Q… | #AtoZ #LetterQ #nonfiction

…a post about John de Lancie.

Hi! I know you stopped by looking for an A-Z post of a short story, or perhaps the craft of writing. Perhaps you even looked so far as to see that my theme is “Catching Up.” Well, while I did spending a couple of days “catching up”, so at least on that point I’m on theme, there may actually be no fiction or writing talk.

I’m a Star Trek fan, so when I think of the letter Q, I think of Q, member of the Q continuum. Which makes me think of his alter-ego in the My Little Pony universe, of which I am also a fan, Discord.

And of course, John De Lancie plays both characters, and they’re essentially the same character, which just tickles me to no end. You have no idea how amused I was when I made the connection.

But did you know he’s had more than two roles? I mean, not as fun ones, certainly. But other roles. He’s got 180 acting credits on IMDB, and while I know many of the other shows he’s been on, I don’t remember the characters, and so I won’t be babbling on about that for now.

Here’s some interesting tidbits from the Trivia portion of his IMDB profile:

He was raised in Philadelphia, which is just an hour or so drive from where I am.

As much association as I have with de Lancie and Star Trek, he was only in eight episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, and this might explain the reinforcement of de Lancie and ST:TNG, he is one of only seven actors to play the same character on three different Star Trek series.

Also, he was the first actor to ever use the word “trek” on ST:TNG, and that was in the series finale. This I had not realized before, and I wonder if if was a conscious decision on the writer’s part, and how hard it was to avoid “trek” in writing episodes.

That’s what I have. Q is a hard letter. I also thought about Queer and Quick as options for today’s post, but I think Q was a good choice.

If you haven’t seen John de Lancie in Star Trek or My Little Pony, in both shows he really starts out as a character you love to hate. Similarly, in both shows they do a lovely job of turning the character around, more or less, without removing the essential parts that make his character irritating.

I love that.