We join the Enterprise, already in progress toward a terrible mining disaster that…. has very little to do with the rest of the episode, really, except to give a sense of urgency and futility while dealing with Q.

Q wants to offer a dream come true.  But he doesn’t really want to offer it to Picard, maybe because Picard gives Q a hell of a scolding.  So he offers a deadly game to Riker on the Planet of Kind of Half-Assed Set Dressing.  Picard is left in time out on an empty bridge while Q whisks Yar, Worf, Data, Geordi and Riker down to play Napoleon.  (That seems actually kind of apt for him.)

The Q think it’s pretty awesome that humans are adaptable.  Riker seems to be enjoying the mental joust, which is an interesting comparison to Picard’s apparent exasperation with Q.  You’d think that Q could maybe come up with something interesting, but the game is basically “try not to die.”  Yar is immediately stuck in a “penalty box,” and if anyone else gets sent there, she’ll be destroyed.  Yar’s penalty box is the bridge, apparently, so she can boo hoo hoo to the captain about how she’ll be destroyed and how she hates being controlled.  Points for not mentioning rape gangs, I guess.  (I’m sorry.  I can’t stand her.)

Picard isn’t chosen, Q reveals, because he’s too bound by rules.  The gift of the Q is the power of the Q imbued into Riker, and the games are meant to display human character by the process rather than the ends.  I mean, it’s a while before the episode gets to that.  There’s Geico Cavemen in French uniforms from the Napoleonic War and laser muskets to deal with, first.

Picard pisses off Q by musing on the potential of humanity, which is plot important.  See, Q is giving his gift so that he can take Riker-Q back the the Continuum to inject a little… creativity and innovation into the stagnating Q Continuum.

And here it finally starts to get good.  It becomes the kind of morality play that Star Trek is probably best known for.  The ship is released (why does Q even bother with a big flashy forcefield?  Can’t he merely freeze the ship in space?  I guess Q is big on flash and sparkle.)  Riker has to keep from letting the powers of the Q from going to his head.  Q forces him to use them by letting the French Cavemen kill Worf and Wesley (who, like an idiot, runs right into the troops shouting “Woooooooorf, noooooooo,” and is quickly bayonetted.  Dumbass.)  Picard orders him to leave the powers untouched, so of course, the mining disaster has to come back into play and tempt Riker to save a little girl who died.  He resists (NO THANKS TO DATA), but he’s all bitter about it.  And then kind of an asshole about it, all calling the captain by his first name and ordering meetings of the bridge crew.

Once he gives in, he decides he’ll be a benevolent god and that he’ll give everyone their hearts’ desires, prompted by Q.  They’re all embarrassing, awful, presumptuous gifts, too.  Crusher tries to take Wesley away, but Riker ages him by 10 years.  Data outright refuses with a nice little speech.  Geordi gets regular sight and tells Yar that she’s more beautiful than he could have imagined, but the price is too high for his tastes and he doesn’t like the source of the gift.  Yeah, suck on that, Riker.  The worst is probably Worf’s Klingon bride that he can’t relate to (fancy fishnets, I don’t see Klingons as the unitard and fishnets type) and Geordi is all horrified that this is Worf’s idea of sex.  Judgmental much, Geordi?  Wesley also refuses his gift, and Riker finally, FINALLY realizes that it was a stupid thing to do.

Q is taken by his own people for his failure to tempt Riker, which now that I write it that way feels a little Biblical.

So, overall I have to give this episode credit for not being a rewrite of The Squire of Gothos.  The show is stumbling less.  Q’s dramatics are incredibly entertaining.  There’s a point where Picard looks at Riker, laughs, and basically says, “you seriously want to join this bullshit artist?” that is fantastic.  The Morality Play aspect of it is a little on the heavy handed side, however, and Wesley seems to be wedged in at the end unnecessarily.  I bet some people are satisfied to see him with a bayonet sticking out his stomach, but seriously?  Monsters with guns just killed your friend and you run into the center of them?  Idiot.