Yora reviews Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - All of it!

[JCarter426]

See, that's where this episode really excels. It isn't a "get to know the enemy as a People instead of Them" episode. It is a "Realize just how powerful and scary these things are" one. It is "Alien", where the Borg episodes are "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial".

It's not a bad episode, but I think it wastes a lot of its potential and would have more impact if it came later.

A lot of the episode is about explaining how the Jem'Hadar work, but at the same time it relies on our previous knowledge of them - there would be no point in the mystery otherwise. If it was just some random alien, the entire episode would be learning about the alien. It's a decent mystery, but it makes the episode somewhat of a half measure. It tries to do two things, while not going far enough with either, I think. And maybe it was too soon to even try to do either.

It might've been better if it were two different episodes. We a more in depth look at their addiction in a later episode, but I think it's far too early for the "can Odo change a Jem'Hadar?" half of it. We need at least one full episode about the Jem'Hadar before that has any meaning.

Regarding defenses of DS9: Were we watching the same show? I distinctly remember that the station itself was in very few fights.

That's later. At this point in the show, the last time the station itself was involved in a fight was the pilot, if I'm not mistaken.

Which is more or less how actual stealth technology works. It doesn't make you undetectable, but is designed to not make the enemy notice you until you are very close.
It's just to let viewers see what's going on, ships are always shown to be rediculously close together. And Star Trek is always more concerned about maintaining a consistent presentation than thinking about the practicality of the technology.

In the end, all those shiny ships, sleek uniforms, and technobabble do a very good job to disguise that Star Trek is actually very soft sci-fi.

Yeah, I wasn't complaining, exactly. It does get a little old when we have to come up with a new way to track cloaked ships every time, but that was mainly TNG I think. DS9 usually sticks with the assumption that cloaking devices aren't infallible and there are known ways to beat them, maybe because the writing is better that way.

I am watching it so you don't have to.

Oh... Meridian. We're on this one, are we? I... don't have to watch it, but I will. Later.

[Yora]

The B Plot highlights many ethical issue about the holodeck.

I mean, we can all agree that Quark and his customer are both horrible creeps, right?

To give Quark a little bit of credit, he feels very uncomfortable about the whole situation and rather creeped out himself. But then, it's used as another joke about Quark being Quark. "The things I do for latinum."

I plan to do a longer things on character struggles at the end of season 4 or 5, when we have some more material to work with, and Quark stands out to me as the comedic inversion. He sees his own sense of decency and integrity as a flaw and constantly tries to lie to others and especially to himself about being much more greedy and ruthless than he really is.

[Rodin]

Because its not actually hurting anyone unless it involves a total violation of privacy. Its certainly creepy, but, is it really any more gross than having a fantasy session in your own mind over someone you find attractive? It just lets you act out your fantasy outside your own skull.

If you're telling the computer "here's what she looks like with her clothes on, extrapolate the stuff you can't see", then it's creepy as heck but I guess it's not criminal? It still weirds me out.

What Quark was trying to do is much more analogous to hacking someone's phone to get nude pictures of them and then posting them on the Internet. A clear-cut violation of privacy that would have actually landed Quark in jail if he wasn't totally immune to prosecution for some reason. Him subverting the security system and nearly getting Dax killed should have been enough to have him locked up for a long, long time, but that didn't happen either.

So yeah, Quark is a creep for trying it, and yeah, I think he should have been locked up for it, and no, I'm not defending the plot. That doesn't stop the gag at the end from being utterly hilarious, and one that I remembered clearly from watching the show as a kid.

You could probably write a book on holodecks as a broader topic of how it would affect privacy laws and what the legal implications are of creating a fake version of a live person and interacting with them.

[zimmerwald1915]

for some reason

Because Armin Shimmerman has 21 Charisma

[Rodin]

Because Armin Shimmerman has 21 Charisma

Added bonus: Odo is actually capable of turning into a yellow-footed rock wallaby.

[Traab]

If you're telling the computer "here's what she looks like with her clothes on, extrapolate the stuff you can't see", then it's creepy as heck but I guess it's not criminal? It still weirds me out.

What Quark was trying to do is much more analogous to hacking someone's phone to get nude pictures of them and then posting them on the Internet. A clear-cut violation of privacy that would have actually landed Quark in jail if he wasn't totally immune to prosecution for some reason. Him subverting the security system and nearly getting Dax killed should have been enough to have him locked up for a long, long time, but that didn't happen either.

So yeah, Quark is a creep for trying it, and yeah, I think he should have been locked up for it, and no, I'm not defending the plot. That doesn't stop the gag at the end from being utterly hilarious, and one that I remembered clearly from watching the show as a kid.

You could probably write a book on holodecks as a broader topic of how it would affect privacy laws and what the legal implications are of creating a fake version of a live person and interacting with them.

I agree, how he went about trying to create the hologram was super creepy and probably at least skirted various laws if not outright broke them. I was more talking about the idea itself of having hologram shenanigans with your sexual fantasy. Its just a more intricate version of closing your eyes and visiting sally palm and her five friends while thinking about your crush. Not something you talk about, but not an unusual thing to do. And yes, hologram issues are vast and complicated. At what point can one be considered "alive" like the doctor and not just a complicated mess of programmed responses?

[JCarter426]

So, Meridian. These one-off romance episodes are usually terrible, but I think what's particularly wrong with this one is that Dax should've been the last character to get one. She's rebuffs Bashir's advances because joined Trill are meant to be above all that. Then Mr Guest Star tries the same routine on her for, like, an hour, and she's willing to move in with him in his dimension.

But rather than complain about it some more, I decided to come up with a few ways to improve the episode:

• Dax's motivation for staying on the planet could be her joining. She'd be willing to leave everybody on DS9 and her Starfleet career and risk her life because the whole point of being a joined Trill is to seek out new experiences.
• There could be further drama with Dax given that staying would mean 60 extra years of being Jadzia Dax. At some point she might ask herself whether she's trying to extend her individual lifetime for selfish reasons, or whether it's genuinely for science or whatever. (It's totally for selfish reasons in the existing episode.)
• More of the Defiant crew might want a chance at living an extra 60 years. There could be some drama about who's allowed to stay or not, and what they'd be giving up to stay.
• People on Meridian might have other opinions on the changes to their dimensional shifting schedule. Of course it had to be stabilized so they wouldn't lose their planet, but they kind of gloss over how the next shift is going to last 30 years. Does it have to be that long? Could they keep it shorter? Are they giving up their nigh-immortality just because of the declining birthrate? Not everybody might be happy about that.
• If there are other options for the shifting, then perhaps they would be able to choose to stay on either side forever. People would have differing opinions on that as well, I'm sure.
• The entire episode could be replaced with a serious look at holosuite/holodeck ethics.

I plan to do a longer things on character struggles at the end of season 4 or 5, when we have some more material to work with, and Quark stands out to me as the comedic inversion. He sees his own sense of decency and integrity as a flaw and constantly tries to lie to others and especially to himself about being much more greedy and ruthless than he really is.

Yeah, like when he's trapped with Odo in the security office, he says the Cardassians didn't trust Odo because he's an honorable man... and now that's going to get them killed. He knows what it means to be a good person by Federation standards, but being good doesn't make you successful, and he'd rather be a successful person.

Which makes a lot of sense, considering his culture. Even though the Ferengi aren't a military or scientific power like the Federation, Klingons, Romulan, or Cardassians, they have a lot of influence in the Alpha Quadrant, enough to play on their level. It's the Ferengi who are the first to make contact with the Dominion, and Sisko takes them seriously for that. They're very successful at what they do. Presumably the Rules of Acquisition actually do make for good business, ethics or no.

[Rodin]

[*]More of the Defiant crew might want a chance at living an extra 60 years. There could be some drama about who's allowed to stay or not, and what they'd be giving up to stay.

As I mentioned above, the problem here is that most of the cast have more important things to do than live in a tiny village on an isolated planet. Kira's not going to abandon Bajor, Sisko won't abandon Jake or his responsibilities, O'Brien has Keiko and Molly, Odo isn't the sort to be interested to begin with and only just found his people, etc. The only potential person is Bashir.

Having Dax wish to seek out new experiences would have been a much better way to take the episode. You could still have boyfriend dude, just take out the "boyfriend" part and make it so they get along well and develop a lot of professional respect for each other. He invites her to stay FOR SCIENCE! instead of the 20-minute romance.

[JCarter426]

Well, the other thing is none of the regular cast members can stay because they are regular cast members. But there could be redshirts of the week who have their reasons, or if we go beyond the existing episode's cast, people with terminal illnesses, Bajorans who have a hard time and want to leave and come back when their planet is better, etc. There's a lot more you can do here than "Dax likes this guy because they climbed a tree."

[Kitten Champion]

There's no convincing way you can make Dax leaving her entire life to follow some random man she and the audience literally just met genuinely dramatic in the span of around half an hour, especially when the actors have negligible chemistry at best. The better-but-still-not-great revision would simply be to reverse the conflict and have the potential love-interest want to leave the planet with them. That would be pretty pedestrian Trek writing - having an alien that wants to go with the crew but ultimately rejects it because reasons isn't breaking new ground exactly - and it also takes away the dramatic focus on Dax as a character to be more about the guest star. Still, it doesn't contort Dax as a character with such a contrived and out-of-character conflict - seriously, she's acting like Crusher in Sub Rosa only without a fart ghost brain-washing her - and she'd still be the focal main character in this.

Then there's the Brigadoon concept, which really feels like a premise for a bland early TNG episode. There's just not much you can do with that creatively to make it particularly interesting compared to something like the town from the musical because it's not really functionally different than any given planet we've seen before and never returned to, and likewise for Dax whether the planet phases away or not if she left DS9 to go literally anywhere else it would mean the same thing to us. If I were to make an alternative suggestion it would be to make it an early Human colony that got engulfed in a time-space anomaly thingy - or maybe ancient alien super-tech to make it easier - and now bounces around the universe like a TARDIS, that would give us some kind of context beyond your conventional weirdo planet-plot. These would be the early pioneers of interstellar colonization and thus you'd get similar anachronisms to what you're homaging relative to the show's setting at least.

[Yora]

There's no convincing way you can make Dax leaving her entire life to follow some random man she and the audience literally just met genuinely dramatic in the span of around half an hour, especially when the actors have negligible chemistry at best. The better-but-still-not-great revision would simply be to reverse the conflict and have the potential love-interest want to leave the planet with them. That would be pretty pedestrian Trek writing - having an alien that wants to go with the crew but ultimately rejects it because reasons isn't breaking new ground exactly - and it also takes away the dramatic focus on Dax as a character to be more about the guest star.

That's actually the first plan, but his people don't approve of it so two minutes later they change it to Dax staying with them instead.

[Kitten Champion]

That's actually the first plan, but his people don't approve of it so two minutes later they change it to Dax staying with them instead.

I forgot that, which doesn't surprise me. I remember mostly the terrible non-chemistry in the one-off romance bits followed by Dax's will-she-or-won't-she drama later.

There just needs to be something, anything here to make the premise of a Brigadoon planet worth doing outside of doing a watered down romance plot from the musical. Otherwise this might as well be a random TV-handsome man she met on shore-leave at Risa or wherever who she'd have to leave her post to be with past the end of the episode, which she obviously won't so long as her name's in the opening credits.

Which is why it kind of has to focus on the romantic interest, since it should be about the way his context - the unusual nature of the planet and the subsequent effects it has on his society on a macro and micro-level - shapes his decision-making, because it's speculative fiction and should speculate on something.

[Rodin]

Well, the other thing is none of the regular cast members can stay because they are regular cast members. But there could be redshirts of the week who have their reasons, or if we go beyond the existing episode's cast, people with terminal illnesses, Bajorans who have a hard time and want to leave and come back when their planet is better, etc. There's a lot more you can do here than "Dax likes this guy because they climbed a tree."

Issue with that is the same as Dax's romance, really. You can't get to know Ensign Ricky well enough in 30 minutes to care whether he stays or if he goes. You'd really need it to be some minor recurring character like Vedek Bareil debating whether or not to stay - someone who has been around the show long enough that it matters to the continuity if they leave, but who isn't important enough to make the opening credits.

Actually, can we just dump Wynn on that planet? Pretty please?

[Mightymosy]

I finally watched a couple episodes. I like it so far, but Odo seems awfully underutilised. I like that stories seem to be about politics and crime mysteries so far - but I would assume it would come in VERY handy if you could shapeshift into a wall with ears, for example, to spy on suspects, for example.
I think so far the only shapeshift action I have seen is when some criminals force him into a box of some sort to prison him.

[Yora]

S3E9: Defiant

The station is completely overworked with traffic getting jammed up and a backlog of report requests piling up. When Bashir requests to get a shuttle to pick up a delayed shipment of medical supplies needed to begin the colonization of a new planet, Kira snaps, tells him she doesn't care a bit about the colony getting delayed, and storms off shouting in anger. Bashir orders her to stop and puts her off duty for burnout. He takes her to the bar, orders some drink and food, and orders her to enjoy herself for the rest of the day. In the bar she meets Commander Riker and they get along quite well, which makes Dax squeal when she hears about it the next morning. (This episode actually aired three days after Star Trek 7 had opened, and probably takes place after it).

That evening Kira runs into him again and offers him to get a tour of the Defiant. Kira unlocks the bridge consoles for him. He shots her and beams two friends of him to the ship. Alarms go off and Riker calls the station, telling them there was an explosion and the reactor is going to explode. They need to unlock the docking clamps so that he can move the Defiant to a safe distance and then beam over to the station before it explodes. When they do that, he raises the shields and flies off with his friends.

Odo quickly figured out that years ago Riker got duplicated in a transporter accident and that the duplicate ended up joining the Maquis. He and Sisko call Dukat over to tell him about this, who is extremely unhappy that they let a heavily armed warship fall into the hands of terrorists. Dukat's expectation is that High Command will send a fleet into the demilitarized zone to wipe out all Maquis forces on both sides of the border. He demands that Sisko comes with him to Cardassia to supply all information about the Defiant to the strike force send out to destroy it.

Dukat takes Sisko to his headquarters on Cardassia, and they are immediately joined by an agent from the Obsidian Order watching over Sisko's shoulder. Sisko drops the big bomb that the Defiant has a cloaking device. Dukat as stunned but the agent merely thanks him to not make an attempt to hide this fact from them. Though they didn't consider it necessary to pass that information down to High Command up to this point. The Defiant is picked up by Cardassian sensors and Dukat dispatches all patrols in the area to intercept it. Sisko is surprised that the Defiant isn't cloaked and checks the signal closer, and discovers that it doesn't fully match the Defiant and is almost certainly a decoy. When the actual Defiant is spotted by another outpost, it is destroyed long before any ships can get there. Dukat starts moping and the agent doesn't waste the opportunity to mock him.

Kira is held in one of the quarters, but manages to sabotage power lines to disable the cloaking device for half an hour. She has no love for the Cardassians and sympathises with the collonists' struggle, but starting a full out war with the Cardassians will make things only worse for people living at the border. The cloaking device is quickly back in working order, but the ship is having a small leak that might be detected. He believes that the Cardassian colonists are building a secret private shipyard to fight the Federation colonies independent of the Cardassian military. She thinks his plan is terrible and mocks him for trying to be a hero in a kind of war that doesn't have any room for them.

Sisko believes he has figured out where the Defiant is going and eventually Dukat gives in and orders one ship to go to the planet and take a look around. But the agent forbids it, only explains that the system is under control of the order, and that any ships entering it will be destroyed. He leaves the matter be and checks with his superiors in High Command, but they can't be doing anything either. Sisko asks Dukat who has the authority to override the Order, which technically would be the parliament, but High Command and the Order both stripped it of any actual power long ago. Scanners pick up the leak trail of the Defiant, which confirms that Sisko's guess was correct. Dukat again asks the agent to send ships to intercept, but she isn't concerned that the Defiant will be able to reach it's target. Patrol ships pick up a fleet of Cardassian ships already in the system, which clearly are not Dukat's. He is outraged that the Order is illegally maintaining warships, but the agent only grins at him as she walks out.

Sisko offers Dukat a deal. If he agrees to turn the Defiant and everyone on board to the federation, he will give Dukat all the sensor data that the Defiant gathered in the restricted area. Dukat agrees, but insist that they need to get Riker and put him on trial. Sisko thinks Riker will only accept if he gets a better sentence than death, and Dukat agrees to check with his superiors if that can be done. They make the offer to Riker and he considers it, and Kira convinces him to take it and save his crew. He accepts and Dukat tells him to turn around and surrender to one of his ships. They make it out of the restricted area and to safety just before the ships from the Order reach them. Kira promissess Riker that they won't forget him and be back to get him out of the Cardassian prison. They have a kiss and he beams over to the Cardassian ship.

--

What the hell is wrong with these people?! Is this another 90s thing? I can say nothing about the last scene that I have not already yelled at the last episode yesterday. The Romance in Meridian was terrible, but this is just insulting. I even dare say disgusting. You can't have two characters meet at the bar one night, off screen, and then have them kiss 30 minutes later with nothing happening inbetween. As always with these things, I put one quarter of the blame on the person who wrote this, and three quarters on the person who signed this off. Writers can write stupid junk that only makes sense in their own mind. That happens when you're job is to produce create content on demand. But when a producer decides to film it and leave it in the final cut, that's inexcusable. This is revolting.

Other than that, this episode is actually really good. I expected this to be another stupid one based on a dumb gimmick, but the dumb gimmick turns out to be completely irrelevant to the plot. Everything would have played out exactly the same way if the Maquis leader was just some random, never before mentioned ex-Starfleet officer who manages to steal the Defiant. I actually suspect that it was written that way and Frakes just was on site after wrapping up Star Trek 7 and asked to be squeezed into a Deep Space Nine episode. You can completely forget that he's a duplicate Riker because it isn't of any consequence at any point of the story.

The Kira plot is pretty much inconsequential anyway. The actual meat of the whole story is with Sisko and Dukat. Sisko doesn't really contribute that much, but the insights in the inner working of the Cardassians is really nicely done. Here Sisko has the unique opportunity to witness the moment where the Cardassian power structure starts to unravel. This is the moment where the Obsidian Order is forced to show its cards and reveal that their partnership with the High Command to run the Empire had been a lie for a good time now. They not only ignored their part in the bargain, but pretty much dropped the pretence that they are allied with High Command. When the game is up and Dukat sees with his own eyes that the Order has secretly build its own fleet in violation of imperial law, the agent only grins at his outrage and walks out without any word. And when the Defiant surrenders to Dukat's ship, there is a moment where they are waiting to see if the pursuing Order ships are going to open fire. Instead they just turn around and move back into the restricted area, again with no indication of communication with Dukat's forces.

The appearance of Tain in S2E22: The Wire was surprising because he didn't seem at all like what you would expect from the terrifying Cardassian secret police. The agent in S3E5: Second Skin was incredibly smug and walked around in the legate's house like he owned the place, but I assumed that was because he felt certain that he had his target already caught and neutralized. But the agent in this episode makes me feel that there's actually a consistent pattern with the Obsidian Order. The leaders in High Command are all completely arrogant and dismissive of everyone else as well, but I think they pretty much always come across as actually pretty dull people who are only concerned with efficiently performing their duties and strutting around to let everyone see their disdain for them. They serve the state and their own egos. In contrast to that, agents of the Obsidian Order seem to get endless joy out of their work and passing up on no opportunity to let everyone know that they can do what they want and are completely untouchable.
Dukat may be unusually vain and loves performing for an audience, but like the other officer I think he's actually rather dull as a person. It's all work for the state and performing your socially expected duties as a patriarch. But agents of the order seem to do everything for their personal entertainment. This is fun, they enjoy and get fulfilment out of being bullies. If Cardassians had moustaches, these guys would be twirling them all the time.
I might be projecting my own ideas here, but in sharp contrast to the officers of High Command, the agents of the Obsidian Order don't give me any impression of seeing themselves as patriots.
With the Cardassians it's very much true that they are not a state with an army, but have become an army with a state. But the Obsidian Order is also the proverbial state within a state. They do their own thing for their own goals, not in service of the state. It might very well be the historically interested German in me speaking, but the more I am watching Deep Space Nine with a critical eye now, the more I feel like the Cardassians are based are based on Germany from the mid 19th to mid 20th century. And I think the show does a really good job with that. Always difficult to base a fictional culture on a recent real one, but in this particular case, we have come to regard that part of our history as our own absolute low point. German writers would probably have been even more vicious.

Final side note: I think I know what this secret fleet is planned for.

[Yora]

Odo's shapechanging ability did indeed end up being pretty irellevant to his character. The special effect turned out to be pretty expensive, so they quickly avoided using it when not necessary, and the writers had the smart foresight to know that allowing Odo to imitate faces would have them fighting off plot holes left and right for the entirety of the show.

Sometimes Odo sneaks into protected places. From all I can remember, that's really all his shapechanging ever contributes. The more refined shapechanging of the Founders will be a very different story, though.

[Kantaki]

I mean the Obsidian Order thing isn't that surprising all things considered.
:cough:Garak:cough:

[Rodin]

And when the Defiant surrenders to Dukat's ship, there is a moment where they are waiting to see if the pursuing Order ships are going to open fire. Instead they just turn around and move back into the restricted area, again with no indication of communication with Dukat's forces.

It's pretty clear what happened here, even though it is unstated - the Order ships were given instructions to destroy the Defiant to get rid of the sensor data, but they hesitate when they will have to fire on another Cardassian vessel. The pause is them consulting with their superiors in the Order about whether the Order wishes to declare war on High Command, and the answer is "No." The Order agent was untouchable, but I'd bet there were still some political repercussions that we don't see as High Command realizes just how fearless the Order has become. It's a case where I would have actually liked to see a "Cardassian episode" where none of the usual cast star and we see the fallout from this event. Not something a 90s TV show could reasonably do, but a man can dream.

[Cikomyr]

Apparently, this was concieved as a Thomas Riker episode from day 1

Ronald D. Moore commented "We had talked early in the year about doing an episode with Tom Riker. Early on we had played with the idea of Tom being the leader of the Maquis movement, that we would suddenly notice that the Maquis was getting a lot better out there and kicking some serious butt. Why? Because Tom Riker has defected, he's their general". (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 87)

Which is a damn shame because they never ever revisited Thomas Riker, and refused to ever address him in a future episode.

[Seppl]

I always wondered what this episode was like for anyone who did not watch "Second Chances" from TNG, as that one was your typical never-mentioned-again-problem-of-the-week-episode. I already knew it and thought the reveal in Defiant was great. But the whole idea of Thomas Riker must seem really strange (even for Star Trek) to anyone not familiar with the original episode. Anyone in this thread for whom this episode was the first mention of Thomas Riker?

[JCarter426]

Issue with that is the same as Dax's romance, really. You can't get to know Ensign Ricky well enough in 30 minutes to care whether he stays or if he goes.

"Hollow Pursuits" and "Lower Decks" would like to have a word with you.

Although, one of DS9's strong points is that it gives time to developing recurring characters, so perhaps it can't afford to waste an episode on a guest star. But it would still be better than a one-off Dax romance.

I always wondered what this episode was like for anyone who did not watch "Second Chances" from TNG, as that one was your typical never-mentioned-again-problem-of-the-week-episode. I already knew it and thought the reveal in Defiant was great.

You mean just the idea of having Thomas Riker instead of William T. Riker, or the actual revelation scene with the fake sideburns?

The latter was completely silly. If he knew he was going to impersonate himself, couldn't he have just grown his beard out? I want to see a sequel with a fake Tom who takes off the goatee to reveal just a moustache.

The former is one of the best ways one could troll the audience. Well done.

It's totally a gimmick, and a sign of the "still a TNG spin-off" early days, but it does about as much as you could do with that gimmick and is actually a pretty good episode.

It's also nice to see Dukat as the good guy for once. That and his "I'm sure your transportor accident episode was very nice, but why are you telling me about it?" reaction to the exposition.

Apparently, this was concieved as a Thomas Riker episode from day 1
Which is a damn shame because they never ever revisited Thomas Riker, and refused to ever address him in a future episode.

He really got the shaft in life. First, he gets left on some crap planet for 8 years while his transporter duplicate lives out his life. Next, his episode barely explores his existential crisis and everybody keeps pretending transporters aren't horrifying death machines. Then, he gets sent to a Cardassian prison, and presumably it really is a life sentence after all because he's written out of the shows.

[Cikomyr]

He really got the shaft in life. First, he gets left on some crap planet for 8 years while his transporter duplicate lives out his life. Next, his episode barely explores his existential crisis and everybody keeps pretending transporters aren't horrifying death machines. Then, he gets sent to a Cardassian prison, and presumably it really is a life sentence after all because he's written out of the shows.

Don't worry. He probably got executed midway through season 5.

[Lord Vukodlak]

It's also nice to see Dukat as the good guy for once.

Dukat is never a good guy, on occasion the stars would align and his selfish motivation would align with the main crew.

[Yora]

S3E10: Fascination

It's the Bajoran Thanksgiving and Kira is organizing the celebrations on the station. Odo decides that this year he's going to take the day off like the other Bajoran security people and give it a try to integrate more with the culture he's living in. Kira and O'Brien go to the airlock to pick up Bareil and O'Brien's family who are coming for the holiday. Oh, ****!



Lawxana Troi is also on the ship. The next 40 minutes will be pure torture.

Bareil is happy to only be a visitor to the festival instead of having to run it himself. He mentions that he finds it curious that Kira has become such good friends with someone like Dax. O'Brien wants to make his wife happy, but gets rather frustrated when she doesn't want to make any decisions and tells him to pick, but then complaints about whatever he suggests. Troi goes pestering Odo and when she leaves she has some kind of headache.

I can't endure this. I am fast forwarding it and only mention the main points. Jake starts hitting in Kira. Morn and Bareil are hitting on Dax. Troi keeps creeping out Odo. O'Brien and his wife are bickering. Dax is hitting on Sisko. He takes her to the infirmary to have her checked by Bashir, but he doesn't seem to think anything is off. And more and more of that. They take Troi to the infirmary and Bashir diagnoses her with a disease that makes her telepathically project feelings to other people. The End.

--

This is a nightmare. Worst episode ever. I feel violated for someone trying to make me watch this.

[Cikomyr]

S3E10: Fascination


This is a nightmare. Worst episode ever. I feel violated for someone trying to make me watch this.

I am sorry, I can't comment on your post. Your entire post is blank, unreadable to me. I can't remember this episode, and I will beat up violently anyone who tries to make me remember.

Ira Steven Behr says this show originated insofar as the writers "felt we needed a light show, because we were coming up on "Past Tense, Part I"." He describes the finished episode as "dangerously wacky," and says, "In some ways, it works very nicely. And in some ways…you know."

No I don't. And you can't force me.

[Yora]

I was just looking through lists of worst Deep Space Nine episodes ever, and thankfully it seems much of the worst things are already behind us. Interestingly, there were also some episodes listed among them that I ranked quite highly or remember to have really liked, but I guess those lists are probably single opinions and not broader consensus.

I also ended up seeing lists of best episodes, and one little detail I saw mentioned is that writer Peter Allan Fields S1E15 Progress, S1E19 Duet, S2E2 The Circle, S2E28 Necessary Evil, S2E19 Blood Oath, S2E23 Crossover, and also contributed to S1E3 Past Prologue. I think we can thank this guy personally for the show growing into the thing it became by establishing what both the Bajorans and Cardassians would become. And he sold us and the producers to the idea that Dax being dual-cultural and the Mirror Universe being cool.
After this point, he only came back to write one more episode for season 5, 6, and 7 each. You have one guess for which of the season 6 episodes it is.

[Cikomyr]

Trying to think of the remaining "bad" episodes...

I never cared for Crossfire
The Muse
Ferengi Loves Song
Profit and Laces

The rest are between passable to damn good.

[Kantaki]

I mean, it's a Lawxana Troi episode.
That should have been a warning.
That woman is traumatizing, both in- and out-of-universe.

No, really. Episodes involving that woman are like watching a car crash.
All you can do is to pity the people she happens to and thank Roddenberry you're on the other side of the fourth wall.

And overdose on brain bleach afterwards.
For some reason I always forget that one.

[GrayDeath]

Agreed. Even the "best" Episodes includign her are at msot ... watchable (the one with the scientist from the race that mercy kills their old?).

And the other oens are, as the poster above me put so aptly, car crash equivalents.

Edit: Though there is one redeeming quality this episode has: it shos the crew reacting to her similar to us (by loosing their minds^^)....

[Gnoman]

The worst thing about Troi is that she's played by Majel Barrett - who was a perfectly competent actress. That means that the Troi character was that horrible on purpose.