Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (A 6-month Trek amongst the stars)

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Terok Nor - aka Deep Space Nine

The Original Season 1 Starting. Low Definition.

What A Wonderful CGI High Def Version of DS9 in years to come.

Once Again, Dear Friends, I begin yet another binge rewatch of one of the greatest series ever made - Star Trek.

Specifically . . .

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

This is the third live action Star Trek (the 4th Trek, if you count TAS) and many claim it's the best of them all. I may not agree, but it's better than most and I am certainly looking forward to watching it again. :runjoy:

This time around I'll pay closer attention to the mistakes or inconsistencies, or just things I didn't understand or missed last time I watched it when I was doubtlessly preoccupied with the larger picture. This time I'll pay attention to more of the details.

Once again I invite all others to read along, comment, agree or disagree, and certainly to catch me when my mind goes screwy and I make a blunder or two. It happens - we've all seen it - more than once. :roll:

So without further eloquence (admittedly that may erroneously assume I've been eloquent at some point already) I'll begin tomorrow and should continue on for another half a year.

Join me on this glorious Trek. :yay:

EDIT: I should mention that these posts will contain spoilers, just in case some few haven't seen the stories at all. And I don't mean just for the episodes but possibly some for the entire series.

Simon · **Joined:** 26 Oct 2006 **Posts:** 59406

DS9 was more consistent, in my opinion, than any of the other 24th Century Trek shows. There were fewer really terrible episodes than there were in either TNG or Voyager and the backstory about Sisko and how the Bajorans perceived him gave it a unique aspect that differentiated it from other Trek series.

Just my two cents worth. I look forward to reading Jilerb's opinions.

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

Emissary

01/01 and 02/001 and 002

Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Emissary_(episode)
Transcript: http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/401.htm

Spoiler: show

This is an introductory episode so we are introduced to each character while the story goes forward and we learn who and what each character is. That's almost more important than the story itself, so I'll concentrate on that line up.

Commander Sisko lost his wife at the battle of Wolf 359 three years ago when the Borg and Jean-Luc Picard, as Locutus, kicked ass. That space battle opens up the series and gives us some excitement and action from the off since we only saw the aftermath before on TNG and none of the battle, really. Now, on DS9, we see a lot of it. Sisko's ship, the Miranda Class Saratoga, explodes right after he and Jake and others escaped in a life pod, though he had to reluctantly leave his dead wife behind.

Note: Such a small ship shouldn't normally have civilians, children, or families on board, and since they had plenty of warning the Borg were coming, they definitely should not have carried them into a battle like that. Since so much is predicated on this point, it's almost sad they do something so unrealistic, or at least unexplained. :shrug:

Jake Sisko, the commander's son, isn't happy about having to live on an old space station instead of a planet, but he has little choice. I think they are on an Excelsior class starship taking them there, but they don't really say this. Jake is fishing on the holodeck, saying he could only catch small fish so had to throw them back, which makes sense, until you wonder what his plans were in case he caught bigger holographic fish. :think:

Chief O'Brien - he's the key man upon which all else rests. Seriously, if not for this guy's incredible skill set and work ethic, they'd all have been lost before they could begin. He transfers from the USS Enterprise 1701-D after his last look around, and Captain Picard himself comes down to the transporter room to say goodbye and wish him well. He even personally transports the chief, for a change. Picard will miss him. Though there's a great deal of confusion about his rank over the years, he apparently just got a promotion and is now chief petty officer O'Brien. By series end, he will be senior chief petty officer.

Major Kira is a Bajoran - a hard liner, a fighter, an ex terrorist (we learn later) who brought the fight to the occupying Cardassian forces who have been raping her home planet for 50 to 60 years. But now they have abandoned the practice - seemingly through political pressure, though many Cardassians were not happy giving up their claim that was theirs by right of conquest. So they stripped the space station of most everything of real value and left it like that, making it nearly impossible for anybody to use it. Cardassians, am I right? She's not happy with the provisional government - in particular she doesn't want Starfleet to come in since she feels they would be just like the Cardassians and they will have exchanged one master for another, which is not the freedom she's been fighting for all her adult life. So the provisional government essentially exiles her to the space station where she will be out of the way and in an unimportant job. Sisko requested a Bajoran for his 1st officer for political reasons, and he got her.

Odo, a mysterious shape shifting, kind of liquid alien of unknown origins. He isn't even sure where he is from. He's unique. He seems irritable and has definite ideas about right and wrong and does not care to comply with others who may think differently. In particular, he holds a certain degree of animosity toward Quark, a Ferengi businessman he believes to be a thief - but hasn't been able to prove it for over four years. His inability to prove it doesn't prevent him from openly accusing Quark of theft, which suggests it's become an emotional sore spot for him and it's personal.

Note: For whatever reason, Odo doesn't seem to mind breaking the law himself, as I'm almost certain sneaking onto a Cardassian ship to commit sabotage can hardly be legal. So what, I guess. :shrug:

And I immediately note he apparently can violate the laws of conservation of mass, somehow hiding the mass of his entire body and making it seem as light as an empty duffle bag. It's a curious thing, but nobody is likely to arrest him for breaking the laws of physics.

Quark is the local Ferengi businessman who runs the gambling establishment - who has never been quite as successful as he would like to be. And he is a thief, a cheat, a con man, a liar, a swindler, etc. But he's smart - very smart - he'd have to be to stay one step ahead of Odo, more often than not. He knows enough to get out, but Sisko pressures him into staying even at the risk of his own life. This does not speak well of Sisko, IMO, nor Odo, who instantly warms up to Sisko since he approves of treating Quark badly and often seems fine with the selective application of the law. Well, if Quark gets killed since Sisko forced him to stay, it's just a Ferengi. So what, am I right? :shrug:

Nog, a Ferengi child, Quark's nephew, gets caught stealing - probably at the behest of his uncle - and for Sisko to free him from prison Quark is compelled to stay on, lest the economics of the space station dwindle and the station fails to be a viable concern for everybody - particularly Sisko since he needs it to work to fulfill his mission of getting the Bajorans ready to be accepted into the Federation of Planets.

Lieutenant Jadzia Dax is a Trill (of the new and improved version since TNG introduced the joined race, and she can transport, no problem), and her symbiont, Dax, is an old acquaintance of commander Sisko's back when it was joined with an old man, Curzon Dax. The old man has since died and now Dax is joined with a hot, young, petite cutie in the guise of a female Federation Science officer named Jadzia Dax. And my, oh, my, is she smart. Sisko tends to call her, "Old Man."

Doctor Bashir is a young, energetic, highly intelligent, though hopelessly naive and tactless doctor. Or is he? :think:

Later we learn he might be faking some of this to conceal just how clever and insightful he really is - but they made that up later, and right now he is a foolish young doc who would really love to get close to Jadzia Dax. He inadvertently insults Major Kira by calling her home primitive, frontier, and other terms denoting civilizations of a lower order.

Note: I'll wait to see how this unfolds again, but the Bajoran civilization is apparently over 10,000 years old, and for most of that they were capable of knowing about basic astronomy and generally about where their Prophetic Orbs came from in the sky. Why they are not so much farther ahead in tech than Humanity, I cannot be sure, but maybe it's due to the fact they religiously cling to their religious beliefs, which do not really require them to do more than pray and contemplate their faith. I dunno? Whatever the reason, 60 years ago the Cardassians showed up and the Bajoran planet was ripe to plunder since, it would seem, they hadn't already taken out the resources necessary for space exploration and exploitation, nor did they have the ability to defend themselves from a more powerful space faring race - but that's not surprising when one allows their tech advancement to screech to a halt for whatever reason.

Gul Dukat is the principle heavy in the series, a really nasty piece of work, even for a Cardassian. But he's intelligent and manipulative, and he used to be governor of the occupied planet. He's a real evil SOB, but he's usually polite about it.

Kai Opaka is the spiritual leader of the Bajoran people. They seem to have just one religion, though a variety of factions are within it. Her primary concern is to protect the theoretical celestial temple of the prophets - their gods. Nine prophetic orbs have been found over the last 10,000 years, and they have brought a sort of enlightenment and belief system to the Bajoran people. She now fears (for some reason - maybe prophecy) the Cardassians will suddenly find the place when they couldn't for the last 60 years. She exposed Sisko to an Orb and it gives him visions of his past. Opaka says with conviction she knows Sisko's fate is to be the emissary of the prophets to the Bajoran people. Anyway, if he can find the place and protect it, maybe she can help him with his mission, but not before, and Kira has already assured him the only person who can help him is the Kai. So he has to find this so-called celestial temple, even though nobody knows exactly where it is, or indeed, if it really exists.

And that's about it.

There are a couple of wonderful scenes between Picard and Sisko. First when Sisko is angry and bitter and introduces himself to Picard as having previously met him in battle at Wolf 359! It was like a kick in the nuts for Picard and it instantly took the wind out of his sails. He had nothing he could say to make it better, no way to exonerate himself. He felt bad about it and trying to defend it would have made it worse. Sisko is so angry he tells Picard he's thinking of resigning, but in the meantime he will do his job to the best of his abilities. Sir! The animosity just rolls off him and over Picard, but since Sisko was "polite" in form of address to his superior officer, all Picard can say is, "Dismissed."

At the end, though, Sisko has thought better of it but has to get Picard's blessing now, and Picard makes him work for it. But he quickly shows the proper spirit, so Picard offers him his hand. If he can't shake it, if he can't forgive him, he's out. Sisko shakes his hand. Excellent scenes - the best of the episode, IMO.

Well, turns out the hidden celestial temple is a stable, artificial wormhole that connects the alpha quadrant to the gamma quadrant. Unlike the Barzan wormhole that turned out to be unstable, this one is stable, and it promises to be the economic boon just as the other one did before it moved. So Bajor now has an incredibly valuable piece of real estate they did not have before, and a chance to flourish. But just a chance.

Inside the wormhole, however, "live" the wormhole aliens - aka the celestial prophets - and frankly, not a lot of what they say or do makes sense. They do not seem to comprehend linear time or linear existence - yet they deal with it all the time. Sisko tries to explain it to them, but it's slow going, and his inability to get over his wife's death as he constantly dwells on it perplexes them. Mostly, if their existence is whole from start to finish, then they should already have had this experience with Sisko and know the answers so it shouldn't be a mystery to them. But I dunno. They remain, for now, ineffable. But Sisko did seem to secure safe passage through the wormhole for all ships, so that's the key feature we'll be interested in - new access to the unknown gamma quadrant that is 70,000 light years away and can now be reached in a matter of seconds instead of 75 or more years at high warp. Cool. :thumbsup:

So important is this property, Major Kira knows Bajor must stake a claim on it and defend it, so she has O'Brien do the impossible, and he does it. Dax helped, of course.

He moves the entire space station out of Bajor's orbit and nearer to the wormhole. Incredible. Now instead of a nowhere job, Kira is suddenly in one of the most important jobs in the stellar system, and instead of being a backwater nowhere place, Bajor is suddenly going to be one of the busiest places in the quadrant.

Gul Dukat, thanks to spies and paying attention to the goings on of Sisko, did follow them and muscles his way into the celestial temple, so Opaka's concerned were somehow justified - orb insight, probably - and 3 other Cardassian ships think the Bajorans destroyed Dukat's ship since it vanished down the wormhole which is now closed and can't be seen, so without any witnesses or proof of their assertions, they decide to destroy DS9 and kill everyone anyway. Cardassians, am I right! Kira bluffs them into seeing 5,000 Photon Torpedoes that aren't really there, and she fires all she has - all six, I think - but in the end the Gul isn't impressed since he trusts his intelligence reports more than his sensors, which he insists must be being spoofed. He's right. And they fire upon the station and things look pretty bad until Sisko returns with Dukat's ship in tow. Dukat's has them stand down.

Luckily, nobody dies, or they couldn't have just let it go. Doctor Bashir proves his worth, though, since he was saving lives, and he forced Odo to help, though Odo was uncomfortable and wanted to leave. Bashir forcefully insisted, so when it comes to medicine, he's not so foolish.

I'm not sure what would have happened had Kira surrendered and didn't endanger everybody's life. The wormhole is in Bajoran space, so I doubt the Federation would have let the Cardassians keep it. It almost seems like a pointless battle, unless the Cardassians would have legal claim to it, even there, if the station surrendered while unfairly under duress. Well, I don't grok interstellar law, apparently, so . . . :shrug:

The Enterprise returns, so the Cardassians high tailed it out of there since they won't risk open war with the Federation at this point, and Sisko and Picard have one more meeting where Sisko now has to convince Picard to let him stay. But he does.

Kira allows Quark to keep his bar open, but warns him not to cheat his customers anymore, and rebuffs his sexual advances on her with threats of violence, which just seem to turn him on all the more. Ferengi, am I right?

O'Brien has a lot of repairs to do, and science ships (to study the wormhole) and other ships are already showing up. So, they are open for business and the show begins.

The End.

Just to mention DS9 Emissary should not be confused with TNG The Emissary.

This is a better than average story, though with some inconsistent acting, but interesting characters - and there are more to come. One is left wanting to know more and see more. With a +1 for acting but -1 for inconsistency and some questionable aspects of this all, we can only hope some things will be better explained, but they are explained well enough for now. I'd give them another point for the opening music, but it's not really for this one episode, but all of them, so I won't. I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt and leave it at 7 + 1 - 1 = 7.

7 out of 10.

Jeff · 05 Oct 2006

The first episode is great and sets up the show perfectly. Then everything kind of drags for a while as it finds its footing. In around the middle of the 3rd season it takes off and stays mostly good until the end. First couple of seasons are hard to sit through though, IMO.

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

A Man Alone

01/03/003

Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/A_Man_Alone_(episode)
Transcript: http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/403.htm

Spoiler: show

Right off, this episode makes very little sense. Maybe a clever viewer could contrive of answers to many unanswered questions, but if you're looking for answers from the writer, forget it. They must have felt many of them were optional, and the writer opted not to supply them. I guess I'll just walk through this episode and take it step-by-step.

Bashir is still hitting on Jadzia - he's practically stalking her like a horny little creep - despite the fact she tells him Trills are above that behavior - I assume she means casual sex, though not above more serious relationships. She's working on a brainteaser that uses a holodeck, but she's been doing it off and on for 140 years, so one must conclude Trills have had access to superior holo tech longer than the Federation. To Julian's credit, he at least stays and gives the puzzle an honest try after Dax leaves with Sisko.

Quark and Odo are people watching, couples mostly, like Dax and Sisko or Miles and Keiko, and Odo expresses a disinterest in coupling and goes on to paint a misogynistic picture of hen pecked men always capitulating to the women's desires and calling that a "compromise." Quark is surprised Odo has never been with someone.

Weirdly, apparently Sisko (a very young man) and Curzon Dax (a very old man) used to pick up women together, and box (or some other physical sports) and that seems strange to me, but he's wondering if he can be the same sort of friend with Jadzia.

Odo sees a former prisoner, Ibudan - a nasty guy who let a little girl die since her family didn't have the money to buy the medicine from him, and who ended up murdering a Cardassian who wouldn't take a bribe. Odo had put him away for murder but he's out now - as the provisional government felt killing Cardassians wasn't a big deal. Odo tells Ibudan to leave the station and gives him 26 hours (one Bajoran day) to do it, despite the fact he's broken no laws since his pardon. Odo even threatens him.

Note: I've gone ahead and assumed the native Bajorans don't actually break up their planet's day into an ungainly 26 divisions, but probably use 24 for the same reasons Humans do - it's a handy number easily divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8,12, and 24. While it's true the Bajoran day is 26 Earth hours long, it's probably 24 Bajoran hours long, but we just hear 26 hours since the ever-present and hardly ever noticed Federation Universal translators are always doing their job and it just translates that way. In fact, it's probably not an integral 26 Earth hours, but that's just a round off function since hearing something like 25.9567293 hours every time would be incredibly annoying. But I digress.

Jake and Nog start to become friends, though their respective parents disapprove, and they play a practical joke on another couple by releasing some bug-like critters on them. They cause the couple to itch, freak out a bit, and cycle through some color changes over their entire skin's surface before they finally go back to normal (one assumes the critters die off). Joke over.

Note: This is fairly stupid since to do all that there would have to be some survival advantage to it, and they would have to have incredible power to do it. But because they can easily do it with special effects, no one stops to think if it really makes sense. It's just a way for the kids to get into trouble and be a cause of concern for Keiko.

Despite being an expert botanist (and not a trained teacher at all) and the station desperately needing multiple arboretums and CO₂ eating and O₂ giving plants everywhere and on display, etc. such that it would take a team of trained botanist to do all that work, Keiko complains she has nothing to do. Her role has become a nagging wife, always complaining about something. Well, she decides to rescue the boys and other kids from the horrible fate of unsupervision and open a school. Without training. Sisko is fine with it since, I guess, she's the most qualified person for the job, being the only one who wants to do it, and he'll give her a room and some computers. My guess is she is mostly a glorified babysitter and the computers do most of the heavy lifting as she has access to multiple lesson plans, even multi cultural ones that experts have prepared ahead of time, so maybe this makes some sense. But Sisko can't make attendance mandatory. Keiko therefore goes forth and tries to convince Ferengi and Bajoran and other parents to send their kids to her school, to learn things, and to mostly keep them out of trouble while giving herself something to do. Really?

The best part of the story, IMO, is where Odo insists justice is justice and he knows best, so he will do what he feels is best and get rid of any undesirable he sees, but Sisko slaps him down and forcefully tells Odo if he can't follow the rules, Sisko will fire his ass and find somebody who can do the job right. Almost surprisingly, Odo backs down. He almost looked afraid, or at least surprised and uncertain. He realizes he is not in charge and Sisko has the power to make good such a threat. Odo doesn't really want to be unemployed, so he has to toe the line.

Later, Ibudan is in a holosuite getting a massage and somebody comes in, pushes the holo masseuse aside, and stabs Ibudan in the back, killing him. This sets up a bit of a locked door murder mystery. Computer records show the door was only opened twice - once when Ibudan went in, and apparently once more when the murderer left. Also, they can tell no transporter, anywhere, was involved. How? I dunno. Trace energy signatures, I guess. They gather DNA and find only the murder victim's and the other four who were there investigating it - so Sisko's, Kira's, Julian's, and Odo's.

Note: I don't think a lot of thought went into this since I doubt Odo can leave DNA around - it would turn into goop, even assuming any of it would leave him at all. So I must assume he can leave something behind and that could be identified as Odo, but I doubt it would be "DNA." I also have to assume, considering what those holosuites are used for on a regular basis, they must sterilize themselves fairly well between customers. :paranoid:

But if this is done so easily, it makes little sense any killer wouldn't have the computer wipe the room clean after he left.

They make a bunch of assumptions. Only a shape shifter could get in through the cracks of the door (but he wouldn't also leave through the cracks :think:

) or one wouldn't have the door automatically open and close multiple times, or take the safeties off and have the masseuse kill the guy and put the safeties back, etc, etc. There are probably countless ways to do this, but they gloss over this.

I'll turn over all the cards and reveal the solution. Ibudan cloned himself and murdered the clone. What story he told the clone to make it cooperate with its own murder, I dunno, but I doubt the clone willingly stepped up to be sacrificed. Why Ibudan wanted to frame Odo is a bit of a mystery, too. He planned this for a long time - not just because Odo was threatening him again, so it's clearly a long-term plan of revenge. He must really hate Odo to spend so much and risk so much just to try to frame him when he could have risked less and spent less to probably just have him killed. Idiot. :roll:

But clones have identical DNA, so we must assume they went into the holosuite together (and nobody saw this) - and he murdered his clone - which was a surprise to the clone, I would think - and left, so naturally only his DNA would be there. And when Odo investigated, so would his. Not really, probably, but OK. But before the murder, he told a bunch of Bajoran citizens (of the right sort - racists) that Odo threatened to murder him, so there would be witnesses to that and Odo would be the primary suspect in his murder.

The Bajoran citizens complained Odo, the chief suspect, shouldn't be investigating this. Well, duh, but it had to be pointed out, apparently, before anyone in authority actually did anything about it. Sisko thinks Odo didn't do it, but Odo even says Sisko is a fool for thinking that since he doesn't really know him. So Odo is temporarily relieved and other list cast members are put in charge since the #2 man on the security force wouldn't do with all his expertise, and non-security people are obviously better suited to that task. Really? :roll:

I mean, what a subplot to miss to have his #2 really try to prove his guilt so he'd permanently get the job - or something other than turning it over to non experts in crime or law enforcement.

Quark actually stands up for Odo as some Bajorans engage in character assassination. Quark says Odo is a lot of things, but not a murderer. We begin to learn Odo and Quark, despite their differences, have some respect for one another, so that's good.

To further prove the Bajorans are ready to be admitted into the Federation, a lynch mob is easily formed to kill somebody mostly because he's just different from them. Yeah, a very enlightened and highly religious bunch of people, the Bajorans. :roll:

They trashed Odo's office earlier and wrote the slur, "Shape Shifter" on his walls. I guess that's offensive. Maybe. :shrug:

Quark and Odo have a nice moment when he offers to help Odo, and Odo even suggests he might need a job from Quark. Really? I mean, he thinks if he's convicted of murder he just won't be chief of security anymore and he can take a different job? What about the prison sentence? Anyway, it's funny Quark briefly considers having a shape sifter to help him - but he realizes Odo would never do it so he quickly dismisses the idea.

Julian gathers evidence but has to grow a clone to adulthood before he can recognize its DNA since it's not really fully formed DNA until it reaches the adult stage. Really? Come on now, really? :facepalm:

At least he can dump unlimited amounts of energy and organic substances and resources into this to grow a human in a few hours. Really? Unlimited funds must be nice. But wait - it gets stupider. This latest clone will be done in a little while and it will be free to go about his business. WTF? Really? :facepalm:

What memories does this guy have? What education? What means of support? Nobody even questions any of this, so WTF, OMG, WTF? The level of scientific illiteracy necessary to write this is astonishing. :roll:

I mean, if you want to assume this can be done, at least say more about making living people in a few hours' time.

Odo proclaims killing one's own clone is still murder and he ferrets out and arrests the real Ibudan who has been hiding in plain sight in a mission impossible quality mask standing around looking like a sinister hooded old man in a robe this whole time.

Note: Lucky for Commander William T. Riker and Dr. Katherine Pulaski they weren't in Odo's jurisdiction when they murdered their clones, huh? :thumbsup:

Ibudan is turned over to the authorities, again for murder, but this time for murdering somebody important enough to matter, even if it was a clone of himself. And Sisko says the third clone went about his business. We can only assume it has the memories and Ibudan and would probably still like to frame Odo but is currently not guilty of anything. I just can't tell you how stupid this is. Obviously, it requires further explanation since I cannot believe they are cloning people's experiences and memories, or making and releasing adults with no memories and no education, like adult new born babies. :shrug:

And Rom, Nog's father, despite his initial belief his son could never learn anything from a human female, drags his boy into the classroom and has him attend school after all. I guess Nog probably got on his nerves so he felt keeping him occupied in school probably wasn't a bad idea, regardless if he learned anything or not. So school is in session.

The End.

This is a below average story, and has too many mistakes or unexplained things in it to take it too seriously. I'll take it straight down to a 1 - its that bad - but add back +1 for some good acting and better than average moments. But most of it is too silly or ill conceived to believe. 2 is all I'll give it. This is not a promising beginning for being the second episode. Or is it the third? There was some confusion as to the order of the first two episodes after the pilot. No matter. One immediately wonders if they suffering from TNG writer burnout, too? We'll see.

2 out of 10.

Professor Plum · 10 Oct 2006

First season is pretty rough, aside from the pilot and then "Duet" and the season finale later on. Still a huge improvement on TNG's first season, but the good stuff really was yet to come.

It's still really hard to settle into watching Sisko sans goatee and shaved head as well. It really seemed to free up something in Avery Brooks when TPTB finally let him do that.

Dr. Chris Evil · 26 Jul 2006

Professor Plum wrote:

First season is pretty rough, aside from the pilot and then "Duet" and the season finale later on. Still a huge improvement on TNG's first season, but the good stuff really was yet to come.

It's still really hard to settle into watching Sisko sans goatee and shaved head as well. It really seemed to free up something in Avery Brooks when TPTB finally let him do that.

Maybe they thought he would look too much like Hawk from the Spenser show.

Professor Plum · 10 Oct 2006

I think that was a lot of it, yeah. They covered it a bit in What We Left Behind, the DS9 doc, but I don't remember what all was said.

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

Past Prologue

01/04/004

Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Prologue_(episode)
Transcript: http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/404.htm

Spoiler: show

Dr. Bashir is approached by Garak - the last remaining Cardassian on the space station. He is commonly believed by most to be a spy. He claims he's just a simple tailor, but the way he acts, that seems quite doubtful. And we will later learn he's practically a super spy - though not really for the Cardassians anymore - he's more a former spy and exile. But I'm getting way ahead of the curve here - only the fact most know this already allows me to mention it. Garak is, probably, one of my favorite DS9 characters. Andrew Robinson has come a long way since playing that murdering psychopath in Dirty Harry.

Well, Bashir runs to ops to inform commander Sisko that Garak might be after Federation medical secrets, but they are safe with him. :salute:

Sisko is mildly amused. Starfleet and the Federation don't really keep their medical knowledge a secret, or their medical supplies, so why the doctor would think this is a bit peculiar.

Suddenly a scout ship is coming in fast while under hot pursuit by the Cardassians - and they are violating Bajoran space and firing at it despite being warned off by Sisko. DS9 beams the person off his ship just before Gul Danar destroys it, but when that becomes obvious to the Cardassians, Danar quickly demands the return of the terrorist, Tahna Los. But Tahna Los and Kira are old friends, and Tahna Los is requesting political asylum.

Well, Tahna Los used to be a terrorist, but he's tired and wishes to give that up. Kira wants this, too, since men like Tahna Los will be required to help lead Bajor into the future, so Sisko grants him asylum, for now, and Danar is pissed but can't do anything about it but hang around close by hoping he'll get a chance to grab him up later.

Tahna and Kira talk about old times and Tahna wonders why she is working for the Federation or the provisional government. She says she's really not and doesn't want them there, but with the wormhole the Federation has become a necessary evil to keep the Cardassians away. She promises to help him as long as he has given up his terrorist ways and he assures her he has. She even goes further out on a limb and helps him bring other terrorists back into the fold with promises of amnesty, but he is just using her and needs to bring in the others since they have the gold he needs to buy something.

Sisko agrees with everything Kira wants, despite the fact she went behind his back to a Starfleet admiral to complain about him not understanding Bajor's needs and being short-sighted, but the admiral later told Sisko this, and when Kira later thanks Sisko for being so unexpectedly cooperative, he tells her to thank the admiral next time she talks to her. Kira is suddenly scared he knew about what she did behind his back. Then he warns her the next time she goes behind his back like that he will hand her head on a platter. This unnerves her a great deal.

Lursa and B'Etor show up and have a run in with Odo, but once they give up their weapons he can't arrest them. He turns into a rat and spies on them, however, but he only learns part of their plans - they will sell something, but he's not sure what. And again, he just puts all his extra mass someplace when he wants to be a small rat. Maybe he puts it into subspace or something. :shrug:

The sisters are there to sell bilitrium to Tahna. And being who they are, they also try to set up a double cross with Garak since they believe him to be the Cardassian's man behind the scenes - and they will betray Tahna after their business transaction in exchange for payment from the Cardassians for delivering a terrorist to them.

Note: I'm not sure why Sisko can't arrest the Klingon sisters since they are wanted by the Klingon empire. I guess, despite being allies, maybe that's still defined as an "internal" matter, so he can't touch the sisters for anything they've done.

Garak tries to inform Sisko of the sisters' plans by using Bashir, arranging Julian to overhear these plans and knowing the doctor would run to Sisko with any information - and the doctor stupidly shows up late to the meeting, but close enough to hear. He's actually late, even after Sisko explains to him what Garak is probably doing and tells him to go to the meeting. :roll:

Note: I'm not sure how the sisters expected to receive payment, or how Garak would deliver it since we didn't see them work out those details, but that part of the plan falls through, regardless, so the sisters only have the money they got for the bilitrium as they try to rebuild the wealth of the house of Duras.

Garak explains to Bashir the bilitrium, when coupled with an antimatter converter (WTF is that?) can make an incredibly powerful bomb.

Note: Tahna supposedly stole an anti-matter converter from the Cardassians, which is why they were chasing him, but his ship blew up and he was beamed over and taken to sickbay, so where he could hide such a thing is a mystery. But :shush:

Tahna asks Kira for a warp capable ship for his plans to make a better Bajor, promises nobody will be hurt, and he implies she would be a traitor not to help him in favor of her greater loyalty to the Federation. Now she has to choose, and so she goes to Odo for a heart-to-heart, showing they have a strong relationship. Odo convinces her Tahna is no longer what he claims and not really her friend, and she doesn't want to betray Sisko, so Odo has Sisko come down and talk to her. They will give Tahna a runabout with Kira to stay close at hand and find out what he's going to do and move in when he has both parts of the explosive and they can arrest him for that.

They take the ship and meet the sisters and he buys the bilitrium and the sisters transport away with the gold. Tahna then reveals his ultimate plan - he will blow up the entrance to the wormhole and both the Cardassians and the Federation will no longer care about Bajor and go away, leaving Bajor to his isolationistic goals - probably to do what? Sit and pray and live the simple life? :shrug:

Well, The Federation was there before they knew about the wormhole so they'd stick around, regardless, so this is a stupid plan. Kira tries to stop him but he arms the bomb. Weirdly, she has the runabout dive into the wormhole and by the time they are done struggling over the bomb, he ejects it, but it harmlessly explodes in empty space in the gamma quadrant. She's damn lucky it didn't blow up in the entrance, inside the wormhole - where it would have killed her Gods - or at the exit, which it easily could have done. I guess her plan required the risk since blowing it up anywhere in the Bajoran stellar system would spread nasty radiation all over the place. But then there should be nasty radiation all over the exit of the wormhole in the gamma quadrant - but it never seems to bother anyone. :shrug:

Sisko hails him and orders him to surrender. He says he'll kill Kira, so we know what he's like, having earlier threatened to kill countless Bajorans as leverage. Like most terrorists, the man merely aspires to one day become pond scum. Sisko replies he can surrender to him now, or wait for Gul Danar who will be there in a couple of minutes and surrender to him. It was established earlier in several ways the horrific manner the Cardassians treat their prisoners, and Tahna is visibly shaken - horrified at the very thought - so he gives himself up to Sisko.

Kira tries to later explain it to Tahna that things have changed and this is the better way. Tahna simply calls her a traitor and is taken away.

The End.

Above average, sure. Complex. Interesting things to see and learn. +1 for Garak. A great introduction to this guy. +1 for some fine acting. -1 for Tahna hiding the anti-matter converter up his colon where the doctor couldn't find it - or some place. -0.5 since I don't think a lot of thought went into their two-part bomb. Just the name, anti-matter converter - suggests they are clueless on the science there. They made up bilitrium - why not make up another compound to go with it? While I dislike making up elements, compounds are not as bad, and I'd never take a point off for yet another nonexistent compound thrown into the mix. So, 7 + 1 + 1 - 1 -0.5 = 7.5

7.5 out of 10.

Junkie Luv · 17 Apr 2005

Jeff wrote:

The first episode is great and sets up the show perfectly. Then everything kind of drags for a while as it finds its footing. In around the middle of the 3rd season it takes off and stays mostly good until the end. First couple of seasons are hard to sit through though, IMO.

It really started to click for me once they fully embraced the religious and sociopolitical elements of the show.

Professor Plum · 10 Oct 2006

Garak is the best. One of the greatest Trek characters on any show, and not even a regular at that. DS9 definitely had the best cast of characters, extending far beyond just the main title cast members.

Junkie Luv · 17 Apr 2005

Professor Plum wrote:

I think that was a lot of it, yeah. They covered it a bit in What We Left Behind, the DS9 doc, but I don't remember what all was said.

I really enjoyed watching that doc after I finished the series.

Junkie Luv · 17 Apr 2005

Professor Plum wrote:

Garak is the best. One of the greatest Trek characters on any show, and not even a regular at that. DS9 definitely had the best cast of characters, extending far beyond just the main title cast members.

Garak is the best! Yeah, that documentary commented on how 'deep of a bench' they had with talent.

Have you watched any of the Sid City Social Club videos? I started watching "Alone Together" and the writing is nice.

https://www.dailystartreknews.com/read/ ... -group-hug

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

Babel

01/05/005

Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Babel_(episode)
Transcript: http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/405.htm

Spoiler: show

Even when everything is already working on a space station, just maintaining it is full time job. O'Brien has to learn all the alien Cardassian systems, make them work with Federation tech, fix the broken ones, or replace the stolen ones, and do that on top of the full time maintenance job. He's overworked and exhausted and nobody seems to care about him - all they care about it just getting what they want or need done ASAP, if not sooner. He has a dedicated team of workers to help him, but it's not enough and most things require his personal touch or supervision.

Amongst the countless other things, the replicators are off-line, and one ship's captain, in particular, has been waiting two days to have his engines looked at, has perishable cargo, and is a shortsighted coward to boot. But more on that later.

When O'Brien fixes some command level replicators, this inadvertently activates a booby-trap left for the Cardassians long ago - it just never went off. But it's gone off now, and it's making an engineered virus and putting it in the replicated food. What's worse, since Quark's replicators were also offline and of lower priority, Quark steals replicated food and drinks from that station and is selling them in his bar, rapidly infecting most everyone. And the final nail in that coffin - the virus becomes air-borne.

Note: I'm not sure how carting food and drink from a distant replicator station would still look like business as usual, but OK. Odo catches him, but, oddly, Quark doesn't get into trouble for it - and after claiming he couldn't prove he was a thief for over four years. Odo claims Rom is a moron and couldn't fix the replicators like Quark suggested and that's how he knew something was wrong. Later, they establish Rom is, in fact, a genius when it comes to that sort of thing. I guess both these guys seriously underestimated Rom's capabilities.

Kira was convinced the Cardassians did this to them since it was made with Cardassian technology, but it turns out it was Bajoran terrorists/freedom fighters using Cardassian equipment who tried to do it to the Cardassians - but they were probably captured or killed before they could complete the plan and activate the device.

The virus gives people a form of global aphasia - they don't seem to understand things, and can't speak anything other than a word salad of seemingly random words and nonsense, so that's fun. Worse, after a time they fall unconscious and develop a fever and will probably die shortly thereafter. O'Brien gets hit first since he tested the replicator he fixed by having some coffee. And when he falls into a coma and has a high fever, thinks look pretty grim for everyone on that path since now it's just a matter of time before everybody dies.

Dr. Julian Bashir first thought it was just some injury O'Brien incurred, but soon Dax and others starting speaking gibberish, too. After Kira's discovery they know it's an artificial virus and it becomes a race to develop an antidote. The doctor tries to do that while Kira tries to track down the terrorist who made the thing since they may have made an antidote, too.

Sisko places the entire space station under quarantine lock down.

Kira eventually discovers the doctor who made the engineered virus is dead - but his assistant is still alive. When she tracks him down, he just hangs up on Kira a couple times since he doesn't want to be blamed. Kira won't break quarantine, but she will take a runabout and go get him by kidnapping him from orbit using the transporter. She does that but he still refuses to help and knows of no antidote, anyway. So Kira explains it to him - she's not sick yet and she is infected, and now so is he. If he wants to live, he has to find the antidote.

Commander Sisko is greatly concerned when his son catches it, showing considerable depth of feeling for the boy, but there is nothing he can do except try to reassure him things will be O.K.

That cowardly ship captain adds drama when he tries to break quarantine by forcing his ship to rip free of the docking clamps. He's not sick - he knows that for a fact, and he isn't sticking around to get sick. Luckily Odo and Quark are immune, and Quark has 8 years of experience on a freighter, so he knows how to run some equipment, like a transporter. He transports Odo across the station where Odo can manually release the damaged docking clamps and kick the ship lose before its overheated engines explode, taking half the upper docking ring with it. Luckily, he succeeds, saves the captain - who is sick after all - and sends the ship off into space where it blows up far enough away from the station and does no damage. :whew:

Though the doctor and Kira and, well, everybody gets sick except Odo and Quark (and I'd assume Rom and other Ferengi), thanks to Bashir's work and the fact he got close enough to an antidote, the doctor Kira kidnapped didn't have too hard a time finishing the work and developing a cure. It was dispersed throughout the station's ventilation systems and everybody was cured. Huzzah!

Note: It's just lucky the key personnel were the last to get sick and didn't finally turn into babbling idiots until after they had done what needed to be done, even though they probably weren't the last to be exposed. :whew:

The End.

I generally liked this story. The Cardassians bastards - oops, I mean targets, because they were bastards - and the means - well, it's great if you are a brilliant geneticist who can make a weapon like that. Considering how brilliant Bashir really is, and how hard a time he had, that's saying something. But together they found the cure.

Luckily they didn't have to fire on the cowardly captain - they would have been within their rights, and maybe it would have even been their duty, to destroy that ship rather than allow it to break quarantine. Something to consider.

Good acting - fun word play - not sure why Quark got off Scott Free, but I'm going to assume it's because he came through in the end and played an important part in saving the station. Maybe that's a good enough reason to earn a get out of jail free card, but it wouldn't erase the fact Odo caught him being a thief. OTOH, since it's not really his fault his own replicators were off-line and Starfleet hadn't fixed them, as they should have, can they really blame him for "borrowing" things until his systems were back online? I mean, are they going to actually claim a working replicator shouldn't be used while others go without? I don't think so. :think:

I'll start this at a 6 for a bit above average, and add +1 for the acting. I might take -0.5 for Quark being caught without consequences, but I guess I won't since they may have overlooked it since he helped save the day. So end at a 7.

7 out of 10.

Jeff · 05 Oct 2006

Quark hardly ever faces any consequences for things he does, really. He should have been jailed a number of times...but he's too fun a character to do that to.

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

Odo should be fired a lot, too, but he's not. Law enforcement officers and their selective application of the law sickens me.

These boys seem to have unlimited funds, but instead of paying Quark to use his place for a day or two, Odo blackmails him.

We got new regulations - shame you have to move that wall, that bar, those holoesuites, etc. Or you could close down for a few days and let us use the place for free, though you'd lose a ton of business. It's just business, Quark.

Right. :roll:

Either those new regulations don't exist, or they do but he ignores them later when he shouldn't.

It's just fun to screw the Ferengi, so that's O.K. in Odo land.

Ever think all those things Quark does is just to recoup the losses he suffers since Odo is a bastard?

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

Captive Pursuit

01/06/006

Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Captive_Pursuit_(episode)
Transcript: http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/406.htm

Spoiler: show

Quark's contracts actually allow his employees (the dabo Girls, anyway) to be sexually harassed as part of their job. Sisko says he'll look into that matter but before he can an alien ship from the gamma quadrant (the first one so far) appears. It's damaged and the pilot is reluctant accept help, but O'Brien kisses the blarney stone and talks him into it.

He is Tosk - and he can turn invisible, so the chief has a hard time finding him in his ship at first, but eventually he reveals himself and they begin discussing repairs and the alien tech. But first the engines have to cool down before they can fix anything, so O'Brien shows him around the station and it's quite a show learning about Tosk who is learning about us.

Is Tosk his name or species or job description? Tosk turns out to be a genetically engineered prey species who takes honor in being hunted and evading the hunters and living as long as possible - until he is finally killed. To try to avoid being hunted or cheat like that would be an unthinkable dishonor to him and all Tosk.

He tries to steal some weapons to help him, but Odo catches him and puts him the brig. He begs to be let go, but he cannot reveal the details of why, who he is, what is going on, as this would be dishonorable and cheating. By revealing such things he might enlist sympathy or aid and that would just be disgraceful.

When the hunters show up they almost effortlessly blow past the station shields and all defenses, almost like they aren't even there. Their ship is more powerful than a whole space station, so that's cause for alarm right there. They beam in and are well armored, brush off phaser fire fairly effectively, and seem to move about the place with impunity. Only when they find Tosk is already captured do they stop the hunt. What a disappointment. How shameful. Tosk will now be taken back home and put on display in the town square and spit on by children and ridiculed and only thrown scraps of food to eat - since that is what he deserves - and he will bring shame to all Tosk for the rest of his miserable life.

However distasteful the Federation types might find the practice of hunting a sentient/sapient being, the prime directive really doesn't let them interfere with it, so Sisko allows them to take Tosk.

Odo is going to hand him over, but O'Brien says Sisko has ordered him to do it. Odo runs off to complain to Sisko (who doesn't know WTF he's talking about) and O'Brien rigged the weapon detection screen to overload, which shocked the hunter, and O'Brien punches the uber alien (and luckily, without all their tech, he has a glass jaw) and helps Tosk get to his repaired ship.

Sisko realizes what is going on and could stop it with force fields - O'Brien was even expecting it - but when Odo says he'll head them off, Sisko tells him, calmly, Constable, there's no rush. This confuses Odo at first, but then he gets it and leisurely goes after them. Darn, he didn't get there in time.

Tosk thanks O'Brien and the hunt is on again - of course, by this time he has caused serious damage to some of the hunters - maybe even killed one. Tosk escapes. The hunters pursue. The game is afoot!

Sisko dresses O'Brien down, chastising him for doing what he did, overloading the energy grid, tossing away his com-badge so Sisko couldn't talk to him, etc. But O'Brien remarks Sisko didn't confine them with force fields when he could have, and he was surprised by that. Sisko says that one just got by him. O'Brien is dismissed. He gets it, I think - Sisko approves, but not officially.

The End.

I'm not sure why Sisko is all that upset since, in a way, they did interfere by capturing Tosk, so O'Brien was just correcting the problem and giving the gamma aliens what they really wanted. Tosk and the Hunters got what they wanted. What could be better than that? I would think that could be official, unless you're trying to avoid the static and BS thrown your way for defending the prime directive even when it seems wrong.

I'm not sure why Odo won't use a weapon - he can't be much help in many situations if he refuses to use a weapon.

This is an above average story. The costume, the idea, the acting, it's all fine. The only flaw is these hunters are way too powerful, or the station is way too weak, and this sort of thing will seem inconsistent later on. Unless the level of tech in the gamma quadrant is so advanced most from there will seriously out strip anything the Alpha quadrant can send their way. This is certainly almost true for the most powerful of them that we will see in the future, but these hunters seem possibly even more powerful than the dominion. So, huh? But that's a series flaw, maybe, and not an episode one. Unfortunately, we will never see Tosk or these Hunter guys again, so who knows? :shrug:

Starting at 7, I'll give the whole thing three +0.5 points for moments or aspects, so we'll get as high as an 8.5. The Most Dangerous Game, indeed. Maybe the Ameglian Major Cow (Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy) is a little more disturbing than a species bred that wants to be hunted to death, but it's close. The AMC wants to be eaten, is capable of telling you so, and will even kill itself so the chef doesn't have to before harvesting and preparing its meat. :yum:

8.5 out of 10.

Junkie Luv · 17 Apr 2005

Having watched this after Voyager, the Tosk species reminded e of the Hirogen.

I took to Brooks pretty quickly and really enjoyed his portrayal of Sisko. There's a quality to his line delivery that I can't describe adequately. Also, they gave the character a sense of Fair Play that I like, and he exercises it when he can when it doesn't conflict (to much) with Starfleet.

Regarding Babel and O'Brien being overworked, the writers have mentioned many times that they purposefully put him through the wringer and enjoyed doing so. And that it brought out great performances from Meaney.

Simon · **Joined:** 26 Oct 2006 **Posts:** 59406

I've noticed that, on average, the DS9 episodes seem to be getting higher scores than most of the first season TNG episodes did from Jilerb. It's interesting but not unexpected - DS9 was much better right from the word go than TNG was. TNG had some good performances that got it through the initially rough early stages but DS9 benefitted from all the mistakes they'd made and all the performances were excellent. I think they'd gotten better at 'world building' and other behind-the-scenes stuff and it really shows.

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

Q-Less

01/07/007

Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Q-Less_(episode)
Transcript: http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/407.htm

Spoiler: show

Another Q episode - this time Q is a persistent stalker of Vash - from before - and she's has learned her lesson and no longer wants Q in her life. Exactly what he did to make her feel that way, we never learn. :shrug:

We start with Julian chatting up some woman - so he's seems a generalized horn dog - and O'Brien is at another table listening to that looking doubtful at his approach, maybe - when a runabout returns from the gamma quadrant and docks, but weirdly it's out of power - and the crew - Jadzia and another, are dying - lack of life support, I guess. So O'Brien and Julian rush there to help. Well, they're frantic about getting past the docking air locks since its power has also mysteriously been drained. If they don't get inside quick, the two-man crew will die. Worse, not just the two crew, but a third person, too, according to scans. Eventually they bring up a portable capacitor and plug it in and they can open it up with that power supply. :whew:

Note: Why nobody thinks of using the station's transporters to beam them out and to safety is a mystery to me. I suppose they might temporarily be offline and nobody bothered to mention this fact to us. If so, it's a stupid story - so -0.5 just for that, particularly since O'Brien should have trying to fix it then instead of listening to Bashir hit on some woman.

The mysterious passenger is Vash, now returned from a two-year stay in the gamma quadrant, and O'Brien recognizes her. How she got into the gamma she refuses to explain. I fail to understand what advantage there is to keeping such a secret, but apparently she doesn't want anyone there to know about Q.

And hey, we see Q lurking around in various guises - stalking Vash like yet another creep.

O'Brien can't find anything wrong with the runabout or docking systems - they were just drained of power, so once powered up again they'll be fine. But now the whole space station starts suffering from periodic power losses and they can't figure out why.

Vash hires the assay office to store a load of gamma quadrant artifacts she's picked up, including a large, glowing jewel. Quark instantly hears of it, calling into question the privacy of the assay's office, and he proposes for a 50% cut he can bring in wealthy clients to bid on the items. Vash instantly and without hesitation performs oo-mox on Quark until he's so aroused he settles for a 22% cut, which is acceptable to Vash.

Bashir quickly hits on Vash, too, and she accepts his dinner invitation. While waiting for her, Q disguises himself as a Bajoran waiter and tells Julian he's making a mistake getting involved with Vash, but Bashir just thinks he's an impertinent waiter who doesn't know his place. Q makes Bashir so tired, though, the doctor has to go lie down and get some sleep, but O'Brien sees this and runs to Sisko to warn him that Q is on the station. Sisko knows about Q from Starfleet reports. And they instantly conclude the mysterious power drains are caused by Q who simply likes dicking with everyone.

Sisko hurries to find Vash and asks her about Q, but Q shows up and says he'll personally answer any of Sisko's questions about him. He lacks style, though, so Q doesn't tell him much, and Sisko insists they speak alone, so Q makes everybody on the station except Sisko vanish. This pissed Sisko off so much he physically grabs Q and threatens him.

Note: I'm just giving this another -0.5 since threatening a God is just too stupid for words, unless somehow Sisko knows Q would never hurt anyone - and Starfleet records do not really say that. The script, however . . . :shrug:

Well, since violence is what he suggests, Q brings everybody back and he and Sisko are dressed up as old-style pugilists, and Q begins punching Sisko, who, weirdly, just takes it but also don't seem hurt at all. Does Q punch like a little girl? Eventually Sisko punches Q in the gut and decks him. This surprises Q since Picard never hit him, but Sisko says he isn't Picard. Q scoffs, telling him that just means he's easer to provoke.

They continue to try to find the power drain and whatever is damaging the station, and Q shows up to taunt them, saying Picard and his minions with all their technobabble would have figured it out by now. Sisko concludes Q is telling the truth - Q isn't doing it - so they keep looking.

Vash's auction goes on, selling artifacts for gold-pressed-latinum, until they get to the gem. The bidding is high, but Q screws it up by bidding 1 million bars of GPL.

Meanwhile, the entire space station is being dragged/pushed/moved into the wormhole, where they will be destroyed, and they can't stop it.

Note: This isn't just mere force exerted on the gem or creature since that would rip through the station before it moved it, so the creature must be moving the entire station for some reason. I think it's stupid because of this. If it could do that, it didn't need to be beamed off the station, so this is somewhat unbelievable.

Seconds away from utter destruction, they locate the source of the problem - that glowing gem - so Sisko has it beamed away. I guess the transporters are working. The object turns into some creature and it goes through the wormhole, never to be seen again. Q, of course, doesn't have to pay since he didn't get his item, but he offers to pay Vash anyway if Vash will reconsider and resume her travels with him again. She declines.

Note: I invite you all to imagine what horror Q could possibly have inflicted on this greedy woman that she'd forgo 1,000,000 bars of gold-pressed latinum just to be rid of him forever. Torture? Rape? Worse? The mind boggles. Maybe he's just boring and she feels a nigh overwhelming urge to blow her own brains out when listening to him tell her all the answers to everything.

Vash is much like Quark, and rather than return to Earth, she decides to accept his offer to go dig up rare artifacts on some planet for whatever feeble amounts of money they will bring and she can sell through him. It's what she does. And maybe they collaborate for years, but we'll never see Vash again, and Q will never bother DS9 again.

Bashir wakes up and wants to know if he missed anything. Dax just stands there and smiles so cutely maybe it's the highlight of the episode. :shrug:

The End.

This is just more of Q being Q - annoying for no particular reason - which would have been fine if we better understood why Vash changed her mind, but we're not told why, really. She has just had enough or going anywhere she wants, seeing anything she wants, any time she wants, or something. And Starfleet types instantly assuming the worst and falsely accusing Q of things, though he is innocent.

The interaction between Q and Sisko didn't ring true - I felt the way Sisko grabbed Q was either bad acting or unrealistic or something. And I find Q's need to travel with Vash to be fairly odd - like he couldn't find other travel companions so the mighty Q has to beg.

Others may like the story better, but it seems an average thing to me, starting at 5, and with two -0.5 points, I'll only give it a 4. Sisko punching Q just isn't that satisfying to me.

4 out of 10.

Simon · **Joined:** 26 Oct 2006 **Posts:** 59406

It's possible John de Lancie had some kind of contractual thing going on with the franchise or the producers wanted to make sure they'd get the TNG audience paying attention to the new series. I suspect there was some sort of behind-the-scenes reason for Q being featured.

They were plainly trying to differentiate Sisko from Picard but it wasn't done subtly. I was disappointed that Vash never returned. I assumed, when I first saw this episode, that she was going to become a recurring guest-star. I was obviously wrong, but still feel like it would've been a good idea. Oh, well.

Jilerb · 26 Jan 2009

I NEVER liked Vash. I never saw what Picard saw in her. He was always trying to foil her natural inclinations, too. Never saw why Q liked her so much - except as yet another way to annoy Picard. Or what Quark saw. Well, maybe Quark, since he saw somebody else to take the risks and do the work and he'd get part of the profits. Plus she was not opposed to casual oo-mox.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (A 6-month Trek amongst the stars)

Who is WANline