>I was also going to ask about Catherine and Imra, so instead I'll ask
>if Major Thomas Boothroyd, the International Police Armorer, is a
>transplanted (transfictional? borrowed?) version of Major (no first
>name given) Boothroyd, more commonly known as "Q", of MI6 in the James
>Bond universe?

Well... no, not quite.

You see, to me, Major Boothroyd and Q aren't the same character. Our Major Boothroyd is based on Peter Burton's character, Major Boothroyd the Armorer, from Doctor No. He's such a different character from Desmond Llewelyn's Q (first seen in From Russia with Love) that I've never quite been able to buy the idea that they're supposed to be the same person. Q is a finicky gadgeteer; Major Boothroyd's a gun snob. You never see Q do anything with normal weapons, it's always exploding laser watches and stuff. It's Major Boothroyd who sneeringly dismisses 007's Beretta as a ladies' gun and (with, er, slight hyperbole, I should think) describes the Walther PPK as having "delivery like a brick through a plate glass window."

I admit that our Major Boothroyd's irritation at not getting stuff back from the field agents is a very Q-like trait, but all the same, I think of them as separate characters. Which isn't to say that Q doesn't work somewhere in the building, but Sara Sidle generally doesn't have much need for exploding laser watches. (At least not at work. Who knows what she does on her days off?)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/