"We don't need the slaphead! And if it all goes pear shaped, I'll give Columbo's wife a visit!"
Synopsis
Q and Vash pay a surprise visit to DS9 in an attempt to win over TNG fans, and mysterious forces threatens to destroy the station, and one of those is just the stations inability to physically contain the insufferably massive ego of Season 1 Doctor Bashir.
Review
There is no real other way to say this. The reason this episode was created was to draw fans of TNG to the new show. Place a popular TNG character onto DS9 and reel the viewers in. Now I don't have a problem about this, TV is after all is a business, and a lot of good stories can flow from capitalising on popular characters from other shows, and from nostalgia itself - if you have a solid piece of writing underpinning it, and not just come across as just an excuse to give a popular character a vehicle at the expense of the episode itself. This is unfortunately what happens here, and probably why this was Q's only DS9 outing. So, to the actual episode itself.
Bashir is boasting to his latest conquest about how clever he is, and how he was just so bloody good at medical school. If this was real life she'd have either told him she was a lesbian or made her excuses to go the loo and binned the date off after about 30 seconds of this nonsense, but no. He starts banging on about how he mistook a pre ganglionic fibre for a post ganglionic nerve (see mistakes) in an exam and that is why he graduated second in his class. O'Brien who can hear all this, looks like he wants to throw up, and to be quite honest me too. Don't worry thought they do tone Bashir down from the cockend he is here, to a rather likable character.They discover that a runabout returning from the Gamma quadrant has been totally drained of power, they open it up to rescue Dax and find she has a passenger Vash, a rogue archaeologist, and former shag of Captian Picard; who has been in the Gamma quadrant for two years (before the wormhole was discovered.) What they don't see is Q, hiding in the corridor, because as we know (but they don't) it was established in TNG Q and Vash explored space together, but have presumably returned as they felt they had to do their bit to bolster Paramount's ratings.
Vash won't say how she got to the Gamma quadrant, and she deposits some alien bric a brac she picked up in the assay office, including a glowing crystal, and as we know glowing crystals on Trek are not a good sign of things to come.
The power outages move from the runabout to the station. Meanwhile we learn that Vash wants to part company with Q, turns out he's a bit of an obnoxious travel companion, but Q wants her back. Now I must point out that SFDebris made a big point out of the major flaw in this episode in his video review. That Q, the omnipotent has been reduced to chasing skirt for laughs. Originally this episode wasn't supposed to feature Q, just Vash. Obviously they saw her backstory coincided with Q and thought hell; we'll stick him in as well. Unfortunately there is little reason for Q to be in this episode at all (more on this when he meets the DS9 crew), so they have had to come up with him trying to get Vash back. Now Q justifies his actions by saying that as he's been there and done that, the wonders of space now hold about as much inherent wonder as filling in a tax return form. But watching Vash experiencing these things for the first time makes it seem interesting again. I suppose that is sort of plausible, that experiencing it with a human who is not encumbered with all that boring Starfleet nonsense (as Q sees it), and can appreciate it at face value, someone who is willing to bend the rules, and most importantly was Picard's ex girlfriend, rather than going all Prime Directivey and taking the moral high ground at every M class world they land on"Q didn't take not coming first in the Tsar lookalike contest, very well."
We need a little exposition to carry on to the next scene. O'Brien has spotted Q and informed Sisko. O'Brien believes Q is behind the power outages and graviton surges, which are now strong enough to have punched a hole in the hull of the station. Sisko confronts Q, and thus we get the second major scene with De-Lancie (It is striking how little Q is actually in this episode.), and it is here that the real flaw of the episode is laid bare. Now don't get me wrong De-Lancie is great hamming it up as Q, and some of his lines are the funniest of the entire show (O'Brien being one of the "little people" on the Enterprise, and how Picards lackeys would have solved th technobabble behind the outages hours earlier than this crew.) But it does highlight that Q is essentially tied to the TNG crew in a way he isn't here. The dynamic between Q and Picard was driven by this slightly pompous and formal captain being, who was used to being addressed in a certain way, being antagonised by the thoroughly impertinent and irreverent character. There was also a reason for Q to behave the way he did. He was annoyed about the self righteous and complacent nature of TNG humans, and wanted to point out that they weren't half as great as they thought they were. The comedy of the Q episodes derived from the crews antagonism towards him for all the horrid things he tormented them with. On DS9 that dynamic was not there. (Voyager had to use Janeways gender to create a dynamic.) Apart from O'Brien, they don't know who he really is. They don't really interact with him as they are too busy trying to locate the source of the graviton surges, to respond to his insults. I mean you may as well have had Simon Cowell stood on ops insulting the crews competency and it wouldn't have changed much. Yes we might argue that Sisko did confront Q, when he accuses him of causing the surges (which Q denies) and thus we get the "boxing scene where Sisko floors him (funny scene). But that was the problem, Sisko's brief with Q was a practical one. "I think you have caused this! You help me fix, no games! either stop what you are doing or shove off!" That is essentially the limit of their dust up. Despite Q saying that Sisko is easier to rile than Picard, it isn't true. Sisko is only pissed off at Q because of the fix they are in. With Picard, Q was philosophically able to get under his skin. Thing is Sisko isn't going to cite Shakespeare out of context with him, or go off on one about how "evolved" humans are. It just isn't Siskos thing. Sisko just isn't a foil for Q's games, and for Q that means he's no fun at all, and this is why Q was never seen again on DS9.
The graviton beams are getting so bad that the station is getting pulled in towards the wormhole which will destroy DS9. Sisko doen't think Q is behind it. The damage is too crude and lacks style for it to be him. We are now treated to a boring scene where the "valuable" Gamma Quadrant relics are auctioned off at Quarks. I'm not saying they were forced to pad this epidoe out, but Christ this scene is boring. If I wanted to watch the Antiques Roadshow I'd bang the I-player on. It alsoi doesn't help that the "relics" are those classic telly sci fi ones. The kind of kitschy shit you'd never take out of the cardboard box in the basement as they are that naff. Well to cut a long story short. The crew manage to locate the source of the graviton disturbances, that glowing crystal (what else?), which they beam into space before it tears the station apart, and before Quark can flog it for a huge profit. It is in fact a luminous (if incredibly shitty looking) alien life form, that beggers off into the wormhole. Everyone is saved, we all have a laugh at Quarks expense. Q can't convince Vash to leave, who decides to explore Tartaris V with Quark instead. Er.. and that about it.
Mistakes & Questions
Bashir claims he graduated second in his medical class because he got the Post ganglionic nerve and pre ganglionic fibre mixed up. I'm no surgeon, but apparently these two organs are so dissimilar this would be like a mechanic mixing up the gearbox of a car with the gear lever, as they both have the same word in them.
O'Brien claims that the runabouts power (which was used to bring Vash back) is do drained that the warp drive is close to losing magnetic containment. Shouldn't it be serviced in outer space within beaming distance of DS9 rather than in the dock, in case the warp drive does actually fail.
Bettys Thought for the Day
The climax of this story involves a seemingly inanimate object that becomes a spacebourne organism, which unintentionally threatens our heroes trying to escape confinement. In a way that is similar to Encounter at Farpoint, the TNG pilot (which also introduced Q to that series, who again knew what was happening but waited to see if our heroes figured it out in time.) So a nice bit of continuity there.Summary
Q-Less is not without it's entertaining moments. De -Lancie as I said is great, scenery chewing and generally arseing about for our entertainment, and he has good chemistry with Jennifer Hatrick (Vash). The scene where Sisko hits him is a definate highlight. However the story just doesn't hang together very well. The idea to have Q on DS9 was clearly decided before they had a solid script to justify his appearance. This leaves the episode with a lot of filler moments (I can't believe how dull parts of this episode get) and it is noticeable that Q isn't in all that much of the episode. It is best to see this episode as a gimmick to get a popular TNG character on DS9. But it was a gimmick that didn't really work, and it is unsurprising Q returned to DS9. The first disappointing episode of the show.
Rating 5 / 10
Next Time
All American TV shows have to do a courtroom drama, and DS9 in no exception. Oh and they try and explain how the Trill slug thing works (which was probably Curzons excuse as well!),and I get Lady Gaga on the brain.
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