Top 12 “Q” Episodes of Star Trek

I’ve talked about Q a few times, of course he was played the awesome John DeLancie, but with one or two exceptions I’ve never really discussed the episodes he was in. So I thought it would be fun to do a quick rundown of all of them. And rather than just go through them, why not order them from worst to best? And this is only including canon appearances so no Star Trek:Borg.

 

And he was in 12 episodes, hence the odd number. By the way any episode with Q is a decent episode, I am just ranking them for the fun of it there are no bad episodes here. With that said, here are my top 12 Q episodes.






#12.The Q and the Grey

Ok one exception to what I just said, This is painful. In “Death Wish”, we’ll get to that one, the recreation of the Q continuum as a road in the dessert made a simple kind of sense. The metaphor worked and the scene was good. Here we get a Civil War backdrop which makes no sense and is just lame. The Civil War stuff doesn’t hurt the episode, it assassinates it. It starts a comedy but gets real stupid.







#11.Qpid

I really have no idea what the thinking was for this one. A romance episode? A Robin Hood homage? Let’s get the captain some sex? Whatever it was the episode is a bore. Yeah it managed one or two cute scenes but that’s about all. It’s one of the most forgettable episodes of Trek. In pretty much every episode Q learns something by the end, here not so much.








#10.Q2

This is the follow up to “Q and The Grey”, but isn’t nearly as bad. It isn’t good either, as we see Q dealing with his brat son. John De Lancie seemed bored with the character at this point which doesn’t help it. However this episode has more heart than the goofy comedy of the last and I give it points for that. We do kind of care about the whiny brat by the end of the episode. A little.







#9.Q-Less

This isn’t the worst Q episode, but it is a pretty weak DS9 episode. This was another one I reviewed so check that one out. We get the return of Vash from Q-Pid and aside from one or two cute moments Q hardly has anything to really do. The plot is insipid and it’s not shock that Q doesn’t appear on DS9 again. Though having Sisko punching Q in the face is always extremely satisfying.








#8.”Hide and Q”

I did a while review of this one explaining the lame plot which goes nowhere so no need to get into it more here. Long story short, Q wants to make Riker a Q for some reason that’s never clear. At one point this I had this one higher, but then I remembered that while the story is weak at least we get some classic scenes especially one between Q and Picard discussing Shakespeare.








#7.Encounter at Farpoint

Q’s first appearance and he’s literally the only good thing in the episode. However, since this was his first appearance he’s lacking a lot of the charm and humor he would have later on. It was clear he was supposed just be a villain, and the more human side of his personality hadn’t been developed yet.









#6.True Q

Here we get the more human Q, sadly that means he’s a lot less fun too. This episode came along when TNG was starting to get kind of, dull. So we get this one which is kind of plodding. I think I fast forward parts every time I watch it. It involves Q trying to determine if a young lady on the ship is in fact also a Q. There is some great dialogue and strong scenes, but the episode isn’t great.








#5.Déjà Q

I talked in another article about how one of the biggest and funniest Q scenes com from the end of this episode. But the rest of the episode is good too. It involves Q being stripped of his powers and having to exist as a human. De Lancie makes it work, and the scenes between him and Data are great. We don’t get any real antics, aside from the ending, so it relies all on De Lancie’s ability to charm us without having to resort to silly gimmicks. And it works! Course Q gets his powers back with the help of a uncredited Corbin Berensen cameo.








#4.Death Wish

Yeah it seems strange to see a Voyager episode so high but as far as Voyager episodes go this is a damn good one. To bad the follow up sucked, but I digress. Anyway this episode handles the topic of suicide and handles it pretty head on. We also see that the Q are a society in decay, they are so omnipotent that they have nothing to strive for. It’s a very well layered episode as we deal with suicide, and the basic rights of the individual vs society. Yeah we get some Q antics but it’s nice to see Q can be more than just comic relief in fact we see a very somber side of Q which works very well. Great episode, and a Will Riker cameo too!








#3.Q Who

This is generally considered one of the best Q episodes because it was the first introduction to The Borg. We also see more of Q being sadistic as people literally die in this episode because of his actions. Off screen, yes. But I put it here because of it has one of my favorite Q dialogues ever. It’s so good here it is :

The best part is that Q isn’t overused in the episode like he would be later on. He sets up the scenario, and then just sort of sits back and watches everything go to hell.









#2.Tapestry

There are lots of reasons I should hate this episode. It’s another “near death experience” episode which is so cliche it’s ridiculous. It tries to also be an alternate history episode as we see what Picard’s life could have been. It also features Picard for the entire run, our regular characters  barely get a line. So with all that said, why do I like it? It is just so well written that I can’t help it. Q gets some some of his best material here, and the core message is a sound one. It’s the small things that combine to make us the person we are today, change even a tiny one of those things can change our whole life. It’s a great character piece and unlike “True Q” we see that Q can be understated and yet  still a lot of fun to watch.







#1.All Good Things…”

Not gonna lie, this was a hard one to pick. I mean we know it’s a fantastic series finale but putting that aside, what makes this a great Q episode? He isn’t even a large part of it. But I like that we see all the sides of Q here. We see the sadistic court room judge, the silly jokester, and the wise counsel. We even see in the end that Q really does care about Picard. He steals every scene he is in, and getting to title drop the episode in that final climatic scene.








John DeLancie created a character that will go down as one of the best villains in Star Trek history. So do you agree with the list? Comment and let me know.