10 Greatest Star Trek Courtroom Episodes

This second season episode of Star Trek: Voyager had a monumental task facing it. How best to introduce Q to the new series? When compared to Deep Space Nine's attempt, Q-Less, this episode knocks it out of the park. However, in standard Trek style, it also tries to take on another huge topic.

Quinn's trial to determine his right to take his own life is one of Star Trek's most thought-provoking arguments. On the surface he seems an affable, charming man, one who's request is baffling. The rest of the Continuum certainly feel that he is losing his mind, which leads directly to his incarceration. However, where they would simply lock him away and be done with, the appeal for asylum aboard Voyager puts Janeway in a rocky place. She can't, as a starfleet captain, ignore the call - even though the Q are exponentially more powerful than they.

Perhaps a sense of amusement allows our familiar Q the chance of hearing the arguments out, yet over the course of the trial, he comes around to see Quinn's plight. This episode, dealing so directly with both right to life, and right to death, could have flopped at the beginning. Instead, it rises above much of the rest of the early seasons of Voyager, becoming one of the strongest episodes in the entire run.