In preparation for a temporary move over to TNG season 3, I watched, as I was advised, "Q Who?", from season 2. Most of you probably know that this episode contains the first appearance of the Borg. It starts off with some goofy new crew member getting overanxious and spilling hot chocolate all over Captain Picard, then ineffectually rubing his shirt with her hands, as if that’s going to get the stuff out. After Geordi so valiantly takes "full responsibility" for the woman's chocolate spill, we move on with things. The first consequential portion of the episode begins with the return of that cosmic mischief-maker Q (if I’m not mistaken, this is his third appearance in the series). He wants to join the crew because he's bored with life, but Picard doesn't trust him, so Q gets mad and tosses the Enterprise something like hundreds of light years off-course, two-years-worth of max warp away from the nearest Federation base. Picard makes the best of the situation, does some exploring, and comes across a giant cube, a ship containing the never-before-encountered Borg, which, it seems, just want to kill Picard and crew. I don't recall their intentions actually being explained, but Guinan says they wiped out her race about a century ago, so clearly they want to do something bad. Oh yeah, this episode also has Guinan, who's played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Let’s go with the good stuff first, which comprises the vast majority of "Q Who?" Probably the best part of this episode is the Borg race. These beings are basically cyborgs, but they have no sense of self and are all hooked into their cube spacecraft (if you call it a spacecraft), forming a massive collective super-conscious. They are not inherently powerful beings, but they can adapt to the most adverse circumstances with astonishing speed and, thus, are practically unstoppable. The crew's first encounter with an individual Borg is great. The Borg simply transports over to the Enterprise and begins downloading information from its computers. When the crew confronts him, he ignores them. It's really creepy for this half-mechanical guy just to be standing there, casually hacking into the Enterprise computers, hardly even aware of the crew's presence. Of course he does show himself to be aware of them, as he fights them off when they approach, but it's a bit disconcerting to see humans being acknowledged no more than if they were houseflies.

The individual beings that comprise the Borg are kinda sweet, too. I don't know that entities combining to create one big, singular conscious is an original idea, but it's a vastly underused one, and this episode uses the concept, it seems, in the perfect way. I think most writers would be tempted to say, "Okay, there's one enormous conscious, so the race, collectively is so smart that they'll overcome any opponent in an instant." "Q Who?" takes a smarter route and says, "No, they don't already have ultimate knowledge of technology and the universe, but they can learn and adapt so quickly that they are practically all-powerful." This makes sense because such a collective conscious would probably not be naturally innovative. Just the opposite: it would be the perfect example of uniform thought. They would be unable to innovate without some impetus, such as an adversary (Hey, perhaps this is why the writers gave their spacecraft a cube design -- to represent the Borg's inability to think outside the box ... eh? Maybe?). Also, I’m a sucker for robots, androids, and cyborgs, so simply looking at these guys was fun for me. And the room with the Borg babies? Creeeeeepppyyyyy.

Lady, get your hands offa the captain.

I also like the episode's treatment of the concept of adaptation as it relates to humankind. When Q warns Picard that he'll be facing an incredibly difficult opponent, Picard responds that he has faith in his and his crew's abilities. Guinan then remarks that one of the outstanding characteristics of the human race is their ability to adapt. In this light, the Borg's presence in the episode puts forth a frightening question: What happens when we're faced with a foe that is eons better at adapting than we are?

The outcome of the conflict was somewhat inconsequential here and did not rely upon human ingenuity, which has been a complaint of mine for many Star Trek episodes. However, here it is excusable, and actually necessary, for the crew to be saved by something external rather than to overcome the Borg on their own. The whole point of the episode was to establish, and to think about, the existence of a race far more powerful, by virtually any metric, than humankind. If the crew had been able to overcome this adversary on their own, the whole point of the episode would have been negated. So, having a godlike entity save the Enterprise from another godlike entity actually works in this case.

My problem with this episode is that, for all its ideas, I see little drama or feeling. I personally need my stories (of any medium) to provide more than an intellectual exercise. There is a nice human touch at the end when Picard is forced to humbly request Q to get them out of their situation, but that is pretty much all there is. I like to see characters' ideas, emotions, and worldviews being challenged. Often, this can be accomplished through a villain who forces the main characters, in some way, to confront their own beliefs. "Q Who?" doesn't have much of that.

In a recent discussion with a friend, I was arguing that art can’t be just about ideas. I’m beginning to wonder whether this is the core reason for my lack of attraction to Star Trek. While the series certainly does have merits in areas other than its ideas, so far these areas have not been given enough attention to force me to fall in love with the show. However, I’m not yet entirely convinced that this is actually the reason for my current lack of love for Star Trek. It's just a theory. I’m definitely going to stick with this blog series either way, and I actually am beginning to warm up to the show ever so slightly. We'll see if that continues. I'm beginning to think that I have (overly?) high aesthetic demands.