Q-Less

So many reviewers slamming this episode! The god-like Q (John DeLancie) makes a visit to DS9 via the wormhole accompanied by his mortal love-toy Vash (Jennifer Hetrick). Q was the nemesis of Captain Picard in TNG and Vash and the captain had an infatuation until Q lured Vash away with the promise of archaeological adventures.

Q is either a character you enjoy or find annoying.

The story here weaves around power loss on the station and everyone is going to die unless the crew figures out the problem. This episode is very similar to a Next Generation season 1 episode (anyone remember flying Manta Rays???).

Q is always good for slapstick or twisted humor. Commander Sisko does something to Q that Picard would never have done -which was freaking hilarious.

I didn't hate this episode but it will not end up in my top 10 for the season either.

Vash's use of her feminine wiles to try to always get what she wants is an overused writers device for her character.

This episode is pretty much terrible. The appearance of Q seems forced in the first place and the writing is just inconsistent; for instance, is Q omniscient or not? How'd he not spot O'Brian, and so on. The acting throughout is pretty terrible from Dr. Bashir's opening monologue to his corny ending joke line. In between, we have a silly story arc that just isn't very captivating. This entire cast seems to lack charisma and verisimilitude. Even when his entire station is at risk, Cisco barely even seems to get his blood pressure up. I feel like the director should have been shouting, "People, your lives are supposed to be at stake!". Even the auction feels like a high-school production instead of a prime-time TV show and resembles in no way a convincing real-life auction.

I have really enjoyed DS9 so far, and seeing that Q was going to be in this episode I was expecting an enjoyable story. Unfortunately, the irritating and uninteresting Vash came with him. I cannot fathom why anyone thinks this woman is interesting, or why the writers seem to think the way her character is written would make her seemingly irresistible to men. I always found her relationship with Picard totally unbelievable; someone of his class and intelligence would never be romantically involved with a trashy, immoral con-artist. I also find it unbelievable that Q, who is highly intelligent, immortal and can do absolutely anything he wants, would ever waste one second of his time on someone like Vash, let alone pursue her. Ridiculous. She actually seems to have sucked all the charm out of Q; he wasn't his usual witty, fascinating self. The story was just disjointed and boring.

Q and Vash visit DS9

This is an okay episode but for me is the relatively forgettable outside of some early character development in the series.

I found the plot quite uninteresting and technobabble heavy.

Quark is involved in a few scenes helping Vash to profit from her time exploring the galaxy. These work well to explore his personality and aspects of Ferengi culture. One exchange he has with Odo is particularly good. Armin Shimerman and Rene Auberjonois are great as always.

Q's appearance is okay from a self-referential humour perspective, but it's pretty pointless. The same point about people focusing on their own materialism and missing the bigger picture of life could have been made without him being there to observe. The references to Picard and the Enterprise get tiresome pretty quickly. John De Lancie does his best, but the material is not the strongest for the character.

There are more scenes of Dr Bashir being a sex pest that are slightly cringey, but if the early intention was to make the audience sympathetic due to his loneliness I guess it works. Alexander Siddig is great regardless of Bashir's characterisation.

For me it is a 5.5/10 but I round upwards.

One of my favorite DS9 episodes has a couple of recurring characters from TNG making an appearance. When last seen o TNG John DeLancie as Q and Jennifer Hetrick as Vash went off together to explore the universe.

Hetrick has returned with artifacts from the Gamma Quadrant right through the wormhole. Q makes an appearance later and makes known that he wants Vash back whom he finds as appealing as as Jean Luc Picard did at one time. But Vash is all about the latinum as she partners with Quark for profit to sell her artifacts.

Meantime the station itself is draining power in fits and starts, but might be dragged into the wormhole.

I love this episode, especially Hetrick negotiating with Armin Shimmerman. She has great knowledge of other cultures, even their erogenous zones. Seeing her work on Quark is worth this whole episode.