165 – Q2

Grade: B-

Summary

Icheb gives a presentation to Janeway about Captain James T. Kirk. Apparently it’s thorough enough that Janeway gives him a passing grade in his “Early Starfleet History” course. Then trouble shows up when Q and his son Q2 appear. Q asks for Janeway’s help in teaching his son how to behave.

Commentary

Some people love this episode. Some people hate this episode. I’m somewhere in the middle. Actually, I think it’s better than most of the Voyager episodes I’ve seen in this season. So far, this is the 19th episode of the seventh season, and I’d rank Q2 as 6th. It isn’t saying much, though. Most of this season has been mediocre.

I personally thought the overall story was mostly fine, and while I was impressed by Keegan’s acting, I didn’t think the plot did him many favors. I didn’t like the party scene in Engineering or the scene when he was staring at Seven without her clothes on. Both of those scenes were added only to get more people to watch this mediocre series. But then, that’s what we’ve come to expect from both Star Trek and the Q.

There were some funny moments here and there, and I’m glad that Q2 ultimately learned his lesson and decided to clean up his act, but I really don’t like the direction this series has taken the Q. He used to be a pretty good character – one that was every bit Picard’s rival. Now he’s just a bumbling idiot who can make things disappear. Overall, I think we’ve already seen this episode when Q lost his powers and then temporarily gained them back again. I don’t remember which episode that was, but that seemed to be so much more creative than this one. Oh well.

Of Note

Q2 is actually played by John de Lancie’s actual son, named Keegan de Lancie. This is Keegan’s final appearance as an actor, for some reason. I actually thought he played the role pretty well – I’m not sure why he didn’t get any other acting jobs after this.

Q says that he was the first of the Q to have offspring, but he’s forgetting about Amanda Rogers from TNG. She was raised as a human but was actually a Q. Her parents were killed by the Continuum because they decided they were going to have a child. Also there was the Squire of Gothos in the Original Series. He was later said to be a Q.