Q-Less

I've said this so many times before. If I know that Q is going to be in a Star Trek episode, I feel like running. What's the point of doing anything when he has the ability to change anything, do anything, and mess up any sort of logical progression. Once again he sticks his nose in Federation business. Why this is, I don't know. He has control over the universe. Why mess around with mere mortals. As for Vash, I found her tiresome and uninteresting in TNG, and, once again, she is tiresome and uninteresting. Please don't have either of them return.

John De Lancie and Jennifer Hetrick reprise their TNG roles as omnipotent cosmic pest and ethically-challenged archaeologist. Vash arrives on a ship which appears to be experiencing inexplicable problems. Soon, Q shows up and DS9's crew thinks they've found the explanation for the problems. But it seems that Q has only one thing in mind - convincing Vash to return to his sidecar. As Q becomes more frustrated in his attempts at persuasion, DS9 begins to experience inexplicable problems as well.

The plots seems a bit disjointed and - more than once - one has to question the intelligence of the station's safety protocols. But the real purpose of this episode seems to have been to lend DS9 some ratings through the appearance of a popular TNG character (Q) and to resolve the Vash story arc without doing another dull romance between her and Picard.

De Lancie's performances have always been heavily dependent on the script he is presented with. This DS9 episode presents Q as the intergalactic trickster, not the child-like god which he typically plays in the heavier TNG Q episodes. The dialog here is written well and both Hetrick and De Lancie do well with their roles.

Although I like Vash's risky personality and Jennifer Hetrick's smile, I have to point out - as a professional archaeologist - that it is unlikely that Vash would be permitted to exist for any length of time in a lawfully constituted government, let alone being accepted into a major scientific think-tank. As cool as she may be, she's as much of a looter as Indiana Jones.

The best part of what is really not that good of an episode is when Sisko punches the irritating Q and knocks him down. Q is the reason I don't like this episode. I couldn't stand the character on TNG and liked him less when he turned up on DS9 and Voyager. At least he never showed up on Enterprise, which would have made a bad show even worse. I'll never understand Star Trek's need for mere mortals to defeat supposedly omnipotent beings. For a guy who claimed religion was passe, Roddenberry certainly loved using god like characters.

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.

I remember watching this episode way back when it first aired in the 90s. I remember wanting sisko to punch out Q during that mock fight and he did. I still get a kick out of that.

The one thing I could never understand about Vash is why does she (a human) need money? I can see maybe some other species but humans in the 24th century (according to star trek) have no need for financial wealth anymore. In an earlier episode of TNG picard says to a passenger that they have no need for personal wealth anymore and they can simply "manufacture these items ourselves". ( he was speaking of precious diamonds and jewels). And what drives humans is "we now work to better ourselves".

The only thing I can think of is maybe to travel and live throughout the galaxy, she needs to have certain currency of different worlds.

All in all , still a pretty ok episode. This first season, just like TNG has it's growing pains but eventually work itself out.