Q-Less

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.