Q approaches Janeway with an unusual proposition: he wants her to be the mother of his child. Janeway repeatedly rebuffs his advances until Q comes clean with his true motives: the Q Continuum is embroiled in a civil war, and he believes a new child will unify them.
On the one hand, this episode has plenty of what most Star Trek fans like about Q. He tosses off amusing nicknames (Chuckles, Bar Rodent), he plays mind games, he upsets the status quo. His presence allows the whole episode to let its hair down with broad comedy, a puppy and a baby, unusual snap zooms straight from the classic Western style book, and quirky visuals (like how two Qs conceive a child). Q even learns and grows, which is not a given for a Q episode; he makes an earnest plea to spare Janeway from execution near the end of the episode.
As a bonus, you get Star Trek veteran Suzie Plakson guest starring as a female Q. In the modern parlance, Plakson always "understands the assignment," and she certainly did here. She vamps it up, nails one liners even better than John de Lancie ("I'm not talking about the puppy" and "Helm Boy"), and guilelessly makes inside jokes (she comments on Vulcans and Klingons, two alien races she's already played on The Next Generation). She's just plain fun.
On the other hand, I find so many problems in the construction of this plot. Q's plan here is idiotic; having a child famously does not help people in a sour relationship, and absolutely no details are offered here about how a child would help resolve a conflict that is fundamentally about individuality. If the idea is that this child is going to be some kind of moral beacon, surely Q would go to the most moral person he knows: Jean-Luc Picard. (For Q, gender really shouldn't be a factor in the ability to make a baby.) And speaking of The Next Generation, it already did an entire episode about how, in fact, two Qs did have a child before.
Q's initial pursuit of Janeway is also pretty gross. That's not always apparent because it's played with the lightness of a Pepé Le Pew cartoon. But the fact remains that in the first 10 minutes of this episode, Q forcibly removes Janeway's clothes, blocks her path when she tries to leave the room, and brags about his sexual prowess when she's told him she doesn't want to hear it. Janeway is unflappable through it all, but the truth of course is that she has no true power in this situation. So, uh... yeah. Ick.
I find I don't really have any "other observations" to relay this time. "The Q and the Grey" is kind of a terrible episode when you really strip away the veneer. On the other hand, John de Lancie and Suzie Plakson sure can put on a hell of a veneer. And their fun seems truly contagious; all the regular actors seem like their having a grand old time making this episode. So... that all might weirdly work out to something like a B-? There are far worse installments than this of Star Trek generally and Voyager in particular. It's a watchable episode that I kind of don't ever want to watch again.
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