TNG Premiere’s Q Story Was An Add-On That Changed Star Trek Forever

The omnipotent being known as Q (John de Lancie) became one of Star Trek’s greatest recurring characters, but he was almost completely absent from Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s premiere episode. Following the voyages of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D, TNG premiered in 1987 with the two-hour pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint.” While the basic plot of the episode is fairly standard Star Trek fare, Q adds a new and interesting element to the story and ends up becoming the most significant part of the episode.