Qpid

Picard is in love with Vash. She is unpredictable, dangerous, and beautiful. She is also a threat to the relationship he has with Beverly (even though they never seem to get around to anything). Vash has shown up at a conference that is being hosted on the Enterprise and has thrown Picard into a tizzy. Not only that but who should show up as well? Q! He wants to reward Picard for getting him back in the continuum. Picard can't shake him and Q, in his inimitable way, launches one of his intergalactic practical jokes. He turns the regulars on the series into characters from the Robin Hood legend. Unlike a holodeck fantasy, the situation is deadly. He takes Vash and holes her up in a castle where she is to be executed. Picard as Robin Hood is given the task of rescuing her. When she realizes she is to be beheaded, she immediately agrees to marry Sir Guy, just out of expediency. She is a survivor and decides "Whatever." Meanwhile, Picard and his "merry men" go to the castle and all manner of fun ensues. I think that Q provides an opportunity for the actors to spread their wings a bit. This is quite a hoot and we know that things will eventually work out. Or will they?

What isn't fun about this episode? So much fun as though given a recess between episodes. I respect any show that takes the opportunity to be whimsical. Lighten up people. Jean Luc cannot help but smile as Robin Hood

When you examine this particular TNG episode you realize at times how silly some of the stories can be. But a chance to see John DeLancie as Q and Jennifer Hetrick as Vash is never to be passed up.

No doubt about it Vash and Q are two of the most capricious beings that Captain Picard knows in the Universe. As Vash makes it a no bones fact that she's out for herself first and foremost she and Patrick Stewart can never really get together.

But Q decides to test that relationship by putting them into a Robin Hood fantasy from old earth legends along with the rest of the Enterprise regulars with Vash as Maid Marian. As she's not from the earth Hetrick is slow on the uptake. And chivalry really isn't something she values.

Nevertheless this is Q's attempt to test Picard's romantic inclinations and it doesn't quite go as expected.

Clive Revill is Sir Guy of Gisborne in this amusing story.

As the heading says, a nice intermission from the typical next generation story line. Overall fun and enjoyable with Worf really doing a great job with some comedic lines.

At the end of the episode, in Picard's Ready Room, the copy of Shakespeare on display is Volume I of A. L. Rowse's "The Annotated Shakespeare". It is turned to pages 354 and 355. On page 354 there is a picture of Patrick Stewart playing Touchstone in a production of "As You Like It" in 1968.

RussWig.