Star Trek: Voyager: Death Wish Rewatch
April 27, 2017 3:17 AM - Season 2, Episode 18 - Subscribe
"Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?" - Aeschylus, The Oresteia
Whom Memory Alpha would destroy, it first makes mad with overlong summaries of the episode's production process:
- Q actor John de Lancie recalled, "One of the things Michael [Piller] had said was that he wanted to do a Q story, not a story about how Q affects other people, but how the story affects him, and that he goes from his usual flamboyant self to someone much more introspective. You see that he's truly troubled by a philosophical and unresolvable problem." Michael Piller himself noted, "We really wanted a show that would advance the character of Q and as it turned out the race of Q." Likewise, Rick Berman remarked, "We [didn't] need yet another oh-here's-Q-being-a-pain-in-the-neck story. We needed to move into new Q territory."
- The solution of devising a workable Q story for Star Trek: Voyager was suggested by twenty-three-year old Shawn Piller, the son of Michael Piller. Recalling the younger Piller's original mention of the idea to him, Michael Piller recounted, "My son heard me chatting away at the dinner table and he came in and started pitching and he gave me this basic idea." Shawn Piller's solution specifically involved another member of the Q Continuum necessitating the introduction of the familiar Q. Jeri Taylor commented, "[It] found a way to get him there which was via the other Q. We inadvertently beam him on board and he needs someone who knows about humans. Who better than John de Lancie for that?" The collaboration between Michael and Shawn Piller, on this episode, was the start of a lengthy professional writing partnership between them.
- Piller certainly liked writing this episode, which he cited (along with "Meld" and "Lifesigns") as one of a few from Voyager's second season whose development involved a great deal of enjoyment. "Those shows were more fun to write for me than the big space battle," he said, "because I like character interaction. I like what the characters are doing to themselves and there are personal stakes involved and character conflicts involved."
- As of this episode, John de Lancie has played the same character on three different Star Trek series. The only other actors to do so are Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker/Thomas Riker), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Michael Ansara (Kang), Richard Poe (Gul Evek), and Mark Allen Shepherd (Morn).
- John de Lancie and Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew had known each other, as friends, throughout fifteen years prior to the making of this episode, having originally become acquainted due to numerous dinner parties. However, this episode constituted the first time they had worked together on-screen.
- According to Kate Mulgrew, this episode was an important step in her gaining more creative control over the depiction of her character. The actress recalled, "I would say it took about two seasons before Rick [Berman] to say, 'Lookit. She's obviously got her own handle on this character. Let's let her fly and see what happens.' I remember, from that moment forward, talking to them creatively about the writing, and being respected. I remember, uh... I think it was probably an episode called 'Death Wish', wanting very much to be an integral part of that process. And I remember Berman saying, very clearly, 'You just go for it. We'll back off, from now on.'"
- Rating the episode against his previous experiences of playing Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, de Lancie remarked, "In terms of what was on the page, I would say this episode and 'Tapestry' were really the two best." He added, "This is what Star Trek does best: serious, somewhat amusing, very focused stories." He also noted, "There is something demoralizing about being trained to play Chopin piano concertos but being asked to play jingles. Most television shows – and a lot of movies and plays – are jingles." Picking up the episode's script, he concluded, "Now this is a concerto."
- The Pillers originally wanted to bring on more guest stars for this episode than ultimately appeared. According to Michael Piller, "We tried to get Michael Jordan, but he wants to be hired as an actor, not as himself. We also wanted to get Cal Ripken, Jr., Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, or Frank Sinatra." Piller added, "Hey, we aim high."
- Regarding his appearance in this episode, Jonathan Frakes stated, "I had no reservations about this story. I was very happy to return." According to Frakes, he almost didn't get a chance to return because the original draft script slated LeVar Burton to make an appearance as Geordi La Forge instead. Frakes added, "But LeVar has his head shaved these days. He doesn't look much like Geordi – so I lucked out." La Forge eventually got his chance to appear on Voyager in the Season 5 episode "Timeless", after audiences had already seen the changes in Burton's appearance in Star Trek: First Contact.
- The character of Maury Ginsberg was played by an actor of the same name. The producers of Star Trek liked the actor's name so much that they decided to use it for his character.
- In the same year that this episode (featuring Voyager's transformation into a Christmas tree ornament) first aired, Hallmark released a replica of Voyager as part of their line of Star Trek-themed Christmas ornaments.
"This ship will not survive the formation of the cosmos!"
- Torres
"Say, is this a ship of the Valkyries? Or have you Human women finally done away with your men altogether?"
- Q, after noticing there were no men on the bridge
"Facial art. Ooh, how very wilderness of you."
"Captain..."
- Q and Chakotay
"I am curious. Have the Q always had an absence of manners, or is it the result of some natural evolutionary process that comes with omnipotence?"
- Tuvok, after Quinn makes an unannounced visit to his quarters
"Q! What the hell is going on?!"
- William Riker
"Based on my research, you have been many things. A rude, interfering, inconsiderate, sadistic..."
"You've made your point."
"...pest. And, oh yes, you introduced us to the Borg, thank you very much. But one thing you have never been is a liar."
"I think you have uncovered my one redeeming virtue. Am I blushing?"
- Janeway and Q
Poster's Log:
In terms of how successful this ambitious episode is, I agree with one of the licensed (non-canon) Trek authors cited on the MA page: it's pretty good. We all love Q, so that earns it a lot of leeway, and one thing the Voyager writers can often pull off is banter—which is enough in my mind to justify bringing Q into this series. That said, "Death Wish" IS a bit talky, and some of the setpieces (the comet and the desert outpost in particular) feel kind of corny. I also recall, on my first viewing, seeing the character of Maury Ginsberg and thinking "Oh, I hope the big reveal with him doesn't involve Woodstock; do we have to be that obvious?" But I suppose it's to be expected from writers of a certain age.
Anyway, it's clear from the outset that Mulgrew and de Lancie are a dynamite pairing, so much so that I kind of wish they'd had two or three more Voyager Q episodes. Combine them with a good Trek-style moral conundrum and you have a weirdly effective blend of wacky fun and deadly serious philosophizing.
Poster's Log, Supplemental:
This episode has a special twinge of nostalgia for me because Gerrit Graham (Quinn) was the superintendent on Parker Lewis Can't Lose, which I probably saw every episode of. (He was also the Hunter in DS9: "Captive Pursuit.") He was better as a villain IMO.
Whom Memory Alpha would destroy, it first makes mad with overlong summaries of the episode's production process:
- Q actor John de Lancie recalled, "One of the things Michael [Piller] had said was that he wanted to do a Q story, not a story about how Q affects other people, but how the story affects him, and that he goes from his usual flamboyant self to someone much more introspective. You see that he's truly troubled by a philosophical and unresolvable problem." Michael Piller himself noted, "We really wanted a show that would advance the character of Q and as it turned out the race of Q." Likewise, Rick Berman remarked, "We [didn't] need yet another oh-here's-Q-being-a-pain-in-the-neck story. We needed to move into new Q territory."
- The solution of devising a workable Q story for Star Trek: Voyager was suggested by twenty-three-year old Shawn Piller, the son of Michael Piller. Recalling the younger Piller's original mention of the idea to him, Michael Piller recounted, "My son heard me chatting away at the dinner table and he came in and started pitching and he gave me this basic idea." Shawn Piller's solution specifically involved another member of the Q Continuum necessitating the introduction of the familiar Q. Jeri Taylor commented, "[It] found a way to get him there which was via the other Q. We inadvertently beam him on board and he needs someone who knows about humans. Who better than John de Lancie for that?" The collaboration between Michael and Shawn Piller, on this episode, was the start of a lengthy professional writing partnership between them.
- Piller certainly liked writing this episode, which he cited (along with "Meld" and "Lifesigns") as one of a few from Voyager's second season whose development involved a great deal of enjoyment. "Those shows were more fun to write for me than the big space battle," he said, "because I like character interaction. I like what the characters are doing to themselves and there are personal stakes involved and character conflicts involved."
- As of this episode, John de Lancie has played the same character on three different Star Trek series. The only other actors to do so are Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker/Thomas Riker), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Michael Ansara (Kang), Richard Poe (Gul Evek), and Mark Allen Shepherd (Morn).
- John de Lancie and Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew had known each other, as friends, throughout fifteen years prior to the making of this episode, having originally become acquainted due to numerous dinner parties. However, this episode constituted the first time they had worked together on-screen.
- According to Kate Mulgrew, this episode was an important step in her gaining more creative control over the depiction of her character. The actress recalled, "I would say it took about two seasons before Rick [Berman] to say, 'Lookit. She's obviously got her own handle on this character. Let's let her fly and see what happens.' I remember, from that moment forward, talking to them creatively about the writing, and being respected. I remember, uh... I think it was probably an episode called 'Death Wish', wanting very much to be an integral part of that process. And I remember Berman saying, very clearly, 'You just go for it. We'll back off, from now on.'"
- Rating the episode against his previous experiences of playing Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, de Lancie remarked, "In terms of what was on the page, I would say this episode and 'Tapestry' were really the two best." He added, "This is what Star Trek does best: serious, somewhat amusing, very focused stories." He also noted, "There is something demoralizing about being trained to play Chopin piano concertos but being asked to play jingles. Most television shows – and a lot of movies and plays – are jingles." Picking up the episode's script, he concluded, "Now this is a concerto."
- The Pillers originally wanted to bring on more guest stars for this episode than ultimately appeared. According to Michael Piller, "We tried to get Michael Jordan, but he wants to be hired as an actor, not as himself. We also wanted to get Cal Ripken, Jr., Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, or Frank Sinatra." Piller added, "Hey, we aim high."
- Regarding his appearance in this episode, Jonathan Frakes stated, "I had no reservations about this story. I was very happy to return." According to Frakes, he almost didn't get a chance to return because the original draft script slated LeVar Burton to make an appearance as Geordi La Forge instead. Frakes added, "But LeVar has his head shaved these days. He doesn't look much like Geordi – so I lucked out." La Forge eventually got his chance to appear on Voyager in the Season 5 episode "Timeless", after audiences had already seen the changes in Burton's appearance in Star Trek: First Contact.
- The character of Maury Ginsberg was played by an actor of the same name. The producers of Star Trek liked the actor's name so much that they decided to use it for his character.
- In the same year that this episode (featuring Voyager's transformation into a Christmas tree ornament) first aired, Hallmark released a replica of Voyager as part of their line of Star Trek-themed Christmas ornaments.
"This ship will not survive the formation of the cosmos!"
- Torres
"Say, is this a ship of the Valkyries? Or have you Human women finally done away with your men altogether?"
- Q, after noticing there were no men on the bridge
"Facial art. Ooh, how very wilderness of you."
"Captain..."
- Q and Chakotay
"I am curious. Have the Q always had an absence of manners, or is it the result of some natural evolutionary process that comes with omnipotence?"
- Tuvok, after Quinn makes an unannounced visit to his quarters
"Q! What the hell is going on?!"
- William Riker
"Based on my research, you have been many things. A rude, interfering, inconsiderate, sadistic..."
"You've made your point."
"...pest. And, oh yes, you introduced us to the Borg, thank you very much. But one thing you have never been is a liar."
"I think you have uncovered my one redeeming virtue. Am I blushing?"
- Janeway and Q
Poster's Log:
In terms of how successful this ambitious episode is, I agree with one of the licensed (non-canon) Trek authors cited on the MA page: it's pretty good. We all love Q, so that earns it a lot of leeway, and one thing the Voyager writers can often pull off is banter—which is enough in my mind to justify bringing Q into this series. That said, "Death Wish" IS a bit talky, and some of the setpieces (the comet and the desert outpost in particular) feel kind of corny. I also recall, on my first viewing, seeing the character of Maury Ginsberg and thinking "Oh, I hope the big reveal with him doesn't involve Woodstock; do we have to be that obvious?" But I suppose it's to be expected from writers of a certain age.
Anyway, it's clear from the outset that Mulgrew and de Lancie are a dynamite pairing, so much so that I kind of wish they'd had two or three more Voyager Q episodes. Combine them with a good Trek-style moral conundrum and you have a weirdly effective blend of wacky fun and deadly serious philosophizing.
Poster's Log, Supplemental:
This episode has a special twinge of nostalgia for me because Gerrit Graham (Quinn) was the superintendent on Parker Lewis Can't Lose, which I probably saw every episode of. (He was also the Hunter in DS9: "Captive Pursuit.") He was better as a villain IMO.
Gerrit Graham (Quinn) was the superintendent on Parker Lewis Can't Lose
He was also Jay Sherman's father Franklin on The Critic which, once you realize that, you can't not hear kooky Franklin in Quinn's voice at times.
posted by Servo5678 at 6:34 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
He was also Jay Sherman's father Franklin on The Critic which, once you realize that, you can't not hear kooky Franklin in Quinn's voice at times.
posted by Servo5678 at 6:34 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Good lord, Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Shall we do a rewatch of that after Voyager?
Something tells me it may not exactly hold up.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:45 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Shall we do a rewatch of that after Voyager?
Something tells me it may not exactly hold up.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:45 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
I liked this episode very much, in no small part because it was more talky and less obligatory-action-sceney. There will be plenty of episodes to come that have the Alien-Species-of-the-Week-ship-shows-up-and-immediately-starts-firing-on-Voyager-and/or-demands-their-surrender-and/or-wants-to-board-them scene. Trek has also had plenty of what Harlan Ellison described as Gene Roddenberry's one plot, which is that the ship goes out into space and meets God, and God is either insane, a child, or both. (Q has never been insane, per se, but he's been pretty fucking obnoxious in the past; this scene was long overdue by the time it appeared.) Instead, you get an idea with really staggering implications: what if a quasi-deific entity wanted to die, and mere mortals were called upon to make the judgment of whether or not they should be allowed to do so? It's kind of preposterous, but that just lends it a certain audacity and even some of the humor. And I think that the principals did a great job. I'm unfamiliar with any of Gerrit Graham's other work besides his brief DS9 appearance (I never watched Parker Lewis Can't Lose; I think of Corin Nemec mostly as the guy who played Harold Lauder in the miniseries of The Stand), but I think that he does very well in showing Quinn's surface amiability covering up a bone-deep despair. And de Lancie also does good work here; there's some of his usual Q shtick here, but there are also scenes where it's clear that some of Quinn's arguments are getting through. (I would have liked an appearance by Corbin Bernsen as the Q who had de-powered Q in the TNG episode, but oh well.) Some of my impressions of de Lancie may be colored by his appearances in Breaking Bad, but I think that there was a bit of the same bleakness that we'd see later in Donald Margolis. I also liked the scene in the continuum; I'm still wondering just what being the Scarecrow involved.
Minor quibbles? Course I got minor quibbles. I also think that having Maury Ginsberg being tied into Woodstock is kind of cliche; it would have been a neat nod to the showrunners' ambitions of getting Bill Gates (among others) to make cameos if Ginsburg had turned out to be an early computer pioneer, a la ex-hippie Steve Jobs. Similarly, they missed a trick by having Frakes appear as the Riker that we know instead of his ancestor; I know that they wanted to use a TNG guest star in the promos for the episode, but it would have been a clever call-back to one of Frakes' more prominent pre-TNG roles in the miniseries North & South. (Fun fact: there was an earlier miniseries also titled North & South, co-starring someone whom you may recognize.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:40 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Minor quibbles? Course I got minor quibbles. I also think that having Maury Ginsberg being tied into Woodstock is kind of cliche; it would have been a neat nod to the showrunners' ambitions of getting Bill Gates (among others) to make cameos if Ginsburg had turned out to be an early computer pioneer, a la ex-hippie Steve Jobs. Similarly, they missed a trick by having Frakes appear as the Riker that we know instead of his ancestor; I know that they wanted to use a TNG guest star in the promos for the episode, but it would have been a clever call-back to one of Frakes' more prominent pre-TNG roles in the miniseries North & South. (Fun fact: there was an earlier miniseries also titled North & South, co-starring someone whom you may recognize.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:40 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Is that a scene from one of them holonovels Janeway likes so much H-Jack? I like that lead better than her last one. Looks like she'd have much more in common with him.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:37 AM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by gusottertrout at 9:37 AM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
Particle of the Week: (Relatively) giant size protons.
Pointless STO Comparison of the Week: The Q appear in Star Trek Online from time to time, predominantly as a justification for silly holiday themed events rather than drama. More on that another time.
Ongoing Equipment Tally: No changes, rolling it forward.
* Maximum Possible Photon Torpedoes: 27
* Shuttles: Still just down 3
* Crew: Still 147
* Bio-neural Gelpacks: 47
Credulity Straining Alpha Quadrant Contacts: This raises it to 7, as the comet encounter was unexpected by the Q. (As coincidences go, this is probably the one that strains credulity the most, as Graham-Q could've been imprisoned literally anywhere, and the TNG-era Delta Quadrant contained more than a few races who could inadvertently free him.)
Notes:
* Obligatory note that the casting is fantastic.
Garret Graham was great here. DeLancie is always fun, and he does indeed work really well opposite Mulgrew. I also really appreciate Tuvok here - his interactions with Graham-Q are some of the best I can recall between a human and a Q on Star Trek, since they're working together instead of fighting.
* This is mostly a fun story, which is a funny thing to say about an assisted suicide episode, but there we are.
Graham-Q is pretty fun, of course. The hide-and-seek to elude DeLancie-Q at the start is pretty great. The trip to the Q Continuum is a familiar but fun play on A Form You Are Comfortable With, (one referenced on the TVTropes page). I think it was an influence on the much later Stargate SG-1 episode Threads, which features Ascended beings populating an old fashioned diner to interact with Daniel Jackson, which I'm also pretty fond of.
I think my favorite bit is DeLancie-Q getting smiles out of his fellow Q.
* DeLancie-Q's general misogyny and racism was a little grating.
His character is, of course, deliberately a jerk, so this is in character. I just really noticed it this time. Like Jack, I kept thinking back to Sisko actually punching him.
* No mention of the Prime Directive.
Normally I'm happier when the show stays away from it, but the situation this episode reminds me of the most right now is Prototype: 3947 requested aid, and was immediately refused on grounds of the Prime Directive. Granted, Graham-Q formally requested personal asylum rather than aid, but when DeLancie-Q protested in the name of 'unforeseen consequences to society,' it seems like this did become a Prime Directive issue even if they were willing to agree to ignore it.
There's a similar TNG story called Half A Life, which is an inversion of this - a scientist the crew are working with (and Lwaxana Troi loves) is expected to perform ritual suicide, and this happens:
* Re: minor quibbles
I also think that having Maury Ginsberg being tied into Woodstock is kind of cliche; it would have been a neat nod to the showrunners' ambitions of getting Bill Gates (among others) to make cameos if Ginsburg had turned out to be an early computer pioneer, a la ex-hippie Steve Jobs
I'm pretty sure Bill Gates is replaced in Star Trek canon on a later episode of Voyager - one of the short list I'm actually looking forward to - but that still would've been fun.
The bit that bugged me there was Isaac Newton, since they rolled with the sillier version of the apple story. (Although I guess apples were, at least, involved.)
* Q are always difficult to work with since good drama calls for limitations.
Death Wish goes to the one place you can with virtually omnipotent characters, by having the two Q stalemate each other. I think they also handle the conflict well by posing something that can't really be resolved with force, but only via philosophical debate - it seems to me that the rest of the Continuum could've snatched up Graham-Q at any time, but let this happen to have it out. Like, I imagine he had support, and this was the equivalent of them settling it on a coin toss or game of chess or something.
The down side of this is that this is the kind of story you can only tell once, and Voyager isn't able to demonstrate that kind of restraint. I will be complaining about some later stories because of what happened in this one, and I expected it when the story first aired, too.
* It's no wonder the Federation is a bunch of non-theists.
So I'm working on some books right now - they're my author's equivalent to 'that car a guy keeps on blocks to tinker with forever rather than drive' - and one of them comes from a culture that, like Trek ones, has relatively frequent dealings with beings that are literally worshiped as gods, sometimes antagonistic, and I was trying to figure out what what the formal label for that is. Like... atheists don't believe in god. I am, myself, an apatheistic agnostic, but the 'agnostic' part isn't right for guys who actually fight gods sometimes.
Best I could do was 'soft apatheist' - like, nothing about the existence or lack of actual gods would change the character's day to day, but he doesn't take a strong position on the topic. I can't decide if that's the right term though. (I also came across the notion of misotheism, but that's not right either.)
Anyway, it occurs to me that it makes sense for loads of Federation people to feel the same. They encounter 'gods' routinely, (including maybe Earth ones), and it makes sense that it would have impacts on theism in their culture, especially since this has been going on almost a century now.
I do think people would probably also venerate some of these guys - like, I'm sure there's a Church of Q somewhere - but it makes sense to focus on more mainstream people in the shows proper.
Anyway, the Q got me thinking about this last night.
* The assisted suicide angle is handled well.
This is a very old school Trek story, using science fiction as an allegory for a modern issue. Last thread, the notion came up that Voyager is at its best when it emulates TOS over anything else, and I think that idea has legs. They handled a pretty complex and divisive issue with some style: neither side is presented as a total strawman. Janeway is compassionate and fair. DeLancie-Q even comes out of it looking pretty good at the end by honoring his colleague's wishes even if he disagreed with them.
The whole thing is respectful, unlike a lot of similarly complex issues Voyager has approached. I appreciated that, and credit where it's due.
Ultimately, this is a pretty good episode of Voyager, though I'm not sure how I feel about it fits into the bigger picture of the Star Trek universe generally. That's not a uniquely Voyager problem, though - Starfleet crews have been dealing with gods since TOS, so it's a running theme in the franchise.
posted by mordax at 9:40 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Pointless STO Comparison of the Week: The Q appear in Star Trek Online from time to time, predominantly as a justification for silly holiday themed events rather than drama. More on that another time.
Ongoing Equipment Tally: No changes, rolling it forward.
* Maximum Possible Photon Torpedoes: 27
* Shuttles: Still just down 3
* Crew: Still 147
* Bio-neural Gelpacks: 47
Credulity Straining Alpha Quadrant Contacts: This raises it to 7, as the comet encounter was unexpected by the Q. (As coincidences go, this is probably the one that strains credulity the most, as Graham-Q could've been imprisoned literally anywhere, and the TNG-era Delta Quadrant contained more than a few races who could inadvertently free him.)
Notes:
* Obligatory note that the casting is fantastic.
Garret Graham was great here. DeLancie is always fun, and he does indeed work really well opposite Mulgrew. I also really appreciate Tuvok here - his interactions with Graham-Q are some of the best I can recall between a human and a Q on Star Trek, since they're working together instead of fighting.
* This is mostly a fun story, which is a funny thing to say about an assisted suicide episode, but there we are.
Graham-Q is pretty fun, of course. The hide-and-seek to elude DeLancie-Q at the start is pretty great. The trip to the Q Continuum is a familiar but fun play on A Form You Are Comfortable With, (one referenced on the TVTropes page). I think it was an influence on the much later Stargate SG-1 episode Threads, which features Ascended beings populating an old fashioned diner to interact with Daniel Jackson, which I'm also pretty fond of.
I think my favorite bit is DeLancie-Q getting smiles out of his fellow Q.
* DeLancie-Q's general misogyny and racism was a little grating.
His character is, of course, deliberately a jerk, so this is in character. I just really noticed it this time. Like Jack, I kept thinking back to Sisko actually punching him.
* No mention of the Prime Directive.
Normally I'm happier when the show stays away from it, but the situation this episode reminds me of the most right now is Prototype: 3947 requested aid, and was immediately refused on grounds of the Prime Directive. Granted, Graham-Q formally requested personal asylum rather than aid, but when DeLancie-Q protested in the name of 'unforeseen consequences to society,' it seems like this did become a Prime Directive issue even if they were willing to agree to ignore it.
There's a similar TNG story called Half A Life, which is an inversion of this - a scientist the crew are working with (and Lwaxana Troi loves) is expected to perform ritual suicide, and this happens:
LWAXANA: I don't think you've been listening to me. The man is supposed to kill himself. You don't just let that happen. You don't just turn your back. What's the matter with you!So on the one hand, I'm relieved they didn't go there because it's tiresome, but on the other hand, the lack of mention muddied the issue anyway. If I trusted these guys more, I'd assume they decided it doesn't apply to the Q due to the inherent power asymmetry in the relationship (presumably the crew do can do nothing to the Q that the Q don't permit). Because this is Voyager we're talking about, I believe that they just didn't think of the implications though.
PICARD: Lwaxana, I'm sorry, but whatever my personal feelings, I have no jurisdiction here. I simply cannot interfere.
LWAXANA: But you have to. In a situation like this, you absolutely have to interfere. You've got to go down there and talk to those people, Jean Luc. Open their eyes, educate them.
PICARD: The Prime Directive forbids us to interfere with the social order of any planet.
LWAXANA: Well, that's your Prime Directive, not mine!
* Re: minor quibbles
I also think that having Maury Ginsberg being tied into Woodstock is kind of cliche; it would have been a neat nod to the showrunners' ambitions of getting Bill Gates (among others) to make cameos if Ginsburg had turned out to be an early computer pioneer, a la ex-hippie Steve Jobs
I'm pretty sure Bill Gates is replaced in Star Trek canon on a later episode of Voyager - one of the short list I'm actually looking forward to - but that still would've been fun.
The bit that bugged me there was Isaac Newton, since they rolled with the sillier version of the apple story. (Although I guess apples were, at least, involved.)
* Q are always difficult to work with since good drama calls for limitations.
Death Wish goes to the one place you can with virtually omnipotent characters, by having the two Q stalemate each other. I think they also handle the conflict well by posing something that can't really be resolved with force, but only via philosophical debate - it seems to me that the rest of the Continuum could've snatched up Graham-Q at any time, but let this happen to have it out. Like, I imagine he had support, and this was the equivalent of them settling it on a coin toss or game of chess or something.
The down side of this is that this is the kind of story you can only tell once, and Voyager isn't able to demonstrate that kind of restraint. I will be complaining about some later stories because of what happened in this one, and I expected it when the story first aired, too.
* It's no wonder the Federation is a bunch of non-theists.
So I'm working on some books right now - they're my author's equivalent to 'that car a guy keeps on blocks to tinker with forever rather than drive' - and one of them comes from a culture that, like Trek ones, has relatively frequent dealings with beings that are literally worshiped as gods, sometimes antagonistic, and I was trying to figure out what what the formal label for that is. Like... atheists don't believe in god. I am, myself, an apatheistic agnostic, but the 'agnostic' part isn't right for guys who actually fight gods sometimes.
Best I could do was 'soft apatheist' - like, nothing about the existence or lack of actual gods would change the character's day to day, but he doesn't take a strong position on the topic. I can't decide if that's the right term though. (I also came across the notion of misotheism, but that's not right either.)
Anyway, it occurs to me that it makes sense for loads of Federation people to feel the same. They encounter 'gods' routinely, (including maybe Earth ones), and it makes sense that it would have impacts on theism in their culture, especially since this has been going on almost a century now.
I do think people would probably also venerate some of these guys - like, I'm sure there's a Church of Q somewhere - but it makes sense to focus on more mainstream people in the shows proper.
Anyway, the Q got me thinking about this last night.
* The assisted suicide angle is handled well.
This is a very old school Trek story, using science fiction as an allegory for a modern issue. Last thread, the notion came up that Voyager is at its best when it emulates TOS over anything else, and I think that idea has legs. They handled a pretty complex and divisive issue with some style: neither side is presented as a total strawman. Janeway is compassionate and fair. DeLancie-Q even comes out of it looking pretty good at the end by honoring his colleague's wishes even if he disagreed with them.
The whole thing is respectful, unlike a lot of similarly complex issues Voyager has approached. I appreciated that, and credit where it's due.
Ultimately, this is a pretty good episode of Voyager, though I'm not sure how I feel about it fits into the bigger picture of the Star Trek universe generally. That's not a uniquely Voyager problem, though - Starfleet crews have been dealing with gods since TOS, so it's a running theme in the franchise.
posted by mordax at 9:40 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
"Good lord, Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Shall we do a rewatch of that after Voyager?"
Something tells me it may not exactly hold up.
I'd like to test that theory :)
posted by dogstoevski at 10:43 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Shall we do a rewatch of that after Voyager?"
Something tells me it may not exactly hold up.
I'd like to test that theory :)
posted by dogstoevski at 10:43 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm sort of in-between on this episode. It isn't bad, I like Gerrit Graham a lot, though my foremost association for him is Used Cars not Parker Whosit, DeLancie is good as usual, and Mulgrew gets to show off an impressive array of eyerolls, and stunned stares, but I'm just not all that thrilled with having yet another Q episode. It was fun at first, but like Barclay episodes, loses a lot with overexposure, and some not so funny attitudizing.
It's one of those dodges writers really love where they get to write a character who can make all sorts of annoying comments because "we all know" they either don't "really" mean them or that their character will be, in the end, shown as flawed so the comments don't matter. It's a have your cake and eat it too proposition essentially.
The dilemma of the Q continuum really doesn't resonate all that strongly for me to any larger ethical perspective, so while it is somewhat interesting if you accept Q existence for what it is and are curious about it, that examination of life is so inherently alien to reality that anything concluded becomes rather empty in meaning outside the show. Even trying to parse Qs as "gods" is difficult given their mundane reality and their relative association to the crew(s). They are posited as being godlike in power, but having minimal associated change in behavior or attitude from lesser beings. It makes the interactions between Q and crew also rather empty since there is so little behind it, even as it is sometimes enjoyable for what it is within the show.
Anyway, that said, it is an enjoyable enough episode taken on its own and it certainly didn't really change my feelings on Voyager, it was a nice enough space filler for the season that gave Mulgrew a little more opportunity to expand on Janeway, Russ some nice interactions with Graham, though, c'mon Tuvok, work on the subtle a bit more. You didn't need omnipotence to see through your purely abstract curiosity about the continuum's weaknesses.
Not sure what the point of calling the witnesses from the past was in the trial as how what someone did, and in Q's case did centuries ago would effect views on their current desire to end their life as the earlier situation isn't entirely germane to the issue at hand. It's like telling someone suffering from a painful terminal illness that they have to struggle on because they helped someone once when they were five. If Q hadn't involved himself beneficially in human affairs would his life have then been less worthy of concern, the It's a Wonderful Life rating of human value? The Riker appearance in particular made little sense, though I was happy to see him as I still like Riker, haters be damned.
(In a way, I suppose, it could be a sneaky defense as it requires the assumption of the conclusion, lives are inherently meaningful, for the claim of bettering other lives to make sense, which is, of course, the natural bias of most people, who want to be alive and all, but once that's noted, the claim loses strength when that conclusion isn't assumed from the beginning.)
I'm also more than a little bored with the whole idea that it's somehow more interesting or wild that some character we know from the future is the one really behind some significant event from the past. It's not really that interesting a notion anymore and it carries a lot of unearned weight towards the importance of these fictional beings over reality. There's something a little ugly about that if one really looks closely at it. The franchise does this to its own future historical events too of course, but even there it sits badly with me in the same way that making humans the center of almost every important event feels off as if its suggesting something more than it wants to directly say about values. That's something for another time though, and Voyager, thankfully, doesn't always go that route with all its temporal fluxings.
The desert roadside hang out of the Qs is pretty standard imagining of the alleged tedium of eternal life, which is a handy way for us to try and justify our own short life spans as somehow therefor better. Who knows? Maybe that is truthy enough. But as it's an impossibility it is only a justification as any further possibilities are precluded by the impossibility of it all and the unlikeliness of the interactions in the first place.
So all of the Voyager specific stuff and genre comps aside, I guess the biggest question about the episode is Gerrit-Q's relationship to Socrates, as that is the obvious operating analogy here. (Does that make de Lancie-Q Plato? Xenophon?) It's too hard to avoid note of the comparison not to comment on, but wasn't really involving enough for me to look into in depth. So perhaps there is some added cleverness here I haven't reflected on yet. I'm not sure if I really want to try and parse the connections or not, so I'll leave it at the mention for now and see if the mood strikes later or if someone else wants to go that route.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:57 AM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
It's one of those dodges writers really love where they get to write a character who can make all sorts of annoying comments because "we all know" they either don't "really" mean them or that their character will be, in the end, shown as flawed so the comments don't matter. It's a have your cake and eat it too proposition essentially.
The dilemma of the Q continuum really doesn't resonate all that strongly for me to any larger ethical perspective, so while it is somewhat interesting if you accept Q existence for what it is and are curious about it, that examination of life is so inherently alien to reality that anything concluded becomes rather empty in meaning outside the show. Even trying to parse Qs as "gods" is difficult given their mundane reality and their relative association to the crew(s). They are posited as being godlike in power, but having minimal associated change in behavior or attitude from lesser beings. It makes the interactions between Q and crew also rather empty since there is so little behind it, even as it is sometimes enjoyable for what it is within the show.
Anyway, that said, it is an enjoyable enough episode taken on its own and it certainly didn't really change my feelings on Voyager, it was a nice enough space filler for the season that gave Mulgrew a little more opportunity to expand on Janeway, Russ some nice interactions with Graham, though, c'mon Tuvok, work on the subtle a bit more. You didn't need omnipotence to see through your purely abstract curiosity about the continuum's weaknesses.
Not sure what the point of calling the witnesses from the past was in the trial as how what someone did, and in Q's case did centuries ago would effect views on their current desire to end their life as the earlier situation isn't entirely germane to the issue at hand. It's like telling someone suffering from a painful terminal illness that they have to struggle on because they helped someone once when they were five. If Q hadn't involved himself beneficially in human affairs would his life have then been less worthy of concern, the It's a Wonderful Life rating of human value? The Riker appearance in particular made little sense, though I was happy to see him as I still like Riker, haters be damned.
(In a way, I suppose, it could be a sneaky defense as it requires the assumption of the conclusion, lives are inherently meaningful, for the claim of bettering other lives to make sense, which is, of course, the natural bias of most people, who want to be alive and all, but once that's noted, the claim loses strength when that conclusion isn't assumed from the beginning.)
I'm also more than a little bored with the whole idea that it's somehow more interesting or wild that some character we know from the future is the one really behind some significant event from the past. It's not really that interesting a notion anymore and it carries a lot of unearned weight towards the importance of these fictional beings over reality. There's something a little ugly about that if one really looks closely at it. The franchise does this to its own future historical events too of course, but even there it sits badly with me in the same way that making humans the center of almost every important event feels off as if its suggesting something more than it wants to directly say about values. That's something for another time though, and Voyager, thankfully, doesn't always go that route with all its temporal fluxings.
The desert roadside hang out of the Qs is pretty standard imagining of the alleged tedium of eternal life, which is a handy way for us to try and justify our own short life spans as somehow therefor better. Who knows? Maybe that is truthy enough. But as it's an impossibility it is only a justification as any further possibilities are precluded by the impossibility of it all and the unlikeliness of the interactions in the first place.
So all of the Voyager specific stuff and genre comps aside, I guess the biggest question about the episode is Gerrit-Q's relationship to Socrates, as that is the obvious operating analogy here. (Does that make de Lancie-Q Plato? Xenophon?) It's too hard to avoid note of the comparison not to comment on, but wasn't really involving enough for me to look into in depth. So perhaps there is some added cleverness here I haven't reflected on yet. I'm not sure if I really want to try and parse the connections or not, so I'll leave it at the mention for now and see if the mood strikes later or if someone else wants to go that route.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:57 AM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
I mean I take it as a given that the idea being worked from is that the Qs provide a sort of spark towards reflection on one's condition for the Starfleet crews they visit, what with their enigmatic mentions of events or forcing of encounters and was referring more to whether there was any additional interest in their interactions.
posted by gusottertrout at 4:30 AM on April 28, 2017
posted by gusottertrout at 4:30 AM on April 28, 2017
It's one of those dodges writers really love where they get to write a character who can make all sorts of annoying comments because "we all know" they either don't "really" mean them or that their character will be, in the end, shown as flawed so the comments don't matter. It's a have your cake and eat it too proposition essentially.
Yeah, this is exactly what's going on, and why it's irritating. Well said.
Not sure what the point of calling the witnesses from the past was in the trial as how what someone did, and in Q's case did centuries ago would effect views on their current desire to end their life as the earlier situation isn't entirely germane to the issue at hand.
DeLancie-Q was rolling with the Great Man theory of history: he posited that without Newton, there wouldn't have been Newtonian physics, and without Riker, there wouldn't have been someone to do all the stuff Riker accomplished on the Enterprise-D. (At least by implication: if Riker wasn't there to get insulted by Q, he also wouldn't have been there to defeat the Borg in The Best of Both Worlds and so on.)
This interpretation is not in favor now, and wasn't when the show aired - I graduated from high school in 1995, and this isn't what we were taught. However, it probably was still considered credible when the writers of the show were kids, and likely informed their worldview.
However, given that? If someone is acting like a cosmic gardener - sort of picking which lesser creatures flourish in the way that Graham-Q is depicted doing - their existence is, by implication, even more important. Without them, Great Men will not be chosen, and history will not proceed 'correctly.' That's certainly the crux of his argument with Newton: without the apple, Newton wouldn't have just thought of it a week later. So on top of needing to be a great man himself, Newton needed the external push. He required a muse, and so muses can't deny the world their very important gifts.
This stuff is also where my interpretation of the Q as gods in the classic sense comes from: DeLancie-Q makes it pretty clear that while they mostly use a soft touch, they're perfectly comfortable interfering with history for their own ends, and have on many occasions both big and small. The classic example is Q Who, where DeLancie-Q introduces the Federation to the Borg early in a fit of pique about something Picard says in conversation. It's right out of the Greek God playbook.
There's something a little ugly about that if one really looks closely at it.
Yeah, there is. The implication is, of course, that people wouldn't have gotten along fine on their own. (I actually also feel this way about religion as well, although that is a massive derail not supported by Fanfare.)
It's a pretty common trope, which is sad - for instance, I absolutely love Stargate, but they indulge in it really badly too. I think it comes from this idea that 'the ancients didn't even have toasters or cars or all this other stuff I take for granted, so how could they build a pyramid or write the Constitution or whatever other amazing things they did?' Like the whole Great Man thing, I think it springs from a very simplistic and flawed way to look at the world in general. I think it's also a tenacious idea, because history is too big for most people to even try to get a handle on even with good access to primary sources.
So perhaps there is some added cleverness here I haven't reflected on yet.
Nah, I think you thought it through as far as they did, which is how I never even pointed out the connection. Voyager's not really super subtle.
posted by mordax at 8:28 AM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah, this is exactly what's going on, and why it's irritating. Well said.
Not sure what the point of calling the witnesses from the past was in the trial as how what someone did, and in Q's case did centuries ago would effect views on their current desire to end their life as the earlier situation isn't entirely germane to the issue at hand.
DeLancie-Q was rolling with the Great Man theory of history: he posited that without Newton, there wouldn't have been Newtonian physics, and without Riker, there wouldn't have been someone to do all the stuff Riker accomplished on the Enterprise-D. (At least by implication: if Riker wasn't there to get insulted by Q, he also wouldn't have been there to defeat the Borg in The Best of Both Worlds and so on.)
This interpretation is not in favor now, and wasn't when the show aired - I graduated from high school in 1995, and this isn't what we were taught. However, it probably was still considered credible when the writers of the show were kids, and likely informed their worldview.
However, given that? If someone is acting like a cosmic gardener - sort of picking which lesser creatures flourish in the way that Graham-Q is depicted doing - their existence is, by implication, even more important. Without them, Great Men will not be chosen, and history will not proceed 'correctly.' That's certainly the crux of his argument with Newton: without the apple, Newton wouldn't have just thought of it a week later. So on top of needing to be a great man himself, Newton needed the external push. He required a muse, and so muses can't deny the world their very important gifts.
This stuff is also where my interpretation of the Q as gods in the classic sense comes from: DeLancie-Q makes it pretty clear that while they mostly use a soft touch, they're perfectly comfortable interfering with history for their own ends, and have on many occasions both big and small. The classic example is Q Who, where DeLancie-Q introduces the Federation to the Borg early in a fit of pique about something Picard says in conversation. It's right out of the Greek God playbook.
There's something a little ugly about that if one really looks closely at it.
Yeah, there is. The implication is, of course, that people wouldn't have gotten along fine on their own. (I actually also feel this way about religion as well, although that is a massive derail not supported by Fanfare.)
It's a pretty common trope, which is sad - for instance, I absolutely love Stargate, but they indulge in it really badly too. I think it comes from this idea that 'the ancients didn't even have toasters or cars or all this other stuff I take for granted, so how could they build a pyramid or write the Constitution or whatever other amazing things they did?' Like the whole Great Man thing, I think it springs from a very simplistic and flawed way to look at the world in general. I think it's also a tenacious idea, because history is too big for most people to even try to get a handle on even with good access to primary sources.
So perhaps there is some added cleverness here I haven't reflected on yet.
Nah, I think you thought it through as far as they did, which is how I never even pointed out the connection. Voyager's not really super subtle.
posted by mordax at 8:28 AM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
Wait, full stop. When was de Lancie in Breaking Bad?
I know he plays Discord (a direct rip off of Q, right down to the finger-snapping) in a certain kids tv show involving ponys.. but I didn't know he was in Breaking Bad too!
posted by INFJ at 9:11 AM on April 28, 2017
I know he plays Discord (a direct rip off of Q, right down to the finger-snapping) in a certain kids tv show involving ponys.. but I didn't know he was in Breaking Bad too!
posted by INFJ at 9:11 AM on April 28, 2017
He was Jane's dad, and pretty integral to a major event in the plot.
posted by mordax at 9:35 AM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by mordax at 9:35 AM on April 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
This stuff is also where my interpretation of the Q as gods in the classic sense comes from: DeLancie-Q makes it pretty clear that while they mostly use a soft touch, they're perfectly comfortable interfering with history for their own ends, and have on many occasions both big and small.
Oh, yeah, I completely agree with the notion of the Qs being like some of the gods of mythology in their powers and attitudes, so no argument there, I meant more that their use in that role isn't all that illuminating for me of anything extra or even human attitudes towards god figures given the way they, and the crews they meet, are portrayed. It can be, I suppose, an overall suggestion towards how religion itself is viewed in the Federation, but that runs into difficulties too with some of the encounters with believers they do have. It isn't necessarily bad tv or anything, it just doesn't resonate much with anything beyond its story for me.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:02 AM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, yeah, I completely agree with the notion of the Qs being like some of the gods of mythology in their powers and attitudes, so no argument there, I meant more that their use in that role isn't all that illuminating for me of anything extra or even human attitudes towards god figures given the way they, and the crews they meet, are portrayed. It can be, I suppose, an overall suggestion towards how religion itself is viewed in the Federation, but that runs into difficulties too with some of the encounters with believers they do have. It isn't necessarily bad tv or anything, it just doesn't resonate much with anything beyond its story for me.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:02 AM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
It isn't necessarily bad tv or anything, it just doesn't resonate much with anything beyond its story for me.
That's fair. :)
(I'll be curious what you make of the dynamics of this in DS9 later: 'wormhole aliens' vs. 'Prophets of the Celestial Temple,' which is probably the deepest exploration of the idea that Trek ever got.)
posted by mordax at 12:12 PM on April 28, 2017
That's fair. :)
(I'll be curious what you make of the dynamics of this in DS9 later: 'wormhole aliens' vs. 'Prophets of the Celestial Temple,' which is probably the deepest exploration of the idea that Trek ever got.)
posted by mordax at 12:12 PM on April 28, 2017
I meant more that their use in that role isn't all that illuminating for me of anything extra or even human attitudes towards god figures given the way they, and the crews they meet, are portrayed. It can be, I suppose, an overall suggestion towards how religion itself is viewed in the Federation, but that runs into difficulties too with some of the encounters with believers they do have.
I guess it could be said (and maybe this is, in a way, what you're saying) that TOS was more ambitious with its use of god-figures. For all of TNG's uses of Q, IIRC they rarely got any deeper into philosophizing-about-the-human-condition than Picard's insistence during the pilot and the finale that "we have evolved." Even "Tapestry," possibly the best Q episode of all, was a much more personal Picard episode, albeit one with relatable resonance to any viewers with a few decades under their belts.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 1:13 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
I guess it could be said (and maybe this is, in a way, what you're saying) that TOS was more ambitious with its use of god-figures. For all of TNG's uses of Q, IIRC they rarely got any deeper into philosophizing-about-the-human-condition than Picard's insistence during the pilot and the finale that "we have evolved." Even "Tapestry," possibly the best Q episode of all, was a much more personal Picard episode, albeit one with relatable resonance to any viewers with a few decades under their belts.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 1:13 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
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Shall we do a rewatch of that after Voyager?
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:16 AM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]