16

I just figured, as it never happens in Star Trek, it would just add a bunch to Q if he did; it would have demonstrated that he is an omnipotent being.

I don't expect him sitting on a balcony, smoking cigars with a (former) captain of the Enterprise while discussing the fact that their show was moved from Tuesday to Wednesday, but still... I just feel this would suit his character and powers very well. Yet I can't recall him ever doing that.

So I'm asking the community. Did Q ever break the 4th wall?

Yeah, I could have thought of this 20 years ago. Sometimes I am slow. :-)

9
  • 3
    Nope. But several people did...; memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Fourth_wall
    – Valorum
    May 27, 2016 at 21:38
  • I think there was an episode with two Qs chasing each other (or playing hide-and-seek?) and the whole ship was briefly turned into a Christmas tree ornament.
    – Joe L.
    May 27, 2016 at 22:28
  • 4
    I don't think any of those examples from the website are convincing. May 27, 2016 at 23:23
  • 1
    In the non-canon computer game, Star Trek: Borg, I think there's a part where Q addresses the audience. May 27, 2016 at 23:26
  • @Joe L. - You're thinking of the Voyager episode Death Wish, in which a member of the Q continuum called "Quinn" briefly changes the starship Voyager into a Christmas ornament. I'd say this was another "leaning on the fourth wall" example since none of the characters were explicitly aware they were on a show, but in any case it wasn't done by Q himself.
    – Hypnosifl
    May 28, 2016 at 4:23

1 Answer 1

13

I don't think he ever clearly broke the 4th wall in the sense of acting as though he was aware he was a character on a TV show. But this line from "All Good Things..." was the closest I found:

Q: Oh, but it is, and we have. Time may be eternal, Captain, but our patience is not. It's time to put an end to your trek through the stars, make room for other more worthy species.

Of course you don't have to interpret this as Q being aware he's on the show "Star Trek", I took it as just a little title drop by the writers in keeping with this episode's feel as a grand closing statement on the show, but it is at least leaning on the fourth wall.

edit: Thanks to @T-1000's Son for pointing out that there is a fourth-wall-breaking moment in the (non-canon) game Star Trek: Borg. The complete set of scenes in the game can be seen in these six videos: one, two, three, four, five, six. In part 5, at about 6:10 in, there's a moment where the player character makes a foolish choice and Q (in the guise of a Borg) seems to give up on the player, saying "ugh, I think I need to renew myself in some alternate reality...c'mon everybody, let's go. Such an amateur." Then he walks off with the other characters as the dramatic music cuts out and suddenly we hear what sound like the voices of the film crew in the background (they speak in ordinary-sounding English even though the scene is set on a Borg ship), as if the director just called "cut". After that Q comes back and says "oh, all right", snaps his fingers, and the player character gets to go back to an earlier stage before they made the bad choice.

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