Hide and Q:

The A-Story: Q comes back to test the crew, this time giving Riker the greatest test of all; the powers of the Q.

Riker gets Q powers. Riker immediately becomes an arrogant ass. Riker gives “gifts” that no one else wants. Riker loses powers.

Oh yeah and Yar pretty much hits on Picard. I mean, he is sexy, so I get it.

As Q, John de Lancie is once again great, but that is easy to say looking back on this episode after so many years. It was not a certainty that Q would work a second time, but damn does de Lancie make him such a fun screen presence. I could watch Q and Picard spit Shakespeare at each other for hours. The rest of the episode is very season 1 meh. Testing Riker sounds like it could be fun, but we are stuck on Planet Hell for part of it, and it’s just not very exiting. And once Riker gets his power, then it gets even less exciting.

The ethical dilemma that Riker has to deal with isn’t much of a dilemma. Should I save children or not? Yes, Riker, you should!  Saying he was right not to do so is, uh, perhaps not such a good look, Jean-Luc. Like I get the whole “absolute power” argument, but it’s too abrupt a turn for Riker for it to make sense. Make Riker have to agonize over the cost of such an action. But no, it’s easier and more time saving to have God-Riker call a meeting with the staff, storm off, and later call the Captain by his first name.  Like a lot of Trek, good idea that needs more than 45 minutes to develop.

Of course, the greatest gift of this episode is this:

NOOO, Not the rainbow sweater!!!

But also:

Uh huh, sure Wil Wheaton. Sure…

The B-Story: None, but I like to think it could have been Picard and Q putting on a Shakespeare in the Hydroponics Bay production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream..

Favorite Dialogue:

Picard quoting Hamlet is one of my favorite parts. Much as Picard says, he’s taking Hamlet’s lament over the ultimate hollowness of existence and making a grander statement. Ok, it defeats the purpose of what Hamlet was getting at, but Patrick Stewart says it with such “conviction” that we buy it:

Q: “Oh, thank you very much I’m glad you enjoyed it. Perhaps maybe a little… Hamlet?”
PICARD: “No. I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony I say with conviction. “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god…””
Q: “Surely you don’t see your species like that do you?!”
PICARD: “I see us one day becoming that, Q. Is it that which concerns you?”

Favorite Technobabble:

PICARD: Perhaps some day we will discover that space and time are simpler than the human equation.

Not really technobabble, but an “oof” nevertheless.

So, what do y’all think?