John de Lancie has appeared in the first couple of episodes of Star Trek: Picard, but there is more to come. And how he is offering some hints about Q’s motivations and where things are going in season two.
Q’s last gift for Jean-Luc Picard
On the official aftershow The Ready Room, John de Lancie talked about season two of Picard and the role his character plays. Episode two saw Q change the past, throwing Picard and his companions into a dark alternate future, but de Lancie says Q’s motivation comes from the heart. According to the actor, it’s all about Q’s unique way of trying to get Picard to change:
It had to be [personal] to be able to make a setup work. The setup was, ‘You’re going in this direction. You need to go in that direction. And I’ve come here to help you as one last thing that I might be able to do to help you.’
A tagline for season two is Q’s line from the finale of The Next Generation that “the trial never ends,” as de Lancie notes, unlike his first appearance when he put humanity on trial, this time it focused personally on Jean-Luc Picard:
I’m not dealing with everything. I’m dealing only with you. This is a personal gift. Personally, coming from me to you. And since I know you well enough, the only way you’re going to get it is to experience it. I can’t tell you, you’re going to have to find out.
Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard and John de Lancie as Q in episode 2
The actor also speculated about Q’s motives:
Maybe I love this guy… and I want to help him. Now, I want to help him in a way that maybe a lot of people don’t like this type of help… So I have my way of doing it, which might be rather hard to take. But it still comes from, ‘I want to help you. I want to be sincere.’ I am sincere.
John de Lancie will appear in more episodes, and while trying to avoid spoilers, the actor explained how Q will be driving the story for the season:
Q’s involvement is sort of as a catalyst to get events moving in certain directions… so as to be able to get us all the way to this end… which is what we are not going to talk about.
John de Lancie as Q in the year 2024 from the season two trailer
Q on the Ready Room
You can see the full interview below.
De Lancie live interview on Monday
The Q actor will be interviewed on Twitter Spaces for the official Star Trek Paramount+ Twitter account on Monday March 14.
I’m going to @StarTrekOnPPlus’s upcoming Space. Will you join too? https://t.co/3fYbjJEl7S
— John de Lancie (@johndelancie) March 12, 2022
We've got some Q's for Q. Don't miss a special Twitter Spaces conversation with #StarTrekPicard's @johndelancie and @IGN's @LaurenGallaway next Monday, March 14 at 1pm PT!https://t.co/fE3BBbny90
— Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) March 11, 2022
New episodes of Star Trek: Picard premiere on Thursdays on Paramount+ in the U.S. and on Fridays where Paramount+ is available around the world. In Canada, it airs on CTV Sci-Fi Channel on streams on Crave on Thursdays. Picard is also available on Fridays on Amazon Prime Video around the world.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Picard news and analysis.
Q has always known that this reality, this timeline was a potential outcome. When he confronted JL in Farpoint, neither the crew of the Enterprise nor the viewers had any idea that such a future was possible. But Q must have seen it through the fourth wall, through the mirror darkly. So JL had always been on trial for things he couldn’t even have imagined… Now he gazes upon the road not taken…
Anyone care to take a guess what Europa is? An early space mission perhaps? I can’t make out what the words along the edge of the patch say.
Space programme, I would guess. That arc symbol that goes across it was adapted as the delta shield on Star Trek but is used in real life by both NASA and Space Force.
“The Europa Mission”
“Expedition Europa”
Thanks!
NASA’s Europa Clipper is launching in October 2024. but that is not the program’s logo.
Cool!
Europa Report did not end well…just saying
I always knew that deep, deep down, Q was always a Blue State kind of dude. Thank goodness!
wut?
Pardon?
Boy, it must be tough to give an interview where you try to be interesting without giving anything away.
that is most actors, actresses on most tv shows these days.
The one thing that stood out to me in the latest episode was Picard saying Q was “not well.” As if Q was sick or dying. With John de Lancie saying Q’s actions might be part of “one last thing” he can help Picard with, I wonder if that’s a direction the story is headed towards.
There was a line in Discovery Season 3 when Kovich stated they had not heard from the Q Continuum for 500 years or so. Maybe this is the start of the end of their involvement with the universe as a whole.
That is interesting.
Q, this Q, might be the most passive-aggressive being in the Star Trek Universe. Which is remarkable for a being, and species who repeatedly tell “lesser beings” that they are “far beyond baser emotions”, like passive aggressiveness.
By slapping him hard across the face? Tough love, is it? haha.
My biggest worry for Q was that they’d just forget All Good Things Q and have him be Encounter At Farpoint Q again BECAUSE DARK. But it looks like he’s somewhere in between.
This is nothing earthshattering or new. That is what Q has always done for Picard. Teach him lessons. As if he needs be the one to do that. But it’s what Q does so there it is.
And when he says he will show up to act as a catalyst to get things moving, he has always done that, too. To make Picard do what he wants or, as in All Good Things, to just flat out tell him what he was hoping Picard would figure out on his own.
One thing this interview did reveal. That this was just another ‘Q makes Picard realize something’ sort of story. Honestly I was hoping for something a lot bigger. That this time Q NEEDED Picard and that there might be real stakes of some kind. That Q was limited in what he could do. Sadly it seems there will be none of that. I guess that is just too much to ask from the show runners.
Brent spiner is right actors talk too much about their character during a show…leave some mystery!
in his own way, he always is
I think Piccard’s use of the Destruct code was premature. The queen needed the energy not to assimilate, but to free the collective from its hive mind state. There was a statement that this representative coming through the rift has stated that “They wished to join the Federation.
We now know after episode 3 that the Borg Queen is intrigued that the sophistication of Garadi’s thought process is superior to hers. Garadi is the splinter and she has fractured the collective.