Death Wish
Stardate: 49301.2
Original Airdate: February 19, 1996
By Christina Luckings
The Story
It is a very strange comet that Voyager has encountered, changing
its course with no apparent gravitational fields acting on it.
Janeway sends Torres down to Transporter room 2 to beam aboard
a sample for analysis. After setting up a class 3 containment
field, the controls are activated, but to Torres’ astonishment
a man in a Starfleet uniform materialises, walks through the
field and introduces himself as Q. On hearing what has happened,
Janeway promptly calls a red alert and announces that she is
on her way. Q speaks into B’Elanna’s comm. badge
inviting her to lunch instead.
In the mess hall, Q provides a table for two, set with candles
and silver cutlery, and a serving of welsh Rarebit for every
one. He grasps Janeway’s hand and shakes it vigorously,
hoping that he is doing it right, while Neelix wonders what a
rarebit is and whether this stranger is being interviewed for
the job of Ship’s Chef. Then Q thanks the Captain for freeing
him from his captivity and goes around the room looking at everyone.
He stops at Kes and tells he how he envies her only living for
nine years because the one thing he really wants to do is die.
Janeway has had enough already, and curtly informs him that all
Starfleet Captains know about his appearances on the Enterprise.
This surprises him, then he mutters about mistaking him for someone
else before continuing his speech and telling all assembled that
he has had 300 years to think of his last words. Tell them ‘I
die not for myself but for you’ he proclaims, before waving
his hand. All the men in the room disappear, and Torres calls
over the conn to inform her Captain that it is not a localised
event. Janeway demands their return but Q is unable to oblige.
He takes her back to the Bridge and is wondering who might have
more recent experience with humans when another man appears and
begins to tell the first Q off for bringing humans to this region
of space 100 years too soon.
[For ease of reference, dear reader, I shall now refer to the
first Q by his subsequent name of Quinn, whilst calling the new
arrival Q, because he is indeed the same Q from The Next Generation
series.]
Noticing that Voyager seems to be a ‘ship of the Valkyries’,
Q makes a caustic comment about human women finally doing away
with their men, before correctly surmising that something went
wrong with Quinn’s suicide attempt. He brings them back
safely, and pronounces Chakotay’s tattoo ‘very wilderness.’ Then
he says that they must be going, which makes Quinn ask Janeway
for asylum and protection from his enemies. Q is then gone, but
only because Quinn has taken them all to an old hiding place
of his – correctly identified by Tuvok as the moment of
the creation of the Universe. Voyager cannot survive the Big
Bang, and Q appears to point out that they could be the origins
of humanoid life, before Quinn whisks them off somewhere else.
They are small enough to be bombarded by individual protons,
but Q arrives and they turn into a Christmas tree ornament. There
is to be no escape, so they go back to where they started and
Janeway announces that she will hold an asylum hearing according
to Starfleet procedures. Q agrees on condition that Quinn returns
to his captivity if she turns down his request. Quinn accepts,
and adds his own condition that if the ruling is in his favour,
he be granted mortality so that he can finally kill himself.
Janeway is aghast at this, but as Q points out, handling tough
decisions is the Captain’s role. Now we’ll see if
the pants really fit.
Quinn visits Tuvok in his office to ask him if he will represent
him at the hearing. His choice is based on his need for someone
understands Federation asylum procedures and the fact that Vulcans
approve of suicide under certain circumstances. When Tuvok challenges
him about the Q’s complete absence of manners, Quinn is
apologetic. He claims that the Q are not really omnipotent, but
that somewhere along their evolutionary path they sacrificed
not only manners, but mortality, a sense of purpose, a desire
for change and a capacity to grow. Despite appearances, his race
is really quite vulnerable, Quinn tells him.
Tuvok informs Captain Janeway of Quinn’s request and his
acceptance. She warns him that he will not have an easy time
convincing her of Quinn’s case. Suicide is almost unheard
of on Earth, and she finds the thought of possibly assisting
in one abhorrent. However, she promises to try and keep an open
mind.
The hearing opens with the Captain warning Q not to turn the
proceedings into a circus, and to not call her Madam Captain.
Then she asks Quinn to explain why he wants to commit suicide.
Quinn tells her that he finds immortality intolerable, and that
if he should choose that the path of his life leads to his death,
the Continuum have no right to stop him. Q refutes this by calling
such a choice a selfish one, and states that Quinn was confined
to prevent him from harming himself. He asks to call an expert
on the Continuum to the stand to discuss the implications of
the suicide of a Q. Janeway agrees, and a second version of Q
appears.
The witness Q tells the hearing that Quinn’s suicide would
have unknown consequences to the Continuum. Immortality is one
of their defining qualities, and by their standards, Quinn is
mentally unbalanced. No society, not even the Federation, could
condone the suicide of a mentally unbalanced individual. Tuvok
refutes this argument by pointing out that Quinn was previously
regarded as one of the Continuum’s greatest philosophers,
and that as suicide is acceptable practice in many cultures including
the Klingon and Bajoran, a wish to commit it cannot be taken
as proof of mental instability. Captain Janeway agrees, and both
Q’s put their heads in their hands groaning ‘Vulcans’.
Tuvok goes on to ask if it is true that the Continuum has executed
criminals. Q admits that it is, but says that they only took
place after great deliberation by all the Q because the crimes
involved has caused massive disruption to their society. To have
individuals choosing between life and death would be anarchy.
He sees no contradiction in a society that practises capital
punishment but outlaws suicide. Tuvok’s final ploy is to
get Q to admit that he himself was once accused of mental instability
by the Continuum and punished for his actions.
Q then asks to call witnesses from Earth in order to demonstrate
the impact Quinn has had on that society during his life. He
promises that they will remember nothing of the experience. Captain
Janeway agrees, and an annoyed Isaac Newton, a bemused Maury
Ginsburg and William Thomas Riker appear in the room. Newton
identifies Quinn as the man who jostled the apple tree just before
he had his revelation about gravity. Ginsburg recognises him
as the man who gave him a lift to Woodstock so he was in the
right place to repair the sound system before the concert was
due to start. However, Riker denying knowing Quinn, until Q produces
an american civil war photograph of Colonel Thaddeus Riker with
the man who saved his life. So, continues Q, without Quinn, Newton
would have died unknown in a debtors prison, Ginsburg would never
have met his future wife at the concert, Riker would never have
been born and the Borg would have assimilated the Federation.
This is the life Quinn would give up so easily. The three witnesses
are returned to their own times and places.
Tuvok’s next step is to have the group experience the
conditions of Quinn’s confinement in the comet. It is cramped
and claustrophobic, and they do not stay long. However, Captain
Janeway points out that she has to rule on an asylum request,
not judge another culture’s penal system. She has been
researching other culture’s attitudes to suicide in preparation
for the hearing, and asks Tuvok if he is familiar with the Bolian
principle of the double effect of assisted suicide. It states
that ‘an action that has the principal effect of relieving
suffering may be ethically justified even though the same action
has the secondary effect of possibly causing death’ and
if Quinn can show to her that he is suffering in some way that
would justify her granting him asylum. They take a recess to
think about it.
Quinn talks to Tuvok in the mess hall, and thanks him for his
efforts so far. He is glad that someone believes in him, and
is surprised when Tuvok tells him that he can see no logic in
his position. If he knew what life as a Q were like, maybe he
would understand. Their next course of action is decided.
‘Captain's log, supplemental. I'm determined to find a
better alternative to suicide or endless prison, so I've summoned
the advocate Q to make him a proposal’
Captain Janeway wants Q to promise that Quinn will not be returned
to the comet should she rule against him. She knows he has been
many things, but he has never been a liar, and his word will
be good enough for her. Sadly, he turns her down, then offers
her an inducement to rule in the Continuum’s favour instead.
She gazes out of the Ready Room window onto the cloud wreathed
blue planet called Earth. Then just as suddenly, it is gone.
When the hearing resumes, Tuvok puts forward the proposal to
move the proceedings to the Continuum itself, so that Captain
Janeway can see the nature of Quinn’s suffering for herself.
The two Q get together to agree a format for the visit, then
they all find themselves on a long straight road through a desert.
This is not really the Continuum, but an allegory of it that
human minds might be able to comprehend. Just off the road is
a building, with people standing around reading, playing pinball
or croquet. There is a dog, and a scarecrow in a Starfleet uniform.
The group heads towards it. Quinn explains that the road takes
them to the rest of the universe and back here again in an endless
circle. The people briefly look up and them and then ignore them
again. This is the current state of the Continuum, Quinn tells
Janeway and Tuvok. Once there was dialogue about discoveries
and issues, but now everything has been said, everything seen,
everything experienced. They have all taken turns at being the
dog and the scarecrow. When Q was misbehaving himself, they had
something to talk about, but now he has surrendered to the status
quo. Nevertheless, it was his rebellion which had forced Quinn
to think, and he came to the conclusion that it was wrong for
the state to force immortality on an individual. So they locked
him away in fear that he might be right. Quinn appeals to Janeway’s
explorer instinct. Would she want to live if there was nothing
left to discover? If she wants to equate his suffering with that
of a disease, then for the Q the disease is immortality. They
rest their case.
Kathryn Janeway is having a restless night before delivering
her decision, and wakes to the horrifying sight of Q in nightgown
lying beside her. He has come to tell her that the Continuum
have agreed to her condition. Quinn won’t be returned to
confinement, he will have someone assigned to him to look after
him instead. And having gotten what she wanted, when she rules
in their favour he will take her home to Earth, to great celebrations
and a life together. Enraged at such presumption, she orders
him out.
Next day, Captain Janeway announces her decision. Quinn can
have asylum aboard Voyager. True to his word, Q removes his power
and makes him mortal. Janeway isn’t finished, and tells
Quinn to take time to explore the mysteries and pleasures of
mortal life before deciding to give it up. He might find that
he likes it.
‘Captain's log, stardate 49301.2. We have assigned quarters
to our new passenger, who has entered his name on our crew manifest
as Quinn. I am eager to engage him in interesting ship activities
as soon as possible.’
That is proving more difficult than originally envisioned. As
Chakotay points out, the wealth of knowledge that Quinn brings
with him would make Stellar Cartography and just about every
other department redundant. Their deliberations are interrupted
by the EMH, who tells them that Quinn is in sickbay, dying. Somehow
he has gotten hold of some rare Nogatch hemlock, a poison that
cannot be obtained from the replicators, and which was not stored
on board. Quinn apologises to Janeway, but tells her that he
would only have been pretending to fit in with this life anyway.
Then he says his last words to the Continuum – this is
my final gift to my people – and dies. Q appears to admit
that he assisted Quinn’s suicide, because he called him
irrepressible. Then he bids farewell to Janeway, promising her
that they will meet again.
Review:
This is a powerful episode which deals with a very emotive subject:
suicide. During the course of the dialogue the writers touch
on many prevailing altitudes towards it, except the one that
condemns it as wrong in all circumstances, although we could
take Janeway’s inbuilt abhorrence as a version of this
view. In the end, they conclude that it is all right to kill
oneself for the relief of mental (or physical) suffering. Whether
you agree with them is a matter of conscience.
This is the first appearance of Q on Voyager, and it has to
be said that his opening lines betray a sad lack a omniscience.
He didn’t know that Voyager was in the Delta quadrant,
but thought humans would be there in 100 years time. The writers
are also playing the dangerous game of humanising a completely
alien race for the purpose of telling their story. Seeing a concept
of the Continuum was interesting but with Q’s closing promise
that they will meet again one cannot help but fear what further
developments the creative team might have in mind.
The story is a stand-alone one for Jane way and was actually
broadcast four episodes later than it was filmed (after Prototype),
presumably for post-production reasons. Tuvok is the only other
regular character with any significant role but guest star John
deLancie as Q doesn’t feel entirely at home with the script.
Perhaps it is because, for once, it is not his character causing
trouble and chaos for the main cast. Nonetheless, he brings the
same humorous characterisation to the role as in TNG and there
are some laughs available within the serious subject matter.
Despite or maybe because this is a ‘talking-heads’ show
(as most Trek is) with minimal technobabble and maximum character
interest, this story is a must-have for the serious Trek fan.
Grade: 8/10
Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran as Chakotay
Roxanne Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim
Guest Cast:
Peter Dennis as Isaac Newton
Jonathan Frakes as William Thomas Riker
Maury Ginsberg as M. Ginsberg
Gerrit Graham as Quinn
Creative Staff:
Director: James L. Conway
Teleplay By: Michael Piller
Story By: Shawn Piller
