When Captain Picard’s vacation fling comes aboard, his carefully cultivated facade of paternalistic authority begins to break apart. Then, instead of us getting a series of events exploring the ramifications of that, Q shows up and ruins everything. Which early 90s celebrity was John De Lancie taking his hair cues from? Why did they give Geordi the guitar? What compelled the writers to humiliate their characters like this? It’s the episode where there must have been a free castle set, because why else would it have ever been written?
