One Of Star Trek’s Greatest Villains Was Created Because Of An Unrelated Demand From The Studio

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Khan, the Klingons, the Borg… the “Star Trek” franchise has had some fantastic villains across its 60-year history. But only one of them can be spelled with just one letter.

When “Star Trek: The Next Generation” debuted in syndication, it did so with a two-hour pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint,” that first aired in September 1987. The pilot saw Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise cross paths with a mischievous god-like figure known as Q, played by John de Lancie. After putting humanity on trial in “Farpoint,” Q would go on to be an unforgettable foe for Jean-Luc across all seven seasons of “TNG” and beyond — but he almost didn’t appear in the pilot at all.

Veteran “Trek” writer D.C. Fontana co-wrote the “TNG” pilot with series creator Gene Roddenberry, and they weren’t sure during the writing process if the episode would end up being one or two hours long, Fontana recalled to StarTrek.com: “I wound up writing an hour and a half script, and Roddenberry rewrote it to include all the Q material. My story was about Farpoint and the mystery surrounding it.”

Ultimately, it was the studio Paramount’s request that the pilot be two hours long, over Roddenberry’s objections, executive producer Rick Berman remembered: “Gene did not want a two-hour pilot. The studio insisted, and he finally agreed.” To fill out the runtime, “the Q story was integrated, and as we all know, created an unforgettable character.”

Q went on to become a classic Star Trek villain

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In the “Next Generation” pilot, Q and Jean-Luc had an fascinating rapport right away — somewhere between friends and enemies, predator and prey. It went so well, in fact, that John de Lancie returned to torment Jean-Luc in seven more “TNG” episodes, including the 1994 series finale, “All Good Things…” 

He would later reprise the role of Q in episodes of “Star Trek” spin-offs “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager,” “Lower Decks,” and “Strange New Worlds.” (His other TV credits include sci-fi favorites like “Stargate SG-1” and “Torchwood.”) De Lancie reunited with Patrick Stewart in Season 2 of “Star Trek: Picard,” with Q once again putting humanity on trial, and he even popped up one more time in the “Picard” series finale, this time turning his attention to Jean-Luc’s son Jack. 

To this day, de Lancie is thankful that Gene Roddenberry ended up putting Q in the “TNG” pilot. He remembers Roddenberry approaching him on the “Encounter at Farpoint” set: “He came up behind me and he said, ‘You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.’ He whispered in my ear and I said, ‘Oh, Gene, what do you mean?’ And he said, ‘You will find out,’ and I have been finding out now for 35 years. I have been finding it.”