In the second season of “Star Trek: Picard,” the good admiral (Patrick Stewart) is approached by his old rival, trickster space deity Q (John de Lanice), for a new challenge. Q snaps his fingers and throws Picard into an alternate universe where Earth had become a galaxy-wide tyrannical power, dedicated to the extermination of its perceived enemies. Earth had already driven the Romulans and Klingons to extinction, and now prepares to execute the last known Borg (Annie Werching). It’s quite sinister. Picard, occupying the space of his tyrannical interdimensional counterpart, must gather his friends (Q also teleports several of them to the evil universe), then travel back in time to 2024 to figure out how the evil universe came to be . be.
At the end of the season, it’s revealed that Q only played his little time travel game with Picard as a sort of nostalgic farewell. Q was previously thought to be immortal, but he was actually nearing the end of his life and his powers were waning. He used some of his last shards of magic to test Picard, hoping to connect with him. The season ends with Picard and Q saying a warm goodbye.
It was a relatively restrained conclusion for the character, given how stupid he had been in the past. There was an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in which Q transformed Picard and his crew into Robin Hood characters, for example. In another episode, to celebrate a personal milestone, Q appeared on the bridge of the Enterprise with a magically manifested mariachi band. Q, in case you didn’t know, generally brought a lot of levity to “Star Trek.”
But when it came to “Picard,” de Lanice preferred to be a little less ridiculous. He even made a special request in this regard.
John de Lancie asked that he not be asked to wear tights
Keep in mind that “Star Trek: Picard” served largely as a comeback series, catching up with Jean-Luc Picard about 20 years after his last appearance (in the 2002 feature film “Star Trek: Nemesis”). Many episodes of “Picard” have brought back familiar faces from the world of Picard, including Q, Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and most of the cast of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Stewart had agreed to return for the entire “Picard” series, but de Lancie needed convincing.
De Lancie worried that he, now in his mid-70s, would be forced to be as buffoonish in “Picard” as he was decades ago in the Robin Hood episode. Fortunately, the producers of “Picard” reassured him. As de Lanice explained to News week in 2022:
“I sat down and said, ‘Look, the first thing I want to know is: You’re not going to put those tights back on me, are you? Because if you are , the agreement is broken!’ They said, “No, no, no, no, we’re going to experience a different feeling.” I looked pretty much like I do now, and they said, “Actually, we even want the beard, we want it.” a feeling of maturity. Time has passed and there’s something on your side And I said, ‘So it’s not time for a mariachi band?’ And they said, “No.”
Q “died” at the end of the second season of “Picard”, happy to have issued one last challenge to his old friend. His appearance was both menacing and sentimental; it featured no mariachi bands and Q himself wore a tasteful black overcoat. Of course, since Q doesn’t experience time in a linear fashion, he also returned at the end of the third season of “Picard” to confront Picard’s adult son, Jack (Ed Speleers). Although it seems highly unlikely, time will tell if Q will appear in the “Star Trek: Legacy” project.
