Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- Deathwish

Hello there, and welcome to my most unworthy and spoiler-filled review of a really fabulous Star Trek Voyager episode, "Deathwish." For you today, I have allegories, the rights of the individual versus the demands of the state, more allegories, weird comets, and not one but two really interesting Q! (Or is that "Q's?'" I have such a hard time with Q grammar, and that's not counting the royal use of "we.") Anyway, the episode is a holler from start to finish, but this review is intended for the enjoyment of Voyager fans, and if that's not you, I can only assume you've gotten lost and are looking for something on another show.

So here you are: TV Guide Entertainment Network.

Not interested? Good! Let's get on with it!

PLOT
Voyager has found itself a most unusual comet, one that doesn't seem to be in orbit around anything.

While Chakotay comments that it nevertheless looks, smells, and tastes just like a comet, Janeway orders Torres to beam over a sample for analysis.

Torres and the Asian guy she once saw in his underwear erect a precautionary forcefield around the transporter pad and beam over...a man, a man in a Starfleet captain's uniform, a man who smiles and walks right through that forcefield and says, "Hello. My name is Q."

But this isn't Q. So I'm going to call him QnotQ, okay?

Anyway, Torres reports that she seems to have done the Star Trek equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of her hat when she was really just trying to shake out some dust, and Janeway goes into instant personal alert when she hears the name "Q." She says she'll be right down, but QnotQ says he'd rather she didn't and zaps himself and Janeway to the messhall for a dish a Welsh rabbit, just like her father used to make.

Neelix, Kes, and some hungry diners watch in the background, and Neelix wonders if this is some new chef she's interviewing for a position on Voyager.

Janeway, not realizing this is QnotQ, says she's not interested in fooling around with this bozo, and has heard all about his appearances on the Enterprise.

"My appearances?" QnotQ inquires, but then he realizes her mistake and waves her off. He's really only got a little while here before the others realize he's not in his cage, and he wants to hurry up and kill himself. He's had 300 years in that comet to prepare his death speech, and he just can't wait another second. Ahem, when the others ask about him, and they will: "Would you tell them I said I died not for myself, but for you?"

No one's too impressed with this, but he assures them that it really is meaningful (kind of like I try to convince my students that "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" is just full of juicy good things). Then he twirls his hand around, stating, "Here's the end of me!"

Well, his spell turns out to be exactly one letter off, as it's the end of the men on board the ship instead. Janeway, realizing she suddenly has a party of nothing but sisters, looks around, eyes flashing, and demands that QnotQ bring them all back immediately. QnotQ gives his little hand-twist a couple tries, then gives up. It's been a long time for him, it seems. He apologizes for the inconvenience and zaps himself and Janeway up to the bridge.

He gets ready to leave, and Janeway says he's not going anywhere until there's a major increase in the testosterone levels on board ship. (I wonder if the Doc's still in Sickbay?) QnotQ realizes he's going to need help from someone who knows more about humans, and Q appears, dressed in his own little Starfleet captain outfit. "What have you done now, Q?" Q asks.

QnotQ denies responsibility for Voyager's presence in the Delta Quadrant, and Q asks how he got out of the comet. Janeway accepts responsibility for that one, and Q scoffs, "Well, I guess that's what we get for having a woman in the captain's seat."

Janeway makes the appropriate face and realizes this one is the Q she's heard so much about. Q says he's delighted to know Jean-Luc has talked about him so much, but then he notices the all-female crew and asks if this is the ship of the Valkyries. QnotQ confesses it's the fall-out from another suicide attempt and Q snaps his fingers, returning some startled crewmen to their posts. Q likes Chakotay's tattoo.

Q is now ready to squish QnotQ back into his comet, but QnotQ demands asylum aboard Voyager. Q says that's stupid and gets ready to snap his fingers again, but QnotQ works in a hand-twist first, and Q seems to have disappeared. But actually Q's still where he was and Voyager has moved to someplace else...or perhaps it would be better to say "no place else," since QnotQ has taken them to the beginning of the universe, and there's nada out there.

It's really a shame, too, because if he'd just taken them to the end of the universe, they could have had a really nice dinner.

Anyway, Q easily finds QnotQ's "very old hiding place," and lounges next to Torres' engineering station. Torres says the ship can't take the pressure here, and Q once again gets ready to snap when QnotQ twists and they're...hm, being attacked by some strange swirley-things. Kim figures out they're actually protons, and the ship has been reduced to sub-atomic levels.

Q shows up again, but with another twist, QnotQ again moves the ship without Q, and the bridge crew scrambles to find out where they are now. Pairs says they seem to be tethered to some sort of large...plant, and when Janeway asks for a wide-angle shot from the viewscreen, we can all make out the branches and ornaments of a Christmas tree. While everyone stares, the viewscreen image starts to turn, and the ship rocks, until Q's big face shows up on the screen.

Yep, it's the irresistible force versus the immovable object, from Hallmark!

QnotQ claims he'll stalemate Q for eternity.

"The hell you will!" Janeway puts in, furious. How dare the Q put her ship in danger like this in their own personal tug-of-war!

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're angry when you're beautiful?" Q asks, leering away, then zaps himself back on the bridge to lounge under the viewscreen. Voyager is now back where it started. Q offers to turn QnotQ into a Gorakian midwife toad.

"Oh, just try it!" QnotQ snarls back.

Janeway jumps in to stop this and offers to hold a by-the-book hearing to see if QnotQ should get asylum on the ship. Q (never one to say no to a trial) agrees on the condition that if QnotQ is denied asylum, he has to go back into the comet. QnotQ agrees, on the condition that if he gets asylum the Continuum will make him mortal (and then he can, finally, kill himself).

Well, says Q, this will be fun. Will Janeway condemn QnotQ to eternal captivity or assist his suicide?

"My, my," Q says, "now I guess we get to find out whether the pants [pointed look] really fit."

QnotQ pops in on Tuvok and asks him to be his counsel at the hearing. He assures Tuvok that the Q are not really omnipotent, just really advanced. Tuvok doesn't seem particularly sympathetic to QnotQ's plight, but he does agree to taken on the role.

The hearing begins with Q lounging in a chair for a change and Tuvok and QnotQ sitting on the opposite side of the room. Janeway lays down the rules, Q assures her that the Q take these proceedings very seriously, and Janeway tells Q not to call her "Madam Captain."

QnotQ says he wants to kill himself because he can't stand immortality anymore.

Q calls himself to the stand and kisses his own backside. Q on the stand says that a Q suicide would interrupt the entire Continuum and throw everything into chaos. QnotQ says the Continuum is just scared of the unknown. QnotQ is crazy not to hold his life at greater worth. No civilized society ever condones suicide by a crazy person.

Tuvok stands up and makes his case that the wish for suicide in and of itself is not enough to hold someone insane. He says QnotQ was once a respected philosopher in the Continuum. Tuvok then points out that the Continuum has executed members in the past, and that Q himself was once tossed out and made mortal because he displeased the social order.

Q wants to make his point that QnotQ's life is vibrant and rich, so, with Janeway's permission and the promise that the timeline will not be affected and the people involved won't remember the incident, Q snaps up Isaac Newton, a hippie, and William Riker.

Janeway introduces herself to Riker, who's heard of her, then she explains the situation, and tries to get the hippie and Newton to go along with the hearing. They stare at her while Riker looks amused. Janeway instead assures them they're having a very strange dream and asks them if they've ever seen QnotQ before.

Oh yeah, says the hippie. Turns out that while the hippie was on his way to work at Woodstock, his car broke down. QnotQ gave him a lift to work, and along the way introduced him to his future wife, "the groovy chick with the long red beads." If he hadn't met QnotQ, he wouldn’t have been able to help save the concert (fixes loose wire), nor met his wife, settled in Scarsdale, become an orthodontist, and had four kids.

"Far out," says the hippie.

Moreover, QnotQ is the one who shook the tree and made that apple fall on Newton's head. If QnotQ hadn't come along, Newton would never have invented differential calculus, and would have ended up in debtor’s prison, a suspect in several prostitute murders.

Whuffle, whuffle, says Newton.

Now as for Riker...it turns out that QnotQ saved the life of his ancestor. So if that hadn't happened, there would have been no William Riker, and the Borg would have assimilated Earth.

Snap! Show's over.

Tuvok points out that this terrific life of QnotQ's has little resemblance to life on the comet, and they all go visit. The crowded quarters and icy conditions make their impression in about five seconds, and Janeway has them return to the hearing room.

Janeway agrees that the comet sucks, but QnotQ's only in there to prevent him from doing harm to himself. The only thing she's been able to find to support the idea of granting asylum for the purpose of performing suicide is an old Bolian statute that supports suicide on the basis of personal suffering.

So how about it? Can QnotQ show her that he's suffering?

Tuvok requests a recess.

In the messhall, QnotQ frets about the way things are going but compliments the job Tuvok is doing. Tuvok is quick to tell him that while he's doing his best because that's his duty, he's still not sympathetic to QnotQ's position. He doesn't see that QnotQ is suffering, and thinks this whole suicide thing is misguided.

Janeway talks to Q in her ready room and asks him to make her job easier by not forcing QnotQ back into that comet if she does rule in his favor. Janeway notes that while Q is a pest, he doesn't lie, so she'll believe him if they make a deal.

Q is more interested in getting her to understand how dangerous QnotQ is. He says it was one of QnotQ's stunts that started the 100-year war between the Romulans and the Vulcans.

And, by the way, if she rules in the Continuum's favor, he'll take Voyager back to Earth.

At the resumed hearing, Tuvok requests that in order to see exactly why QnotQ is suffering, they must all travel to the Continuum. Q is surprised by this and confers with QnotQ as to how they'll manage to show the humans anything in a place they can't possibly understand.

So QnotQ makes it clear they'll arrange things so that the humans can perceive the Continuum through symbolic representation. Objects familiar to these limited lifeforms will be used to suggest the nature of the Continuum to them. Janeway agrees, looking really curious, and after a bit of "after-you"'ing between the Q, they go.

They stand on a road, in the middle of a scrub-brush desert (read: less than prime real estate in Southern California). They walk off the road and come to a dilapidated way-station with a sign that read "Never Closes" and a clock with no hands. People in Edwardian clothes play croquet with balls that look like planets, while a man shoots pin-ball on a Galaxy machine. On the porch of the way-station an old man reads a book with the title, The Old, while a young woman dressed in 1920's style clothes reads a magazine with 1920's style graphics and the title, The New. A dog pants on the ground, and a scarecrow in a Starfleet uniform flaps in the breeze as it hangs from its post. No one is friendly, or speaks, and they can't even manage much of a smile, despite Q's prompting.

Janeway doesn't quite understand all this, so QnotQ explains that the road is the connection between the Continuum and the universe. It goes around and around and ends up here, always here.

He says, "I've traveled the road many times, sat on the porch, played the games, been the dog, everything. I was even the scarecrow, for awhile."

"Why?" Janeway asks.

QnotQ shrugs. "Because I hadn't done it."

"Oh!" says Q, "we've all done the scarecrow. Big deal!"

QnotQ talks about how he did indeed used to be a philosopher, and he really thought the whole notion of Q existence was great. The members of the Continuum traveled the universe and learned everything they could, and talked it over and it was wonderful. But listen now.

Tuvok says he can't hear anything, and QnotQ tells him that's because it's all been said. They've run out of things to discover, the universe is all used up.

QnotQ takes that 1920's style magazine from the woman with a "May I?" and hands it to Janeway. Inside we see QnotQ's photo and column: "My Corner of the Continuum." This edition is entitled, "I'm Ready to Die, How About You?" He says this is the last issue of the magazine. They closed him down after that. But he continued to speak out, to argue that now that everything's been done, he feels his life is over and wants to end it.

In the middle of this, QnotQ tells Q that he used to be an inspiration to him, that his refusal to live by the Continuum's stuffy rules at least gave them all something to talk about. But ever since the Continuum punished him, he's been a straight-laced old fogey, and QnotQ misses the old Q. Q looks touched and thoughtful, but says nothing.

Standing away from her and spreading his arms to this desolate sight, QnotQ argues that this is a matter of saying that the individual must suffer for the good of the state. This is not to be tolerated. "Don't you see?" he asks her sincerely. "For us, the disease is immortality."

Back in the hearing room, Tuvok says that the defense rests, and Janeway calls a recess until morning.

A troubled Janeway turns over in bed and comes nose-to-nose with a nightcap-wearing Q.

Awk! she says, and jumps out of bed to put on her robe and order him out. Q tells her that he feels very close to her, and wants to help her forget all about Mark. They could get together, and he'll take Voyager home, and she'll get a ticker-tape parade down Sri Lanka Blvd. He also tells her she's won, and that the Continuum will not put QnotQ back into the comet, but assign him a guard or something. This brings Janeway little comfort, as does Q's reference to his bribe about Earth. She orders him to leave, and means it.

Next morning at the hearing, Janeway says she's tried hard not to think about suicide, just about asylum, but that's impossible. And she has to worry about the effect QnotQ's suicide might have on the Continuum. But, ultimately, it's QnotQ's life, and she does believe that he is suffering intolerably. She grants him asylum, and, reluctantly, Q snaps away QnotQ's powers. QnotQ is delighted, but more than a little overwhelmed, at being mortal.

Janeway urges QnotQ to live as a mortal for a while and see if he doesn't like it well enough to keep away from suicide. QnotQ considers this, and even enters himself in the crew manifest as "Quinn." In the ready room, Chakotay and Janeway try to think about something useful he could do, but they get a call from Sickbay.

In Sickbay, Janeway stands over the deathbed of "Quinn." It seems he's taken some nogatch hemlock and there is no cure. Quinn dies, and Tuvok wonders where he got the drug from.

Q appears and confesses that he got it for him. Q's been thinking about what QnotQ said about the "old Q," and we can all see things are going to be different in Q's life now. He tells Janeway softly, "we will meet again" and zaps out.