OVEG Video: The Q and the Grey

[Sonnenburg]

Both parts of this loathsome experience are here:

Video

[Gandalf]

Good review. I'd forgotten just how weird this story was.

I wonder how much this story changed between the initial conception and shooting. Surely it began as something a little more sensible.

[tim31]

Depends... Do you think there was much difference between the conception and execution of borg involvement in Voyager? Everyone knew it had to happen eventually(Delta Quadrant and all), but deep down not even the staunchest fans can actually admit to enjoying seeing how weak the borg became.

[Darksider]

Loving these video reviews.

Are you going to do more DS9?

I'd love to see your take on the Ferengi Episodes, particularly *gags* Profit and Lace.

[Big Orange]

The Q story arc did make a pretty steep dive in "The Q and the Grey" after the slightly faulty but overall decent "Deathwish". What the hell is it with the Q guns?!

Are you going to do an arc of reviews concerning the Borg through TNG, First Contact, and VOY? You've already kicked off with "Q Who?".

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Link's broken

[Thanas]

Link fixed

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Thanks, Thanas.

[NomAnor15]

"You! Bar-rodent!"
That line just made my day. Excellent review. I can't wait to see your take on some more of the movies.

[Ghost Rider]

Fixed Chuck's tags.

[Superman]

Bless you, sir. Good job telling it like it is. Meh, what a horrible episode, maybe worse than usual... and that's fucking saying something.

[RedImperator]

This is one of those episodes which could drastically improve the franchise by disappearing from canon. In its way, it's worse than "Threshold", which I've decided to interpret as Tom Paris's elaborate nightmare. At least "Threshold" didn't break one of Trek's most interesting villains.

[Ghost Rider]

Amongst the many things one can cry over this episode...what's really horrifying about this one is how it humanize Q in the absolute worst ways. We've had episodes where we anthropomorphized Q into something more humane, but in such inane matters. In fact the only time it's mentioned in Trek of children and mating with Q is Amanda Rogers, and that was handled better then this farce. But the whole Civil War is just shit The whole race is fucking dumber then a hill of ants? Did they lose their supreme abilites because Paris and gang could equip themselves with BFG9000s?

Really, the only reason for me it's not the worst is that it just destroys one of Trek's best and makes the show a little better then bad daytime soap opera. It didn't quite intrude on by going into either racist overtones or just plain bad and whackier science.

[RedImperator]

Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, even the most disastrously bad science isn't as bad as ruining a character, let alone an entire species of effective villains.

Question: if we struck every Kenneth Billar episode from Trek canon, how much would the franchise improve?

[Ghost Rider]

Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, even the most disastrously bad science isn't as bad as ruining a character, let alone an entire species of effective villains.

Question: if we struck every Kenneth Billar episode from Trek canon, how much would the franchise improve?

To answer: A lot better. But that could be said of many of their hack writers.

While I understand your point, for me...it's not just bad science, it's one treats the viewer enjoying dumb situations and guffawing at hijinks. Threshold doesn't even have that. It is nothing more then using bad internet/whacky science as the entire plot and story. I wouldn't subject someone to either, but with one at least someone wanted a story, the other doesn't even have that really.

[Patrick Degan]

Let's see, this episode wasted a rather good SF concept which helped power TNG, the very concept of plot logic, and both John deLancie and Suzie Plakson in an utterly inane waste of phosphor-dots.

Watching this episode is what it must be like to be trapped in Dr. Tristan Adams' neural-neutraliser chair —you remember, the torture device featured in the TOS episode "Dagger Of The Mind". The Chair inflicted no actual physical damage so it's beam could be maintained for any length of time the operator desired. But the memory of the pain for the victim would be everlasting.

[Big Orange]

I guess this episode received a 2/10 and not a 1/10, due to John de Lancie's amusing performance.

Not to excuse "The Q and the Grey" and Kenneth Biller, but the earlier Q episodes on TNG were pretty awful as well, although at least these patchy episodes were more consistant in presenting the extreme cosmic powers of Q and his role as a Chaotic Neutral antagonist. Those early, experimental Q episodes had more excuse for being shit, while "The Q and the Grey" feels more of a wet slap in the face relatively soon after Q's TNG story arc was tied up very nicely in "All Good Things" and we had a pleasant revisit from him with weighty issues in "Deathwish". Also "The Q and the Grey" is quite boring and leaden as well, at least in "Threshold" you can chortle at the unintentional comedy of Paris turning into a aquatic lizard and losing his tongue in the process.

The seeming deconstruction and incompetence of the Q Continuum by the inept Kenneth Biller could've been explained away as an convoluted con on the part of the Q themselves to fuck around with the Voyager crew for their own amusement, "fixing" them as a super race. But I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Kenneth Biller is one of the worst writers Star Trek has had - Braga, Taylor and Pillar crapped out their fair share of concentrated effluence in the early seasons of VOY, but they've still been involved in the making of successful episodes on TNG like "Cause and Effect", "The Perfect Mate", "Timescape", "The Wounded", "Unification", "Below Decks", and "The Best of Both Worlds". And it was a mistake for leaving Biller in charge of S7 - seeing the repeat episodes on Virgin 1 I can still feel the quality crash after the relative highs of S4,5, & 6, especially in regards to the Pathfinder trilogy, with "Inside Man" being a rubbish way to cap it off after meaty episodes like "Pathfinder" and "Life Line".

Bryan Fuller and Joe Monosky were the more consistent VOY writers and involved with its better episodes (like "Timeless", "The Thaw", "Dark Frontier", "Drone" and "Living Witness"), but they've too got their own albatrosses (Menosky wrote "Masks" from TNG while Fuller wrote "Spirit Folk"). Althouh to be fair I personally liked Biller's "The Chute".

[The Romulan Republic]

Its truly unfortunate that there had to be such a sub-standard Q episode. What a waste of an interesting character/species and a decent actor.

The seeming deconstruction and incompetence of the Q Continuum by the inept Kenneth Biller could've been explained away as an convoluted con on the part of the Q themselves to fuck around with the Voyager crew for their own amusement, "fixing" them as a super race.

This is really the only way I can see to fully repair the situation- retcon the whole things as some massive deception for as yet unknown reasons by the Q, which Janeway and her crew fell for completely.

[Revy]

Maybe out of boredom. The previous Q episode was all about a Q being almost literally bored to death, so maybe you could say the Q here were just RP'ing as substandard superbeings instead of being how they normally are. You could even say that Q's attempts to seduce Janeway were the result of some kind of bet or dare that he lost, like "If you can't move this immovable object then you have to hit on Captain Janeway!".

[Big Orange]

I agree with Revy - with the Q being almost indestructable to most things in the known Universe and practically omnipotent, spending eons/millennia languishing in their pocket universe, the Continuuim, would eventually bore them stiff and a playful civil war (which is more like a sporting event than a genuine conflict) would perk things up. In Iain M. Banks' The Algebraist it features a powerful race known as the Dwellers. Unlike the Q the Dwellers are still flesh and blood, though still extremely advanced and long lived enough to become a very complacent, insular species, having huge mock battles in the upper atmospheres of their gas giant planets and hunting their offspring to stave off the grinding boredom and entropy.

[Ryushikaze]

Its truly unfortunate that there had to be such a sub-standard Q episode. What a waste of an interesting character/species and a decent actor.

The seeming deconstruction and incompetence of the Q Continuum by the inept Kenneth Biller could've been explained away as an convoluted con on the part of the Q themselves to fuck around with the Voyager crew for their own amusement, "fixing" them as a super race.

This is really the only way I can see to fully repair the situation- retcon the whole things as some massive deception for as yet unknown reasons by the Q, which Janeway and her crew fell for completely.

Here's a bizarre thought- this entire thing was a concoction for the Q to ship the VOY across the galaxy at least a major distance, to trick the crew into thinking they'd done some big favor for the Q so the Q could pretend like they were returning the favor instead of rushing them out the door and out of their hair after having grown bored of VOY.
Only it backfires because VOY somehow forgets to ask this time, prompting Q to send his son to annoy the hell out of them and prompt them to ask for recompense.
And it all fails because Janeway wants her crew to suffer more. The delicious suffering...

[JME2]

Its truly unfortunate that there had to be such a sub-standard Q episode. What a waste of an interesting character/species and a decent actor.

Yeah, the Q/VGR trilogy never really did anything for me; it just reinforced my opinion that "All Good Things" should have been Q's last appearance on Trek. Q worked best when paired with Picard and it was a good send-off. Oh well...good review as always, Chuck.