In spite of having written a whole massive tweet rant about how all the white men in Star Trek keep being given their own shows while everyone else is treated as replaceable…
I am so out of my mind excited to see Q come back and torture Picard.
When I was a kid, Q always made me think of my dad. He thought he was better and smarter than everyone, and he enjoyed poking people just to see them react. That’s my dad.
So, yeah, my dad is terrible. But… damn. He’s so deep in my head… and he’s my dad.
I’ve kicked my dad out of my life (as much as I can; he still sends me gifts, against my wishes, which is why anonymous gifts always put me on edge). But he still shows up in my dreams — driving the car or otherwise nominally in charge while I try to fly under his radar.
As a kid, I knew without really talking or thinking about it consciously to try to avoid my dad’s notice. At some level, he wasn’t so bad… but he was one of those guys who thinks his kids are his belongings — playthings to entertain him or workers who owe him allegiance.
So, if my dad noticed me, he’d hijack whatever I’d been doing and make me switch to doing whatever he wanted — possibly learning racist takes on the civil war or measuring trees (his hobby; long story) — until he got bored with me and lost interest again.
It was just easier if my dad didn’t notice me in the first place.
Q is kinda like that.
Picard would really rather that Q just not notice him. Because when Q does, then it’s all about Q until he loses interest again.
Fly under the radar.
Except for me, watching Q torment Picard gives me the happy feeling of seeing someone like my dad — because dammit, he IS interesting; in fact, sometimes everyone else seems boring in comparison — but he damned well stays stuck in the little box and can’t actually hurt ME.
I had a similar reaction to watching Hugh Laurie in House and Bill Murray in Ghostbusters. Like Q, they all think they’re smarter than everyone else, and so the rules don’t apply to them.
I hate that I have a dad like that.
But there was a time, when I was too little to understand just how toxic my dad is, and that five-year-old inside of me still loves seeing versions of him represented onscreen.
I mean… I don’t think we need any new ones. The genius jerk man trope kinda needs to die…
But for sentimental reasons, I cannot wait to see Q return to Star Trek.