“Q-Less”
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer and Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Directed by Paul Lynch
Season 1, Episode 6
Production episode 40511-407
Original air date: February 7, 1993
Stardate: 46531.2
Station log: Bashir is hitting on a pretty Bajoran woman in the replimat. At the next table over O’Brien is rolling his eyes and snarfing on his coffee. To Bashir and the woman’s disappointment, and O’Brien’s great relief, they’re interrupted by a summons to a runabout landing pad. The Ganges spent too long out of coverage, and their battery is drained of power, and Dax forgot to pack the USB charger. They barely made it to the station. Dax and Ensign Pauley are trapped inside, and they can’t get the door open. Confusing the issue is that Bashir is reading three lifesigns. (Further confusing the issue is the fact that the station has transporter technology, and they could just beam the people off the runabout, but we’ll let that go.)
O’Brien plugs in a charger, and they get the door open. The chief recognizes the third passenger as Vash, who’s been in the Gamma Quadrant for two years. “A friend dropped me off,” she says offhandedly, and as they escort Dax, Pauley, and Vash to the infirmary, we get a look at Q hiding in the background. (Amusingly, Vash doesn’t recognize O’Brien at first. Nobody ever pays attention to the transporter operator…)
Vash checks out okay, and Dax reports to Sisko that she was surprised by the wormhole, and refused to talk about how she got to the Gamma Quadrant. Sisko orders Dax to investigate her. Sisko later meets with Vash after she stores her valuables in the assay office, saying that the Daystrom Institute in general and Professor Wu in particular are interested in talking to her about her experiences in the Gamma Quadrant. Vash is amused, since Wu suspended her from Daystrom’s archaeological council twice. Sisko offers to book her passage to Earth, and she accepts.
O’Brien can’t find anything wrong with the Ganges—yes, power’s almost gone, but they’re putting power back into it and all’s well. It’s as if something drained the ship entirely of power. He also tells Sisko what little he knows about Vash from when she came on board the Enterprise.
The station suffers a power drain, which burns out the power transfer units—it happens the same way it happened on the Ganges, according to Dax.
O’Brien escorts Vash to her guest quarters, and Q shows up while she’s unpacking. They apparently had a falling out, and every attempt Q makes to get her to travel with him again fall on pissed-off ears.
Vash finally gets rid of Q when Quark shows up. The assay clerk’s assistant told Quark about her loot, and he offers to set up an auction for her—for a percentage, of course. Bashir then arrives to ask her to dinner.
Q disguises himself as a Bajoran waiter and advises Bashir not to have dinner with Vash—then punctuates it by making him exhausted and sending him to his quarters for a nap. O’Brien sees this, mutters, “Bloody hell,” and goes to ops to report the Q sighting (he doesn’t bother to mention that Bashir’s been sent away for a nap). Then there’s another power drain. O’Brien thinks it’s Q, especially since all the systems—for the first time in a month—are functioning normally.
Sisko interrupts Vash’s setting up the auction with Quark to ask about Q—but Q himself shows up and says he’ll answer any question Sisko wants. They go back and forth for a bit, with Q disappointed in Sisko’s lack of clever repartee. When Sisko asks to talk in private, Q’s reply is to make everyone on the station disappear except the two of them. Sisko grabs Q by the uniform and angrily asks him to bring them back—which he does, while also putting himself and Sisko into 19th-century boxing togs for bare-knuckle fighting. (For good measure, Q gives himself a truly spectacular mustache.)
Sisko responds to Q’s several seconds of jabs both verbal and physical by decking him. Q is surprised. “Picard never hit me!” “I’m not Picard.” “Indeed not—you’re much easier to provoke. How fortunate for me!” And then he disappears.
Another power drain hits, this time accompanied by hull breaches from graviton pulses. As they’re trying to trace the source of the power drain, Q shows up to taunt them (he calls O’Brien one of the “little people,” after O’Brien reminds Q of who he is—seriously, nobody ever pays attention to the transporter operator!) and says that it’s Vash, not Q, who’s a danger to the station.
Quark tries to entice Vash to a permanent partnership, but she insists she’s going to retire on Earth after this auction, which Quark doesn’t buy for a second. But before he can continue to argue with her on the subject, the station shakes. It’s now being pulled into the wormhole, with power continuing to drain. At ops, they’ve traced the power drain to the central core, eventually tracking it to Quark’s: it’s a large gemstone that Quark was about to sell for a pretty penny. Sisko beams it outside the station where it transforms into some kind of life form, which goes through the wormhole. That seems to solve the problem, as the power drain ends, they use thrusters to put the station back into position, and all’s well. (Except for Quark, who was about to sell the lifeform for a million bars of gold-pressed latinum. Easy come, easy go…)
Vash insists to both Quark and Q that she’s returning to Earth. Q thinks it’s a dreary place (“a thousand years ago it had character—Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Watergate”), and it doesn’t take long before she decides to take Quark up on his offer to go to the ruins on Tartarus V instead. As Vash and Quark start the beginning of their beautiful friendship, Bashir wakes up and asks if he’s missed anything.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity?: As the crew tries to figure out where the power drain’s coming from, Q appears and scoffs that Picard and his crew would have long since solved all the technobabble by then.
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko decks Q.
Nothing really to add there, it’s just so sufficiently spectacular that it’s worth repeating.
Sisko decks Q.
Rules of Acquisition: Quark and Vash were made for each other. He sets up her auction, picking some select clientele—selected, as he explains to Odo, by virtue of their being incredibly wealthy and not too bright.
He also says “bid high and bid often,” a delightfully Ferengi play on the quote attributed to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, “vote early and vote often.”
Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo disguises himself as something—he never tells Quark exactly what—during at least one of his meetings with Vash, thus learning all about the auction.
For Cardassia!: O’Brien cautions Vash that the Cardassian bed may not be comfortable. Vash says it’ll be fine, as her archaeological career has led to a lot of sleeping in tents, so any bed is nice, but O’Brien insists that she’s only saying that because she’s never slept in a Cardassian bed.
Later O’Brien asks Q why he doesn’t do something useful like torment Cardassians.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Bashir tells what sounds like an old war story to the pretty Bajoran woman, but it turns out he’s talking about his Starfleet Medical final exams, which he later tells a skeptical O’Brien “works every time.”
Vash uses her skills with oo-max (possibly practiced on Sovak some time prior to “Captain’s Holiday”?) to negotiate Quark down to a commission of 22% on setting up her auction.
Keep your ears open: “You’re arrogant, overbearing, and you think you know everything.”
“I do know everything.”
“That makes it worse.”
Vash explaining to Q why she doesn’t like him.
Welcome aboard: John deLancie makes his second of three appearances in the 1992/93 Star Trek season, with this bracketed by his prior turn on TNG’s “True Q” and his role the following week on TNG’s “Tapestry.” Jennifer Hetrick makes her third and final Trek appearance as Vash, reprising the role from TNG’s “Captain’s Holiday” and “Qpid.” Van Epperson is delightfully snotty as the assay office clerk, Tom McCleister is tiresomely bombastic as Kolos, and Laura Cameron is painfully vapid as the woman Bashir hits on.
Trivial matters: This is the final Trek writing credit for Hannah Louise Shearer and the first DS9 credit for Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who would go on to become a valued part of the writing staff. It’s also yet another episode directed by Paul Lynch…
Several references are made by O’Brien to Vash’s prior appearances in “Captain’s Holiday” and “Qpid.”
Picard and Sisko discuss Q’s arrival on the station in your humble rewatcher’s eBook Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment in the Slings and Arrows miniseries. Sisko rather enjoys telling Picard that he decked Q.
While Vash doesn’t appear again onscreen, she plays a good-sized role in the Millennium trilogy by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
Several medical professionals have pointed out that it’s pretty much impossible to confuse a pre-ganglionic fiber with a post-ganglionic nerve, trick question or no. It will be implied in “Distant Voices” that Bashir deliberately flubbed it, and the later revelation in “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?” that he was genetically enhanced adds credence to that theory—spelled out in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers story Oaths by Glenn Hauman—that he made the mistake to keep himself from being perfect and drawing attention to his genetically enhanced nature.
Walk with the Prophets: “My God, you’re an impertinent waiter.” Sisko decks Q.
Okay, yeah, other stuff happens. This continues the theme established in “Qpid” that Vash has chemistry with everyone in the world except for Sir Patrick Stewart. Her scenes with Siddig el Fadil, Avery Brooks, and Colm Meaney work quite well, her banter with John deLancie remains strong, and she and Armin Shimerman play off each other wonderfully. Vash and Quark are a great team, honestly, and it’s a pity we didn’t see the two of them together again. In general, this is a good vehicle for Shimerman, in particular showing off Quark’s negotiating and auctioning skills.
Q doesn’t entirely fit within the framework of DS9, which is no doubt why he wasn’t brought back (though he worked better here than he ever did on Voyager), but it’s never not fun to watch deLancie prattle, though the script never loses sight of just how much of a dick Q is, either.
Which is why it’s so wonderful when Sisko decks him.
The plot is mostly harmless, though you’ve got to wonder about why they don’t have any kind of quarantine/examination procedures for stuff coming through the wormhole. Shouldn’t Vash’s bag o’ stuff have been inspected a lot more thoroughly? And it still amuses me that they had to go to all that trouble to get the door to the Ganges open when they’ve got perfectly good transporters to beam everyone out with.
Though it does lead to Sisko getting to deck Q.
The technobabble plot—which Q delightfully comes out and actually refers to as a technobabble plot—is perfunctory and lifeless and full of artificial suspense that has all the urgency of one of Bashir’s many yawns, and mostly serves as something to kill time between bits of Q snark. And Q getting decked by Sisko.
But ultimately, none of this matters, because it comes down to one great moment of Sisko decking Q. Bliss.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido urges everyone to listen to his monthly podcast Dead Kitchen Radio: The Keith R.A. DeCandido Podcast (part of The Chronic Rift Network of pop-culture podcasts). This month’s features his reading “Blood in the Water” from his new short story collection Tales from Dragon Precinct, out this month from Dark Quest Books.
So, did you really enjoy Q getting decked by Sisko, or what?
hahahahahahahahahaah
At first I really hated the idea of Q. As a sci-fi fan, I hate the way sci-fi and fantasy are often lumped together in the same category and I saw an omnipotent alien as a way to sneak an element of fantasy into a sci-fi series. And that did happen: in the TNG episode “Qpid” — the last time we saw Vash — Q took the Enterprise crew on a romp through Sherwood Forest.
Nevertheless, in time I became a big fan of John de Lancie. His fun, charming and one-of-a-kind performances earned him complete ownership of the role. I couldn’t imagine another actor playing Q. This episode is not de Lancie’s best; it aired about the same time as the TNG episode “Tapestry” and I always thought that “Tapestry” was the stronger performance. Still, I enjoyed this one, too.
Vash is an interesting character because she represents one of the first efforts to steer away from Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a utopian future where humans are no longer motivated by profit and material gain. That vision was most evident in the first season of TNG and it often had a whiff of smug triumphalism about it. The franchise was already backing away from that vision in TNG Season 3 when we first met Vash. In “Q-Less” — the last time we see Vash in TV Star Trek — the transition is complete. Vash may very well be a misfit in 24th century human society, but misfits make interesting characters and one of the refreshing things about DS9 is the way characters are given more individuality and are not merely stereotypes of their respective cultures.
I liked the sexual tension between Vash and Bashir. It looked like Julian was about to get lucky but then Q intervenes and sends him to bed — alone! The oo-mox scene with Vash and Quark was hilarious.
Q is seriously my ALL TIME FAVORITE SNG charachter ever!! I don’t think I’ve disliked a single episode he’s been in. He’s especially amazing in Voyager!! Him and Janeway crack me up lol
@2: I tend to agree: DeLancie’s performance was the only thing that made the ludicrous concept of Q palatable.
But this episode illustrates how the writers often seemed to use Q as a sort of audience stand-in, voicing the criticisms you’d hear from viewers and basically giving the characters a chance to respond to those criticisms. The fact that he actually used the word “technobabble” in onscreen dialogue makes that clear; until then, that was just a bit of fan/producer vernacular, a teasing nickname for the technical dialogue. Q was almost a metatextual character, coming ever so close to breaking through the fourth wall and acknowledging the audience.
On the pre/post-ganglionic thing, I never felt that later fix was necessary. I never took his line here to mean that he mistook the actual items for one another, but rather that he misread a written question, thinking it said one thing when it actually said another.
Why does the Daystrom Institute, which is named for a computer scientist, have an archaeology department? I think that once the Institute was introduced, there was too much tendency by later writers to use it as a catchall science institution, which is a case of small-universe syndrome.
This in some ways seemed more like a half-baked idea than a fully thought out episode. “Hey, what if Q shows up on DS9?” says one writer. “But he has Vash with him” says another. “Bring her along and let her be disreputable with Quark” says the first. “What’s the problem in the episode?” says the second writer. “Make something up- it’s a Q episode… just technobabble a b plot…”
While I love the interaction between Q and Sisko (it further differentiates that Sisko is not Picard just as Picard was not Kirk) but there really isn’t anything happening here. As you pointed out, Vash has chemistry with just about everyone except Picard, but I think that’s because Picard is a very responsible and mature individual and you can’t quite imagine him involved with someone as irresponsible and immature like Vash. Picard is simply too serious to get involved with Vash, whereas Quark is appropriately irresponsible, Bashir is appropriately immature (and young enough to be motivated by lust) and Sisko isn’t so “by the book” like Picard is.
To follow up on CLB’s point in #4 about the Daystrom institute, I agree with your basic issue. The only thing I could think is that like Harvard University, which was built as a divinity school and remained as such for almost 170 years before it was secularized. Perhaps Daystrom started out as a computer/AI institute but became involved in other areas as it grew. A real world example is the US’ supercomputer network, run by the National Science Foundation. The supercomputer network is run by NSF’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure but it touches on almost every other scientific discipline because of the growing abilities of computer based experimentation and modeling. But unless that’s what happened, Daystrom institute has basically been a catchall for non-Starfleet or Vulcan scientific research.
@@.-@ and @5: As for the Daystrom Institute, consider MIT. It is generally considered an engineering/applied science school; yet it has a stellar linguistics department and even the philosophy department is well regarded. Nevertheless, in a Federation of hundreds of worlds one would expect a number of top-notch research institutes. Perhaps the Daystrom Institute is the MIT of 24th century Earth and it appeals to Vash because Earth is home.
As much as I love John Delancie, I generally hate Q episodes (“Tapestry” is a major exception, perhaps because it’s never entirely clear whether or not it is a Q episode). But here at least he keeps this from becoming merely a Vash episode. Vash is never a good idea. Hetrick’s lack of on-screen chemistry with Patrick Stewart is odd, since they apparently had a fair amount of it off screen, even being engaged at one point. Still, that lack of chemistry poisoned the character for me forever. She’s never written very well either.
I do like that neither Vash nor Q recognize O’Brien at first. We know him, because he regularly had lines to speak and interacted with the main cast. But for guests of the week, he really was just the guy who pushed the buttons for the transporter (which meant that Q really never would have had anything to do with him).
@@.-@: I really like your explanation for Bashir screwing up the question by misreading it. Happened to me in high school where I flipped biography and autobiography in a test because I was going too fast. Unfortunately, the way the line is written it is difficult to interpret it that way. I think I’ll do so anyway, though.
One of my favorites from season 1. Sisko decking Q is also a favorite scene of mine.
Bobby
http://www.bobbynash.com
I had stopped watching early in the 1st season, so when I decided to pick it back up again, this was the last episode I remembered watching, so I started back up with the next ep. (Unfortunately I had already seen the next 3 eps. Just didn’t remember that I had.)
I always thought Q had a personal connection to Picard, but his appearance here made me wonder if Q pestered other Starfleet ships and outposts, not just those that happened to have a tv show. I haven’t read any of the novels, so I don’t know if that’s been addressed. I suppose it probably has.
I see the bug lunky alien that’s always hanging about is in the picture with Q and Sisko dueling (no idea whatsoever what his name is). Is this his first appearance? Personally I think he should have a section in the recap just letting us know if he appeared and where he was hanging out (you could even mention what he was doing, which would just be hanging out).
I always loved this episode because it really underscored the difference between DS:9 and TOS/TNG, as well as between Sisko and Kirk or Picard. “Picard would never hit me!”
DS:9 was a much darker, more violent – and yes, far more exciting – series. Sisko isn’t the Gorn; I seriously doubt Kirk & Picard together could take him in a fistfight.
This is one of my favorites of not only DS9 season 1, but of your rewatch summaries. I’ve been laughing at each Sisko-decks-Q throughout, and I have to agree, its also my favorite part of the episode. It was nice to see Q taken down a peg, however briefly.
Though I enjoyed the character Vash, I could never really understand why a human in the 24th century would be interested in profit. Vash just seemed like an anomaly, as its never made clear why she wants to profit on things. Still, its always interesting to see her, and as you said, krad, she has much better chemistry here than with Sir Patrick Stewart. Indeed, Vash gets on better with the DS9 crew than with all the Enterprise staff.
I think that DS9 needed at least one Q episode, and thankfully there’s a good reason through Vash. Without her and Q’s arrangement for him to take her around the galaxy, having Q on DS9 would be a transparent attempt at getting viewership. Thankfully, here it works, and it was smart not to have Q back on DS9. As krad said, Q doesn’t really fit in DS9 overall.
A fun episode, one that’s still good to watch again after twenty years.
@9 You must be referring to Morn (played by Mark Allen Shepard). I’ve been doing my own rewatch of DS9, and I think I first saw a glimspe of Morn in “A Man Alone”, the first regular episode. Morn would appear throughout the series IIRC.
Yes. Sisko decks Q and the look on his face is priceless. Maybe he thought the mustache was enough of a deterrent. Why would Q be so suprised to be hit if he put himself and Sisko together in a Boxing clothes? Loved the scenes between Vash and Quark too. They get along much better than her and Picard.
Q is so incongruous with the whole ethos and attitude of DS9 that I am seriously surprised to hear this wasn’t a TNG episode that got transposed over! Sisko punching him in the face is a brilliant moment, but it really highlights to me how little sense Q makes in the DS9 world.
Vash always seemed to me like a potentially awesome character who didn’t really have much to do? I was glad they didn’t have her stay on (which I initially thought they would), because I couldn’t really see what role she would play. It was fun to see her and Quark though! She really does have much better chemistry with everyone who isn’t Sir Patrick.
I completely bought Bashir’s storyline here on the first watch – like, it made sense to me given what we’d already seen that he could be a very bright but insecure guy whose mix-up on an exam really had haunted him all these years, and I…didn’t care about that very much? It’s been done. So I was thrilled later when it turns out there’s more to it. :) (Do we know when that development was decided?)
@9 & 12: Morn was there from the pilot onward, although he isn’t named onscreen until “Vortex.” Originally it was going to be a speaking part; they filmed a scene in “Emissary” where he told “the funniest joke in the universe” to the other bar patrons (it was actually a bunch of gibberish). But that scene was cut, along with every later scene where the character was given any dialogue, and this eventually led to the running gag where he never spoke on camera, which led to the running gag that you couldn’t shut him up off-camera, etc. (Source: The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Chapter 1.)
It’s about time someone mentioned Morn during this re-watch. Morn is the man! The name “Morn” is an anagram of “Norm” from Cheers, correct? I’m 99 percent sure he was in “Emissary.” Also let’s not forget the official Morn emoticon:
: (
(That should be three spaces in the middle.)
Anyway, this episode. Did we never learn anything more about the glowing wormhole alien? Seems there could have some interesting story potential in exploring what it was and where it came from.
Is this the last time they use the thrusters to move the station?
For DS9’s first attempt at a more lighthearted episode, it does all right, mostly thanks to John deLancie bringing it (his “you have a new tailor” gag is another good one), and that awesome punch.
I agree that Jennifer Hetrick was poorly cast as Vash and that she had unconvincing chemistry on-screen with Patrick Stewart. Vash was supposed to be a slutty seductress who liked a life of excitement and unpredictability. Hetrick comes across as a rather conservative woman whose idea of being sexy is very kid-friendly and milquetoast.
Someone like Madonna or Teri Hatcher would have been better in this role. Those women know how bring sexy to the screen.
“I’m not Picard.” And this isn’t TNG, as Q discovers to his… well, mild indifference, I suppose. I think Q works best as a free agent; as much as I enjoyed his interactions with Vash, both here and in “Qpid”, he always seems far too whiny and jealous whenever he’s paired up with a woman – whether it’s Vash here, or Janeway on Voyager. You’d think that he’d be above all of our “disgusting mating rituals”, being a however-old omnipotent entity, but it seems that love – or whatever he feels for Vash – brings out the worst in him.
Still, “Q-Less” is far better than most of Q’s guest spots on VOY, in which de Lancie often played Q as a caricature of his prior appearances. The side plot involving crystal space manta rays and graviton fields menacing the station is perfunctory; DS9 hasn’t quite found its feet yet, and in later years would be happy to do light, character-based pieces without needless technobabble B-stories.
Well, I must be the only one, but I thought Vash and Picard had lots of chemistry in both her appearances on TNG … but I do agree that she has even more with the two Q’s, Q and Quark. This is a terrific episode and I’m actually surprised that it was in the first season because my (admittedly faulty) memory is that DS9 didn’t really get going until Season 3. Oh well!
Little did Picard and Janeway know that all it would take was a good punch for Q to leave them alone forever. . .
@9 quasarmodo… You bring up a good point- Q is sort of Picards nemesis (and to a lesser extent Janeways)… It doesn’t really make sense for him to go tormenting every starfleet vessel and captain. Although if Peter David wants to write an encounter between Calhoun and Q that would be welcome (yes Keith, I know about Q and McHenry).
But I still agree that Q doesn’t belong here. His “can you figure out the mystery” schtick doesn’t go over in this episode or with the overall DS9 framework. Ds9 is more about relationships and conflicts than exploration
Personally I thought this episode was really stupid and marked one of the season’s low points. Yeah, Q gets decked by Sisko, but nothing noteworthy or memorable happens, the performances felt lackluster to me, and the episode just had no point. It’s not awful, but I’d still say a 6 is being overly generous…
Bashir’s story of pulse-pounding tension turning out to be an anecdote about his final exams is reminiscent of Rimmer telling “old war stories” about playing Risk in Red Dwarf (starts out sounding like the real thing, then he gets to “So I picked up the dice and rolled…”)
@17: Well, Teri Hatcher was already on the Enterprise, in fairness.
@19 – No, you’re not. I’ve always disagreed with krad on that point, and anyone else who goes along with it. I always hated that the scriptwriters kept trying to pair Picard up with some simpering stay-at-home wifey type. The man is an adventurer and an explorer at heart. What he needs is a woman that will constantly keep him on his toes and catch him off-guard and I always felt Vash was exactly the right one.
I also disagree about the idea that Vash needed to be more of a sexy vamp. That’s not how I ever read the character. She was a rogue, a profiteer, a female equivalent of a cockney wide-boy, and while she was not above using her sexuality to get what she wanted, that wasn’t what she was about at all.
I enjoyed this episode because I always enjoyed Vash, although the mystery element was a bit duff as anyone who hadn’t figured out that it was the glowing crystal thing that was causing the problems way before the revelation had to be a bit dim. Nonetheless, good fun all round, although I’m glad they didn’t make any further attempts to engineer Q into a DS9 situation. I’m not sure how well he works on a vessel that just isn’t going anywhere.
For some reason, I thought that they weren’t supposed to use the transporter on joined trills. Wasn’t that the problem in the TNG episode where Crusher fell in and out of love with a trill, or am I totally misremembering that?
@24 Ashcom – it’s not that Picard and Vash have no chemistry, and I agree that Picard should have someone who’ll challenge him, just as O’Brien says in this episode, and not just be “eye candy” The problem is that Patrick Stewart and Jennifer Hetrick don’t have screen chemistry together, which was Keith’s original point from his TNG “Captain’s Holiday” rewatch.
@25 JackofMidworld – that was true in TNG “The Host”, where Odan had to use shuttles instead of transporting directly, but DS9 retcons that (as well as other facts about the Trill established in that episode). Though, come to think of it, have we seen Dax use the transporter yet?
@25: The Trill of DS9 are very different from the ones we first saw in the TNG episode “The Host.” The writers appear to have simply papered over the differences. I’ve seen it suggested that Odan had a personal aversion to the transporter (kind of like McCoy in TOS) or that the transporter is dangerous to a subgroup of Trill. Neither explanation is satisfying. Personally, I choose to overlook it and go along for the ride.
When the TNG rewatch did “The Host” we basically came to the mutual decision that DS9 basically retconned the whole species. It’s possible that the Trill of “The Host” are some sort of subspecies that is less intelligent and is basically just a shell for the symbiont to wear (it’s been suggested this is a result of the Klingon Augment Virus) but the reality is that the producers of DS9 just redid the species and called it Trill. I’ve always been amazed they just didn’t create a new species altogether. But I’m with GeorgeSalt… I just accept the retcon and go for the ride…
I think you forgot to mention that Sisko decks Q.
:P
I too, disagree, I always enjoyed the interplay between Vash and Picard. To each their own, but I liked there, for lack of a better word though I hate to use it, “chemistry”.
Christopher: Dax went through the transporter in “Emissary,” actually, albeit as a wormhole-alien-transformed thingamabob.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@31 krad – I thought of that, but discounted it as atypical due to the wormhole-alien-transformed gubbins. :)
It would be nice to posit that the DS9 writers were attempting to keep the Trill-transporter thing going until it proved impractical, but I’m sure it’s just coincidence.
@@@@@ 4 ChristopherLBennett
“Why does the Daystrom Institute, which is named for a computer scientist, have an archaeology department?”
Maybe you should consider that in the Star Trek Universe, with hundreds, if not thousands of old, extinct civilisations which were technologically advanced, perhaps some archaeology IS technology and computer-related.
@33: Good point — I’ve actually touched on similar ideas in The Buried Age and DTI: Watching the Clock. But I was more making a point about the writers missing an opportunity for worldbuilding by just recycling whatever sciencey institution name was already around rather than fleshing out the universe further.
I always thought the problem with Trill and transporters in TNG was that nobody knew Trill had symbiotes, so they got screened out by the biofilter. Everyone knows about Dax on DS9, so they can reprogram the transporter to recognize it, and so that’s no longer an issue. Did I just make that up?
Sadly, the question of why Dax can use the transporter is more interesting than anything about this episode.
You know what was awesome, that krad didn’t pay enough attention to? Sisko decking Q.
@35: I think you did make that up, but it’s a very clever explanation.
Did Sisko know that Curzon was a Trill at the time he knew him, or was that something he didn’t find out until Jadzia? I’m just asking because of the “nobody knew about Trills” thing.
Season 1 needed this episode. Everyone loves Q.
I thought Vash was a better character in this episode than she ever was on TNG. She didn’t annoy me at all here. That wasn’t true in the past.
With “Captive Pursuit” this made it two really good DS9 episodes in a row.
Q’s troublemaking seemed muted in this episode though. In TNG his shenanigans sent them to the Borg or nearly forced Picard to live out a lifetime of bordeom. On DS9 his shenanigans made Bashir take a nap.
Even though this episode lacked substance, it was fun and an easy watch and I enjoyed Quark’s auction.
@39: People knew that the Trill race existed before “The Host”; they just didn’t know that Trill were a joined species. But it does seem that Curzon let Sisko in on the secret. I believe Sisko was involved with Curzon’s zhian’tara ritual.
I agree that Sisko decking Q was about the most memorable thing about this episode. As much as I love Q, this is probably one of my least favorites. The b-plot was wholey uninteresting to me. There are a few great moments though.
Good catch with the transporting them off the shuttle. The thing that I found hard to believe though was why they didn’t think to check out Vash or her belongings much, much sooner. Dax already identified the problem as being the same exact thing that happened to them on the runabout. So wouldn’t the basic process of inquiry lead them to examine all the commonalities?
I haven’t been as able to comment on the posts in a timely fashion, but I’m enjoying so far. I’d actually seen this one before I started the re-watch. I was not a big fan of Vash in TNG, but I would have loved to see more of her with Quark.
For whatever reason, the thing that has always stuck out in this episode is Vash’s necklace-earrings combo. Hah.
Sisko decks Q. ‘Nuff said.
I liked the little inclusionof a six-fingered race betting at the auction.
This episode is mostly forgetable except for one scene which I rewatch on YouTube all the time. It ends with “You hit me. Picard never hit me”. “I’m not Picard!” “Indeed not. You’re much easier to provoke. How fortunate for me.”
I just came here to say that y’all forgot to mention that Sisko decks Q.
Seriously, I really like this episode.
Q’s at his best when he has some teeth and while he did show some with the disease trick with Vash, most of this episode is too inconsequential and aimless. “A Man Alone” wasn’t very good but it did deeply involve main characters at least.
Well, at least Sisko d*cked Q.
He did WHAT to Q??
This is a long way from being the best Q episode but it has its moments. The punch is fun but my favourite bit is when Q appears in Ops and says, “Picard and his lackeys would have solved all this technobabble hours ago.” Actually, I love the entire scene in Ops from Q saying, “Quite a motley crew you’ve assembled here, Benjy” to him describing Kira as a “feisty little go-getter” to referring to the crew as “gang.” Great stuff.
However, I am not too surprised that this was Q’s only DS9 appearance as John de Lancie and Avery Brooks had zero chemistry. However, unlike krad, I do think that Q worked well in Voyager. It’s between “Tapestry” and “Death Wish” for my favourite Q episode. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Vash again in either TNG or DS9 but it wasn’t to be.
This episode also features three of the four characters who appeared in TNG, DS9 and Voyager: Quark, Q and Morn. The yet to be introduced Gul Evek is the fourth one.
Is this the episode where Sisko decks Q?
Because of the complexity of plotlines and multifaceted characters, I have counted DS9 as my favorite of the ST series, but the more I re-watch it now, I think it’s got to move down behind TNG. I hate to say it, but on second viewing Avery Brooks and his character are grating on me more and more. Brooks’ has an awkward style: histrionic when he should be subtle, and wooden when he should be emotive. Meanwhile, I find Sisko to be insufferably self-centered. I mean, this is the guy who, later in the series, takes it upon himself to manufacture evidence to start a war. At the very least, he’s a traitor and an accessory to murder. And the way the series continued to lionize him and brush past some of the truly despicable things some of the other characters do, well, I guess at some point I’ve just had enough. When Garak becomes my favorite character because at least he has the honor to admit what he is — well, it’s time to re-evaluate. :)
So when I saw this in the comments section I had to chime in. I know it was fun for fans to see Sisko punch Q, but the irony is, the fact that Sisko can’t deal with someone like Q without resorting to physical violence is exactly why it was smart to make this Q’s only appearance on this show. Q would exasperate Picard, but Picard would never lose focus in dealing with him. In comparison, Sisko’s a child. As Q hits the deck, he’s startled at first, then he seems to take pleasure in the fact that Sisko’s so easy to provoke – but I’d like to think the reason we never see him again on this show is he realizes Sisko’s no challenge.
Kirk was pretty damned histrionic, too. TNG’s vocal appreciation of Shakespeare was a nod to that. I’ve always viewed Riker and Sisko as evolutions of Kirk —for those who like that sort of thing. Campy as they might be sometimes, I find the histrionics of Sisko amusing, the wooden-ness not so much. There are actors who would have brought much more Picard-like subtlety to the role but I doubt that’s what the producers were going for.
They must have wanted another Kirk, but one who was a single father burdened with guilt, depression, and to watch him eventually overcome and move on. Star Trek is Shakespeare — it’s theater. It’s ok to have big performances. It’s appropriate, actually.
But Avery Brooks’ wooden-ness can absolutely be grating. To see him in interviews act the same way is revealing. I think Avery’s just a weird, wooden guy. Expressive, intelligent, kind, and fun, but stilted. Maybe it depended on the week’s director, too. I don’t know. Brooks’ performance was simultaneously one of the best things about DS9 and one of the worst. Edging brilliance and campiness at the same time. But I will always love the character of Ben Sisko.
@53/Jason: I think TNG’s Shakespeare focus had less to do with Shatner and more to do with Patrick Stewart, who was already a 20-year veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was first signed to play Picard. And just to do with the general literacy of Trek’s writers and the theatrical grandeur of its storytelling.
@@@@@52. fullyfunctional – Sisko mat have decked Q, but you just decked Sisko :)
@53-54: I’ve always seen TNG’s Shakespeare focus as a natural continuation of the original Star Trek’s Shakespeare focus. “Dagger of the Mind”, “The Conscience of the King”, “By Any Other Name”, “All Our Yesterdays”, and “How Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth” all have Shakespeare quotes as titles, “The Conscience of the King” features a Shakespeare acting group, in “By Any Other Name” and “How Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth” Kirk quotes Shakespeare, and in “Whom Gods Destroy” Marta claims to have written one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
The oo-max has to be the single most disgusting invention in all of Star Trek ever. Just think ab it. It’s the equivalent of a bloody hand job! Vash is giving Quark a bloody hand job to haggle for a better price!
@48/Fronzel: “Q’s at his best when he has some teeth”
Oh. So, before Sisko decked him, then. ;)
I haven’t read the Starfleet Corps of Engineers story, Oaths, so my opinion is based solely on krad’s mentioning of it. I’m not sure what to think of the notion that Bashir’s motivation for flubbing his exam was to deflect possible suspicion of his genetically enhanced nature. I rather liked the idea that he really did want a less cushy, and more rugged post like DS9. Of course, when that was established, it was long before the genetic engineering angle had even been conceived of. I guess it’s reasonable to figure that his choice was influenced by both those considerations.
what IS it with Q and being secretive about humans discovering disguised tentacled lifeforms?
something to think about.
I watched it last night for the first time and I can report that Sisko still decks Q.
#52 above calls Sisko a child for decking Q, whereas Picard is more mature for just taking it. This is silly to me. I love JdL and his performance as Q and Q the character, but whatever else he is, Q is a bully. He was softened to an anti-hero of sorts, but he never stops bullying “lower life forms” – here for one example see his brief torture of Vash in having her suffer the illnesses he says he kept from her. Sisko is well aware of much of Q’s behavior and knows what he’s dealing with here – saying he is lashing out with physical violence is an immature reaction loses sight of the fact that sometimes the best thing to do to a bully that is punching you is to give them a good pop in the nose.
Perhaps if Picard had done that, Q wouldn’t have bothered him quite so much.
Also, you don’t need Q when you have the Bajoran Prophets to satisfy the troublesome deity gimmick. Wouldn’t have worked much better if it were Q in the Fire Caves, ya know. If nothing else this episode proves to the fans that Q doesn’t work on DS9, for the simple reason that Sisko is not Picard, and Picard doesn’t deck anyone…unless he’s doing Die Hard.
@57/Waka: imagine my reaction watching this episode ten minutes ago when Quark is overcome by wealth almost beyond avarice and starts unconsciously rubbing his own ear in full view of the auction crowd.
@57 & 64: I think it’s inaccurate to equate the Ferengi earlobes with genitalia just because they’re erogenous zones. I mean, the mouth is an erogenous zone, and people touch their mouths in public all the time. Hell, the hands are erogenous zones, and nobody considers holding hands in public obscene.