S4E9, “The Sword of Kahless” (story: Richard Danus)

Hell yeah, a good Klingon honor story. Good to have them back. Combined with Raiders of the Lost Ark. You have my attention.

This one picks up some threads from “Blood Oath” and the TNG episode “Rightful Heir.” Kor and Dax renew their friendship, and recruit Worf to help recover Kahless’ sword, a mythical Klingon artifact. Kor has come into some information about its whereabouts, but he also gets compromised by one of those mind reader creatures we saw back in the Julian Gets Old episode.

So the search for the sword ends up being rather anticlimactic. They find the ancient, lost, mythical artifact in about ten minutes. Their archaeological prowess was further challenged by a forcefield that we are told a team of Vulcan surveyors could not overcome. But our crew clears it in like five seconds. Literally by reversing its polarity. Showrunners: I mean, why even bother with a forcefield then, seriously. Well who ever said Vulcans were smart.

Anyway, the real crux of the show isn’t the getting the sword, it’s how a couple of Klingons react to being in its presence. It pretty much immediately turns them into Gollum drooling over his precious. Both think they can unite and lead the entire Klingon race just because they have this bad ass sword. I am not arguing whether it is a cool sword, because it absolutely is extremely cool, but let’s dial it back a bit. Since when are Klingons going to calmly accede to whomever has the good bat’leth? Well, they aren’t. It’s just going to raise the stakes on their already-pointless civil strife. Fortunately Dax figures this out before Worf and Kor kill each other. In the end, they agree to both give it up, beaming it out into space in a “FINE no one can have it then” compromise.

I liked the core of this episode and its general arc. The idea that a mythical artifact might be found, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth, is by no means a new idea, but well-executed here, and fits well into our established Klingon stories. It also adds some depth to Kor, and builds up some relationship with him to Worf, and both of them to the larger Gowron-created mess they are figuring out how to deal with. John Colicos as Kor is amazing. But the execution…eh, shrug. There’s a lot of TOS-style wandering around in caves. Yet again someone goes into the Gamma Quadrant with no backup whatsoever, so once they get stuck, they are really stuck. Also that mind reader creature—it’s an agent for a rogue band of Klingons who are also after the sword. This whole crew adds about nothing, just an excuse to sprinkle in some easily-duped and more-easily-slaughtered extras who provide a bit of convenient suspense whenever needed.

Overall: Some cruft but pretty solid Trek. 4 out of 5.

S4E10, “Our Man Bashir” (story: Bob Gillan)

I’ve long been bored by holodeck episodes because they always feel half-baked, leaning on their genre clichés without ever capturing what works well in that genre. Sometimes the story is decent but the cast and crew don’t have a feel for the quirks of the genre and it comes across as awkward or wooden. Hard-boiled noire detective stories lacking much atmosphere, mysteries that are boring, and in this case, a spy story without much intrigue or suspense.

“Our Man Bashir” doesn’t really know if it wants to be smooth and suspenseful James Bond or silly Austin Powers, and it doesn’t really work either direction. It has an effectively wild plot, but it’s also painfully contrived. It has a few gags, but mostly they fall flat. I will concede it has some lovingly crafted Bond-ian soft porn pun names, gadgets, seeing adversaries sneaking up in a reflection off a champagne bottle. It’s all homage, much like the Picard noire detective stories, and I can appreciate it as such.

Maybe if they had a good story to tell, but I don’t think they really do. There’s a nugget of interest in dealing with a transporter malfunction, but I think it doesn’t really develop into anything that feels right.

Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe if holodeck episodes are your thing.

S4E11/12, “Homefront/Paradise Lost” (story: Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe)

A few interesting threads that tie together over two episodes:

Changelings are the new Body Snatchers. Changelings are everywhere and Earth security has no idea what it’s up against. I think I lost count of how many times Odo infiltrated President In-Over-His-Head Hippo’s office. Well, it’s not like Earth is worse than anyone else at wrangling them. DS9 hasn’t figured it out either, despite employing an actual Changeling in security. Basically, the prophecy that “we are everywhere” is totally true and I have no idea what they are ever going to do about it. Maybe develop some new Changeling-detection technology? Do we have that? We can store entire humans into spare holosuite memory, so let’s figure something out here.

Kristen and I especially liked the scene where O’Brien strolls up to Sisko, which was super weird because O’Brien wasn’t even on Earth at the time. He’s acting like he hit the Jameson’s earlier in the day than usual but is trying to hide it, so it’s not too big a surprise he turns out to be one of the Changelings, and claims there are four on Earth. Which on one hand, hey, only four. But on the other, it’s about four more than the Federation knows how to deal with. Anyway, fun performance by Colm Meaney being just a little off.

I want to eat at Grandpa Sisko’s restaurant. I liked the Benjamin/Jake/Joseph scenes a lot. Grandpa just wants to run his restaurant and has no interest in politics. This is to say: I like Grandpa. Adding him to the bigger story grounds it in a useful way and helps show how the Changeling infiltration is making everyone paranoid. Poor Grandpa just wants to cut vegetables and be left alone and Benjamin is badgering him to hand over some blood. Then again, if Grandpa would be less stubborn and submit to a quick painless medical test, his son’s job protecting the rest of the planet would’ve been that much less stressful. Parents just don’t understand.

My military coup will totally work even though it hinges on everyone else sort of just ignoring it. President In-Over-His-Head Hippo is kind of hopeless and ripe for some military dude with an inflated ego to try to undercut him. In the end it doesn’t work because Vice Admiral Leyton is playing checkers when everyone else is playing chess. Also he doesn’t know that checkers is a game. It might be some kind of dance, or a food.

When attempting a coup d’état, I would suggest:

1. Do not appoint the one person with the expertise to defeat you into the most vital role in the government.
2. Do not practice rigorous record-keeping of your transporter usage.
3. Do not lean heavily on inexperienced cadets who will immediately capitulate to authoritative questioning.

Leyton screws up all of them and Sisko and Odo sniff out the conspiracy without too much trouble. Sisko has more trouble making it home in time for dinner. So, I felt like this thread didn’t quite click. There’s too much villainous boasting and too little concern this plot has any chance of working.

Odo’s biology corner: We see the other Changelings do all kinds of advanced transformations and have begun to develop the theory that Odo’s inability to make a face is pretty much just a lack of proper Changeling education as a kid. He’s learning everything as he goes and the others are always going to be way ahead of him. By contrast the O’Brien Changeling was perfect, at least in appearance.

Also, Odo hacks into a Federation computer, claiming that he learned such skills from Quark. Between this point and the next episode, I think I am finally understanding why they let Quark stick around.

Overall: 4 out of 5. A two-parter that earns its longer scope, with a lot going for it. The flawed coup and dippy President held it back, but I enjoyed it on the whole.

S4E13, “Crossfire” (story: René Echevarria)

Pretty in Pink, starring Kira as Molly Ringwald, and Odo as Duckie. At least, the love triangle parts. A triangle where two of the edges are best friends, and one of them is super in love with the other, but can’t confess because it might ruin the friendship and/or be totally scary. Then that edge watches as their love interest edge falls in with someone else, who is a frustratingly great match for them, and it’d just ruin everything to confess at that point. Is that still a love triangle. Is this still Star Trek.

A mild yes on both counts. And an enjoyable, if sorta sad, episode. One has to be charmed by all of Odo’s little expressions of love. I liked his doting routine to ready himself for their morning crime report meeting, how he carefully prepares her space coffee, placing the mug so the handle will face the proper direction for her. At the same time, the poor blob essentially is a teenager, emotionally, and is completely unequipped to deal with grown-up feelings of love…

…but this raises a huge Odo biology question. So I guess Changelings must mate? He has something driving him do more than enjoy a good security blotter together.

Also I must raise another Odo biology question. I don’t really want to be this kind of Trek nerd but I must renew my call for some ground rules about Odo’s mass. If he can become a big metal hammer and screech a turbolift to a stop, or lift anything ever, he must have some mass. Meanwhile he can also pool into Lwaxana Troi’s dress, be a bird, or disguise himself on a cocktail tray to be served by an unknowing waiter, all of which imply he has very little mass. It’s not the unlikely physics that bothers me—I can handle warp speed and teleporters just fine—it’s the inconsistency of the physics. If there’s anything that makes physics physics it’s that it’s consistent.

Well anyway this story is told from Odo’s point of view, but it’s also an important one for Kira, in terms of her finally getting past Bareil and with someone else. That someone else being the annoyingly charming, irritatingly modest, and disturbingly handsome Shakaar. He even gets to like Odo and asks him for love advice. Shakaar, my man, you are asking the wrong fellow.

Rank: Order of regular DS9ers I recommend asking for relationship advice:

1. Dax
2. Jake, apparently
3. Keiko
4. Morn
5. Kira
6. O’Brien
7. Bashir (season 3 or later)
8. Benjamin
9. Rom
10. Worf
11. Nog
12. Quark
13. Bashir (seasons 1-2)
14. Odo

I should also bring up the whole Odo/Quark interplay in this one. A very good sub-thread that worked great with the main story. Quark emerges as rather sympathetic, somehow, noticing Odo’s quiet suffering. He actually…helps? Quark’s bluntness, and also his unflappable concern about Quark, keeps Odo occupied but also moving forward productively. The secret Odo conspiracy to take quarters directly above Quark purely to annoy him was very enjoyable, and sets up a solid payoff at the end when he has sound dampening installed as repayment for Quark’s support. Whenever I rewatch early episodes again knowing how their dynamic really works, it’ll be interesting.

Overall: Like every other compulsively watchable 80s teen movie, it was pretty great. 4 out of 5.