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We're more than halfway through season five! Including probably the episode that has made me angriest so far, and the episode that made me laugh the most so far, thank you, Eddington's Kate Beaton obsession.
7. Let He Who Is Without Sin
"Remember that time Worf had a temper tantrum and ruined a thousand people's vacations in a fit of pointlessly jealous rage?" "No, this is a filler episode and therefore no one on this show will ever remember that."
The one where Worf and Dax go on vacation, except Worf is jealous because Dax once had a thing with Vanessa Williams, and then becomes a terrorist for like ten minutes. Also notable as the episode in which Bashir and Leeta have a whole B-plot about getting Bajoran divorced without ever having been onscreen together as a couple. We're pretty sure Bashir did not know they were in a relationship until Leeta asked to break up with him.
8. Things Past
This was ... an interesting episode ... but a very strange one ... So Odo, Sisko, Dax and Garak are on their way back from an ACADEMIC CONFERENCE ABOUT THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE CARDASSIAN OCCUPATION, which is an amazing concept and I really wish we had just gotten the episode set at the conference, because how amazing would that have been -- anyway! So they're all on their way back from a conference when they accidentally get sucked into Odo's Morally Ambiguous Memories from the Cardassian occupation.
I am a big fan of JUSTICE ODO! having morally ambiguous memories and having to deal with them, although this episode does not answer my questions about how Tiny Justice Blob Odo got out of his lab and became a security officer for the Cardassians in the first place. The last scene in the episode, when Kira and Odo have to deal with their mutually morally ambiguous actions, is clearly the best. Also, Bashir says he WON'T write a paper about his coworker's emotional breakdown! Both Debi and I were like "...really? Is this character growth?!" MAYBE. (...and maybe not. More on this below.)
9. The Ascent
Oh my god. This may be the MOST fanfic episode of all after "The Wire." AND IT'S AMAZING. It's like the writers were suddenly like "crap! We've forgotten to have Odo and Quark hateflirt at each other for two seasons! LET'S GIVE THEM FORTY SOLID MINUTES OF IT."
So Odo and Quark are on a roadtrip for Quark to testify against some kind of crime syndicate, during which an extremely bored Quark is apparently doing his level best to seduce Odo, including STEALING ODO'S SECRET ROMANCE NOVEL STASH AND READING THE SEX SCENES ALOUD, OH MY GOD.
Then the roadtrip turns into a MUCH WORSE roadtrip when they crash-land and have to climb a mountain to get a signal to reach a something something nobody cares the point is Odo and Quark bickering over survival gear and dragging each other across snowy landscapes for forty solid minutes. All that's missing is the scene where they huddle together for warmth in a Canadian shack, and I'm pretty sure that exists in an outtake. IT'S AMAZING.
...meanwhile in the B-plot, while Quark and Odo struggle desperately to survive, Jake and Nog have hilarious roommate hijinks! Because Nog has become All Military and Jake is trying his level best to channel the spirit of Ernest Hemingway. When this plotline began I said to Debi, "is Nog going to drink Jake's milk?" It turned out, technically, no, but in spirit, yes. However I am still delighted by it just because of Sisko and Rom pulling rom-com hijinks to get their sons back together. Remember back in Season 1 when Sisko was really racist about Nog and Jake's friendship? Look how far he's come! It's genuinely heartwarming!
10. Rapture
DEBI: Is Sisko going the full Jesus?
BECCA: He's gone TOO Jesus. Sisko, come back!
So Sisko has some really intense prophetic experiences, and spends most of the episode Jesusing out, including declaring that Bajor shouldn't enter the Federation, while the friendly local Federation officers are like "WTF? THIS IS WHY WE DON'T LET FEDERATION OFFICERS BECOME MESSIAHS." Bashir can do an operation that will save him from his life-threatening visions! But he hesitates because Sisko didn't consent to it!
DEBI: Wait ... Bashir didn't leap at the chance to perform a dangerous but exciting experimental medical procedure?
BECCA: He wanted ... patient consent ...?!
DEBI: He is growing as a character! Oh my god, the people who told us to reserve judgment were right!
They were not right. MORE ON THIS BELOW. Anyway after Jake, as Sisko's closest relative, consents to the operation, Sisko is pulled back from the Jesus brink. Also Kasidy is back (yay!) just in time to have the worst just-out-of-prison romantic reunion week EVER. (Also also, Kai Winn gets to talk about her time during the Occupation and it's great. I forgot how fascinating Kai Winn when she's not dragging around the world's most boring Vedek. Thank you for dying and leaving the show, Vedek Bareil. You gave us a gift.)
11. The Darkness and the Light
For three-quarters of this episode, it's AMAZING -- someone is murdering members of Kira's old resistance group for stuff they did during the Occupation, and there's only so much Kira can do about it directly because she's extremely pregnant, and it's a.) a really good story with a pregnant woman as a central character doing things that are not about her pregnancy (which is so rare!) and b.) just a really, really good Kira episode -- the speech where she talks about the first time she killed someone but her memories are all about just feeling like a part of the group, her total defiant refusal to apologize for the horrible things that she did and that she thought were necessary, it's all SO GOOD!
And then we get to the last section of the episode where Kira is held hostage by the Phantom of the Opera, who monologues at her in great length and in third person about his terrible facial sunburn, and ... I .... OK. I mean. OK. But for 3/4 of the episode before we lost all ability to take it seriously, it was really, really good!
(Also, the great scene where Odo walks into his office, takes one look at the way his chair has been moved a millimeter, and is like "OH GOD KIRA WAS HERE AND STOLE MY LIST OF SUSPECTS TO PURSUE THEM ACROSS THE GALAXY." Because OF COURSE he can tell that instantly.)
12. The Begotten
I really wish this whole episode had just been Odo wandering around cooing paternally to a glob of jelly, because that was THE CUTEST AND FUNNIEST THING IN THE WORLD, oh my god, I hope Rene Auberjonois enjoyed himself as he wandered around the set staring adoringly at a piece of Play-Doh.
But then we get the return of Odo's abusive scientist dad, and ... I mean ...
ODO: I want to be a GOOD father and NOT perpetuate on this blob of jelly the cycles of abuse that you perpetrated on me!
ODO'S ABUSIVE SCIENTIST DAD: But you need to run painful experiments on your baby jelly blob in order to get results!
SISKO: Yes, yes you do, Starfleet says you have to in order to get results.
DEBI AND BECCA: Sisko! Are you a Changeling in this episode? What happened to all your dad feelings?
ODO: I guess ... I do need to run painful experiments on this baby jelly blob in order to get results ... or else they will take my jelly blob away :(
ODO'S ABUSIVE SCIENTIST DAD: Good, you got results! Weird that the jelly blob seems to like you better than you liked me. I mean, I guess I could also have cooed at you when you were a jelly blob while I ran painful experiments on you.
ODO: I guess you could have. But now I think I understand better why you did what you did, so let's reconcile!
DEBI AND BECCA: No! No! This is a bad moral and the Deep Space Nine writers should feel bad!
This is maybe the strongest I have ever felt about a DS9 episode. I just, I don't understand why everyone else on this space station is not as VISCERALLY HORRIFIED as I am by the fact that someone who was traumatized by experiments being performed on him as a child spends this whole episode being told that his trauma was not that bad and forced to perform experiments on a child??? WHY. I think the show thinks that shocking Odo with electricity to make him transform was, like, the equivalent of making your child learn how to ride a bike. I DON'T THINK THAT THIS WAS THE EQUIVALENT OF MAKING YOUR CHILD LEARN HOW TO RIDE A BIKE.
And then the baby jelly blob dies anyway, and there is nothing Bashir can do (MORE ON THIS BELOW) and Odo magically gets his Changeling powers back from this but is nonetheless sad. OK. Meanwhile, Kira gives birth, and Miles and her boyfriend are dicks about it. That's also a thing that happens.
13. For the Uniform
This episode, however, filled me with hilarity and joy! BECAUSE IT'S THE LES MIS EPISODE.
OK, so what happens at first is that Sisko is chasing Eddington around with the Maquis, and Sisko and Eddington are nemeses, and we're pretty sure that Sisko is just really happy to have a nice normal nemesis after Dukat started getting all weird and Cardassian-flirty at him. Like, this is a respectable terrorist nemesis! Nothing weird here! It's fine!
However unfortunately Eddington has apparently decided that his life is a Kate Beaton comic and appears to misinterpret this as:
Eddington has apparently also read a lot of Les Mis fanfic on fanfic.net, so he sends Sisko an ACTUAL COPY OF LES MIS, like, as a nemesis-gift? And then things start getting really hilariously weird, as Eddington phones into Sisko's office like ten times and REFUSES TO CALL HIM ANYTHING BUT "INSPECTOR JAVERT."
SISKO: please stop making me try to RP out your weird Les Mis Valvert fanfic with you Eddington I am NOT COMFORTABLE with this
EDDINGTON:
SISKO: oh my god
EDDINGTON:
And then Dax is like "I don't think Victor Hugo is a very good writer, actually" and Sisko's like "EDDINGTON IS NOT EVEN ANYTHING LIKE JEAN VALJEAN I DON'T UNDERSTAND EDDINGTON IS A TERRORIST WHO POISONS PLANETS AND VALJEAN LITERALLY STOLE A LOAF OF BREAD" and Dax is like "well, the thing about Victor Hugo is his female characters just aren't believable -" and Sisko's like "IF I DON'T NIP THIS IN THE BUD RIGHT NOW I'M PRETTY SURE NEXT TIME HE CALLS IN HE'LL HAVE 'DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING' BLASTING ON SPEAKER AND I SUPER CANNOT DEAL WITH THAT"
And then Sisko makes some morally ambiguous decisions about poisoning Maquis planets in order to get Eddington off his case, but, you know what, if my nemesis would not stop trying to get me to RP out their weird JVJ fanfic I WOULD BE A LITTLE ON EDGE AS WELL, so, I mean, I get it. Also: this episode is amazing. Thank you, Deep Space Nine writers. You are forgiven.
14. In Purgatory's Shadow
Garak invites Bashir along on a top-secret spy road trip to Dominion space to rescue his father figure. Bashir says no, which should have been our first clue that BASHIR HAS BEEN A CHANGELING FOR THE PAST SIX EPISODES OR SO???
OK, what this means:
a.) every time we thought Bashir was acting unusually ethical, it's because Bashir was a Changeling. An evil Changeling spy is literally more ethical than Bashir.
b.) Changeling Bashir delivered Kira's baby and performed life-rescuing surgery on Sisko? That's a bit awkward.
c.) Changling Bashir let Odo's baby blob of jelly die? :( :( :(
In other news, it's Worf's turn for a life-changing field trip with Garak, the Dominion is about to attack, Garak's father figure is his actual dad, and Jadzia threatens Worf with the destruction of all his Klingon operas. Oh, and Ziyal has a crush on Garak, which is weird for everyone concerned.
15. By Inferno's Light
Prison camp episode! Actually this is a really fun, awesomely tropey prison camp episode -- Garak gets over his crippling claustrophobia with lots of hurt/comfort from Bashir! Worf cage-fights every Jem'Hadar in the compound and is so HONOURABLY IMPRESSIVE that the Jem'Hadar leader falls in honor-love with him! A Star Trek bounty hunter hilariously hangs out in the background of every scene, then kills a Jem'Hadar at a significant moment and is instantly vaporized! -- so it just goes to show that Deep Space Nine can do prison episodes well ... as long as O'Brien isn't there. Please, never let O'Brien be in a prison episode again.
Meanwhile, Dukat decides to help Cardassia ally with the Dominion, which everyone on the station sees as TERRIBLE BETRAYAL and is definitely a betrayal of their Federation alliance, but ... is fine for Cardassia, actually, it's probably a solid choice.
Anyway Sisko is really relieved to have Dukat as his nemesis again after all that weirdness with Eddington, and we are relieved for him also. (And ... would I read the fanfic where Dukat does succeed in taking over the station, but saves Sisko's life and keeps him as his prisoner for intense nemesisitude until Sisko breaks out and saves the day? Yes, yes I would. DON'T JUDGE ME.)
16. Doctor Bashir, I Presume
I was hoping this would be another James Bond pastiche episode and Debi wanted it to be an episode about SCIENCE, so we were both disappointed. Anyway! This is the one where they want to make Bashir into the next generation of the medical hologram, but Bashir's parents show up and there is a dramatic reveal that Bashir was genetically engineered as a child to be brilliant, which is super illegal.
DEBI: OK, but why is genetic engineering illegal but cloning is TOTALLY FINE?
SOME DUDE IN THE SHOW: Genetic engineering is illegal because of Khan and the Eugenics Wars of the nineties!
DEBI: .... OK points to you for universe continuity, show. THE QUESTION ABOUT CLONING STILL STANDS.
BECCA: Maybe the comparison to Khan explains some things about Bashir's ethics, though.
Anyway I was distracted from most of what was actually going on by imagining what would have happened if the events of this episode happened three episodes before and Changeling Bashir had become the template for Starfleet's new medical hologram, because that would have actually been kind of hilarious.
Oh, and the B-plot is Rom/Leeta, which I fully support although it could have been done better.
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7. Let He Who Is Without Sin
"Remember that time Worf had a temper tantrum and ruined a thousand people's vacations in a fit of pointlessly jealous rage?" "No, this is a filler episode and therefore no one on this show will ever remember that."
The one where Worf and Dax go on vacation, except Worf is jealous because Dax once had a thing with Vanessa Williams, and then becomes a terrorist for like ten minutes. Also notable as the episode in which Bashir and Leeta have a whole B-plot about getting Bajoran divorced without ever having been onscreen together as a couple. We're pretty sure Bashir did not know they were in a relationship until Leeta asked to break up with him.
8. Things Past
This was ... an interesting episode ... but a very strange one ... So Odo, Sisko, Dax and Garak are on their way back from an ACADEMIC CONFERENCE ABOUT THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE CARDASSIAN OCCUPATION, which is an amazing concept and I really wish we had just gotten the episode set at the conference, because how amazing would that have been -- anyway! So they're all on their way back from a conference when they accidentally get sucked into Odo's Morally Ambiguous Memories from the Cardassian occupation.
I am a big fan of JUSTICE ODO! having morally ambiguous memories and having to deal with them, although this episode does not answer my questions about how Tiny Justice Blob Odo got out of his lab and became a security officer for the Cardassians in the first place. The last scene in the episode, when Kira and Odo have to deal with their mutually morally ambiguous actions, is clearly the best. Also, Bashir says he WON'T write a paper about his coworker's emotional breakdown! Both Debi and I were like "...really? Is this character growth?!" MAYBE. (...and maybe not. More on this below.)
9. The Ascent
Oh my god. This may be the MOST fanfic episode of all after "The Wire." AND IT'S AMAZING. It's like the writers were suddenly like "crap! We've forgotten to have Odo and Quark hateflirt at each other for two seasons! LET'S GIVE THEM FORTY SOLID MINUTES OF IT."
So Odo and Quark are on a roadtrip for Quark to testify against some kind of crime syndicate, during which an extremely bored Quark is apparently doing his level best to seduce Odo, including STEALING ODO'S SECRET ROMANCE NOVEL STASH AND READING THE SEX SCENES ALOUD, OH MY GOD.
Then the roadtrip turns into a MUCH WORSE roadtrip when they crash-land and have to climb a mountain to get a signal to reach a something something nobody cares the point is Odo and Quark bickering over survival gear and dragging each other across snowy landscapes for forty solid minutes. All that's missing is the scene where they huddle together for warmth in a Canadian shack, and I'm pretty sure that exists in an outtake. IT'S AMAZING.
...meanwhile in the B-plot, while Quark and Odo struggle desperately to survive, Jake and Nog have hilarious roommate hijinks! Because Nog has become All Military and Jake is trying his level best to channel the spirit of Ernest Hemingway. When this plotline began I said to Debi, "is Nog going to drink Jake's milk?" It turned out, technically, no, but in spirit, yes. However I am still delighted by it just because of Sisko and Rom pulling rom-com hijinks to get their sons back together. Remember back in Season 1 when Sisko was really racist about Nog and Jake's friendship? Look how far he's come! It's genuinely heartwarming!
10. Rapture
DEBI: Is Sisko going the full Jesus?
BECCA: He's gone TOO Jesus. Sisko, come back!
So Sisko has some really intense prophetic experiences, and spends most of the episode Jesusing out, including declaring that Bajor shouldn't enter the Federation, while the friendly local Federation officers are like "WTF? THIS IS WHY WE DON'T LET FEDERATION OFFICERS BECOME MESSIAHS." Bashir can do an operation that will save him from his life-threatening visions! But he hesitates because Sisko didn't consent to it!
DEBI: Wait ... Bashir didn't leap at the chance to perform a dangerous but exciting experimental medical procedure?
BECCA: He wanted ... patient consent ...?!
DEBI: He is growing as a character! Oh my god, the people who told us to reserve judgment were right!
They were not right. MORE ON THIS BELOW. Anyway after Jake, as Sisko's closest relative, consents to the operation, Sisko is pulled back from the Jesus brink. Also Kasidy is back (yay!) just in time to have the worst just-out-of-prison romantic reunion week EVER. (Also also, Kai Winn gets to talk about her time during the Occupation and it's great. I forgot how fascinating Kai Winn when she's not dragging around the world's most boring Vedek. Thank you for dying and leaving the show, Vedek Bareil. You gave us a gift.)
11. The Darkness and the Light
For three-quarters of this episode, it's AMAZING -- someone is murdering members of Kira's old resistance group for stuff they did during the Occupation, and there's only so much Kira can do about it directly because she's extremely pregnant, and it's a.) a really good story with a pregnant woman as a central character doing things that are not about her pregnancy (which is so rare!) and b.) just a really, really good Kira episode -- the speech where she talks about the first time she killed someone but her memories are all about just feeling like a part of the group, her total defiant refusal to apologize for the horrible things that she did and that she thought were necessary, it's all SO GOOD!
And then we get to the last section of the episode where Kira is held hostage by the Phantom of the Opera, who monologues at her in great length and in third person about his terrible facial sunburn, and ... I .... OK. I mean. OK. But for 3/4 of the episode before we lost all ability to take it seriously, it was really, really good!
(Also, the great scene where Odo walks into his office, takes one look at the way his chair has been moved a millimeter, and is like "OH GOD KIRA WAS HERE AND STOLE MY LIST OF SUSPECTS TO PURSUE THEM ACROSS THE GALAXY." Because OF COURSE he can tell that instantly.)
12. The Begotten
I really wish this whole episode had just been Odo wandering around cooing paternally to a glob of jelly, because that was THE CUTEST AND FUNNIEST THING IN THE WORLD, oh my god, I hope Rene Auberjonois enjoyed himself as he wandered around the set staring adoringly at a piece of Play-Doh.
But then we get the return of Odo's abusive scientist dad, and ... I mean ...
ODO: I want to be a GOOD father and NOT perpetuate on this blob of jelly the cycles of abuse that you perpetrated on me!
ODO'S ABUSIVE SCIENTIST DAD: But you need to run painful experiments on your baby jelly blob in order to get results!
SISKO: Yes, yes you do, Starfleet says you have to in order to get results.
DEBI AND BECCA: Sisko! Are you a Changeling in this episode? What happened to all your dad feelings?
ODO: I guess ... I do need to run painful experiments on this baby jelly blob in order to get results ... or else they will take my jelly blob away :(
ODO'S ABUSIVE SCIENTIST DAD: Good, you got results! Weird that the jelly blob seems to like you better than you liked me. I mean, I guess I could also have cooed at you when you were a jelly blob while I ran painful experiments on you.
ODO: I guess you could have. But now I think I understand better why you did what you did, so let's reconcile!
DEBI AND BECCA: No! No! This is a bad moral and the Deep Space Nine writers should feel bad!
This is maybe the strongest I have ever felt about a DS9 episode. I just, I don't understand why everyone else on this space station is not as VISCERALLY HORRIFIED as I am by the fact that someone who was traumatized by experiments being performed on him as a child spends this whole episode being told that his trauma was not that bad and forced to perform experiments on a child??? WHY. I think the show thinks that shocking Odo with electricity to make him transform was, like, the equivalent of making your child learn how to ride a bike. I DON'T THINK THAT THIS WAS THE EQUIVALENT OF MAKING YOUR CHILD LEARN HOW TO RIDE A BIKE.
And then the baby jelly blob dies anyway, and there is nothing Bashir can do (MORE ON THIS BELOW) and Odo magically gets his Changeling powers back from this but is nonetheless sad. OK. Meanwhile, Kira gives birth, and Miles and her boyfriend are dicks about it. That's also a thing that happens.
13. For the Uniform
This episode, however, filled me with hilarity and joy! BECAUSE IT'S THE LES MIS EPISODE.
OK, so what happens at first is that Sisko is chasing Eddington around with the Maquis, and Sisko and Eddington are nemeses, and we're pretty sure that Sisko is just really happy to have a nice normal nemesis after Dukat started getting all weird and Cardassian-flirty at him. Like, this is a respectable terrorist nemesis! Nothing weird here! It's fine!
However unfortunately Eddington has apparently decided that his life is a Kate Beaton comic and appears to misinterpret this as:
Eddington has apparently also read a lot of Les Mis fanfic on fanfic.net, so he sends Sisko an ACTUAL COPY OF LES MIS, like, as a nemesis-gift? And then things start getting really hilariously weird, as Eddington phones into Sisko's office like ten times and REFUSES TO CALL HIM ANYTHING BUT "INSPECTOR JAVERT."
SISKO: please stop making me try to RP out your weird Les Mis Valvert fanfic with you Eddington I am NOT COMFORTABLE with this
EDDINGTON:
SISKO: oh my god
EDDINGTON:
And then Dax is like "I don't think Victor Hugo is a very good writer, actually" and Sisko's like "EDDINGTON IS NOT EVEN ANYTHING LIKE JEAN VALJEAN I DON'T UNDERSTAND EDDINGTON IS A TERRORIST WHO POISONS PLANETS AND VALJEAN LITERALLY STOLE A LOAF OF BREAD" and Dax is like "well, the thing about Victor Hugo is his female characters just aren't believable -" and Sisko's like "IF I DON'T NIP THIS IN THE BUD RIGHT NOW I'M PRETTY SURE NEXT TIME HE CALLS IN HE'LL HAVE 'DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING' BLASTING ON SPEAKER AND I SUPER CANNOT DEAL WITH THAT"
And then Sisko makes some morally ambiguous decisions about poisoning Maquis planets in order to get Eddington off his case, but, you know what, if my nemesis would not stop trying to get me to RP out their weird JVJ fanfic I WOULD BE A LITTLE ON EDGE AS WELL, so, I mean, I get it. Also: this episode is amazing. Thank you, Deep Space Nine writers. You are forgiven.
14. In Purgatory's Shadow
Garak invites Bashir along on a top-secret spy road trip to Dominion space to rescue his father figure. Bashir says no, which should have been our first clue that BASHIR HAS BEEN A CHANGELING FOR THE PAST SIX EPISODES OR SO???
OK, what this means:
a.) every time we thought Bashir was acting unusually ethical, it's because Bashir was a Changeling. An evil Changeling spy is literally more ethical than Bashir.
b.) Changeling Bashir delivered Kira's baby and performed life-rescuing surgery on Sisko? That's a bit awkward.
c.) Changling Bashir let Odo's baby blob of jelly die? :( :( :(
In other news, it's Worf's turn for a life-changing field trip with Garak, the Dominion is about to attack, Garak's father figure is his actual dad, and Jadzia threatens Worf with the destruction of all his Klingon operas. Oh, and Ziyal has a crush on Garak, which is weird for everyone concerned.
15. By Inferno's Light
Prison camp episode! Actually this is a really fun, awesomely tropey prison camp episode -- Garak gets over his crippling claustrophobia with lots of hurt/comfort from Bashir! Worf cage-fights every Jem'Hadar in the compound and is so HONOURABLY IMPRESSIVE that the Jem'Hadar leader falls in honor-love with him! A Star Trek bounty hunter hilariously hangs out in the background of every scene, then kills a Jem'Hadar at a significant moment and is instantly vaporized! -- so it just goes to show that Deep Space Nine can do prison episodes well ... as long as O'Brien isn't there. Please, never let O'Brien be in a prison episode again.
Meanwhile, Dukat decides to help Cardassia ally with the Dominion, which everyone on the station sees as TERRIBLE BETRAYAL and is definitely a betrayal of their Federation alliance, but ... is fine for Cardassia, actually, it's probably a solid choice.
Anyway Sisko is really relieved to have Dukat as his nemesis again after all that weirdness with Eddington, and we are relieved for him also. (And ... would I read the fanfic where Dukat does succeed in taking over the station, but saves Sisko's life and keeps him as his prisoner for intense nemesisitude until Sisko breaks out and saves the day? Yes, yes I would. DON'T JUDGE ME.)
16. Doctor Bashir, I Presume
I was hoping this would be another James Bond pastiche episode and Debi wanted it to be an episode about SCIENCE, so we were both disappointed. Anyway! This is the one where they want to make Bashir into the next generation of the medical hologram, but Bashir's parents show up and there is a dramatic reveal that Bashir was genetically engineered as a child to be brilliant, which is super illegal.
DEBI: OK, but why is genetic engineering illegal but cloning is TOTALLY FINE?
SOME DUDE IN THE SHOW: Genetic engineering is illegal because of Khan and the Eugenics Wars of the nineties!
DEBI: .... OK points to you for universe continuity, show. THE QUESTION ABOUT CLONING STILL STANDS.
BECCA: Maybe the comparison to Khan explains some things about Bashir's ethics, though.
Anyway I was distracted from most of what was actually going on by imagining what would have happened if the events of this episode happened three episodes before and Changeling Bashir had become the template for Starfleet's new medical hologram, because that would have actually been kind of hilarious.
Oh, and the B-plot is Rom/Leeta, which I fully support although it could have been done better.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/397379.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.