Essentially, what wasn’t in Fontana's version of “Encounter at Farpoint,” was Q. The notion of an all-powerful, flippant, and amoral space god challenging Picard and the
USS Enterprise was a classic Star Trek set-up. In
The Original Series, Captain Kirk bested false gods constantly, and Roddenberry liked scenarios in which humanity had to be analyzed in extreme terms. While Roddenberry didn’t invent the idea of a human being defending our entire species in a courtroom run by super-advanced aliens (that concept appeared in the 1958 Robert Heinlein novel
Have Space Suit—Will Travel), he did perfect the Star Trek version of it.
And, yet, when Roddenberry wrote Q into “Encounter at Farpoint,” the writing staff of
TNG cautioned him against it. Because Q’s attitude and behavior were so similar to an
Original Series character named Trelane (William Campbell) from “The Squire of Gothos,” writer David Gerrold and others felt like it wouldn’t work. But Roddenberry
was sure “the way I'll do it, the fans will love it.”
Roddenberry was right. Q’s presence in “Encounter at Farpoint” gave a somewhat run-of-the-mill space mystery more weight, and created an ominous ticking clock for
The Next Generation. Not only was Q out there, but, from his point of view, humanity was
still on trial for crimes of basically being inconsistent and having a deeply immoral past. While the first two seasons of
The Next Generation are wildly inconsistent, with some of the episodes outright unwatchable, “Encounter at Farpoint,” remains brilliant
because of Q’s meddling. John de Lancie is both frightening and hilarious and more than holds his own against Patrick Stewart, not a simple task.
That level of excitement has rarely been matched since.
