At the end of the previous episode, Picard finally met a mysterious character called the Watcher, who was somehow instrumental in a divergence of the “Star Trek” timeline, currently threatening to tilt into dystopian fascism, as seen in episode two. The Watcher is played by Olra Brady, who also played Picard’s Romulan house servant Laris, but the Watcher is, we learn, definitely not Laris. The Watcher spirited Picard away with a mysterious transporter, and, at the start of “Fly Me to the Moon,” arrives in … an ordinary Los Angeles apartment. The mystery of the Watcher’s identity was inflated for dramatic purposes, as Picard could have easily knocked on her apartment door. She reveals that she has been hired by an as-yet revealed, even more mysterious entity to watch over Renee Picard, an aspiring astronaut who doubts her ability to carry out her latest training. Picard and the Watcher see via spy-cam footage that Renee’s shrink has been discouraging her from carrying out her training. The shrink is none other than Q (John de Lancie). Musical sting. 

At the end of episode four, Q had somehow lost his godlike powers and is now — bafflingly — getting his hands dirty, so to speak, in deliberately tainting the timeline and actively creating a fascist world by discouraging Renee (not to be confused with René, Picard’s nephew). Q will also have meetings with Dr. Soong, and will aid him in his genetic research by e-mailing him mysterious QR codes. Soong will be granted the secrets of his daughter’s genetic disease that prevents her from going outside or breathing unfiltered air.

The following comment may sound like the closed-minded ravings of an aging Trekkie, but this is incredibly out-of-character for Q. Previously, Q was arrogant and confident, able to manipulate reality to his will. He is not a schemer, but a trickster, using playful chaos and a lack of decorum to test and prod the otherwise well-behaved diplomats of the “Star Trek” universe. Here, Q is … manipulating one woman’s therapy and unduly affecting the future of genetic research? Q may function as an antagonist to Picard, but he was rarely an out-and-out villain. The one time Q was caught tormenting lower life forms (in the NextGen episode “Déjà Q”), he was duly punished (he was transformed into a human) and seemingly learned a lesson. Here, Q serves the same plot function as a SMERSH spy would in an early James Bond movie: He’s up to no good.