Deep Space Nine 521 "Soldiers for the Empire" (and many other unremarkable ones)

OK, so in my grand retro review of DS9, I've run across a few turkeys lately. Namely the episodes 517-520. I shall sum them up in an extreme digest form, as I don't feel any of these rate my full attention...

517 "A Simple Investigation" - Although Odo is one of the more complex characters in the show, I find him even more boring than Rom. I just can't get excited about episodes that only focus on Odo. So this one was about Odo finding an internet hooker whom he falls in love with. Then he figures out she's married. Poor form, Odo. NEXT!

518 "Business As Usual" - Quark plays both sides against the middle and wins, mainly because Dax got mad at him. I will say this for Quark... I like him. Something about that "scoundrel with a heart of gold" thing.

519 "Ties of Blood and Water" - Major Kira gets mad at her adopted dad, whom she finds out did some mean things. I take back what I said about Odo. Kira's the most boring character on this show. They deserve each other. The best thing about this one was Weyoun playing dabo and winning, exhibiting childlike glee. "DABO! I like GAMES!"

520 "Ferengi Love Songs" - Another madcap Ferengi episode! Huzzah. Am I the only one who is bothered by the constant insistance by Quark and Rom that their mother stop wearing clothes? So, yeah. Most of the stuff in this one is played for laughs, but mostly gets groans.

OK, so here we are. 521 "Soldiers for the Empire". What's that, viewing public? You want to see a bunch of Klingons doing their thing? Well you GOT it! After a long run of less than stellar offerings, this one hits squarely on the button. The setup: General Martok (yay!) is taking his Bird of Prey, the IKS Rotarran out on a rescue mission to rescue an old Klingon D-7 battlecruiser. He's revealed at DS9 yelling at Dr. Bashir to not give him too much crap about his missing eye, and that he doesn't want a new one (he's in a lot of ways the genesis of the Cmdr. Saul Tigh character, you can see where Ron Moore was crystalizing ideas). He then asks Worf to be his XO, and to (what the hell, why not?) bring his girlfriend as the science officer.

Predictably (by now) Jadzia is actually acting more Klingon that Worf is, and gets straight to work on the Rotarran alternately smacking around the crew and buying drinks for them. You gotta love that gal. I should reiterate... Dax knows more about Klingons than her Klingon boyfriend does.

At this point we begin to realize that Martok is nursing a great big case of PTSD brought about by being in Jem'Hadar Fight Club Space Jail, and who can blame him, really? This is of course being picked up by the crew, and the result is a bunch of depressed Klingons, all bummed out because they can't go beat up things. Hard to watch Martok being cowardly, but it did serve to deepen his character.

Anyway, Jadzia, after a protracted period of yelling-at, gets through to Worf that following the rules and obeying the chain of command is not a workable solution anymore, and when Martok is engaging in a display of epic-fear-peeing at the idea of crossing an imaginary line over into Cardassian space to rescue their Klingon bretheren from the drifting hulk of the ship they were sent to investigate, Worf does the only sensible thing and challenges Martok to a knife fight. Long story short, Worf takes a dive, and the crew gets their battle-boners back, and they go in swinging.

In the aftermath, they return to DS9 and order a bunch of drinks (turning the ops center of the station into something of a liquor store drive-thru) in celebration of their victory over the Jem'Hadar, and as a big thank you for getting to stab him, Martok invites Worf to join his house as a brother (I LOVE MARTOK, HE'S ALL HEART!!!).

A couple things:

• I wonder what would have happened if the Jem'Hadar had night attacked exactly after Worf got stabbed. It would've just been like a long awkward silence, I'm thinking.
  
• The exteriors of the IKS Rotarran looked amazing, even for standard def. More of that, please.
  
• Dax smack-talking Leskit... "Unlike yours, my bed is empty by choice."
  
• Klingons are Space Vikings. Martok reading the list of disappointing crew reviews, and the term "Insufficiently aggressive," was used as a pejorative. Well done, Ron Moore. You should be given your own show.
  

Deep Space Nine 516 "Dr. Bashir, I Presume"

OK, so I ended last night with DS9 Episode 516, "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", which was at once an attempt at a series crossover (hey, it's the bald doctor from Voyager! The Trek bald quota lives on!), and a character study on Dr. Julian Bashir, who had up till this point suffered from a great deal of underdevelopment and being very uninteresting. The setup is that Dr. Lewis Zimmerman is going to make a holographic doc based off of Jules' template, in case, say, your ship is stuck on the other side of the galaxy, you have to take the long way back, and you just cannot look at Robert Picardo's face for one more minute.

Ah, but the twist! Jules cautions the doctor to not talk to his parents, as his parents are not too close to him, and he considers it an intrusion, and... well, would you please not go anywhere near his parents already? So of course the very first thing Zimmerman does when he's out of Bashir's earshot is to make an arrangement to meet his parents. Because having a subject that is on edge and bristling with tension for his holographic template is exactly what is after. Yes, it becomes apparent very quickly that Zimmerman has no social skills to speak of. At all.

So here come Jules' parents, who are, appropriately middle eastern descended English people just like their kid. A notable thing about this meeting was the contrast between the accent of Dr. Bashir (an educated British Received Pronunciation accent) and his Dad (East End London Cockney). I guess this distinction was drawn to further illustrate the distinction between the level of culture and education between Julian and his father, but it was right about here that I had a great lightning bolt of revelation about how similar Bashir was to the characterization of Dr. Gaius Baltar in the recent BSG reboot. Exactly the same relationship between him and his father, including the change of the accent.

And it turns out the dirty little secret that Bashir has been hiding, which his witless parents unwittingly let go just like Bashir was afraid they'd do was that Bashir had been genetically altered in early life because he was something of a simple-minded child. This of course becomes a thing that Bashir is horrified to have become public knowledge because the Fed is concerned about a redux of that whole Khan thing. Yep, the Eugenics Wars of the 90's sure were a bitch. But in the end, all's well that ends well because Jules' dad decides to own up to it and take the rap. So he is sent to Space Jail in New Zeland for the exorbitant sentence of... two years.

I should point out that in the last three out of three episodes, someone has gotten thrown in jail, be it Federation Summer Camp Jail, or Jem'Hadar Fight Club Jail. Oh, and I DID joke about the Fed Jail being a summer camp where they took yoga and crochet classes... but as Papa Bashir is being hauled off at the end of this episode, he ANNOUNCES THAT HE IS GOING TO USE HIS TIME IN STIR TO WORK ON HIS LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DESIGNS!!!! Well, there you go. Say hi to Eddington for me! Maybe you'll be villa mates!

The big laugh of this one goes once again to Quark, while just being very "Quarkish" to Leeta. After Leeta insists that she can attract Rom, Quark's brother:

Quark: [about Rom] He needs a woman with a body and brains.
Leeta: I have brains.
Quark: Sure you do, honey. That's why I hired you. Now, eat up, and then take those brains back to the dabo wheel where the customers can get a good long look at them. (Pointing to her boobs with a fork)

I love this show.

Deep Space Nine 514-515 "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light"

The Spoon cannot lose with DS9 - 514-515 "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light".

The show was already getting good, but this is THE turning point to where it becomes Freaking Awesome. Many, many threads converge in this and the next episode, and it becomes a full-on serial drama at this point.

Well, one stark contrast between Federation Space Jail and Dominion Space Jail is that the Dominion seems to have a Fight Club in it instead of the yoga and arts and crafts. GREAT reveal for General Martok (well, the real Martok, anyway), my favorite Klingon of all time. He, unlike Worf, knows how to party.

OK, so yeah, Worf and Garak uncover an imminent Dominion invasion and for their trouble get sent to Space Fight Club Jail with Martok. For his trouble, Garak gets a little father-son time with Enabran Tain, who it turns out is still a giant prick, even when death looms over him.

Part one concludes with a whole whopping horde of Dominion insect-looking ships pouring out of the wormhole. What was that Sisko was saying about Locusts? I do appreciate Sisko's balls at being willing to destroy the wormhole to keep the dominion out. I guess as we've seen, the Fed is just fine with him pulling major slash and burn moves.

Part two opens with the exposition that the Dominion is taking on Cardassia as a vassal state, and a little speech from our ol' buddy Dukat about how it was never quite right, him and the good guys being all cuddly. Major kudos to Kira for wasting nary a second giving the order to fire. Too bad he got away.

So Dukat gets to make some very Hitleresque speeches (but I guess he's more like Mussolini in this situation... Yeah. You know what, that's perfect. Dukat is Space Mussolini.), and Garak gets to do his "Charles Bronson in The Great Escape" bit.

We're then thrown a bit of a bone by the Klingons showing up and offering to team up with the Fed, which made every Trekkie in the world shout "huzzah" because everybody loves Klingons. I'm greatful for this development as it gives Martok an excuse to hang out on the station all the time, and as I've previously outlined, Martok is the best. This is a science fact.

Soooo, we get some more Garak-as-Bronson fun, and then we're treated to a great deal of Worf Fight Club action. The indomitable Worf faces off against the Jem'Hadar boss, in what I now realize is an EXACT RETELLING OF THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE THING AND THE CHAMPION (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champion_of_the_Universe). So Worf the Determinator won't back down and then our heroes bust out just in time.

So here we are. The worm has turned and full scale war is inevitable. Anybody else want popcorn?

The low hanging fruit:

• Gul Dukat has a short memory. Very quick to be a prick to people who have backed him up when he thinks he can get a better offer. He is a GREAT study of a Narcicistic personality disorder. Ned and I have had some conversations on this phenomenon of late. Yeah, when Dukat feels like he's got a bit of momentum, he's a poisonous snake.
  
• Worf LOVES to be a total cock to Dax! How does she not dump him?!? No, because she has an old hippie living inside her, who is apparently something of a kleptomaniac. Hey, my operas!
  
• Garak and Worf in the shuttle. Garak is backing screwing with Worf by saying he wants to join Starfleet on his sponsorship to keep up some kind of diversity quota. Genius. Also Garak's complaint about Earl Grey tea. Subversion of TNG genius!
  
• Why do the Jem'Hadar not tuck I'm their neck-heroin tubes? You'd think that'd be a liability in combat. And at dinner. And all of the other times.
  
• I cannot be the only person who has noticed that the Breen are all wearing Princess Leia's bounty hunter disguise from Return of the Jedi. Can I?
  
• Quote of the episode:
  "The Jem'Hadar don't eat, don't drink and they don't have sex... and if that wasn't bad enough, the Founders don't eat, don't drink and they don't have sex either, which, between you and me, makes my financial future less than promising."
  "It might not be so bad. For all we know the Vorta could be gluttonous, alcoholic sex maniacs."
  - Quark and Tora Ziyal

Deep Space Nine 513 "For The Uniform"

Spooner's great DS9 extravaganza is back. Episode 513 "For The Uniform" is on. I'm writing as I go. The first thing you notice about this one is the radical difference in narrative and directorial style. They are using new technology (Hey everyone! Get a load of our holo-communicator! We will mention it and how well it works many times!). They've found cause to adopt new ways of behavior inside the Defiant (the computers are all futzed up, so Nog has to repeat everything Sisko says... It's a device to emulate the classical naval style. It's a good way to tell the story, but it's a little jarring against the tone of every other episode of this show. Kind of like in comics when a guest artist drops in and does a single issue in an otherwise uniform run by the regular artist.

So yeah, the show. This one is the next chapter in The Ballad of David Eddington, and I must say I really enjoy Eddington as an antagonist. The "betrayer" archetype always has high stakes and a lot of meat on it. Sisko is REALLY chewing on the scenery in this one, his rant when working on the Everlast bag with Dax, and his "YOU BETRAYED YOUR UNIFORM!!!" meltdown, for two. The latter rivals even the great "KHAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!" Outburst from Star Trek II.

Other things to keep an eye out for:

• They really beat you over the head with the literary symbolism in this one. I mean, Trek is usually pretty referential to classical literature, but this one was over the top.
  
• Dax's uniform is noticeably tighter in this one.
  
• Kira is dying her hair black all of a sudden?
  
• And the Fed is OK with Sisko just getting his hands dirty with biological warfare on his own recognizance? Ummm, ok, sure! They are totally cool with that!
  
• I guess they didn't like the holo-communicator after all, as everyone stopped using them after one episode.
  
• Off to Federation Space Jail, Eddington! Enjoy the yoga and arts and crafts classes!

Deep Space Nine 510 "Rapture"

The Great DS9 Rewatch continues! Last night concluded with "Rapture".

This one's device served for Sisko to level up in his Emissary skill set, elevating it to near-messianic levels. If this were Black Books, he would have ingested the Little Book of Calm. Bajor is finally approved for Federation membership, and Sisko crashes the party like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate to tell everyone that this is a Very Bad Idea.

For one, I have a bit of dissonance about the whole "acceptance of faith" thing in this one, regarding the Bajoran relationship with The Prophets. I can see an entity like The Federation wanting to keep "church and state" separate, but when it’s something quantifiable (the Prophets of the Celestial Temple are extra-dimensional aliens living in the local wormhole that exist outside of linear time), should they not only take what they’re getting from Sisko at face value, but actively try to use his relationship with them to get an edge over the competition in diplomacy, war, what have you? I would. Actually now that I say it outloud, Sisko asks for just such a Deus Ex Wormhole early in season six, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Anyway, my point is, that it’s not superstition and magical thinking when you can conduct double-blind, quantifiable experiments on them. -=shrug=-

All in all, it makes Sisko a little more interesting. Also, I’m forced to wonder if he’s got such a close relationship with The Prophets, and they can tell that he has a destiny that they already know about and they can see and are commenting on his future – it brings into question the existence of free will and predestination. If Sisko knew he had a destiny that he absolutely was going to fulfill, would he not feel entirely justified in taking crazy risks because he knew he was going to be OK?

A few danglers in this episode:

• Cassidy Yates returns from Space Jail to a warm welcome. Apparently whatever the Federation locks up people in for committing treason (six months in the spa!) is nowhere near as awful as the Brain Jail that poor Miles O’Brien had to go to last season. She looked positively radiant. The Sisko boys threw her a welcome home party! And she wasn’t even mad at them for sending her to the can! I imagine the Federation pokey to be something like a combination of summer camp, and a continuing adult education boarding school where they teach you new soft-skills to rehabilitate you. Knitting your way back to society.
  
• Best line of the show, from Worf in response to Quark’s great anticipation of all the root beer he’s going to sell due to increased federation foot traffic, and the profit opportunities he will come by from the loose lips in his establishment: “There is an ancient Klingon proverb that says, ‘You cannot loosen a man's tongue with root beer.’”
  
• Also Odo as the deadpan snarker who challenges Worf’s adherence to tradition… pointing out that keel-hauling is also a tradition. Nice one, grumpy.

Deep Space Nine 507 "Let He Who Is Without Sin"

Followed up by Season 5, Episode 7, "Let He Who Is Without Sin".... Which should have been subtitled "Worf Might Be A Decent Warrior, But He's A Party Pooper".

Basically, this episode has two purposes, one - to continue the ongoing theme of Dax in revealing undergarments (the spots do indeed go down all the way), and also to illustrate that Worf is the most uptight and hard-to-have-fun-around person ever. The long and short of it is that Dax wants a vacation in what is basically the outer space version of Hawaii, and Worf reeeeealy has his heart set on being miserable. Dax meets a few people who she'd previously shared some sack time with IN A PAST LIFE AS A MAN, and Worf gets really dour about the whole affair.

He then starts using his vacation to go to a bunch of rallies for the outer space version of the Tea Party (exactly how you should spend a vacation with Spotty McHottie in space Hawaii), and then because of his massively uptight set of control issues, he gets back at Dax and the entire planet of Reisa by sabotaging the weather control system and literally raining on everyone's parade.

We later have Worf give a little speech to Dax citing the reason for his stuffiness being attributable to him killing a kid during a soccer game as a 13 year old (!?!), and him never wanting to lose control. Ugh. I don't know why Dax didn't dump him right then and there.

You're on time out, Worf! You won't be interesting until Martok straightens you out!

Deep Space Nine 506 "Trials and Tribble-ations"

Ok, so it happened. "Trials and Tribble-ations."

Of course, a retcon of one of the most famous TOS episodes ever is bound to have some traction. First off, big kudos to the way these guys were able to blend the new stuff into the old. Rather than using the Star Wars Special Edition approach of dropping a jarring modern effect into an otherwise vintage atmosphere, they went with "vintageizing" the DS9 crew into the classic series.

This is, after all, a "breather episode" in a very long a dark run in the show. So they could, and indeed needed to be funny. And they were. Good moments including Bashir and O'Brien's general awkwardness around females of the time period (the one in the elevator looked exactly like Kit Quinn, btw, right around e 12 minute mark), Dax being a general horn dog for everyone, especially Te Klingon captain and Spock, and best of all, the dissonance of 60's Klingons vs modern Klingons (played for laughs with the excuse "it is not discussed with outsiders!").

Other interesting bits for fun - Sisko tapping his insignia where his com badge would normally be, Dax and Spock being noted as sort of intellectual peers, and indeed the explanation of why the tribbles kept falling out of the grain bay onto Kirk's head... Dax was throwing them.

It should also be noted that this episode begins a trend of the "Lets Put Dax in a Lot of Skimpy Outfits" trope, which becomes a prevalent theme.

I shall not fret over the whole time travel paradox thing, I'm just gonna let it go. All in all, much fun was had back in the 23rd century.

Deep Space Nine 503 "Looking for Par'Mach in All The Wrong Places"

This morning I've been over the first few in DS9's 5th season. This is when the show began to take on a very distinct "war" tone. Notably the episodes "The Ship" and "...Nor the Battle To the Strong" dealt with the Federation in a situation under siege. Lots of addressing the issues of mistrust between enemies being a self perpetuating thing, and PTSD being explored.

I also find it interesting how the Federation on the surface in shows like these absolutely refuses to fight dirty... For now.

Also in today's run was the infamous "Looking for Par'Mach in All The Wrong Places"... The infamous episode where Dax and Worf hooked up. I shall forgo my analysis of this one and just leave it to Ned to gush over it.

Deep Space Nine 501 "Apocalypse Rising"

The Grand DS9 Rewatch... Season 5 has begun. It's first episode, "Apocalypse Rising" is one of my very favorites. Mainly because it has a LOT of Klingons. Actually it had simultaneously the most badass looking Klingon ever (Sisko) and the dumbest ever (O'Brien... He looked like the village idiot). Pile on top of that, the general awesomeness of the Klingon all-night drinking endurance ceremony, and Odo's new obsession with bubbly beverages... Yeah, is one was a lot of fun.

Deep Space Nine 423 "To The Death"

The grand DS9 rewatch continues. The end of Season 4 has a few unremarkable episodes, but "To The Death" was in the mix. A good bit of exposition on what the Dominion is and how the Jem'Hadar work. It was a little beat-you-over-the-head-with-contrast-y at times, but still, a fun episode, and a nice call back to the Iconians from TNG. A great quote from this one between Dax and the Jem'Hadar Second, lazily cut/pasted from IMDB:

[Dax is trying to work, but Virak'kara, a Jem'Hadar, is staring at her]
Jadzia Dax: Am I really that interesting? You've been standing there staring at me for the last two hours.
Virak'kara: You are part of my combat team. I must learn to understand your behaviour - anticipate your actions.
Jadzia Dax: There must be something you'd rather do. Maybe get some sleep?
Virak'kara: We don't sleep.
Jadzia Dax: How about getting something to eat?
Virak'kara: The white is the only thing we need.
Jadzia Dax: [pondering] Don't sleep... don't eat... What do you do for relaxation?
Virak'kara: Relaxation would only make us weak.
Jadzia Dax: [aghast] You people are no fun at all - I'm glad I'm not a Jem'Hadar woman.
Virak'kara: There are no Jem'Hadar women.
Jadzia Dax: So what do you do? Lay eggs?
Virak'kara: [proudly] Jem'Hadar are bred in birthing chambers. We are able to fight within three days of our emergence.
Jadzia Dax: Lucky you. So let me get this straight: no sleep - no food - no women. No wonder you're so angry. After thirty or forty years of that I'd be angry too.
Virak'kara: No Jem'Hadar has ever lived thirty years.
Jadzia Dax: [puzzeled] How old are you?
Virak'kara: I am eight.
Jadzia Dax: I would have guessed at least fifteen.
Virak'kara: Few Jem'Hadar live that long. If we reach twenty, we're considered honored elders.
[leans in]
Virak'kara: How old are you?
Jadzia Dax: I stopped counting at three hundred.
Virak'kara: [amazed] You don't look it.
Jadzia Dax: Thank you.

Deep Space Nine 422 "For The Cause"

Drifting off, but "For The Cause" is on. I'm jarred that Sisko chops carrots like a kitchen noob. More on this later. Great episode.

Deep Space Nine 418 "The Rules of Engagement"

The great DS9 continues to thrill. This morning "The Rules of Engagement" kept me company over breakfast. A solid episode, noted for its use of unconventional narrative and breaking of the four wall. I was never crazy for he somewhat deus ex machina ending, but it was worth it to watch a provoked Worf beat the snot out of a Klingon lawyer when provoked.

I am also forced to wonder why this was not somehow combined with the following "Hard Time" episode where O'Brien has to go to brain-jail for twenty years and hours later comes back to Keiko hoarding food and sleeping on the deck.

Deep Space Nine 411-412 "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost"

The grand DS9 re-watch continued yesterday with the oddly poignant "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost" episodes. VERY prophetic, when you consider this aired five full years before the post 9/11 paranoia gripped the nation.

You could've lifted many sections of the dialog directly out and just swapped the word "changeling" for "terrorist" and you'd have a chillingly accurate picture of the conventional wisdom of the early 2000s. They should've had people taking off their shoes before getting on a transporter pad. Then it would've been perfect.

Deep Space Nine 401-402 "The Way of the Warrior"

Today - season 4, episodes 1&2. "Way of the Warrior". A true turning point for the series. Sisko has shaved the head! The founders have infiltrated! The Federation at war with The Klingon Empire! And... Welcome to the crew, Worf! It's getting real up in here!

Deep Space Nine 325 "Facets"

Season 3, episode 25 - I kind of wish the Odo/Curzon mash-up could have been kept. Odo+Curzon = everybody has a good time. #DeepSpaceNine

Deep Space Nine 324 "The Die is Cast"

My grand re-watch of Deep Space Nine proceeds. Tonight's episode was season 3, episode 21 - "The Die is Cast". This was, to me the exact point where the show took a level in going from just an ok sci-if show to in the top three of sci-fi shows of all time. You gotta love the ol' Obsidian Order.