This is hands-down the worst Q episode ever; much of Q’s material here is so bad that not even John de Lanci can make watching it non-painful, and the premise and characterization present a fundamentally different Q from the one we see in any other Q episode. In most of his appearances, the main characters all think that his purpose boils down to just dicking with them for kicks—but in fact, there are usually deeper (and more interesting) layers to his agenda. This time around, though—unless you buy into the premise that the Q are worried about humanity’s potential to surpass them—Q really does seem to be just dicking with the crew for kicks. I, for one, do not buy the premise that the Q feel threatened in any way by humans (and in any case, the end of the episode itself seems to invite us to dismiss this notion), and the resulting diminishment of Q to no more than his surface-level schtick of amusing himself by messing with humans robs the character of his usual interest and thematic power. Also, his repeated critique of Picard in this episode as set in his ways and limited in his thinking rings completely false. Later episodes play up Q’s ongoing fascination with Picard as an individual—an interesting motif with which this episode is jarringly out of step, and to no particular purpose.
Besides these premise-level issues, the episode also suffers from the first season’s recurring structureless, meandering plot problem, in which large parts of the episode amount to pointless filler that leads nowhere. All of Q’s blather about games and rules and whatnot early on, despite being heavy-handed and overdone, does at least seem to promise that something reasonably interesting is coming…but in fact, no actual “game” ever materializes. Instead, there’s a bunch of pointless dicking around on the planet hell set with vicious beasts in period costumes, some posturing and general bickering, and then, finally and not following in any way from any of this, the belated revelation that the episode is actually going to be about Riker being tempted with the power of the Q. (I will say little about the unspeakably dumb and insulting “penalty box” scene—nor, in fairness, will I dwell on the reasonably entertaining Picard-and-Q Shakespearean quote-off scene. And hell—out of the kindness of my heart, I’ll even refrain from getting too hung up on how casually this episode treats two of the main characters being killed gruesomely, then immediately restored to life.)
We then proceed to the impenetrably confusing part of the episode wherein Riker is supposed to “resist the temptation” to use his Q powers, in order to ensure that he is able to “refuse their offer” to become one of them. Why it’s so important that Riker refrain from using his powers is barely touched upon; moreover, Riker declares with scarcely a thought that he’ll have no trouble resisting the temptation, and Picard accepts this (“I know what your word means”) even though it’s fantastically implausible and even though Riker has already, at this point, begun behaving weirdly. He alternates inexplicably between behaving like a normal person who has been gifted with unsought powers by an untrustworthy benefactor, on the one hand, and a self-important, self-satisfied prick whose newfound powers have gone straight to his head (much faster than they really would), on the other. Then, an hour or so after making his promise, Riker already regrets it and gets all pissy with Picard about it. If anything about this episode was to have had any chance of working, it would have been necessary for Riker not to behave like someone with absolutely no insight into his own motivations. Instead of this, though, he almost immediately completely gives in to the “temptation,” just to make sure the audience gets the point—even though the cost includes both the likability of the character and any remaining shreds of plausibility left to the episode. If the power was to go to his head, it needed to happen gradually! But this, in turn, would have required not frittering away the first half of the episode with a lot of pointless drivel…
The climax of the episode, in which Riker tempts everyone else with the fulfillment of their various wishes, is executed so very, very poorly that it’s exquisitely painful to watch, but the idea could have had some merit if it had been handled 100% differently. As it is, none of the characters show any signs of actually being tempted by what Riker has to offer—which robs the conflict of any tension or power (and, especially in Geordi’s case, is also just pretty hard to believe—that is, assuming you buy into the premise that Geordi longs for “normal” vision in the first place). Also absent, of course, is any clear sense of what the cost of accepting Riker’s “gifts” is supposed to be (just as it was never made very clear earlier why it was important for Riker to resist using his new powers at all). Looking at a few particulars of the scene: Riker’s gift to Worf (and all the dialogue surrounding it) is painful and bad, and makes it quite clear that the writers have no idea yet of who Worf is or what his back story might be. I do like Data’s quoting of “to thine own self be true,” and it makes obvious sense that he’d be the least tempted by Riker’s gifts—but the delivery of his speech needed to actually seem emotionless and android-like, and as usual thus far, it seems utterly not-that-way. Finally, the scene suffers seriously from the problem that we haven’t really seen enough character development for most of the characters yet for the wish-fulfillment dangled before them to have any real power for the audience; instead, it comes across mostly as checking off boxes next to the major concepts by which each one-dimensional character has thus far been defined.
The episode’s resolution, moreover, happens even more ludicrously quickly than the initial development of the “temptation of Riker” plot. When everyone refuses his gifts, the same Riker who just seconds ago appeared utterly without insight suddenly “gets it” all at once—whereupon all is forgiven, and no further notice is taken of what has happened. Then Picard, out of nowhere, invokes “the other Q”—somehow intuiting that “our” Q is going to be in trouble with them—and no sooner has he made this prediction than said other Q appear “on cue” (see what I did there?) to confirm this yanked-from-his-ass notion and conveniently whisk “our” Q away, setting everything and everyone back to normal while they’re at it. (And among the many ways in which this ending is lame, let us not overlook the fact that it represents yet another blatant “borrowing” from an original series episode.) Data then (in what would constitute a wildly out-of-character moment if he had anything resembling a consistent character yet) cheesily sets Picard up to deliver the episode’s final sledgehammery did-everyone-get-the-point “lesson” line, and the episode ends.
(An aside: As the second Q episode, this one does inaugurate some of the rituals and motifs that will recur during many of his future visits: the early-episode recap of his shenanigans during previous visits; Picard demanding of him some version of “What is it you want, Q?”; his obsession with sporting Starfleet uniforms; and even episode titles that attempt (not very successfully in this case) to pun on Q’s “name.” Arguably, too, when the characters tell Q in future episodes (as they tend to do) that they “don’t have time for his games” and the like, it seems likely that they have this visit of his especially in mind, since he explicitly enthuses about “games” in this episode. And one final observation: I can’t believe I’ve never glommed onto this before, but Q refers to Riker as “the redoubtable Commander Riker” when he first shows up, and also insults Worf by saying that he has a “micro-brain”—both comments that he will repeat in the next episode in which he appears!)