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Patrick Stewart

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Jonathan Frakes

Commander William Thomas 'Will' Riker

LeVar Burton

Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

Michael Dorn

Lieutenant Worf

Gates McFadden

Doctor Beverly Crusher

Marina Sirtis

Counselor Deanna Troi

Brent Spiner

Lieutenant Commander Data

Olivia d'Abo

Amanda Rogers

John P. Connolly

Orn Lote

John de Lancie

Q

David Keith Anderson

Ensign Armstrong
(uncredited)

Lena Banks

Starfleet Ensign
(uncredited)

Joe Baumann

Crewman Garvey
(uncredited)

Michael Braveheart

Crewman Martinez
(uncredited)

Cullen G. Chambers

Command Division Officer
(uncredited)

Tracee Cocco

Ensign Jae
(uncredited)

Debbie David

Ensign Russell
(uncredited)

Shannon Fox

Riker's Date in Ten Forward
(uncredited)

Did you know

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Trivia
In early drafts, Amanda was named Samantha, an in-joke relating to the character from the sitcom Bewitched (1964). Upon catching onto it after several drafts, Rick Berman had the name changed.

Goofs
When Dr. Crusher has Amanda test the tricorders on herself, she holds the first one backwards.

Quotes
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Your... arrogant pretense at being the moral guardians of the universe strikes me as being hollow, Q. I see no evidence that you're guided by a superior moral code or any code whatsoever. You may be nearly omnipotent, and I don't deny that your... parlor tricks are very impressive. But morality, I don't see it. I don't acknowledge it, Q! I would put human morality against the Q's any day. And perhaps that's the reason that we fascinate you so - because our puny behavior shows you a glimmer of the one thing that evades your omnipotence: a moral center. And if so, I can think of no crueler irony than that you should destroy this young woman, whose only crime is that she's too human.
Q: Jean-Luc... Sometimes I think the only reason I come here is to listen to these wonderful speeches of yours.

Connections
Edited into Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Chase (1993)

Soundtracks
Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Title
Composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage

Okay but there are better Q episodes

Enterprise welcomes a new intern who shows signs of having Q powers.

This is an okay episode for me but nothing particularly memorable.

The plot is similar to a Q episode in past seasons where we see someone faced with a choice of having Q powers or not after trying them out in numerous scenes beforehand. This one does not work as well for me as the character of Amanda is not that interesting.

There are dialogue exchanges involving Q that are good, as John De Lancie is on good form as always, along with a Patrick Stewart, Gates McFadden, and Jonathan Frakes. There is some good discussion on the subject of omnipotence as always in these types of episodes.

The character of Amanda does not grip me very much. She is someone not seen before on the show so I was not invested in her fate one way or the other. Plus I thought the performance of Olivia d'Abo was a little bit flat at times.

I have read the show creators were trying to put some sense of threat back into the character of Q with this episode, but personally after they had already played it for laughs (Robin Hood etc) in previous episodes, I think that was a bit of a lost cause.

There were plenty of decent visuals such as the warp core breach and other scenes of the Q powers on display.