shallowness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shallowness) wrote2015-01-18 04:45 pm
shallowness) wrote2015-01-18 04:45 pm
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - disc 3
The Passenger, Move Along Home, Nagus, Vortex
The Passenger
At the beginning of this pretty decent episode, Julian is boasting about saving an apparently dead patient, which is too much on the nose, given what happens next. When he and Kira go to the rescue a distressed ship containing a seemingly paranoid security officer and a dying prisoner, they bring trouble to the station, where there’s some tension between Odo and someone I took to be a visiting Starfleet security officer (but he returns in the next episode) in preparation for a plot point.
Suddenly, it turns out that the paranoid alien might be right and the criminal that Bashir pronounced dead, who murdered and did all sorts in a quest to stay alive, is still around. Has the crew been awoken to the danger in time? Can they work out what the exact danger is?
The plot is solid (I realised what had happened just before the reveal – I must have watched the episode when it first aired in the UK, but didn’t remember it). We got a nice look at Sisko as a leader, and, moreover, one who understood the geopolitics of the station. Odo got Sisko’s support as security chief when he threatened to leave over the question of whether he was really in charge of security on the station. Quark was a bit stupid (and was shown to have a crush on Jadzia). I wasn’t entirely convinced by Fadil’s acting choices towards the end of the episode, but I enjoyed the deserved prick to his ego that Bashir got.
Move Along Home
For me, the weakest episode on this disc/in this quartette.
Maybe ‘first contact’ has as elastic a meaning as ‘prime directive’ seems to have done, although it’s a much more straightforward term. If the Vulcans first met the Wadi, the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant (if not Starfleet) has had first contact with them, thank you very much. And told them about Quark’s.
ANYway, this episode suffered because I’ve seen much better and crackier ‘game comes to life’ episodes (think Farscape) and the levels in this maze seemed a bit unchallenging. It ripped off Alice in Wonderland a bit, showed off the new set they'd built, and that was it.
It was more interesting to learn that Quark has a conscience, (or was it the crush on Jadzia that made him feel bad?) which emerged when he realised the four officers had become a part of a Wadi game he was forced to play (because he tried to cheat them). The science of it all was sort-of explained.
The Wadi are another GQ race that turn out to be into pastimes. Hmph.
I was sorely missing O’Brien.
Nagus
This Ferengi-focused episode was about family (but mainly men) as the Grand Nagus, special guest star Wallace ‘Distinctive Voice’ Shawn, rolled into the station, to Quark’s initial dismay and suspicion. This inspired Rom to pull Nog out of school, which should have made Sisko a happy father, because it should have removed the bad influence on his boy, BUT Jake was sad at losing his (shock!) illiterate friend. (Suddenly the ridiculous claim that Vulcans stole his ethics essay made sense.)
Then the Nagus died, having named Quark as a successor over his own son. Which of course went to Quark's head. But the Ferengi who’d congregated at the station with a hope of getting the Nagus’s permission to make profit in the GQ before them were after that head, as Odo pointed out. And one of them was Quark’s downtrodden brother. So as Benjamin found out he could trust his son’s instincts (up to a point) because he was now schooling his friend, familial relations between the greedy, chauvinistic Ferengis weren’t going so well.
In the glimpse of their culture, there was an echo of the mob, although it was mainly played for laughs. For example, the Nagus wasn’t really dead but pulling a fast one to test his own son but then Quark kind of admired his brother for having the lobes to try to kill him. As you do.
Vortex
In the best episode of these four, we had some Gamma Quadrant goodness. It took the best (so far) relationship on the show, the co-dependent antagonism of Odo (law) and Quark (crime) and spun off in unexpected, and ultimately touching, directions. Croden, an alien from the GQ, was part of a deal Quark was trying to get out of that went badly awry. A Mirodan (these volatile, twinned aliens were interesting in and of themselves, although their outfits were not great) was killed by Croden, leaving his brother in, basically, a beserker rage.
Turned out that Croden was a criminal on the run from his home planet, though. Sisko agreed to an extradition treaty on the hop with an unknown race (oh dear) and Odo was tasked with carrying out the transfer. Croden would presumably be executed for his crimes, but Odo needed to stop the brother from exacting revenge during the journey from DS9 to Crodon’s home planet.
Odo had already struck up a relationship with the Crodon who called him Changeling, and watching the cynical outsider hope a liar was telling more of the truth than the viewer could dare to believe was really touching. Because Crodon is a rogue and a chatty one, this relationship interested me far more than O’Brien and Tosk in ‘Captive Pursuit’. And, it turned out that maybe he wasn’t a thorough-going rogue (although it amused me that he ended up going to Vulcan).
But the heart of the episode was Odo and all his questions about his people – all he got was a key (symbolic) and myths.
They also let Quark off the leash a little (Odo was right to be suspicious of him.)
I almost wondered if Sisko wanted Odo to ‘lose’ Crodon rather than hand him over, because you’d have thought he’d have sent a Starfleet officer along with Odo. It wasn’t really hinted that this was the case, but Dax did grimace at Sisko agreeing to hand Crodon over.
This episode was tantalising about the GQ and Odo’s quest to find shapeshifters like him, but also, kept me mostly gripped on its own merits.
The Passenger
At the beginning of this pretty decent episode, Julian is boasting about saving an apparently dead patient, which is too much on the nose, given what happens next. When he and Kira go to the rescue a distressed ship containing a seemingly paranoid security officer and a dying prisoner, they bring trouble to the station, where there’s some tension between Odo and someone I took to be a visiting Starfleet security officer (but he returns in the next episode) in preparation for a plot point.
Suddenly, it turns out that the paranoid alien might be right and the criminal that Bashir pronounced dead, who murdered and did all sorts in a quest to stay alive, is still around. Has the crew been awoken to the danger in time? Can they work out what the exact danger is?
The plot is solid (I realised what had happened just before the reveal – I must have watched the episode when it first aired in the UK, but didn’t remember it). We got a nice look at Sisko as a leader, and, moreover, one who understood the geopolitics of the station. Odo got Sisko’s support as security chief when he threatened to leave over the question of whether he was really in charge of security on the station. Quark was a bit stupid (and was shown to have a crush on Jadzia). I wasn’t entirely convinced by Fadil’s acting choices towards the end of the episode, but I enjoyed the deserved prick to his ego that Bashir got.
Move Along Home
For me, the weakest episode on this disc/in this quartette.
Maybe ‘first contact’ has as elastic a meaning as ‘prime directive’ seems to have done, although it’s a much more straightforward term. If the Vulcans first met the Wadi, the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant (if not Starfleet) has had first contact with them, thank you very much. And told them about Quark’s.
ANYway, this episode suffered because I’ve seen much better and crackier ‘game comes to life’ episodes (think Farscape) and the levels in this maze seemed a bit unchallenging. It ripped off Alice in Wonderland a bit, showed off the new set they'd built, and that was it.
It was more interesting to learn that Quark has a conscience, (or was it the crush on Jadzia that made him feel bad?) which emerged when he realised the four officers had become a part of a Wadi game he was forced to play (because he tried to cheat them). The science of it all was sort-of explained.
The Wadi are another GQ race that turn out to be into pastimes. Hmph.
I was sorely missing O’Brien.
Nagus
This Ferengi-focused episode was about family (but mainly men) as the Grand Nagus, special guest star Wallace ‘Distinctive Voice’ Shawn, rolled into the station, to Quark’s initial dismay and suspicion. This inspired Rom to pull Nog out of school, which should have made Sisko a happy father, because it should have removed the bad influence on his boy, BUT Jake was sad at losing his (shock!) illiterate friend. (Suddenly the ridiculous claim that Vulcans stole his ethics essay made sense.)
Then the Nagus died, having named Quark as a successor over his own son. Which of course went to Quark's head. But the Ferengi who’d congregated at the station with a hope of getting the Nagus’s permission to make profit in the GQ before them were after that head, as Odo pointed out. And one of them was Quark’s downtrodden brother. So as Benjamin found out he could trust his son’s instincts (up to a point) because he was now schooling his friend, familial relations between the greedy, chauvinistic Ferengis weren’t going so well.
In the glimpse of their culture, there was an echo of the mob, although it was mainly played for laughs. For example, the Nagus wasn’t really dead but pulling a fast one to test his own son but then Quark kind of admired his brother for having the lobes to try to kill him. As you do.
Vortex
In the best episode of these four, we had some Gamma Quadrant goodness. It took the best (so far) relationship on the show, the co-dependent antagonism of Odo (law) and Quark (crime) and spun off in unexpected, and ultimately touching, directions. Croden, an alien from the GQ, was part of a deal Quark was trying to get out of that went badly awry. A Mirodan (these volatile, twinned aliens were interesting in and of themselves, although their outfits were not great) was killed by Croden, leaving his brother in, basically, a beserker rage.
Turned out that Croden was a criminal on the run from his home planet, though. Sisko agreed to an extradition treaty on the hop with an unknown race (oh dear) and Odo was tasked with carrying out the transfer. Croden would presumably be executed for his crimes, but Odo needed to stop the brother from exacting revenge during the journey from DS9 to Crodon’s home planet.
Odo had already struck up a relationship with the Crodon who called him Changeling, and watching the cynical outsider hope a liar was telling more of the truth than the viewer could dare to believe was really touching. Because Crodon is a rogue and a chatty one, this relationship interested me far more than O’Brien and Tosk in ‘Captive Pursuit’. And, it turned out that maybe he wasn’t a thorough-going rogue (although it amused me that he ended up going to Vulcan).
But the heart of the episode was Odo and all his questions about his people – all he got was a key (symbolic) and myths.
They also let Quark off the leash a little (Odo was right to be suspicious of him.)
I almost wondered if Sisko wanted Odo to ‘lose’ Crodon rather than hand him over, because you’d have thought he’d have sent a Starfleet officer along with Odo. It wasn’t really hinted that this was the case, but Dax did grimace at Sisko agreeing to hand Crodon over.
This episode was tantalising about the GQ and Odo’s quest to find shapeshifters like him, but also, kept me mostly gripped on its own merits.