Q Who?

DVD, TNG S2 (Q Who?)

With a flick of his fingers Q does the greatest service to Starfleet and simultaneously the worst harm. Not the loss of eighteen crewmen, but the awareness of humanity's existence by what was then the deadliest aliens ever encountered. The Borg. They ignore you. They notice you. They come after you, and they don't stop. The unstoppable force is the most compelling dramatic device, but also the hardest to write, because if you can't stop it you've lost your characters, your ship, everything. It could be construed as flippant that Q would just fling them under the Borg's nose then snap them back out of trouble before destruction was assured, but it isn't really about this episode, this was just the primer, the prologue, the taste of what may be to come, and that portent in the final scene, though it's still amazingly turned into an optimistic ending, holds a lot of weight and a few shivers up the spine.

Guinan gets fleshed out more than in all the other episodes she's appeared in to this point, and her legendary past, sense of doom and direct warnings add a notch of danger beyond the Borg's physical appearance, which is very mechanised, with most of their facial features hidden or half-seen. Putting things out there to be resolved at a later date is always a bold move because an audience could forget, the natural progression of a series might take it in a different way or whatever, but when you get to the pay off it's made all worthwhile.

From this encounter we learn that the mysterious attacks on bases at the edge of both Federation and Romulan borders, as revealed at the end of Season One, were probably the actions of the Borg, making them tantalisingly close. Perhaps they aren't two years away after all? The episode includes a lighthearted teaser which introduces new recruit Sonia Gomez who manages to make the worst first impression possible on Captain Picard. Literally, on him. Usually when someone like that gets a few lines it's so she can be killed off by this week's threat and I was half expecting it, but her storyline fades into nothing - hopefully she'll pop up again.

Q's involvement with the Enterprise is usually a tricky balance because he can do anything, but you're not sure if his motives were good or bad in this case. And why does he not resurrect the dead? Perhaps it's the price for the information, or maybe he's working for an even higher power and this was the way it had to work out, who knows? The grounding of Guinan's history in some framework gives her more mystery. She was alive at least 200 years ago according to this, and 'Star Trek: Generations' did a fine job of using this information to connect the 23rd and 24th Centuries.

The Borg set is brighter than it would later be, but still creepy since they don't know what they're going to find next or whether the Borg will recognise their presence. The pull back inside the cube was most impressive, as was the Borg's personal forcefield. Certainly the strongest episode of the season, it confidently melds the past and the possible future with two mysterious beings who both have a connection to Picard. I couldn't help noticing that when Q mentions the 'weak' enemies encountered so far, he doesn't include Ferengi - they must have been so weak they didn't even register!

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