like pigs(or boars) if they had put Black Sabbath -War Pigs in the soundtrack it would have made for a nice touch though.
Reply by Nexus71
on September 22, 2018 at 6:32 PM
bump