'Q2' Panned By Reviewers

The first two reviews of Wednesday's new Voyager episode, 'Q2' are now out. However, neither reviewer seemed particularly taken with Voyager's 7th last episode.

O. Deus of TrekWeb is first up, and he compares 'Q2' unfavourably to 'The Next Generation' offering, 'Deja Q'. He also found that while Keegan de Lancie (Q2) was competent enough, he was also "completely uninteresting."

"By the point of Deja Q," O. Deus explains, "Q was a malign, greedy, childish God. He was all those things but he was also superior and omnipotent in more than just powers. 'Q Who' demonstrated that he had something to teach humanity and so did TNG's own finale, 'All Good Things...' In other words, he was a true antagonist to the TNG crew and to Picard. He was also dangerous. Rather than the benign wish-granting, amusing genie he later became, Q was quite capable of killing the crew. He genuinely disliked and felt contempt for humanity."

However, he found that "stripped of any edgy or challenging material, Voyager's version of Deja Q quite literally becomes a babysitting episode with Q2 learning to be a better person thanks to the Voyager crew." O.Deus also finds that "the only thing Q2 has to offer is Q2 removing Neelix's vocal cords (an action most people agree with anyway) and all is quickly forgotten and forgiven. And that's the trouble with Q2; Q2 far too quickly becomes a model human and Starfleet officer," thus guaranteeing "that the episode will lack any dramatic or comedic value."

Jason Bates of IGN Sci-Fi was just as unforgiving in his review, where he rated the episode only 2 stars out of five.

While admitting to being naturally pre-disposed to disliking the episode - finding the Q Condominium to be the most "horribly contrived " idea in Trek cannon, he had five main points for his dislike of the episode. Firstly was the heavy use of a guest character so close to the end of the season, while following hard on its heels was the show "cheapen[ing] the ominous menace of the Borg even further [...] by reducing their appearance and disappearance [...] to the idle prank of an errant schoolboy."

He also finds it odd that Q junior was free to uses his 'superpowers "to take off Seven's clothes without even getting reprimanded for what even our 20th Century legal system would consider some kind of sexual assault" and was unhappy that when the two Q's were "done assaulting, tormenting, lying to, stealing from, and otherwise harassing and endangering our crew," they refused to use their "absolute mastery over time, space, energy, and matter" to bring Voyager home. Another sore spot was the trivialisation of Icheb's plight.

O.Deus' review can be found by following this link to TrekWeb, while Jason Bate's full review can be found here at IGN Sci-Fi.

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