10 Best Star Trek Cold Opens
5. I Am Too Old For Your Bullsh*t, Q! (Penance)
Star Trek: Picard's second season opened with a bang, flinging Jean-Luc across the Quadrant and back into his lovely French Chateau. The second episode of the season, Penance, dials his confusion up to 90, in one of the strongest openings in Picard's entire run. With a tour-de-force performance by John De Lancie, Q proves that he's back to cause mayhem, with a twist.
Is there anything more unsettling than realizing that a being with the powers of a god is acting a little out of sorts? There's both a sadness, and a deep sense of shock, radiating from Picard as he tries to first express his annoyance, then his concern, with his old foe.
The scene contains the great line from Q:
How provincial! How Yesterday's Enterprise of you!
What follows - the skull scene - has already become an iconic moment in recent Trek history. Seeing Skull Dukat, Martok, Sarek, and Zek all in the same room - more or less - was a ballsy way to make an intro to the audience. Q's taunt, that he won't leave Picard alone to deal with the mess he's found himself in, sees us to the credits - but not before a quick cameo from Alex Diehl's synthetic being, now ominously renamed Harvey.