Star Trek: Every Q Episode Ranked Worst To Best
3. Q Who?
The darkest episode to feature Q also features the introduction of the Borg. It also establishes that Q and Guinan have met before, enough for Q to be nervous in her company - a character trait that still needs exploration, something that could be visited in the next season of Star Trek Picard.
Q Who? has the distinction of being one of the more frightening episodes of early Next Generation and is certainly the darkest episode to feature Q.
Producer Maurice Hurley only wrote one Q episode during his tenure but he always felt that the character existed to teach humanity a lesson. Here, he teaches them one of the sourest lessons of the Next Generation - Starfleet is not as ready as it thinks it is. The episode was designed to make part of a trilogy of stories, beginning in Conspiracy back in season 1 with the Borg being represented as an Insectoid race. Budget worked against this and the cybernetic look was used instead.
Q is indirectly responsible for the deaths of eighteen crewmembers here but rather than expressing any kind of guilt, he simply reminds Picard and Riker that if they can't risk losing people, they have no place exploring the galaxy. It is perhaps the best example that the show offers of how removed from human morality Q actually is.
While he may be a fun foil for Picard, he is not and never has been on the same level as the rest of the crew, not sharing any of their qualms about the threats of the universe.