Deja Q

Every time Q shows up, is a little better than the last. The first episode of the series with Q, I thought he was obnoxious and just another villain; but as time goes on, he's evolved into one of the best characters in the series. Maybe it's just John de Lancie, but his character seems better written than anyone else. The stories he's in are more interesting, they're humorous, the dialog is better; everyone just seems more animated and entertaining. My favorite characters are Worf, Data, Geordi, Guinan, Picard and Q, and I am eternally thankful for any episode where Wesley and his Mother are absent; I find both of them extremely annoying. Riker is tolerable, sometimes better than others, and I guess Troi is just there for eye candy? She honestly doesn't seem to serve any purpose, and her character is stilted, wooden, inconsistent and pretty much useless. Looking forward to more Q!

This is one of my favourite episodes. Q is my favourite character in all of Star Trek, he is consistently entertaining. Q and Picard have great chemistry as usual, but I also really enjoyed the scenes between Q and Data. The ending of this episode is one of the funniest and heartwarming endings ever.

Q is ejected from the continuum and transformed into a human.

This is a solid episode with a fairly interesting story, great visuals and an entertaining performance from John de Lancie.

It is a humorously intended character transformation story with Q learning about humanity to make him a better omnipotent being.

How much you enjoy the Deja Q depends on how interesting you find the concept and whether the comedy works for you. For me it is refreshing to see him on the receiving end of the torment, but the jokes, albeit hilarious in very short doses, are (for my own sense of humour) not hugely consistent. Q has a brief exchange with Worf that is particularly memorable.

There is a decent sci-fi element to the episode with the sub-plot regarding the decaying orbit of a moon being an interesting idea and the detail that goes with it feels plausible.

I like the notion of Q as an observer and frequent judge of humanity, but this is the point where the character lost a lot of mystique for me in the grand scheme of the show. I think it stems from the number of scenes we see where the character whines about his predicament. As a stand-alone story it does work very well though I have to admit.

I do not wish to take anything away from John de Lancie's performance which is as excellent and charismatic as ever. His banter with Enterprise characters is always engaging and great for generating humour, but with it comes a loss of awe around such a powerful character. Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn and Patrick Stewart play off him particularly well.

Visually this is an impressive episode with some superb effects, editing and strong cinematography.

For me it's a 7.5/10 but I round upwards.

This might be the best episode in the entire history of the franchise. It's not just one element that makes it perfect but a whole collection of them. The writing (at first) is absolutely perfect: every single line of dialogue is witty and funny and has a reason to exist: all the "serious" plot lines of the rest of the episode are well thought out and have a reason to exist; the execution is also perfect: all the actors are at the top of their game and perfectly representing their characters: al-around a perfect tng episode and a perfect star trek episode in whole and possibly the best piece of star trek in the history of the entire franchise.

This is far from the best episode of TNG, but it is riddled with some of the very best lines. Especially John De Lancie, and his delivery of:

"Eaten any good books lately?", "Please don't feel compelled now to tell me the story of The Boy Who Cried 'Worf'.", "Simple. Change the gravitational constant of the universe.", "You weren't like that before the beard.", "Ah, Dr. Crusher. I see Starfleet has shipped you back into exile." "Your bedside manner's admirable, Doctor. I'm sure your patients recover quickly, just to get away from you!"