#q-less

[skybson]

1x06 - Q-less

[writergeekrhw]

Besides you punching Q in the face, was there any other reason the character never returned to DS9?

I like to imagine the Prophets told Q that Sisko was spoken for

As I've mentioned before, IRL Rick & Michael & Jeri decided they wanted Q (and the Borg) to be a big part of Voyager, so they requested we not use him anymore (same with the Borg). He wasn't a great fit for the show, IMO, so we were fine with that. We felt a little more bummed about the Borg, since they were such a huge part of Sisko's backstory, but so it goes.

If you want an in universe reason, yeah, I think the Prophets freaked Q out a bit and he decided to avoid DS9 because of them. Plus Sisko, being less inclined to humor Q, was less fun for him to play with.

[stopthatbluecat]

When Sisko punched Q he felt the entirety of Sisko's collective pasts, presents, and futures, and that's the true reason he never returned.

He would always be nothing to him in any existence.

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k d e e p s p a c e n i n e created by rick berman, michael piller [q-less, s1ep7]

'Three thousand bars of latinum. My final offer.' - kolos

'Three thousand bars.' - quark

'A million.' - q

'A million bars of gold press latinum?' - quark

[usstrekart]

Starting today and running for the next two weeks is a special limited time sale in my Threadless shop. I have had many requests to make a lot of my Star Trek episode posters available as prints so I am doing just that! I am starting with some of the most popular and most requested posters from Deep Space Nine for this first run. 

If you want more than a print, each piece is also available on magnets, stickers, shirts and more! You can find the collection at https://doctorheadly.threadless.com/collections/limited-time

For more of my episode-by-episode rewatch that has been the origination of these episode posters visit TrexReExamined on Twitter/X (for full episode live-tweets and episode posters).

[meefstewk]

rewatched q-less and jadzia was totally eyefucking vash when she left with quark at the end

[benedictusantonius]

Star Trek: Deep Space 9 s01e07 "Q-Less"

[spectraspecs-writes]

I think the only one on the DS9 crew who wouldn’t punch Q is Bashir, he just doesn’t have the upper body strength. Quark would do it but he’d scream the whole time

[malewifeboimler]

ok but vash's jacket is really cool tho

[thoughts-i-have-had-in-passing]

I think my favourite part of Q’s one and only episode of DS9 is the slow but steady reframing it among the fans from ‘That was a bad episode’ to ‘Sisko told Q to GTFO and he did, because Sisko is not here for this shit.’

Like, I know it’s still a bad episode compared to all the absolutely brilliant ones, but it does make the whole story just that little bit better for me on rewatch.

February 8, 1993, the date Sisko told Q to GTFO.

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 106 (February 7, 1993) - "Q-Less"

The Breakdown

Jadzia returns from a trip to the Gamma Quadrant with a human woman named Vash, who claims to have been there for a couple years.  Regularly that wouldn’t make sense (the Gamma quadrant is very far away, and the wormhole was only just discovered a few episodes ago), but fans of TNG will recognize her as Picard’s old flame who became pet-travel-buddy to Q, a guy notable for being able to do literally anything he wants. We find out that Vash has parted ways with Q because she grew tired of dealing with his narcissistic bullshit, and she’s ready to retire on the profits of all the treasures she collected with her omnipotent sponsor.  But Q is pretty choked about Vash leaving him, and so he decides to hang around DS9 and see if he can’t change her mind.

While Quark sets up an auction for Vash’s Gamma treasures, Q sets about giving Sisko grief over the station’s latest technical troubles. It turns out one of Vash’s items-for-sale (a fancy glowing orb) is actually some kind of unhatched stingray-space-baby that’s dragging the entire station towards the wormhole (and destruction) in an attempt to return home.  Thanks to a few helpful hints from Q, along with a healthy dose of technobabble, Sisko and Co. figure out what's going on in time to beam the Stingray-baby back into space.  The Station is safe, and Q agrees to leave Vash alone.

The Verdict

The problem with this episode is that it kind of expects that you to know what Q’s deal is. The writers do their best to bring the audience up to speed on Q and Vash’s backstory, but it feels like we’re getting the sloppy seconds to a TNG story arc. At the end of the day I think Q’s dynamic is just better tailored to Picard’s more rigid demeanour; besides Sisko already has his own nonlinear space-deities to contend with.

2 Stars (out of 5)

Additional Observations

(Future) Hetero-Boyfriends: It’s hard to like Julian Bashir in these early episodes. He’s fairly sexist, and trying way too hard to be a Fuck boi, but thankfully his friendship with Miles O’Brien will become a saving grace for the character. That’s still a ways off as O’Brien’s disdain over witnessing Bashir’s conduct on a date is all too apparent, and it’s fun to watch.

Q notes that Sisko is easier to provoke than Picard, but afterward the commander and his entire crew are pretty good at keeping their cool while mostly ignoring him. Maybe that’s why he never came back.

[atomiccollectionanchorme]

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 1 Episode 7 "Q-Less"

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE 1993 – 1999・1x07 Q-Less

[writergeekrhw]

Just wondering what went on with Q-Less? I adore ds9 for sure but in a recent rewatch we got to this episode and it felt uncharacteristically poor compared to other season 1 episodes. Vaush and the Ferengi and Q all as the A plot just kind of jammed together, and basically a nothingburger as the B-plot? Don't get me wrong the Q punching scene and the sisko banter in the episode was great, it just felt like the plot didn't really go anywhere or bring anything to the table. I hope this doesn't come off wrong, I love your work!

About a year ago, I rewatched "Q-Less" for Cirroc and Ryan's podcast, The Seventh Rule, and I pretty much agree with everything you said. It's definitely not a strong episode. In my defense, it was early days and we were still finding the show. Also, I was handed a mostly fleshed out, fully structured story and asked to execute the script. But the focus on the guest stars really bothered me during my recent rewatch. None of the DS9 crew had a satisfying story. Q and Vash are driving all the action, robbing our characters of agency and making the story feel weak. I still think there's some fun dialogue and a few memorable moments, but overall, not the best episode I did.

Thankfully, the show (and I) got better.

C'est la TV.

Here's the podcast episode:

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Deep Dive | Episode 6, "Q Less" with ROBERT HEWITT WOLFE | T7R #233 - YouTube

[stopthatbluecat]

Q got face to face with Benjamin and then immediately changed him into a tight fitting outfit with a sleeveless shirt.

[kittenwriter]

Timing things out again, now with Q-Less:

The beginning actually happens in pretty rapid succession. Julian gets summoned to the pod, checks out everyone, takes Vash back to the infirmary. That all happens, I think, immediately after each other.

Jadzia and Sisko talk about what Vash's deal is while Julian examines Vash.

There is then a time jump. Vash booking passage on a ship and going to the Assay Office could probably happen very quickly, but Jadzia has had time to find out that Vash is associated with the Daystrom Institute and Sisko has had time to talk to a professor there. Even if you assume they answer the call immediately, time has passed-- but it also can't have been overnight because it doesn't make sense for Vash to only be sticking her stuff in the Assay Office after she's been on the station for a while. You have to assume the shuttle returning takes place early in the station's day and that Sisko's call manages to catch the Daystrom Institute in the middle or near the end of their day. (Bajor's day is 26 hours; their time of day is going to fluctuate relative to Earth.) So Vash was off booking passage while Sisko and Jadzia were getting in touch with the Daystrom Institute.

What else was Vash doing with that time? Booking passage takes some time, of course, since she's got to evaluate the available transports and figure out where she's going given that coming back from the Gamma Quadrant was not really planned on her part. But it probably doesn't take as long as digging into her background, so there's a chunk of time unaccounted for during which Vash was doing... stuff. Something she prioritized over going to the Assay Office.

The Assay Office then happens; she and Sisko talk.

There is then another time jump, since I imagine going over a runabout stem to stern probably takes some time, but it doesn't have to be a terribly large time jump, since O'Brien getting started on this as soon as everyone was off is entirely plausible. We're still in the same day but we're getting into late afternoon/early evening by now when Sisko and O'Brien talk about Vash and the Ganges.

Given that there was probably some flurrying around to make sure there wasn't immediate danger after the power drain followed by Vash being assigned guest quarters, O'Brien catching up with Vash and getting designated to escort her to quarters (and that very much was a choice, because he's not the natural person to pick for that absent the preexisting acquaintance) happens in the late evening, although we are still on the same day. The sequence of Q-Quark-Julian happens in real time but it's a fairly late dinner Julian is buying her.

Vash gives the timeframe in which she's going to meet Julian as twenty minutes, so Julian goes straight to the Replimat and Q follows him. Given how very late it is at this point, it's not necessarily weird that Julian's absence isn't immediately noted; he's been on shift all day and he's not a natural person to call for power drains--although given the power drains' presumed effects on the infirmary systems, someone in the infirmary should have called him here and noticed he wasn't answering.

O'Brien sees Q and goes straight to Ops; there's the explanation of Q and the second power drain.

And this is where we get to things that are impossible to reconcile timing-wise. We saw Vash leave the cube in the Assay Office. For this to not be a time skip-- and it's not a time skip, because Vash says it's been half an hour since Julian was supposed to meet her--it implies Vash argued with Q, went straight back to the Assay Office, got the cube out, and went to the bar where she was theoretically having dinner with Julian, who would have already been there had Q not put him to sleep, prepared to discuss business with Quark in depth. If you ignore that line and say this is the next morning it works (and you can even still have Vash wanting to know where that doctor is since he stood her up the night before), and also deals with the fact that everyone else has now had a very long day with no sleep.

This also gives us time for Quark's bidders to show up, since he's presumably calling on people who are nearby. Still some time skip between Sisko punching Q and Odo watching the bidders show up, but if you say Vash was talking with Quark over breakfast and Odo is watching the bidders show up, say, midmorning... (And since I think that was supposed to be the next day even on the episode's impossible timing, the fact that no one is wondering what's happened to Julian says some not-great things about the station's organization.)

Skip ahead an hour or so for Jadzia to figure out what the deal is with the hole (presumably as a joint effort with O'Brien) and report to Sisko; her conversation with Sisko and Quark's conversation with Odo are simultaneous, both taking place while Vash is getting her stuff out of the Assay Office, fitting with Quark being in a hurry to get past the conversation with Odo-- his auction is supposed to be starting soon!

And again with the nonsensical timing, but this time in the other direction; there's no reason for Vash to get her stuff out of the Assay Office until right before it's time to sell it, but I think the station log is trying to imply a time skip. It does not make sense for there to be much of a skip here; she went to set up her stuff with Quark and then the auction happens. This is also my logic for "Quark invited only people who are nearby" because even if that was time skip it can't be that much of one given how frequent these graviton bursts are. (Now, they are all wealthy enough to either have their own ships or have chartered ships, but even so.)

This is again a sequence shown in not quite real time but events that are happening pretty close sequentially. Q vanishes, auction starts, station starts getting drawn into the wormhole. This is flashes of sequences, sure, but it's flashes of sequences over the course of, like, half an hour, speeding up towards the end as events start happening much faster.

(Incidentally, there's an interesting essay in this part about whether Q actually intended to let the station die or if he would have intervened at the last possible moment had the senior staff not figured it out. Q does have limits; we've seen them many times. And buying the thing argues that he intended to do something with it.)

The time skip after the thing is beamed off the station I believe is a time skip, probably of at least a day. They had time to use control thrusters to return it and given "things have returned to normal" also had time to repair all the damage it did. So they spend a day or two doing that and Vash making arrangements to go back to the Daystrom Institute before Q shows up again to taunt her, and then Vash decides to scrap her plans and go off to work with Quark. (This, by the way, was a missed opportunity. Vash is now working with Quark and Odo knows something is up with her; this could totally have been developed into a recurring plotline with Vash showing up with plot coupons. Especially since she's been wandering around the Gamma Quadrant for a while; she could totally have kept bringing Odo additional evidence of his people. Or even just letting everyone know that the Dominion exists, because there's no way she didn't know.)

And then Julian feels like he's been asleep for days, which, again, someone should have noticed; the fact that Jadzia looks amused implies she noticed that he wasn't there for any of this but either him not being around for a few days didn't concern anyone enough to go looking for him or they found him asleep and didn't care enough to do anything about it.

This is actually the hardest one I've timed out yet, because it's the first one with actively nonsensical timing and true logical inconsistencies rather than just "there is a larger or smaller time gap here than I think the writers intended."

[july-19th-club]

commander data: "it" is a dehumanizing, depersonalizing, bigoted term. despite being an inorganic lifeform, i am a living being with pronouns and a name, and you will use them correctly or my three hot and burly best friends from my spaceship will come beat you up

sec "murderbot" unit: technically i *guess* i could be considered a cyborg and not a robot given the fact that i do contain biological components but if you even suggest that makes me semihuman let alone a human man so help you sancutary moon. my pronouns are it and its THANK you and my gender is "not applicable"