One more batch of DS9 quick early recaps. I’ll add some ratings this time.

S1E7, “Q-Less”, writer: Hannah Louise Shearer. 3 out of 5.

Couple of fanservice TNG cameos from Vash (the archaeologist who once had a little something going on with Picard), and more troublesome, Q. Vash is trying to rid herself of Q after a few years roaming the galaxy with him for fun and profit. (I forgot that’s what ended up happening to her after her TNG episode but the internet reminded me.) He still wants to keep the partnership going but she’s got Quark auctioning off a bunch of alien artifacts, and just wants to get some fresh cash and get back to Earth.

This one was fine. Quark’s unreserved greed is already fun. And I can get behind a few cameos since Trek watching is a long-term thing and it’s a big universe out there, so a familiar face can be welcome. There’s some tacked-on arbitrary drama when one of the artifacts ends up being a toxic explosive, but at least that keeps the crew busy.

As for Q, my reaction to him has settled into a pattern:

First scene: Aha! Q! Hijinks are bound to ensue!

Second scene: Oh yeah, Q is an obnoxious bully.

But it’s a 45 minute show so while he’s sorta funny, you mark off the time you’ll have to put up with him, and you do for a while, then he inevitably gets bored toying with everyone and goes away.

S1E8, “Dax”, Writer: Peter Allan Fields. 4 out of 5.

We haven’t done a Dax episode yet, better get on that. Title suggestion: “Dax”. Perfect! Let’s go with it! Let’s also introduce the creepy “Dr. Bashir is going to be harassing her” angle and hope it doesn’t continue. (It will.)

How else to intro the Trill concept but a good old fashioned murder? Turns out Dax might have killed someone in her previous life and the theme of the episode is a debate about whether a Trill in a new host is a different person (and, therefore, whether the new host is responsible for what the last one did). It’s an interesting question, and the short answer is “sorta”, which I found satisfyingly complex, like messy reality. The eventual innocent verdict is also satisfying, it’s a solidly well-done courtroom drama of an episode.

Fun bit–and my cue to make a note of episode writers now that I’m getting a feel for the show–D.C. Fontana, story editor for TOS (until its lousy third season), co-wrote the teleplay.

S1E9, “The Passenger”, Writer: Morgan Gendel. 4 out of 5.

Morgan Gendel wrote the best episode of TNG, according to me. He also wrote one of the worst. So, uh, here we go.

Lets do more murders! Kira and Bashir are returning from a medical mission (in which she’s praising his fine work, but he accepts so arrogantly she is about to lay into him–so does *anyone* like Julian at this point?) when they get a distress call and from a disabled transport ship that is on fire. They pick up a passenger, Kajada, who says there’s no one else aboard, but actually there is, she just wanted to leave him behind, explaining he’s a serial murderer who started the fire and is probably mostly dead anyway. He does die, but only after giving Bashir a quick choke to establish that he’s a bad guy. Back on DS9 he’s officially deceased but only maybe he didn’t die because while they are really super sure he’s dead, Kajada insists this is a 1980s horror movie and he’s somehow actually not dead. But he is, says Bashir. But what if he isn’t, she retorts. And so it goes.

Because it’s TV, a bunch of stuff happens that makes it seem like he’s alive, and the episode gets filed under Trek crime mystery as the crew pieces things together. Pretty good one, too, lots of red herrings, and leans on some fun sci-fi elements to make it work.

This episode also introduces Lieutenant Primmin, a security officer assigned to by Starfleet to work DS9 with Odo. He seems like he’s only there to annoy Odo, though one could argue his character is not unlike a standard crime TV trope of an FBI agent getting in the way of a local investigation. Especially since I’m viewing a few episodes ahead of my writing, and know that he’ll disappear as suddenly as he showed up. But the disappointingly practical answer is: Colm Meaney was away from the show for a bit to film a TNG movie and they just needed a fill-in.

S1E10, “Move Along Home”, Writer: Michael Piller. 2 out of 5.

DS9 hosts a first contact meeting with the Wadi, who just want to go to the local saloon and gamble. Enter: Quark. He assumes they’re easy marks so immediately sets about cheating them, but they aren’t, so they immediately figure out what he’s doing. In retaliation, they set up their own game, which somehow tricks several crew into thinking they are trapped in a weird sci-fi maze they have to escape from.

I dunno, sure. Effective if not terribly memorable. It reminded me of a million TOS episodes where Kirk et al get trapped in some bizarre alien arena and have to fight/logic/whatever Scotty does/etc. their way out. Good chance for the show to get creative or have puzzles or creatures or effects I guess but they tend to be a little boring to me. Maybe they just don’t have much in the way of stakes, like, what’s going to happen really? The rules are sorta arbitrary, then after the designated 40 minutes or so they get out. Memory Alpha has a quote from Piller saying he was inspired by an episode of The Prisoner, which sounds about right. Although “Move Along Home” is missing that element of pure “what the hell?” kinda moments where you don’t know if he’s escaped, still trapped, will ever escape, or what.

I did like Quark’s perspective from the outside. He believes the crew might be in real danger, and it’s his fault for getting them into the game, so at one point he’s reduced to truly pathetic begging for their lives. The show seems to enjoy forcing Quark into admitting he actually likes anyone else, and I’m for it.

DS9 quick early recaps, continued:

S1E3, “Past Prologue”

The pilot sets up an open question about Kira’s loyalties but turns out we don’t have to wait at all for some Bajoran-style trouble. Immediately there’s temptation for her to shift her loyalty back to full-on Bajor instead of the Federation’s more egalitarian vision. Of course she doesn’t do it. I mean, she’s not going to betray Sisko and disappear in literal episode two. She’s in the credits and promotional photos! The episode is well done and interesting and all, but the show runners maybe should have waited to play this card, right? Perhaps some building tension about her role throughout the first season, not always agreeing with Sisko, capped by this episode. Having it come up in the second show is sort of pointless, there’s no real question about what’s going to happen. Also they already did the “Bajoran turns on the Federation” thing with Ro in TNG.

S1E4, “A Man Alone”

The Loyalty Tests continue, this time for Odo. A known sleazebag turns up on DS9 that Odo wants off the station, but Sisko can’t justify a removal without cause, so Odo has to put up with it. Then the sleazebag is murdered as an obvious frame-up of Odo (he even leaves behind a calendar entry that says “Get Murdered By Odo” “Appointment with Odo”). A classic-style Trek medical techno-mystery follows and of course, Odo is absolved. (Again, only episode three, credits, promo photos, etc.)

More importantly, this episode really establishes the interesting Quark-Odo relationship. Neither trusts each other and they are adversaries on the surface, but actually their mutual annoyance with each other kinda weirdly makes them friends. I think they both enjoy some empty threats and low-key snarling.

S1E5, “Babel”

It’s not clear how big the crew is on DS9. There are hints that it’s a bare-bones operation, but even the crushingly exhaustive Memory Alpha* says the minimum crew is 300 (without me reading exhaustive details, because even though I am happy to spoil anything I’ve already seen here, I certainly don’t want anything spoiled for me). Well, it’s a little unclear what all the jobs are but it’s not fixing stuff. That’s O’Brien’s burden, from antimatter flow converters to replicators. Engines I get–you probably have someone on staff, but you’d think, if anything, they’d just call a replicator guy when that breaks. Anyway, O’Brien’s grim, endless toil is just a setup for the spread of a weird infliction that scrambles everyone’s brains and renders them unable to process language. They can talk, but it comes out as unintelligible babbling (not unlike my blog). They figure out it’s caused by a sleeper virus left by the Bajoran Resistance. It’s OK though because they compel a scientist to come discover and synthesize a cure, which he does, in like 10 minutes. Which is believable because he probably sorta knew the guy that created it. This episode is silly.

* By way of example, someone has taken the time to document all uncredited roles:

S1E6, “Captive Pursuit”

Just when we were starting to really like Quark, this episode opens with an inexplicable, and never revisited, scene about a sexual harassment complaint from one of his staff being registered with Sisko. Nothing for it though, Quark had snuck a clause into her contract that said such advances were part of the gig. Sisko tsk-tsks him and invalidates the clause, which is good enough for her. Or at least, she knows no one on this clown station is really going to do anything about it. I really don’t know what the heck this bit was supposed to accomplish character-wise. [Scowls.]

Anyway, if we pretend that scene never happened (I’m going to guess the remainder of the series does) we get a pretty good episode. Some of the best Treks are these types of cultural mysteries, where some seemingly bizarre alien behavior slowly comes into focus. In this case, the aliens have a caste system that isn’t fucking around: there are Hunters–who, uh, hunt–and there are Tosk–who they are hunting. Like typical Good Trek, it’s not altogether clear how to react. Pretty easy to argue their culture is barbaric, but then, the Prime Directive doesn’t let you do anything about it. (Unless you are Kirk and you just really really want to.) Apparently O’Brien took Replicator Repair instead of The Prime Directive And You class in the Academy, though, so he helps Tosk escape, with a wink and a nudge from Sisko. Frontier justice is served.

Time to get rolling on some DS9 write-ups. Viewing is currently ahead of writing schedule, so going to do hit the first 11 episodes of Deep Space Nine at WARP SPEED. Ha-ha, because WARP SPEED means fast!!!1! Also my memory of some of them is already fading.

Background (comma) Your Author’s

My complete experience of watching DS9 up to this point is:

• Watching a few random episodes in college without ever watching much TNG, so having no context except for TOS, which resulted in my being generally mystified by the focus on the Bajoran-Cardassian feud and Ferengi money-obsession. Every episode seemed to be idiotic Quark schemes.
• Watched the tribbles episode because aw, tribbles.

That’s it. But! Compared to college-me, I have so much more TV-watching experience, particularly the Star Trek variety of TV. I watched TNG around 8-9 years ago, getting into the habit of writing up brief reviews starting with ep. 517 back on the ol’ LiveJournal. Then did a systemic watch of TOS (here ya go: reviews of all of them).

So I feel that I would be a strong asset to this organization and a good fit for the position of “guy who is going to watch DS9 now”. Joining me will be my swell wife who has more recently watched TNG, remembers shows she’s seen without having to write online reviews of them, and can be pretty darn insightful. She is also a power TV watcher that will keep me churning through the episodes. You, the reader, will benefit.

S1E1/E2 – “Emissary”

Pilot episode. Mostly Sisko focused, we learn about how his wife died, which is sad, and Avery Brooks is still learning how to portray a space boss, which is awkward. “Do I hyper-enunciate everything, mostly bellow my lines, and otherwise act as stiffly as possible? I’ll try that for this first episode,” he says. However, Patrick Stewart is around to help kick things off, and he says, “No, don’t do that. Just be cool.” But we still have to get through this first one. We also meet all the primaries and get a little sketch of them:

O’Brien: Has accepted a promotion and transfer to DS9 so he can fix more stuff. Though he had to leave behind his favorite transporter on the Enterprise.

Major Kira: Hothead Bajoran liaison that is definitely going to kill a Cardassian at some point and cause a galactic incident.

Odo: Security officer and shapeshifter that can perfectly replicate anything except a human, I guess.

Quark: A Ferengi bar & casino owner. Armin Shimerman in the role he was born to play,  Great at playing a weasel and barely even needs the makeup. Wait, that sounds mean–this is actually a compliment. He’s so bloody effective at being Quark that he’s established the archetype of what Ferenegi is. So when I think, “What does a Ferengi–a member of a fictional TV race–look like?” I think of Armin Shimerman. So in practice, when I see normal pictures of him, I think “He just looks like a Ferengi!” Such is his blessing and curse. Leonard Nimoy and Brent Spiner are like, “Well, cry me a river, Shimerman.”

Dax: A Trill, which is a race where the controlling lifeform inhabits numerous hosts over its lifetime, and assumes new corresponding identities. It’s really sort of gross.

Dr. Bashir: Ostensibly a doctor, mostly has a crush on Dax despite the gross thing.

Anyway it’s been several weeks since I watched the episode, so while I remember the character stuff, the plot has grown fuzzy. (Also a reminder: no one is paying me to write these.) But I do remember it as a great first episode, sets up the feel and the premise of the series. Instead of flying around the galaxy encountering stuff, we have a stationary perspective (except when DS9 has to use its kinda strange puny thrusters, that is) at the frontier edge of space. Right next door, a wormhole to a totally unexplored quadrant, and who knows what could be in there? Which sounds like a good setup for a TV show.