25 Best Episodes Of Star Trek EVER
24. Deathwish - Star Trek Voyager
Q was a fun addition to Voyager and his relationship with Janeway made for a very different dynamic than his relationship with Picard. Here, their first meeting contains the usual nonsense the audience had come to expect from John de Lancie showing up on screen but it is tempered with a very heavy message: is it alright to allow a person to die by suicide when they reach the end of their preferred existence?
Quinn asks for asylum on Voyager and Janeway grants it. Q humours it and a trial begins. Janeway acts as judge, Tuvok supporting the defence and Q advocating on behalf of the Continuum. The excursion to the Continuum itself is an eye opening experience for those who have known Q throughout his interactions with Picard - they are far from the mischievous characters that one would expect them to be.
They are a bored, sleepy omnipotent race with nothing better to do now that they have done everything and learned all that there is to know. It is a lesson in 'be careful what you wish for' as the Q strove to evolve, but did so to the point where there was nothing left to reach for.
Quinn's message, that of being allowed to make the next step into death for the greater good, has fallen on deaf ears for centuries. It takes the humans, those with conscious knowledge of death and suffering, to open the eyes of the Q. Quinn wins the day and promptly kills himself.
It is a heavy episode around the topic of death by suicide and euthanasia and stands out as one of the finest early episodes of Voyager.