S7E5, “Chrysalis” (René Echevarria)

We’re probably at the point in DS9 where we can look back and recognize what this show has done well, which is most everything. All the principal characters, and a solid handful of regular guests, have had deep and rewarding developmental arcs. DS9 has done this far better than its predecessors. Trek always has good characters but they hadn’t previously done much growth. In TOS if you started out as “the Russian guy” you ended the series as “the Russian guy.” In TNG you might learn a little about the character’s larger lives, mostly in the form of introducing new family members-slash-supplemental characters. But largely if you started out as “the robot” you ended the series as “the robot with a pet cat.” Perhaps this just reflects larger TV trends. DS9 had to be better, because TV was better.

Our boy Bashir has maybe had the most dramatic arc, from juvenile playboy to sensitive doctor to worthy soldier & best pal. But as we clear 150 episodes of this series I think maybe they’ve run out of ideas for him. He’s just the smart, lonely, sorta sad guy now. He’s run out of ideas for himself, anyway, as he pesters everyone to hang out with him but they all have their own lives. But his does have his own crew of genetically-enhanced pals, and they show up to relieve him of his boredom.

I liked this bunch when we met them back in “Statistical Probabilities” and I was happy to see them again. We also get a good SF story out of it as Julian figures out how to get Sarina’s brain back in sync with the rest of the world so she can actually speak and interact with it. Like all introverts, she finds that getting out into the world sounds great until you actually do it. It’s fun for a while but eventually everything seems too loud and no one will shut up. Julian also can’t help coming on way too strong, by their third date he’s planning week-long getaways. Poor guy isn’t used to being in a relationship for more than a few days and he just steamrolls her. I can’t say I’ve driven any past girlfriends to retreat into deep mental dormancy to get away from me, but I’ve never lived on a space station either, so they always had the option to just leave. In his defense, he understands it’s too much for her and arranges for her to do the same.

I’d say we’re two-for-two on stories about this group now. It turns out that Sarina is the one who gets some resolution first, but I’d like to learn more about all of them. I don’t suppose we’re going to have time though. There’s a bit of trivia in Memory Alpha that they had another story in mind for Jack but it resolved with him becoming “normal” and they didn’t like that. I think that’s the right call, I generally like their handling of these characters. They aren’t trying to make them different, as though that’s better. Sarina was ripe for another story because she had some potential for getting help. As for Julian, I feel bad for him. Maybe things will eventually work out with Sarina, or he could always still take up the superspy invitation offered to him in “Inquisition.”

Overall: Very solid follow-up to the great “Statistical Probabilities.” This group is a rich vein of SF stories, I’m into it. 5 out of 5.

S7E6, “Treachery, Faith and the Great River” (Philip Kim/David Weddle & Bradley Thompson)

Somewhere in the canon of a long-running show is a fine line between inside info and trope, and there’s an art to landing on the proper side of it. At some point you go to the well one-too-many times and it becomes a trope. Then you can either leave it behind or just settle in and own it. Perhaps a sign a show has begun to show some age is when it starts making meta-jokes about its own tropes. DS9 isn’t really feeling stale to me, but this episode might be a signal that the showrunners are getting punchy.

After O’Brien informs Sisko it’ll take three weeks to get a graviton stabilizer, Sisko does his usual bit of waving off the engineer’s knowledgeable estimate with the absurd demand that it be done in three days. Which is so silly it actually makes O’Brien mad. He says his parts supplier can’t even get him the thing for three weeks, but Sisko is having none of it. As viewers we were laughing at this. Like a GOP government contract awarded to a crony megacorp, the numbers are so outlandish they don’t even have meaning anymore. If I told my boss it would take me three weeks to complete a project and he said I had three days, I would just laugh. That’s not cutting corners, it’s cutting everything but the corners. Yet O’Brien acts on the premise that this is a serious threat. When it looks like he won’t be able to make other arrangements, he says, “I’m doomed.” I mean, come on. No one is doomed. What’s Sisko going to do though, fire him? The station already needs like a dozen more engineers instead of its current staff of…O’Brien, ostensibly the only engineer able to deal with Cardassian tech in the entirety of Starfleet. Well anyway, it does set off an enjoyable Nog scheme and introduces us to the concept of the Great Material Continuum. It’s a natural outgrowth of the Ferengi obsession with capitalism, evolved to a sort of supply-and-demand-based religion.

So I didn’t love the setup to this, which felt like it leaned a little too much on the crutch of Sisko’s absurd timeline demands, but the payoff made up for it. At this point we’re also well aware of the motivations of the Ferengi, but we learn about a deeper philosophy behind them, which is both fun and entertaining. Wish we’d have thought of it sooner. The greater takeaway, though: Nog got the job done. There’s actually a pretty decent management lesson in here. Nog’s resourcefulness is admirable, even if his communication skills were lacking. (E.g., one is not advised to borrow against a Klingon’s blood wine stash without explicit approval.)

The other episode thread concerns Weyoun’s defection, the impending death of the Founders, and collapse of the Dominion. Kinda buried the lede on this one.

But I’m also not sure we can say as much about it. The premise is quite interesting—how can Odo possibly trust Weyoun, even if he passes his initial test and immediately tells Odo all about a secret ketracel-white facility. Not that the episode elected to be about that at all, as it turned out, signaled immediately by Odo allowing Weyoun to hang out at the runabout’s console, where he’d have ready access to the entirety of Federation knowledge, rather than locking him up in quarters. Actually it is more about the drawbacks of putting readily-replicated, fully-knowledgeable clones at key administrative positions during wartime. If I remember right I think we knew that the Weyouns are all clones, but it hasn’t been brought up in long enough that it didn’t occur to me. Or Odo. This is a nice clone though, and it’s actually a bit sad when he dies. The unwillingness of Vorta or Jem’Hadar to kill Changelings continues to be an interesting constraint that frustrates the Cardassians. I think we can assume it’s going to continue to be a hassle for Damar when it comes to anything involving Odo. (BTW, we really need a Damar episode. His character is incredibly weak compared to Dukat. All Damar does is empty boasts and vague threats while downing kanar.)

We also see/hear that the Founders are dying of some disease. Odo is upset about this, but I’m not sure that’s the right reaction for him. Well, he’d have decidedly mixed feelings anyway. Easy to guess we’re going to delve into this as the season progresses.

Overall: Maybe a bit trope-heavy but very entertaining, and pushes things in some interesting directions. 5 out of 5.

S7E7, “Once More Unto the Breach” (Ronald D. Moore)

I’ve thought a lot about Postmodern Klingonism (like here and here) throughout my DS9 watch and we can file this away as well, especially since it’s about our old frenemy Kor. Kor absolutely has the most interesting non-Worf Klingon arc in the Trek universe. These days he’s enduring forced retirement, out of favor with the Empire, too old to get a regular Klingon gig, and too proud to accept a lesser one like Martok’s grumbly assistant Darok. So he shows up at Worf’s door trying to cash in whatever favors he can get.

Minor detour to note that everything in the DS9 realm seems to touch the top tier of leadership across all cultures. Sisko is regularly charged with developing the most vital battle plans for the Federation. Kira knows, or has scrapped with, or has slept with, every major Bajoran figure. Every time they deal with the Cardassians, they deal with Damar or Weyoun (and Dukat before them). The Founders, they get the Female Changeling. The Ferengi, Zek or Brunt. I understand our gang is important, but it’s beyond absurd if you think about it. All these people should be ensconced in deeply stratified layers of administration (for both practical and security/safety reasons). Or they have just really done a good job getting rid of bureaucratic cruft in the future. Well, this is a pointless observation really, it’s just a further ramification of the standard Trek skewed reality. In actual life the captains and CEOs get the most money, dress the best, and are sequestered away to shiny, offensively lavish offices where they give general directions about what they want their organization to do, and someone somewhere else actually figures out how to do it. In Trek, the uppermost leadership actually does all the stuff while everyone else, I dunno, works nights I guess.

Anyway, so, Kor is deeply old and it takes him all of half a scene to lose his mind and start thinking he’s re-living a battle from 50 years ago. This, after Worf’s ongoing haranguing of Martok to give the old guy a break, and us learning that Martok hates the guy for an old grudge (which brings up some Klingon class issues that we could use more on at some point). He accedes to Worf’s request only to give in, then watch as the crew drools over Kor’s presence. So his immediate meltdown is pretty embarrassing for everyone. Subsequently Martok tries to kill Kor but Worf stops him. After which there’s a truly uncomfortable scene of Martok & crew humiliating depressed soup-eating Kor that I really hated. There’s nothing in Martok’s history to suggest he’d pull this kind of petty Draco Malfoy-esque weak ragging on a defenseless target. Martok is a great, honorable Klingon warrior. I’d say it’s more in line for him to rectify his failed attempt to kill Kor, or at least throw him in the brig. Klingon brigs must be both abundant and fiendishly uncomfortable.

In the end Kor salvages his reputation by sacrificing himself in a brilliant maneuver to occupy a group of Jem’Hadar ships long enough for the rest of them to get away. It’s a great ending, the way any respectable Klingon wants to go out. I didn’t get why they would initially let Worf be the one to try it, I mean, using the old guy desperate for a glorious ending was a no-brainer. (This is essentially the premise of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, in fact.) I thought Darok would join him, actually, especially after their old guy pep talk.

There’s a minor B-story tucked in here while Worf is almost dying about his sorta former wife Ezri stating categorically that she is no longer interested in Worf in that sense. Quark takes an interest in this information. One assumes this will be relevant in the future, hence, I am including it here for the record. However, all I really have to say about it at this time is that we got a good laugh out of Jake’s goofy grin while overhearing the two of them talking.

Overall: Put me down for any Ronald D. Moore Klingon episode. 4 out of 5 and only the one off because of the lousy taunting scene.

S7E8, “The Siege of AR-558” (Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler)

Oof, this a grim one about wartime life. I’m not sure how to address it using my trademark sly yet gentle humor so I’ll probably keep it short. Once in a while we need to acknowledge there is a serious war going on, instead of watching the gang, say, prep for an intramural baseball game. People are dying and the names scroll by on DS9 monitors and Sisko’s a mess about it but life goes on.

Generally this is a very effective episode about life on the front, which is to say, it’s not all that pleasant to watch. The soldiers are at end of their emotional tethers and we’ll get to know lots of them so we’ll get upset when they inevitably die. Mostly this one’s about atmosphere so I’ll say it’s successful in that regard, but in execution, it’s a bit contrived. I don’t like the trick of giving a guest character a name and just enough of a backstory to make it sad, but they go to the well a few times here.

Memory Alpha tells me they explicitly wanted to focus on characters who weren’t used to combat situations, which I wasn’t really conscious of as it was happening. But now that I think about it, it’s an interesting approach. Ezri, Bashir, and Nog all have decent stories mixed in. But Quark is included for no good reason. Perhaps they started out thinking he could occasionally lighten the mood but that never felt right so mostly he ends up being panicked and whiny. He gets to stand up for Nog and get pointlessly angry at Sisko when Nog is injured, but I don’t think it contributes much.

I’ll be curious what happens to Nog now that he’s lost a leg. Interesting, if grisly, thing to do to one’s character. The natural arc is a Lt. Dan-style descent into guilt, depression, and anger, then redemption, but DS9 usually finds new angles, so, we’ll see.

Overall: Some things didn’t really work but largely a gritty and necessary one. 4 out of 5.