Star Trek: Fan Collective - Q

Misunderstood or just a god with a nasty sense of humor either way Q (the marvelous John de Lancie)was one of the highlights of "The Next Generation" and was such a good character that he was seamlessly incorporated into two other series. If this follows the course set with the other releases, we'll see probably 12 episodes. Here's the episode listing for each Q appearence as well the series it was drawn from.

The best of Q, however, truly is in "Star Trek: The Next Generation". In "Encounter at Farpoint Parts 1 & 2" Q puts humanity on trial for its arrogance and destructiveness. The Enterprise crew has one chance to redeem themselves--they must figure out a mystery involving "Farpoint" a station for the Federation that comes under attack by a mysterious alien race. The pilot also features a cameo by the late DeForest Kelley as Admiral McCoy in an amusing scene with Data.

The first season of "The Next Generation" was wildly uneven with some truly bad episodes alternating with some extremely good ones. "Hide & Q" straddles the line between these two extremes. While not the best it does offer de Lancie the chance to chew some scenery. Called in to help a mining colory, Q sets a test for Riker--he gives him the power of the Q and tempts him to use it to save his crewmates. In "Q Who" an enraged Q flings the Enterprise across the galaxy to test the crew against a new race they've never dealt with before--the Borg.

The third season featured two Q for the price of one. In "Deja Q" Q has been stripped of his power and made into a mortal. Q must prove his worth both to the Enterprise and to his the other Q (including Corbin Bernsen in a cameo as another member of the Q). This episode includes a text commentary.

"Q-Pid" brings together the Enterprise crew and Q in a reenactment of Robin Hood with Captain Picard as Robin Hood and Q as the Sheriff of Notthingham. "True Q" is a so-so episode in which an honor student on the Enterprise realizes she's a member of the Q Continuum. Q comes to claim her but she is torn between her humanity and going to the Q Continuum. When Picard is killed in a terrorist attack in "Tapestry"he finds himself in limbo with Q claiming to be God. Q feels bad for Picard and allows him to revisit a moment in his past. It was evidently inspired by a pitch for an episode called "A Q Carol" a variation on "A Christmas Carol".

Finally we get the conclusion episode of the series "All Good Things Parts 1 & 2" in which Picard discovers that the universe is about to end and its all his fault. Picard whisks back and forth in time with Q providing him clues as to why he's responsible for the end of humanity but refusing to provide him with the solution.

The "DS9" episode "Q-Less" is the only episode from the series featuring Q and it's quite a good one with a highlight being a boxing match between Commander Sisko and Q in which Sisko knocks Q out ("Picard never hit me!"). Finally from "Voyager" we get "Deathwish" in which a member of the Q Continuum wants to die and Captain Janeway is chosen as the judge in the case while Q presents the arguement against allowing a member of his race to die. This episode includes another text commentary. This episode actually appears on disc two as it takes place before "Tapestry".

"The Q & The Grey" the Q are in the middle of a civil war and Q transports the Voyager crew to his continuum chosing to make it appear symbolically as America during its own Civil war. In his final appearence as Q de Lancie appears to the Voyager crew and dumps his adolescent son Q2 (also the title of the episode(Keegan de Lancie)on the Voyager crew to deal with. Evidently the boy is bringing chaos to the Q continuum and the Continuum has indicated that Q must straighten the boy out. Q believes that Starfleet ideals might serve the youth and do the job.

As someone else pointed out this set would have worked well with the inclusion of "The Squire of Gothos" since the character of Trelane was an inspiration for the character of Q in "The Next Generation". Unfortunately it's not included with the set. I'm not sure if it wasn't presented as an option for this set or if it was just overlooked. It's a pity as it would have fit in quite well with this set.

Are these sets worthwhile for fans who own the entire run of "TNG", "Voyager" and "DS9"? Probably not but if you have a couple of seasons of one series or don't have all the Trek incarnations this is a pretty good set to have. Paramount has added three text commentary tracks to this set which is a nice plus since there weren't any on the original "Next Gen" or "DS9" sets.

This set will contain evry episode that Q appeared in. Twelve episodes in all - including two two-parters. Here is the official list:

Disc 1

* "Encounter at Farpoint" - Star Trek: The Next Generation production # 721

* "Hide and Q" - Star Trek: The Next Generation # 111

* "Q Who?" - Star Trek: The Next Generation # 142

Disc 2

* "Deja Q" - Star Trek: The Next Generation # 161 (w/ text commentary)

* "QPid" - Star Trek: The Next Generation # 194

* "True-Q" - Star Trek: The Next Generation # 232

* "Q-Less" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine # 407 (w/ text commentary)

Disc 3

* "Tapestry" - Star Trek: The Next Generation # 241

* "All Good Things..." - Star Trek: The Next Generation # 747

* "Death Wish" - Star Trek: Voyager # 130 (w/ text commentary)

Disc 4

* "The Q and the Grey" - Star Trek: Voyager # 153

* "Q2" - Star Trek: Voyager # 265.

I hated Q during TNG's run and avoided all his stories in reruns. So imagine my surprise when I found myself really enjoying this collection--it probably helped that I hadn't seen the Next Gen eps since they aired and the others not at all. The character of Q brought something to the next gen Star Treks that they lacked all too often--humor, unattractive character traits, selfishness: a humanity that other characters lacked sometimes, even though I loved TNG. Yet thanks to Q, we see a grumpy Worf, a grumpy Geordi, etc. Q's interactions with the regular cast is fun to watch--though we needed more Q and less Vash in Q-less (though I did like the character of Vash a lot). Seeing Suzy Plakson again is great, too, in the Q and the Grey, even if it's not a strong episode. Seeing Q interact with each of the three captains is fun, and the character arc for Q is interesting. John de Lancie does a really excellent job and he "gets" Star Trek as well as anyone.

Encounter at Farpoint and Hide and Q are a bit painful to watch--the cast was overacting so badly that it's a wonder that the show survived the first season--they are interesting for that reason alone. Q was the best thing in both episdoes. Q-Who is chilling and wonderful, and the Borg were at their best--they lost a bit of their menace with each subsequent appearance. Deja Q was very, very funny--better than I remembered. The Q-Geordi and Q-Data interaction is great. Q-pid is nearly as funny. True Q is a bit dull, but Tapestry is one of the best ever TNG episodes. All Good Things is fun if you ignore the plot holes that you can drive a truck through. As the commentary points out, Q-less, as one of the first DS9 eps, gives a wonderful look at the foundation of the DS-9 characters and watching Q interact with Sisko is great. I liked the fact that they show the episodes in Q-order with this episode before TNG finale. The Voyager episodes are the weakest in the lot--but Q stirs things up and brings a liveliness to the proceedings. By the time I got to them, I was just enjoying John de Lancie without worrying about the stories overly much. The one-liners and witty observations are evident in all twelve episodes. Seeing Colm Meany as O'Brien in TNG pilot and then on DS9 seems like a nice bonus, as does having both TNG pilot and finale in one set.

I hadn't really noticed in the other collectives--but there's one text commentary per series so that you get insight into each.

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