By Johnny Veitch on Sunday, January 24, 1999 - 11:43 am:

Why does Yar take the conn? Picard is in command division, Yar is in security. Or is he beyond such things? (In "11001001" he doesn`t think so.)
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By Charles Cabe (Ccabe) on Sunday, January 24, 1999 - 02:39 pm:

Kirk routine turned command over to Spock (science divison) and Scotty (Enginerring/Security division). Also, Troi and Beverly (Science/Medical division), Data (Engineering/Security divison). Riker even turned command over to Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher ("11001001"). In the non-cannon novel The Doctor's Orders, Kirk even let McCoy have the conn.
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Sunday, April 18, 1999 - 08:22 am:

Q's appearing as an Aldebaran Serpent and not being recognized as such deserves some scrutiny. Aldebaran is 62-68 light years away, certainly close enough for it's flora and fauna to be cataloged. So why didn't anyone remember seeing pictures of this distinctive looking 'creature'? Could it have been the glowing light surrounding the creature? I suppose the creature could glow on its own, but for what purpose? It is called a serpent, but that globe would seem to hamper it moving around much. So maybe in its natural habitat one doesn't normally see the globe? Perhaps all one would see would be the three cobra like necks? Chances are it just stays in one place and snatches food that comes too close. Probably just a case of the Special Effects people creating something that looked strange and different, without consideration of how such a thing might live.

Did Wesley go deaf when he ran over to Worf's body? He didn't seem to hear anybody yelling warnings at him.

Boy, that Klingon negligee is something.

This episode is also the first to use the sometimes annoying habit of putting Q's name into the title.

This episode sets up an interesting nit for "Deja Q." In this one Q hints that the Q want to understand humans better because humans have a quality of growth that will someday cause us to surpass even them. However in "Deja Q" Q2 says something like "I'm starting to understand what you see in them." Well he better be more then starting, 2 years ago he wanted to make one of us a Q.

What *does* the title mean, anyway? I'm confused.

You're not the only one.

It sounds like they wanted to imply Hide And Seek, but Q doesn't rhyme, unlike titles like Deja Q (Deja Vu), Q-pid (Cupid) & Q-less (Clueless).

I just saw this episode and all I could think was how arrogant Picard seemed in this episode. I can imagine what the mother of the girl would say if she heard about this. "What?! He could have brought my girl back to life?! A promise? That's all that prevented him from doing it."

Not to mention that pathetic scene where Geordi wants to be blind.

Not to mention that pathetic scene where Riker can't understand why Wesley wants to be young again. "Well, gee! I don't wanna my life to be shortened by 10 years." How's that for an explanation?

Check out Wil Wheaton now (he must be almost 30) but he still looks pretty much the same as he did in "Next Gen's" first season, save a bit taller. He does not look anything like the adult version of Wesley seen in this ep.

I noted that too in my Nitpick document. I used the Robin Williams movie Flubber as a reference point, because that movie came out ten years to the month (I think) after this episode, and he looked nothing like "Fabioman" here.

It's been awhile since I read 'Imzadi' (which is set in an alt-future that features Starfleet Captain Wesley Crusher) but I do believe Peter David was working off this ep's version of Adult Wesley when he described him in print.

Just as a side point, wonder which casting genius decided that slight, fine-featured Wil Wheaton was gonna grow six inches, add 50 pounds and develop Abs of Steel in the short interlude between this ep and his adulthood?

Boy, the creators sure got their consciousness raised re: Klingon women between Worf's 'warrior babette' here and K'Eleyhr a few seasons later. Or was the babette just the Klingon equivalent of a hooker? (In which case Klingon honour needs it's consciousness raised, too.)

I think the warrior babe was Riker's idea of what a Klingon woman would be like.
This could also apply to why Wesley 10 years older doesn't resemble Wil Wheaton 10 years older.
(Maybe this is the real reason why Data turned down the chance to become Human, he calculated that Riker's version of him as Human would be wildly innaccurate?)

It seemed to me that Riker was looking into their minds and giving them their fondest wish. So I would have to agree with you KAM that Worf's klingon babe was probably leftover hormones from puberty, while Wesley's studself was a result of his I'm a geek but I can crush your head fantasies.

Morning, Oh joy.

Makes sense. But in that case, why were they so so anxious to get rid of their 'fondest wish'?

I can see Worf being embarrassed by vestigial adolescent fantasies (Side point: Klingon adolescence. Whooooooboy...)
But Wesley's what, sixteen? And he's suddenly acquired the studly guy's body of his dreams? You'd think he'd want to spend at least a little while flexing his muscles, strutting for the ladies...

Not to mention that pathetic scene where Geordi wants to be blind.

Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you? But apparently for blind-from-birth folks the transition to sight can be horribly traumatic. Their whole worldview is suddenly changed. (Joseph Lash's Helen[Keller] and Teacher provides the example of one such man who stared at a block but only realized it was square when he touched it.)

Of course, in the ep Geordi seems pretty cool with the whole thing. (I suppose Q-power could have easily reoriented his spatial sense at the same time.) The idea of his being more comfortable with his VISOR is legit, however.

Maybe embarassment figures into it for Wesley too. Maybe the approval of his mother is important to him, or maybe his travvelor powers told him it was wrong. It did seem to me at least that he was abit reluctant to go back to "normal" (slight joke there) but did so for the greater good as it were.

As for Worf he was rather emotional at that point wasn't he? :-)

Maybe embarassment figures into it for Wesley too.

Now that you mention it, I can see Little Mister 'We're Starfleet' - we don't lie' freaking right out to have this happen while his heroes are looking on in disapproval. There'd be no way he could hold out.

But I bet he didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night...

hey lolar you misspelled a word.

yep wesley probably staid up all night.

yep wesley probably staid up all night.

I do not think you have room to talk.

I must correct myself and offer my apologies to anonymous 3313. "Staid" is, indeed, a proper past tense form of "stay".

I personally loved this episode, but certain things seemed odd to me. Like:

-Did anyone tell Crusher her son got impaled? Or does she just not care? (I can picture Picard talking to Wesley after he gets revived by Riker: "Listen, let's keep the whole getting stabbed thing a secret from your mother...")

-I agree with the post pointing out that letting the injured girl die just so Riker can feel good about himself is real, REAL selfish on Riker's part.

JM, welcome to NitCentral.

(And incidentally thanks for making me LOL with that first point. "...you know, if your mother hears about this, she'll never let me take you on another away team...")

As for your second point...let's not be too hard on Riker, huh? I'm sure just having to carry that memory around for the rest of his life - the kind of memory you tend to wake up in cold sweats over - would be punishment enough.

Other nits:

* Troi is missing from this episode. (IMHO-it's a nit)

* This episode reminds me A LOT like "The Squire of Gothos", especially at the end.

*If the Klingon woman comes from a world now alien to Worf, why does he initiate a mating ritual with her?

* I LOVE the Klingon lingerie...wow! If I was on the ship, I'd say, "Hey Worf, if you don't want her, I'll take her!"

MISSED OPPORTUNITY: After Geordi gets his vision back, he compliments Yar on how beautiful she is. What SHOULD have happened is that Yar should have gone over to Geordi and kissed him for such a nice remark. (Why not? It happened on TOS)

Yeah...well, there were a lot of Security-type things distracting her just at that particular moment, I'm thinking...

The footage of Q's Grid-like shield comes from "Encounter at Farpoint"

In his initial report to Riker, he calls the creatures, "Vicious Animal-Things".

How does he know that they're vicious? He hasn't seen them do anything except walk around their camp!

ALL BUT TOO CONVENIENT AWARD:

This "raspberry" goes to the writers...They didn't have any lines for Marina Sirtis in this episode, so they ALL BUT TOO CONVENIENTLY had her character put on some distant Starbase for some rest leave. UGH!

Whoops. Re, my Nov 25 post. I meant to say "Worf calls the creatures..."

When Q is talking to Riker, giving him the Q powers, he only has 3 pips instead of his usual 4.

I think Picard was right to ask (or politely order) Riker to refrain from exercising his new powers. First, he seemed to sense that it wasn't Riker really doing it, but Q answering his wishes, like a wizard's familiar. I think Geordi picked up on that, when he said he didn't like who he had to thank for his sight. Second, he thought those powers were too much for any human to have, and rightly so. In spite of the good he could do, what if he were sad, angry or bored? What havoc could he cause with them? Third, I don't think Picard wanted to have to kill Riker to protect the ship/planet/Federation/Creation from him, like Kirk did to Gary Mitchell in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Didn't Riker read about him or Charlie Evans? Does he want to die or hang around the Q for the rest of his life?

I think I have an idea of what the rest of the group assembled on the bridge wanted:
Jean-Luc - Dr. Crusher
Tasha - Data (his android form at least)
Bev - Her husband back (Picard's getting a clone of her)

After Worf dumps the drink, he throws down the glass & it breaks. However, a few minutes later, the glass is back in his hand! (You can barely see it...but it's there!

I watched this episode again yesterday on DVD and used the zoom feature and Worf isn't still holding the glass in his hand again after he breaks it. Sorry.

You're right. Just saw it again this evening on DVD, He's holding a Phaser afterwards.

This was *definetly* my LEAST favorite Q-related episode. It's even worse than "Q-Less", in my opinion!

I really disliked this episode, that's why I'm posting this. And any other ridiculous things about this episode were already mentioned by Phil, or other nitpickers.

Well, except for this one. Being a Star Trek CCG buff (especially of First Edition), I cannot resist putting this here. An *actual* card from the early days of the Trek CCG, namely 1996:
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(accompanied by image of bayonet protruding through Wesley's chest)

Q-Interrupt

Wesley Gets The Point

"You have only one chance to save them now. Send them back to the ship."

If you have Wesley Crusher present or on any planet, he scores bonus point and dies.
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YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!! Wesley haters rejoice! He can be killed in the CCG! HOORAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

*ahem* Well, anyway, I thought it was appropriate to add that.

Like I have said for quite a while now:

Death To Wesley Crusher, Die, Wesley, Die!!!!

Wil Wheaton can stay alive though, he's pretty cool! His style of humor and entertainment is a bit adult-oriented, aka N.S.F.W., but he's OK in my book. I still want to read "Just A Geek", I hear it's quite good.

Also, he is VERY bearded these days, as some of you may have seen when he guest-stars as an exaggerated evil caricature of himself on "The Big Bang Theory". It's probably so nobody will mistake him for Wesley, in appearance or personality. That's OK by me!

I agree with ScottN and the Chief, re. Worf calling the aliens 'vicious animal things'. First off, as ScottN notes, they haven't done anything vicious yet, when Worf makes his report. Secondly, they are not animals, they are humanoids. In fact, they look like Tellarites stuffed into French army uniforms. If someone said 'vicious animal things' to me, I would picture alien tigers with horns and batwings, with glowing eyes fighting over a hunk of meat amongst themselves. To me, an animal equals something on 4 legs.

Laforge tells Data and Riker that Worf is at the third rise (or hill or somethibng like that), and Data responds, IN SURPRISE, "The third rise?!" Now, if I'm not mistaken (and I'm not) Data is supposed to be incapable of emotions, especially surprise, but his tone clearly displays that characteristic. Furthermore, how the heck is Laforge able to see something that Data can't?! Data's eyes should be as superhuman as his running, jumping, and weight-lifting capabilities. But he's apparently A) lost track of how far Worf has gone, and/or B) couldn't see Worf that far away, even if he was in his line of sight.
Nope.
Not buying it.
Soong definitely made Data's eyes superhuman.
The line definitely should have gone to Riker.
And to repeat the Chief's comment, if Geordie's vision is so great from a distance, why didn't Riker send him instead of Worf? He could have zoomed in on the 'animal things' from a hundred feet away, unlike Worf, and made a report without getting so much as a scratch.

I realize that the writer wanted Worf to die so Riker could freak out, but he really did put up a pathetic fight (and usually did in the first season, until later seasons when he truly became a powerful warrior). Here, Worf lasted about as long as Uhura would in the same fight.

Why does Geordie say, "Worf? is this your idea of sex?" Why would Geordie even consider this 'sex'? Yeah, I know Klingons are supposed to be rough in bed, but neither Worf not the babette is naked, and I doubt Worf was about to rip his uniform off to 'finish' the job!
I think that line came from the sex-obsessed Roddenberry, unfortunately.
If anything, it's a primal greeting, barely touching the surface of 'foreplay'.
And if this is what Worf does with his 'girlfriends', does this mean that Troi and later Dax suffered punches to the face?

steve: To me, an animal equals something on 4 legs.
Luigi Novi: So you consider kangaroos and birds to be people?

Well, in one of those episodes I shall not mention, they did make it clear that Jadzia needed multiple visits to the infirmary as a result of their sexual shenanigans.

As for Data, perhaps he calculated the odds of Worf making it to each location within the allotted time. Perhaps there was only a small percent chance of Worf getting to the third whatever within that time and Data acted surprised even if he didn't feel that way.

Steve - Furthermore, how the heck is Laforge able to see something that Data can't?!
Soong definitely made Data's eyes superhuman.
IIRC Data has a line in the pilot stating that his vision is not as good as Geordie's.

I'm also reminded of a line comic writer/artist John Byrne used when asked who was faster Flash or Superman & he answered that the specialist should beat the generalist.

Basically Geordie's "special ability" is his vision, if Data is better than him at "super-vision" then what's the point of having Geordie in the show? (And by the second season the writers seemed to have realized that Geordie was a one-trick pony & made him Chief Engineer.)

Data's eyes should be as superhuman as his running, jumping, and weight-lifting capabilities.
While I think Superman-level strength in a robot tends to be ridiculous (unless the robot is specifically a superhero or villain) I think there is a slight difference between a robot being stronger & faster than a human. Robots don't need oxygen, their bodies don't need to pump blood, they don't pull muscles, etc., etc.

As for the vision differences between Data & Geordie I imagine that Geordie's VISOR is more recent technology than Data's eyes so it probably has more sophisticated optics then Data since Soong basically dropped out of the Federation's scientific community to work on an isolated colony world.

steve: To me, an animal equals something on 4 legs.
Luigi Novi: So you consider kangaroos and birds to be people?

Curses! Foiled by Luigi Logic again!

Why I oughta...!

And you'd have gotten away with it to, if it wasn't for that meddling Luigi!

Jeepers! I could really go for a Scooby Snack!

Spelling and grammar self-policing:

And you'd have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for that meddling Luigi!

Zoinks! It's the mystery of the disappearing "o"!