Star Trek: Voyager
"Q2"
Air date: 4/11/2001
Teleplay by Robert Doherty
Story by Kenneth Biller
Directed by LeVar Burton
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
"He worked so hard on that paper. The least you could've done was tell him you were proud of him."
"But I'm not."— Janeway and Q
In brief: Yawn. Not nearly funny enough to make up for the woeful lack of imagination and utterly wrong-headed use of the Q.
I suppose we're supposed to laugh at the fact omnipotent beings are asking parental advice of Captain Janeway. Unfortunately, the joke isn't all that funny — nor is much of "Q2" in general — so if it's not a comedy it can only be a pretty lame excuse for a Q episode.
The best Q comedy was TNG's "Deja Q." That was a show with chemistry and wit ... and a premise that at least made Our Favorite Q (John de Lancie) into a human, such that he had no choice but to experience human behavior firsthand. But "Q2" — aside from its ripped-off "Deja Q"-like elements — is unfortunately the sequel to "The Q and the Grey" from four years back, an episode that went about as wrong as a Q story could. "Q2" only takes that wrongness further; omnipotence apparently means you have the ability to do anything physically, but have the intellect and ambitions of an American teenager.
Basically, the problem is that we have humans teaching lessons to the Q instead of the other way around — which is absurd and simply a waste of the Q as a story device. When you have beings who can do anything, why put them through the shenanigans of sitcom-level teenage rebellion? In TNG's "All Good Things..." Q was trying to help Picard understand larger issues about the nature of the universe. In Voyager's "Death Wish" we had a Q who wanted to die because knowing everything had rendered his existence pointless. Those were interesting, larger-thinking shows.
Now? We get High Concept 101: "A teenage Q." And Higher Concept 102: "Let's have John de Lancie's real-life son (Keegan de Lancie) play the part of Q's son!" Well, great. It's an okay starting point and I'm sure fun for all the actors, but there has to be a story here for it to be worth our time.
Alas, there's not much to be said for the story that is "Q2." It's featherweight at best, and the lessons rehashed here are straight from Chapter 1 of the Star Trek Human Lessons Textbook. I wish I could say there was anything here resembling Q-worthy thought on the writers' behalf, anything that could put it more in the vein of "All Good Things..." or "Death Wish," but there isn't. "Q2" is simply a gag show starring the Q, with their super-duper powers as the tools for the gimmicks. There's no evidence this show even wanted to be thoughtful; it's dumbed down by design.
Q arrives on Voyager to ask "Aunt Kathy" (an amusing title, I'll grant) to help him teach his out-of-control son (born as a result of "Q and the Grey") some responsibility. Why Q cannot do this himself is a question that, if answered, would reveal the entire foundation of the episode as the sham it is. Apparently being omnipotent doesn't afford you any parenting skills. (Omnipotence just isn't what it used to be.) If we're to accept the can-of-worms premise of an out-of-control Q, at least make it seem like there's some urgency.
Instead, the idea of an out-of-control teenage Q quickly paves the way to a series of routine comic gimmicks. Gimmicky Q hijinks are a hallmark of Q stories, even in good ones like "Death Wish," but without a story to eventually grab our attention they just tire here.
Gimmick #1: Turn engineering into a dance club. "It's a party," explains Q Jr., with beverage in hand. Is it non-alcoholic? I hope so, because he's most definitely underage and that would mean Voyager needs more competent bouncers. For that matter, a drunken Q could be dangerous: Alcohol and altering the space-time continuum don't mix. Janeway rolls her eyes here for what won't be the last time.
Gimmick #2: Make Seven nekkid. This looks like one of those things the studio must've loved when they heard about. I can almost picture the people who cut together the episode trailers smiling with glee: Here's an easy workday! Plus, it can be justified as plausible! What heterosexual teenage male wouldn't wanted to see Seven without clothes? Nothing like a little realism in your Trek. Of course, Seven is too superior to be embarrassed or do any Janeway-style eye-rolling, so she simply uses the ignore-the-pest tactic.
Gimmick #3: War games. Q Jr. starts a war between two societies simply to watch their ships shoot at one another on the viewscreen. Somebody needs to go out and buy this kid a PlayStation or a DVD of Star Wars (the latter of which I'm guessing might actually be available by the 24th century, but no promises).
Gimmick #4: Make Neelix mute. Hey, this is actually a pretty good idea. Q Jr. fuses Neelix's jaw shut and makes his vocal cords disappear. Poor Neelix — he had his lungs extracted way back in "Phage" and now he has his vocal cords taken away. There's no justice in the world. Or come to think of it, maybe there is.
Such zaniness is setup for the actual premise, which is that Q suspends all of Q Jr.'s powers, and gives his son one week to shape up under Janeway's tutelage. If he hasn't shown great improvement, the Q Continuum will transform the unruly brat into an amoeba. The lesson: Actions Have Consequences, especially when your actions can rearrange entire worlds. I'd just like to know why Q can't conjure up some sense for this kid when he has the power to transform him into an amoeba. For that matter, I'd like to know if the writers actually thought any of their "intellectually immature superbeing" plot was fresh, seeing as TOS did "Charlie X" roughly 35 years ago.
The middle passages of the show are bland moments of Janeway trying to whip this kid into shape with lay-down-the-law threat tactics and then lessons that double as Meaningful Dialog Scenes. Eventually we're watching as Q Jr. writes a paper on the Q Continuum, which is hopelessly inane; apparently the great Continuum really is too much for my feeble mind to comprehend ... or for television writers to do any justice.
Then we have Q Jr. stealing the Delta Flyer because he apparently didn't learn anything from all this. His excuse for theft and joyriding? Boredom. He goes flying through alien territory with unwilling partner-in-crime Icheb, opening fire on an alien ship when they try to detain him for trespassing. Icheb is injured, Q Jr. escapes and returns to Voyager where he gets the usual dressing-down by Janeway. Icheb lies dying, with Doc going on about how he needs to know more about the weapon in order to save Icheb's life. (Yes, in sci-fi you can treat someone who has been run down by a car as long as you know what make and model the car was.)
The final act is so underwhelming it plays more like a parody on humanism than a satisfying ending. Q Jr. decides to accept responsibility for his actions by returning to face the music at the hands of the aliens he shot at. But, surprise! The alien was actually Q, who engineered the encounter as a test to see if Q Jr. would own up to the consequences of his mischief. Icheb is really okay. Then we get a quick trial of Q Jr. by Continuum judges, who, after all this, find that Q Jr.'s actions don't indicate acceptable levels of progress.
My point is more along the lines of Q's complaint — that Janeway has turned Q Jr. into a human with Federation values and, well, what good is that for the Continuum? They're judging Q Jr. on an incident and actions that have about as much cosmic relevance as what I ate for breakfast this morning.
LeVar Burton, who has directed excellent episodes like "Timeless," is saddled with a banal script that thinks small when it should be thinking big. The closing scenes give us a trial and a guilty verdict only for it to be reversed with a bunch of Q's off-screen (non)arguments. What, if anything, is all of this saying? It's clunky and abrupt along the narrative line.
My, how the Q have fallen. Amazingly, it would seem Voyager has managed to bastardize the Q even worse than the Borg. Who could've guessed that the beings who put humanity on trial back in the TNG days would be reduced to the sort of family sitcom where a son whines to his father about being too pressured about living up to expectations? Let's be real here: Do we want to see the Q as a metaphor for emotionally abandoned teenagers and/or fathers?
I'd have told the kid: Hey, you're omnipotent. With your talents I'll be damned if I'm going to let you end up working at Burger King. Stop screwing around and put that galaxy back where it belongs.
Next week: Doc's unauthorized Voyager biography. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Previous episode: Human Error
Next episode: Author, Author
Like this site? Support it by buying Jammer a coffee.
73 comments on this post
Thu, Sep 27, 2007, 2:22pm (UTC -6)
I must admit, I have never understood the appeal of the Q--Omnipotent beings really have nothing better to do than toy with weak little bipeds?
Yes, I love to sit around and poke at anthills, and pour water on them, and disturb their nests, and smush a few. Really?
Dull, dull, dull.
Wed, Apr 30, 2008, 9:52am (UTC -6)
Mon, May 26, 2008, 10:43am (UTC -6)
However, his Voyager appearances made him basically a copy of that uncle on Bewitched, unlike the character he established on TNG, which was much more complex & interesting.
Wed, Feb 4, 2009, 7:32pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Mar 8, 2009, 4:42pm (UTC -6)
His one appearance on DS9 was totally lame, and a stunt, I suspect, on the part of the DS9 production staff to net curious TNG viewers during DS9's first season.
His appearances on VOY were absolutely egregious, and serve only to diminish the interesting aspects that his character originally conveyed.
Bah. Humbug.
Sat, Apr 4, 2009, 2:00am (UTC -6)
Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 2:47pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Feb 21, 2010, 12:01pm (UTC -6)
Wed, Jul 21, 2010, 3:17am (UTC -6)
AMEN TO THAT!!!!!!!
God, if only this kid had been around in the first season, he could've spared us from Neelix altogether!
The rest of the show is risible and, Jammer, you shouldn't have graced it with more than a couple of lines. It's funny at times though, sometimes in a stupid way.
I'd give it two stars...
Sun, Apr 10, 2011, 3:56pm (UTC -6)
So expectations of un-Voyager-y things cast aside, I found it to be fun and light hearted. I especially liked the replicator saying "make it yourself!", referring to Neelix as the "pet Talaxian" and acknowledging how annoying his character is, in this case by sealing his mouth :). (poor guy, his heart is in the right place. But he IS annoying)
Not an ideal end to Q (seeing as there were no more 24th century Trek series and John de Lancie was already looking a bit old for the part of an immortal) but I didn't find it offensive. 2-2.5.
Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 9:49am (UTC -6)
First, Voyager pissed away it's initial premises. The Starfleet/Maquis conflict amounted to next to nothing, and the Kazon years -- which I think were actually the series' best -- were too ham-fisted and not consequential enough.
When it was evident things weren't working, Bernman and the gang brought in Q for one of the series' best episodes ('Death Wish'). And, honestly, I thought the 'Q and the Grey' was better than Jammer and others did.
But THIS episode on the heels of that one -- plus the watering down of the Borg and even an episode that totally neutered the Klingons -- showed that Voyager didn't just waste its own potential. It wasted the potential it inherited from TNG.
DS9 wasn't a perfect series, but at least it made its own storylines and premises. Voyager tried that, failed and then corrupted two big parts of the TNG legacy.
Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 12:50am (UTC -6)
Sun, May 26, 2013, 2:12pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 7:18pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Aug 29, 2013, 10:50am (UTC -6)
but not one of my favorite episodes.
2 star
Sun, Sep 29, 2013, 2:37am (UTC -6)
Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 6:44am (UTC -6)
Part of what makes it forgivable is that there are plenty of smirk inducing gags and all of the actors involved make much more mileage out of the material than there really should be. Q Junior could have easily descended into Jar Jar Binks territory, but thanks to the actor portraying him; he's actually amusing, quirky and has a certain charm. It must be difficult to nail a role were you must be irritating to every character yet loveable to the audience.
A few instances did hold it back. Even for a story that's meant to be light-hearted, some gags just didn't work and despite what the writers think; we don't want Seven reduced to shameless bait for adolescent male viewers. Plus some of Qs' human lessons were redundant. Making him write essays was dull and useless, as the episode proved a few Acts later.
In the end I did hope for but I laughed more than I sighed, so it gets a moderately enjoyable 2.5 stars.
Thu, Oct 31, 2013, 10:59pm (UTC -6)
Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 7:54am (UTC -6)
Sun, Feb 9, 2014, 10:26pm (UTC -6)
Wed, Feb 26, 2014, 9:23am (UTC -6)
I think the reason I found endearing is that I'm a parent, and so I could relate to a lot of the parenting plotline. I didn't take it as a grand Q Continuum story, but rather a metaphor for human parenting. A lot of the time that's what Star Trek is – a metaphor for our own times.
Sun, Mar 9, 2014, 9:42pm (UTC -6)
Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 1:06am (UTC -6)
Bleah. Voyager ruined the Q even worse than they ruined the Borg.
Sat, Sep 20, 2014, 1:01pm (UTC -6)
Tue, Apr 21, 2015, 3:00pm (UTC -6)
Tue, Aug 18, 2015, 3:14am (UTC -6)
(PS. I'm an idiot and a liar.)
Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 11:53am (UTC -6)
Zero Stars – Stop destroying our favourite characters!!! I personally love Q episodes. Almost every week, the writers try to piss us off in some way. My only guess at this point, is that the writers for Voyager are actually Star Wars fans, who hate Star Trek. There’s always been a bit of rivalry between those who like Star Wars, and those who like Star Trek. They infiltrated us. Get ‘em.
When Q said "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. Don't provoke the Borg!!!", I could actually sense his fear. What the hell? Even Janeway isn't afraid of the Borg. She willingly chooses to get assimilated, she raids Borg cubes, etc... Voyager has now castrated the Q. Can it get any worse?
DS9’s Q appearance was OK. It reminded me of “Encounter at Farpoint”, as it was another Alien that was being held captive. Again, they were being tested, to see if they would figure it out in time, and set the alien free. It wasn’t as good as “Encounter at Farpoint”, but they didn’t change the Q character like in this sack of crap.
As Q’s favour to Janeway, he should have left Neelix mute. Q could have just winked at Janeway, said “You’re Welcome”, then snapped his fingers and disappeared.
Thu, Mar 24, 2016, 12:17pm (UTC -6)
I've said before that Q worked best as a vehicle for something else in my mind, such as introducing the Borg in Q Who. This is the other extreme, a Q episode that seeks nothing but to introduce a bigger, badder Q for nothing more than its own sake. "Can I help you, kitchen rat?" indeed. 1 star.
Thu, May 12, 2016, 8:04pm (UTC -6)
For starters, the episode doubled down on the absurdity of Qs acting like humans. Remember, Q had absolutely no experience with being a human in Deja Q, despite appearing like them and knowing all about them. He openly admitted he would have appeared as a woman if he had realized before it could have distracted Picard. So why, pray tell, is little q acting like a horny fifteen year old? Why on earth would he care about techno-music and what any alien girls look like? Why would he want to party or see Seven naked? He wouldn't. But I guess the writers think we like this kind of juvenile humor. Well, I certainly don't. And even if others do, it isn't worth butchering the Q for it.
V mentioned that her husband, not a fan of Star Trek, liked the show. Well, sorry, but that's not a good justification of it. Part of the joy of a continuing franchise is the word "continuing", or continuity. We like seeing characters and concepts and cultures developing out over time, and seeing those characters and concepts and cultures in a new light. But it requires those characters and concepts and cultures to show a connection to what came in the past. Sure, it may be possible to create a good comedy with a bumbling, incompetent legendary king in a fantasy world. But if it was Aragorn, and an official sequel to Lord of the Rings? It'd be a slap in the face of all the fans who became emotionally connected to him in the far more serious LOTR. It doesn't fit the setting. Any quality in the book would be offset by the massive disconnect it would have with the intended audience.
Same here with this farce of a Q. Now, Trek is huge, and things have definitely been retconned at times, and for good reason. I don't mind that the Trill in The Host are nothing like the Dax family, because some things that work in a one-off episode wouldn't work in a deeper exploration. I don't mind that the Ferengi were retconned after their dismal initial showings. But Q was beloved. Q was at the beginning and end of TNG. Q was a well developed concept by this point. Why are we throwing away some excellent concepts for a cheap farce and juvenile jokes? Who thought this would be a good idea?
Except that it was prevalent in all three Voyager Q shows. The stupid flirting with Janeway. This teenage PG-rated rebel here. Why??? If you wanted to have a story about a magical being who didn't know what it was like to be a parent, create a new magical being. Sure, it would probably be too TOS-like and still probably be dumb, but at least you aren't embarrassing a beloved actor and beloved character.
Ugh, but anyway, it wasn't just that, even if it is the most egregious. Q tells Janeway to teach q how to be a Q, without actually letting her know what that entails. He still thinks humans are stupid; shouldn't he see the obvious contradiction in that? And so Janeway has q work on a term paper and learn how to be a human? OK, in fairness, Q gave her no direction on what to do, but gave her a very strict deadline. I'm pretty sure a term paper isn't going to impress anyone. I'm pretty sure any training program has more value than that...
Meanwhile, q apparently doesn't know how to write a paper, doesn't know how to pilot a ship, but does know how to reprogram holodecks and open random wormholes (and hey, shouldn't Kim or Seven be able to reverse engineer whatever he did based on the Delta Flyer's logs?). Just what constitutes knowledge that is beneath value for a Q and what doesn't? The answer is apparently whatever the plot requires. Which is definitely a sign of a problem in the plot...
Oh, and "Don't provoke the Borg!"? Hey, Q, what did you do back in Q Who? Oh, right, provoked the Borg. Guess he belongs to the "do as I say, not as I do" school of parenting.
As for the ending, and it's obvious parallels to Deja Q, well, I'm of two minds on that. On the one hand, it kinda makes sense that Q would set that scenario up. After all, it was what got HIM reinstituted into the Q Continuum, so maybe it should work for q as well. So logically, I can see the reasoning. But the execution just fell flat. Besides the obvious retread and the obviousness that the alien was Q (c'mon, the coincidences of everything were way too high), the emotional connection just wasn't there. That said, I did like the scene where Q callously refused to save Icheb. One of the very few scenes where he actually felt like the character he really was.
This was an episode we really didn't need, and wasn't worth it even if we did. Poor Q, he deserved much better than this.
Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 12:57pm (UTC -6)
I got to meet John deLancie! AND I made him chuckle.
He's VERY tall, AND very handsome, which actually surprised me, because I have never found Q attractive in the least. His wife is BEAUTIFUL, and I seriously kicked myself for not googling before the event so I would have known that she is the actress who played the female voice of Reva in "Loud as a Whisper." Just like in that episode, her voice is lovely. She was also very nice--I was chatting with her for a while without realizing until later who she was.
So anyway, this was at a dinner during the Reason Rally, and John deLancie was seated right behind me. After dinner, people got up and began mixing and chatting, and the organizer requested over the microphone that all the "main stage speakers come to the annex room for a group photo." John apparently didn't hear, because he turned to me and asked what they had said. I repeated it, then said, "I thought you were supposed to be omniscient!"
He chuckled and replied, "Oh, I've NEVER heard that one before!" But he said it with a smile and wink, so I think it was okay. I at least refrained from falling at his feet in admiration, so it worked out well. :-)
Wed, Jul 6, 2016, 8:49pm (UTC -6)
Voyager had used Q so well.
Then this episode came about.
All because Janeway is a female.
Never liked this one and never will.
By far Season 7's worst effort.
.5 stars because there was some humor in there.
Fri, Sep 9, 2016, 12:57am (UTC -6)
Sun, Sep 25, 2016, 6:16am (UTC -6)
Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 7:38am (UTC -6)
"kitchen rat" cracked me up. It was "Bar rodent" in one of the other voyager Q episodes. Both great Neelix insults.
2 stars.
Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 1:04pm (UTC -6)
1/2 star. And only because I like John de Lancie. Otherwise 0.
Sun, Sep 3, 2017, 11:59am (UTC -6)
Thu, Sep 14, 2017, 3:24am (UTC -6)
Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 1:15pm (UTC -6)
As mentioned earlier in this comment thread, Q is classical "trickster" figure, like Loki. And he's basically omnipotent and eternally bored, which makes him a dangerous annoyance to all non-Q he comes into contact with.
Thankfully, John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart had great chemistry together. Thankfully, de Lancie is a charismatic actor who, scenery-cheweing aside, is fun to watch.
The kid playing Q Jr. just plain sucked; and while he was written to be obnoxious and annoying, I didn't help his acting performance, and it pulled down the entire episode. Even with badly written material, de Lancie can at least turn lemons into lemonade and make his performance interesting. This kid had no chance, and for my money it's the worst Q episode I've ever suffered through.
A very disappointing 1 star.
Sat, Jan 27, 2018, 5:01am (UTC -6)
Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 4:17am (UTC -6)
Wed, Feb 14, 2018, 4:18am (UTC -6)
Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 5:58pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 11:43am (UTC -6)
The novelty of De Lancie's actual son playing q wears off quickly and we are left with a plodding mess; almost shocking is that we are apparently meant to take q's boring book report on the Q Continuum as some sort of great achievement. Q's assertion that he's not proud of his son is about the only life we get here. Anyway, the Q valuing self-sacrifice isn't totally unprecedented, because of Deja Q, but even in that episode there was a twist to it (Q did admire Data's self-sacrifice, but wasn't particularly hoping to replicate it, and the second Q basically gave Q a pass for fun). The weird multiple endings with the Q jury, dressed in Q's Encounter at Farpoint/All Good Things robes which, let's recall, were based on Earth judge outfits Q was using to mock Picard, contribute to the worn-out schlockiness of the whole affair.
On the plus side, by this point I find Icheb fairly engaging (if a bit dull when his only role is to play straight man to an I'm-so-crazy non-rebel like q), and I actually do like the idea that Janeway gets some legit responsibilities as godmother. And I dunno, there is still a bit of pop to seeing De Lancie (Sr.) even if he looks tired. So it's not a total loss, but it's close to it. 1 star and I think the worst of the season.
Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 12:09am (UTC -6)
I’m not a big Q fan. I’m not a VOY Q fan for sure I hate comedies on Trek. And I really hate low brow comedies on Trek. This was awful. Dumb. Juvenile. Pointless
This is what happens when you let writers for Xena come write for Trek
Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 11:00pm (UTC -6)
DeLancie Jr was not the world's greatest actor, but he sufficed.
I liked Icheb having a friend.
I liked Seven's total shamelessness.
I liked the follow up on baby Q.
Mostly lighthearted fluff.
Mon, Nov 26, 2018, 8:46pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 6:43pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:57am (UTC -6)
Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 8:55pm (UTC -6)
What really bugs me about the episode is that just when there might be some albeit trite lesson for Q Jr. and therefore some kind of moral or real consequence, the episode basically resets. In the end, Q Jr. isn't stuck being a human, he gets all his powers back and the Q Continuum is made to look like a farce. What was the point? Did Q Jr. really grasp the self-sacrifice thing?
Also, the usual stupid Q tricks are very old. And making 7 naked is just "Threshold" -level bad. The first half hour was cringeworthy and the second half hour wasn't much better. The Icheb character had a chance to act outside its box but it was more stiff acting.
0.5 stars for "Q2" -- like I said, this episode never should have been made. The only redeemable thing here for me was Mulgrew/Janeway acting the right way given the terrible script -- she was convincing in trying to do her part to help Q Jr. even though the whole premise is ludicrous. What has the Q Continuum become... There are good Q episodes, bad ones, and this ugly one.
Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 9:14pm (UTC -6)
This was indeed a fistful of stupid.
Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:13pm (UTC -6)
This was a lighthearted comedy, not intended to be serious drama or examination of the meaning of what it would mean to encounter an omnipotent being, and you people are judging it as if it were the latter. That is an absurd category mistake.
The Q storyline was always meant to be funny. There is no way you could take any of it seriously in any of the series.
It would have been great if Voyager had been written to be a serious drama like BSG or even DS9, but since it wasn’t, you should take it for what it was and judge it episode by episode. Some episodes were meant to be taken seriously and some were not.
Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 4:46pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 11:16am (UTC -6)
One expects in the next scene to see Voyager warp off — no doubt on an adjusted heading. But we do not. It sits stationary in space for the long pause.
Therefore, Q Sr apparently knows of Endgame, and the rollback of the Universe, and even no Starship Relativity interference for a TPD violation.
Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:16am (UTC -6)
Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 6:53pm (UTC -6)
Loved every Q episode in Voyager. In TNG I couldn’t stand the character. Love the chemistry Mulgrew and DeLancie had together.
I haven’t come across a bad episode in season 7, yet. “Muses” was the last bad one and I see that that was season 6.
Wed, May 13, 2020, 3:55pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Jun 7, 2020, 12:47pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Jun 8, 2020, 3:05pm (UTC -6)
I would argue that the Borg and the Q worked better when you knew less about them, even if Death Wish was clearly far better than Encounter at Farpoint.
Mon, Jun 8, 2020, 3:17pm (UTC -6)
Say what you will about Farpoint, but it was an original concept that created a popular recurring character and theme for the franchise.
Sat, Aug 8, 2020, 11:13am (UTC -6)
Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 1:50pm (UTC -6)
The first thing that got me engaged was the introductory premiss: Q. Jr. getting bored. Many would just gloss over that but it got me to thinking about how eternal life, promised by many religions, would actually be highly undesirable. Eternal existence--even as some "higher," "spiritual" beings--would become supremely boring and worthless after a while, and this show broaches that idea in an admittedly clunky manner. It made me sit up and pay attention though.
Otherwise, and maybe I'm in a particular melancholic mood but Junior's transformation--very quick though as it was--was moving, especially his newfound appreciation of friendship, personal responsibility, mutual support, etc. It's as if he learned, the hard way, that it's the deeper things in life that matter, rather than superficial "fun" and instant gratification. That's always commendable.
The humor was good, too.
A solid 3 stars for my money.
Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 1:31pm (UTC -6)
I think the concept and consequences of eternal life was covered far better in VOY "Deathwish". Having said that, this was a thoroughly enjoyable episode - 8/10. Q Junior learned the value of responsibility and friendship, there was suspense when we were led to believe Icheb was dead, and humour "Coffee, black" , "Make it yourself".
Even though eternal life seems undesirable as much as impractical, I would want to live for a thousands in good health (with a young person's body) as long as my loved one's lived that long too.
How long would you guys want to live for and why?
PS: My name actually means the eventual peace and end of suffering that we will all attain once we die.
Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 1:45pm (UTC -6)
I also don't think that you achieve peace through death. Nothingness is not peace. I guess you favor the Buddhist view. If you are right then we will find out when we die, if I'm right then we will never know.
End of suffering is quite nice, though.
Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:16pm (UTC -6)
I watched a fair amount of Voyager first run, but less and less because it mostly felt like reheated TNG leftovers. This is one of many I skipped because it sounded blah. I think it helps with the separation of years and knowing Voyager’s weaknesses.
I actually liked it. Kegan de Lancie does a great job, and I liked that his form of teenage rebellion became being super responsible. The anti Q Q.
But before that, his gags were funny. Turning the warp core into a disco light was good, and is a mild meta poke at the show itself, because of course the prop is just a giant light. And of course it’s about to breach. Starfleet warp cores after the Excelsior class tend to explode if you sneeze in engineering.
I didn’t at all like the Q civil war and the notion of Q having a baby would fix it and blah blah, but given that background, this was fine, and yes it was funny and charming that little Q called Janeway Aunt Kathy.
Oddly, I didn’t even guess the probably obvious twist. Though, no doubt because most times I watch TV these days, I’m on my phone too.
Mon, Jun 14, 2021, 7:57am (UTC -6)
And since we now know that Q is turning up in Picard, this will soon no longer have the distinction of being the final Q episode. That might elevate it, depending on how the Picard writers handle the character.
Sun, Jul 11, 2021, 11:15am (UTC -6)
Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 8:53am (UTC -6)
Mon, Sep 6, 2021, 1:13am (UTC -6)
This episode was a complete mess from start to finish. The kid goes from complete brat to great kid in about 2 minutes without any transformative incident. He then builds a great friendship with Icheb, and I actually feel sorry for the kid when Q dissed his essay. We start to see that Q may be part of the problem.
And then it implodes. Instead of the kid bonding more with Janeway and Icheb after being letdown by his dad, and instead of Janeway schooling Q on being a crappy father, he goes right back to his old ways and steals a shuttle. He basically wiped everything he accomplished. His redemption is unsatisfying and the ending just horrible. Icheb is his only friend, but he is out of the picture after the sick bay scene. No final moment between the two of them where Q Jr. apologized and thanked Icheb for being a friend. It was a loose end that needed to be tied and the writers failed big time.
Wed, Feb 16, 2022, 1:01pm (UTC -6)
At least it's energetic.
Two stars
Sun, Nov 6, 2022, 3:37am (UTC -6)
If you turn on your brain, there are glaring problems.
Why is Voyager supposedly capable of teaching Q Jr yet omnipotent beings can't?
Why is Q Jr an archetypal heterosexual adolescent male? Why is he into corporeal females? Why does he want to see Seven naked? Why is there a dance club with exotic female dancers? Can the male gaze get anymore ridiculous in the writing? Why does he like seeing ships blow up? It seems to insane and such a waste of Q. They are supposed to be tricksters who always tell the truth and try to help lesser species along in their understanding of the universe.
Q sets up the test for Q Jr that involved Icheb getting injured. Well, why didn't Q just do something that in the first place?
Tue, Nov 8, 2022, 5:32pm (UTC -6)
I agree that they anthropomorphized the Q a lot in this episode, why would Q Junior be embarrassed to be seen with his parents?
But still with it's flaws, I maintain that this is an 8/10 episode.
Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 11:10pm (UTC -6)
Sat, May 6, 2023, 8:46pm (UTC -6)
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