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I should have stopped for a Deep Space Nine episode write-up a few weeks ago, but at that point we were only two episodes away from Trials and Tribble-ations, and I was like, you know what, SCREW IT. WE'RE HOLDING OUT FOR TRIBBLES. And we did. And it was amazing.
23. To the Death
The impact of this is sort of lost by my method of splitting up posts, but man, I can't believe we had an episode called 'To The Death' right after an episode called 'For The Cause' and they were COMPLETELY UNRELATED, man, Deep Space Nine writers were the forever worst at titling things. Anyway. This is the one where the crew has to team up with a bunch of Jem'Hadar for a mission, and every crew member gets a special Jem'Hadar frenemy except Kira, and I really wish they'd let Kira interact with a Jem'Hadar because it would be SUPER INTERESTING and they never do.
24. The Quickening
Yet another 'Bashir pops into a situation and assumes that What These People Need Is A Starfleet Doctor --> dubiously ethical medical experiments' episode, except ... this time ... Jadzia actually calls him on his general arrogance ... and he might actually learn something from it?!?! WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. Go on, Bashir, you can do it! You can have character development! We ... OK, we do have a hard time believing in you at this stage, but we'll try!
(Although I can't help but think about all the disturbing repercussions for this society once they find out that even though the terrible disease of the week can't be cured in adults it can be cured in unborn children. SO MUCH PREGNANCY PRESSURE. :/)
25. Body Parts
I MOSTLY LOVED THIS EPISODE. OK, so this is the one where Quark gets a false medical diagnosis that he has like three days to live, so he auctions off his vacuum-dessicated corpse, and then his WORST ENEMY comes to inform him that he's not dying after all and also to collect on his corpse, Quark is like '....shit.'
OK, no, but this is great. You know why it's great? BECAUSE IT TREATS FERENGI ETHICS AS SERIOUS AND LEGIT IN THEIR OWN RIGHT. Quark made a sale and he's honor-bound to complete it! This is a serious conflict! Like, what I love about this is that it's clearly not just the threat of losing his status that's motivating Quark to be willing to take his own life to complete the contract, it's his own sense of duty and religious obligation -- which is something that demands respect even if you don't agree with it. And that's a kind of respect I don't think the Ferengi are very often accorded by the show. So that's pretty cool.
...also then he hires Garak to STEALTHILY ASSASSINATE HIM, which is a.) the happiest Garak has been in episodes and b.) HILARIOUS, especially at the end when Quark has a vision that finally convinces him not to die after all.
DEBI: ... did anyone ever tell Garak that Quark cancelled the assassination hit on him though?
BECCA: ... nope. Nope. No one did.
DEBI: So does that mean that sometime next episode Garak's going to pop out of the wall and attempt to murder Quark?
BECCA: I HOPE IT DOES.
We're just kind of running on the assumption that any major danger Quark finds himself in from now to the end of the series is Garak attempting to fulfill his contract. Stealthily!
AND MEANWHILE -- there's a lot in this episode! -- Kira ends up carrying Keiko O'Brien's unborn kid after an accident in space and moves in with the O'Briens for the duration of her pregnancy, which is super awkward for EVERYONE concerned, and ... as much as I love the A-plot .... I do kind of wonder why this is an episode B-plot? It's a HUGE DEAL. FOR ALL OF THEM. And where are the scenes about Kira's friends helping her deal with this? Where is Odo, where is Dax? Where is the scene about Kira, an enormously private person, suddenly having to cope with living with a really talky couple and a small enthusiastic child and having NO PRIVACY AT ALL? Come on, DS9! Don't make me write this all myself!
26. Broken Link
Odo is poisoned by the Founders for being a Founder-murderer and has to travel back to the Link and has a lot of emotional issues and ends up human! Meanwhile Sisko lets Garak tag along as, like, a sentient crossword puzzle to distract Odo during this difficult time (WHICH IS HILARIOUS) and Bashir gets really pissy about it and tries to skip a rock in the Great Link (even MORE hilarious, Sisko's just like 'I CAN'T TAKE YOU ANYWHERE') and then Garak tries to blow everybody up in suicide mission-fashion in order to end the Dominion War! All of this is AMAZING TV DRAMA and I don't have much to say about it ...
... except the one thing I still don't understand, which is why the Founders never take the opportunity of dragging Sisko all the way out in the middle of the Dominion to murder the heck out of him. Like, Sisko is kind of tactically important to the war effort ...? And no one ever seems to consider this even as a risk ...? I'M CONFUSED.
Oh, well, on to season five and CHANGELING KLINGONS.
1. Apocalypse Rising
So basically this episode just happened because everyone wanted to wear Klingon makeup, right? EVERYONE WANTED TO WEAR KLINGON MAKEUP.
...so Sisko, O'Brien, Odo and Worf all disguise themselves as Klingons and go down to Klingonland to expose a Changeling disguised as a Klingon, and everyone is having enormous amounts of fun, and who can blame them? Except. EXCEPT. WHY IS JADZIA NOT WITH THEM. Why the hell did they bring along Miles O'Brien, humanest human ever to human, and not Jadzia Dax, actual Klingon expert?! WHY DID WE NOT GET KLINGON JADZIA. As much fun as everyone is having I find it hard to forgive the episode for not even giving a nod to this.
(...although Dukat's guest appearance, and his scandalized horror at finding out that he is SO BEHIND on DEEP SPACE NINE GOSSIP, goes a long way towards reconciling me, I'll admit. What good are Dukat's spies if they can't tell him that Kira is pregnant and who the father is?! Useless! Utterly useless!)
2. The Ship
This episode is pretty much straight out of TOS. Sisko, Bashir, Dax, O'Brien and Worf are hanging out on a planet with a bunch of redshirts and discover a Dominion ship when everyone is attacked! Most of the redshirts die, but one lingers on long enough for O'Brien to be really sad about it! Meanwhile, a sexy Vorta with sixties cleavage tries to flirt Sisko into leaving the ship behind but he's not having any of it!
...OK that is not quite fair; Deep Space Nine has thus far managed to successfully avoid murdering redshirts enough that they have earned enough respect to make it kind of a big deal when they do. And I respect their attempt to make it a big deal, but I'm not sure this episode was the way to do it.
3. Looking for Par'Mach in All The Wrong Places
I accidentally spoiled myself for the appearance of the amazing Klingon Former Mrs. Quark in this episode, and I was so excited, and then Debi went away for like two weeks right before we were due to get here and I was like DEBI WHY. WHY DEBI. WHY.
But she got back online eventually and so we got the utter joy that is Worf Cyrano de Bergerac-ing Quark's seduction of his wife, while Jadzia crankily co-Cyranos in an attempt to seduce Worf, and -- what do you call that, anyway? A double Cyrano? Except a double Cyrano would probably have to be Jadzia crankily masterminding someone else's attempt to seduce Worf. Is there a way to make this come out right? Debi and I had a long and hilarious conversation about Cyrano math after this episode but I don't remember any conclusions. Anyway, Cyrano de Bergerac plots can be terrible but sometimes, as in this case, they are AMAZING. And Jadzia's seduction of Worf is DEFINITELY amazing. GET IT, DAX.
...meanwhile, Kira and O'Brien getting awkwardly accidentally attracted to each other because of their forced co-habitation and Kira's hormones is not at all the nuanced exploration of Kira's difficulties with her new living situation that I wanted, not at all. Come on, Deep Space Nine!
(Debi and I decided that Lwxana Troi was actually visiting the station again at this time with a mild recurrence of empath menopause, which explains why everyone is suddenly and inexplicably attacked by the romance bug. Except for Jadzia, who has been attempting to seduce Worf for like a full season already and is VERY TIRED OF WAITING.)
4. Nor the Battle to the Strong
Jake! Man, where has Jake even been for the last ten episodes? I'm pretty sure he hasn't turned up since he got attacked by a writing-mojo vampire. Actually it's just occurred to me that maybe he's spent all this recovering. Wow, that was a deeply awkward episode.
Anyway, it doesn't matter because this Jake episode is really good! Jake is writing an article on Bashir when the two of them accidentally end up in a colony under Klingon siege helping with the wounded. Despite the presence of an adorable baby orderly, who is like "...a cute boy literally just fell out of the sky on me! :D" Jake cannot concentrate on flirting because he's having too hard a time dealing with all the blood, medical gallows humor, and imminent threat of death. UNDERSTANDABLY.
Jake's confusion and fear feel real, the competence and the black humor of the doctors at the medical facility feels real, and the conclusion is as complicated as it should be -- Jake doesn't overcome his fear, not at all, but he's able to write about it, and that's something. A+, DS9.
(Also: the show has finally started to step up its episode title game! WELL DONE AGAIN.)
5. The Assignment
Keiko is possessed by an evil anti-wormhole alien who uses her body to threaten O'Brien!
I ... have conflicted feelings about this episode, because on the one hand, it's very effectively creepy and Rosalind Chao is really good in it! and on the other hand, it's YET ANOTHER "O'Brien suffers!" episode and I am so low on tolerance for those, especially when Keiko herself as a character is basically not there at all except as a tool to make O'Brien suffer with! and on the third hand, Rom is adorable in it and gets some really nice stuff to do and saves the day! and on the fourth hand, everyone seems really wildly OOC as they completely fail to notice what's going on!
Although actually a Watsonian explanation for why no one notices O'Brien acting weird is really easy to come by:
BASHIR: Have you noticed O'Brien's acting strange?
SISKO: Yeah, I assume he's still got PTSD from that time he was in prison for twenty years.
BASHIR: I thought he was totally recovered after we had that heart-to-heart at the end of that episode!
SISKO: Well, I suppose people don't actually recover from PTSD that quickly after all...
BASHIR: Or maybe it's a flare-up of anxiety from that time that he was almost sentenced to death in Cardassia.
SISKO: Or the time that you accidentally killed his alternate self and ended up stuck in the wrong timeline, FOREVER.
BASHIR: ...I forgot I did that.
SISKO: Yes, I know you did.
BASHIR: No wonder the poor man has issues.
SISKO: YES, NO WONDER.
(However, a Watsonian explanation for why O'Brien doesn't just say "Computer, record everything that happens in my quarters and send the transcript to Sisko flagged 'priority'" is a little bit harder to come by.)
...but Rosalind Chao is really good! And Rom does get to save the day!
6. Trials and Tribble-ations
TIME TRAVEL TRIBBLE EPISODE TIME TRAVEL TRIBBLE EPISODE. *___* Practically perfect in every way! So funny! Such good editing! Such amazing deadpan from the poor officers from the Department of Temporal Investigation.
DEBI: I bet Sisko's still under temporal probation too after his shenanigans on Earth as Gabriel Bell.
BECCA: Sisko's like, I CAN'T meet Kirk! If I do I will probably end up having to BE Kirk! That's what happens when I meet my historical heroes!
Although an AU in which Sisko has to replace Kirk for the rest of TOS would be kind of amazing. I mean, a lot amazing.
I also love how Sisko spends the entire episode attempting to prevent Dax from banging anybody in the past, just to be thwarted at the last minute by Dax having banged someone from the past ... in the past. FOILED AGAIN!
DEBI: I like to think he's being a good wingman to Worf.
BECCA: No, Sisko just loves cockblocking Dax and you know it.
DEBI: ... yeah, OK, this is true.
BECCA: I'm not sure Past Dax even did bang McCoy. It's completely possible that she did, but it's also completely possible that she's just saying that she did in order to get revenge on Sisko for the entire rest of the episode.
The only problem is, with the Tribbles episode already in the past, what have we now got to look forward to? I guess there still is at least one more Mirrorverse episode to go.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/389755.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
23. To the Death
The impact of this is sort of lost by my method of splitting up posts, but man, I can't believe we had an episode called 'To The Death' right after an episode called 'For The Cause' and they were COMPLETELY UNRELATED, man, Deep Space Nine writers were the forever worst at titling things. Anyway. This is the one where the crew has to team up with a bunch of Jem'Hadar for a mission, and every crew member gets a special Jem'Hadar frenemy except Kira, and I really wish they'd let Kira interact with a Jem'Hadar because it would be SUPER INTERESTING and they never do.
24. The Quickening
Yet another 'Bashir pops into a situation and assumes that What These People Need Is A Starfleet Doctor --> dubiously ethical medical experiments' episode, except ... this time ... Jadzia actually calls him on his general arrogance ... and he might actually learn something from it?!?! WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. Go on, Bashir, you can do it! You can have character development! We ... OK, we do have a hard time believing in you at this stage, but we'll try!
(Although I can't help but think about all the disturbing repercussions for this society once they find out that even though the terrible disease of the week can't be cured in adults it can be cured in unborn children. SO MUCH PREGNANCY PRESSURE. :/)
25. Body Parts
I MOSTLY LOVED THIS EPISODE. OK, so this is the one where Quark gets a false medical diagnosis that he has like three days to live, so he auctions off his vacuum-dessicated corpse, and then his WORST ENEMY comes to inform him that he's not dying after all and also to collect on his corpse, Quark is like '....shit.'
OK, no, but this is great. You know why it's great? BECAUSE IT TREATS FERENGI ETHICS AS SERIOUS AND LEGIT IN THEIR OWN RIGHT. Quark made a sale and he's honor-bound to complete it! This is a serious conflict! Like, what I love about this is that it's clearly not just the threat of losing his status that's motivating Quark to be willing to take his own life to complete the contract, it's his own sense of duty and religious obligation -- which is something that demands respect even if you don't agree with it. And that's a kind of respect I don't think the Ferengi are very often accorded by the show. So that's pretty cool.
...also then he hires Garak to STEALTHILY ASSASSINATE HIM, which is a.) the happiest Garak has been in episodes and b.) HILARIOUS, especially at the end when Quark has a vision that finally convinces him not to die after all.
DEBI: ... did anyone ever tell Garak that Quark cancelled the assassination hit on him though?
BECCA: ... nope. Nope. No one did.
DEBI: So does that mean that sometime next episode Garak's going to pop out of the wall and attempt to murder Quark?
BECCA: I HOPE IT DOES.
We're just kind of running on the assumption that any major danger Quark finds himself in from now to the end of the series is Garak attempting to fulfill his contract. Stealthily!
AND MEANWHILE -- there's a lot in this episode! -- Kira ends up carrying Keiko O'Brien's unborn kid after an accident in space and moves in with the O'Briens for the duration of her pregnancy, which is super awkward for EVERYONE concerned, and ... as much as I love the A-plot .... I do kind of wonder why this is an episode B-plot? It's a HUGE DEAL. FOR ALL OF THEM. And where are the scenes about Kira's friends helping her deal with this? Where is Odo, where is Dax? Where is the scene about Kira, an enormously private person, suddenly having to cope with living with a really talky couple and a small enthusiastic child and having NO PRIVACY AT ALL? Come on, DS9! Don't make me write this all myself!
26. Broken Link
Odo is poisoned by the Founders for being a Founder-murderer and has to travel back to the Link and has a lot of emotional issues and ends up human! Meanwhile Sisko lets Garak tag along as, like, a sentient crossword puzzle to distract Odo during this difficult time (WHICH IS HILARIOUS) and Bashir gets really pissy about it and tries to skip a rock in the Great Link (even MORE hilarious, Sisko's just like 'I CAN'T TAKE YOU ANYWHERE') and then Garak tries to blow everybody up in suicide mission-fashion in order to end the Dominion War! All of this is AMAZING TV DRAMA and I don't have much to say about it ...
... except the one thing I still don't understand, which is why the Founders never take the opportunity of dragging Sisko all the way out in the middle of the Dominion to murder the heck out of him. Like, Sisko is kind of tactically important to the war effort ...? And no one ever seems to consider this even as a risk ...? I'M CONFUSED.
Oh, well, on to season five and CHANGELING KLINGONS.
1. Apocalypse Rising
So basically this episode just happened because everyone wanted to wear Klingon makeup, right? EVERYONE WANTED TO WEAR KLINGON MAKEUP.
...so Sisko, O'Brien, Odo and Worf all disguise themselves as Klingons and go down to Klingonland to expose a Changeling disguised as a Klingon, and everyone is having enormous amounts of fun, and who can blame them? Except. EXCEPT. WHY IS JADZIA NOT WITH THEM. Why the hell did they bring along Miles O'Brien, humanest human ever to human, and not Jadzia Dax, actual Klingon expert?! WHY DID WE NOT GET KLINGON JADZIA. As much fun as everyone is having I find it hard to forgive the episode for not even giving a nod to this.
(...although Dukat's guest appearance, and his scandalized horror at finding out that he is SO BEHIND on DEEP SPACE NINE GOSSIP, goes a long way towards reconciling me, I'll admit. What good are Dukat's spies if they can't tell him that Kira is pregnant and who the father is?! Useless! Utterly useless!)
2. The Ship
This episode is pretty much straight out of TOS. Sisko, Bashir, Dax, O'Brien and Worf are hanging out on a planet with a bunch of redshirts and discover a Dominion ship when everyone is attacked! Most of the redshirts die, but one lingers on long enough for O'Brien to be really sad about it! Meanwhile, a sexy Vorta with sixties cleavage tries to flirt Sisko into leaving the ship behind but he's not having any of it!
...OK that is not quite fair; Deep Space Nine has thus far managed to successfully avoid murdering redshirts enough that they have earned enough respect to make it kind of a big deal when they do. And I respect their attempt to make it a big deal, but I'm not sure this episode was the way to do it.
3. Looking for Par'Mach in All The Wrong Places
I accidentally spoiled myself for the appearance of the amazing Klingon Former Mrs. Quark in this episode, and I was so excited, and then Debi went away for like two weeks right before we were due to get here and I was like DEBI WHY. WHY DEBI. WHY.
But she got back online eventually and so we got the utter joy that is Worf Cyrano de Bergerac-ing Quark's seduction of his wife, while Jadzia crankily co-Cyranos in an attempt to seduce Worf, and -- what do you call that, anyway? A double Cyrano? Except a double Cyrano would probably have to be Jadzia crankily masterminding someone else's attempt to seduce Worf. Is there a way to make this come out right? Debi and I had a long and hilarious conversation about Cyrano math after this episode but I don't remember any conclusions. Anyway, Cyrano de Bergerac plots can be terrible but sometimes, as in this case, they are AMAZING. And Jadzia's seduction of Worf is DEFINITELY amazing. GET IT, DAX.
...meanwhile, Kira and O'Brien getting awkwardly accidentally attracted to each other because of their forced co-habitation and Kira's hormones is not at all the nuanced exploration of Kira's difficulties with her new living situation that I wanted, not at all. Come on, Deep Space Nine!
(Debi and I decided that Lwxana Troi was actually visiting the station again at this time with a mild recurrence of empath menopause, which explains why everyone is suddenly and inexplicably attacked by the romance bug. Except for Jadzia, who has been attempting to seduce Worf for like a full season already and is VERY TIRED OF WAITING.)
4. Nor the Battle to the Strong
Jake! Man, where has Jake even been for the last ten episodes? I'm pretty sure he hasn't turned up since he got attacked by a writing-mojo vampire. Actually it's just occurred to me that maybe he's spent all this recovering. Wow, that was a deeply awkward episode.
Anyway, it doesn't matter because this Jake episode is really good! Jake is writing an article on Bashir when the two of them accidentally end up in a colony under Klingon siege helping with the wounded. Despite the presence of an adorable baby orderly, who is like "...a cute boy literally just fell out of the sky on me! :D" Jake cannot concentrate on flirting because he's having too hard a time dealing with all the blood, medical gallows humor, and imminent threat of death. UNDERSTANDABLY.
Jake's confusion and fear feel real, the competence and the black humor of the doctors at the medical facility feels real, and the conclusion is as complicated as it should be -- Jake doesn't overcome his fear, not at all, but he's able to write about it, and that's something. A+, DS9.
(Also: the show has finally started to step up its episode title game! WELL DONE AGAIN.)
5. The Assignment
Keiko is possessed by an evil anti-wormhole alien who uses her body to threaten O'Brien!
I ... have conflicted feelings about this episode, because on the one hand, it's very effectively creepy and Rosalind Chao is really good in it! and on the other hand, it's YET ANOTHER "O'Brien suffers!" episode and I am so low on tolerance for those, especially when Keiko herself as a character is basically not there at all except as a tool to make O'Brien suffer with! and on the third hand, Rom is adorable in it and gets some really nice stuff to do and saves the day! and on the fourth hand, everyone seems really wildly OOC as they completely fail to notice what's going on!
Although actually a Watsonian explanation for why no one notices O'Brien acting weird is really easy to come by:
BASHIR: Have you noticed O'Brien's acting strange?
SISKO: Yeah, I assume he's still got PTSD from that time he was in prison for twenty years.
BASHIR: I thought he was totally recovered after we had that heart-to-heart at the end of that episode!
SISKO: Well, I suppose people don't actually recover from PTSD that quickly after all...
BASHIR: Or maybe it's a flare-up of anxiety from that time that he was almost sentenced to death in Cardassia.
SISKO: Or the time that you accidentally killed his alternate self and ended up stuck in the wrong timeline, FOREVER.
BASHIR: ...I forgot I did that.
SISKO: Yes, I know you did.
BASHIR: No wonder the poor man has issues.
SISKO: YES, NO WONDER.
(However, a Watsonian explanation for why O'Brien doesn't just say "Computer, record everything that happens in my quarters and send the transcript to Sisko flagged 'priority'" is a little bit harder to come by.)
...but Rosalind Chao is really good! And Rom does get to save the day!
6. Trials and Tribble-ations
TIME TRAVEL TRIBBLE EPISODE TIME TRAVEL TRIBBLE EPISODE. *___* Practically perfect in every way! So funny! Such good editing! Such amazing deadpan from the poor officers from the Department of Temporal Investigation.
DEBI: I bet Sisko's still under temporal probation too after his shenanigans on Earth as Gabriel Bell.
BECCA: Sisko's like, I CAN'T meet Kirk! If I do I will probably end up having to BE Kirk! That's what happens when I meet my historical heroes!
Although an AU in which Sisko has to replace Kirk for the rest of TOS would be kind of amazing. I mean, a lot amazing.
I also love how Sisko spends the entire episode attempting to prevent Dax from banging anybody in the past, just to be thwarted at the last minute by Dax having banged someone from the past ... in the past. FOILED AGAIN!
DEBI: I like to think he's being a good wingman to Worf.
BECCA: No, Sisko just loves cockblocking Dax and you know it.
DEBI: ... yeah, OK, this is true.
BECCA: I'm not sure Past Dax even did bang McCoy. It's completely possible that she did, but it's also completely possible that she's just saying that she did in order to get revenge on Sisko for the entire rest of the episode.
The only problem is, with the Tribbles episode already in the past, what have we now got to look forward to? I guess there still is at least one more Mirrorverse episode to go.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/389755.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.