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Jul. 17th, 2013 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsDeep Space Nine: one season down! SIX TO GO.
16. If Wishes Were Horses
This is the episode where aliens infiltrate DS9 by leaking in through various people's fantasies -- so Sisko and Jake get a famous baseball player to hang out with, O'Brien's daughter gets Rumpelstilskin, Bashir gets a creepy sex-doll version of Dax which makes it super awkward for EVERYONE (@___@), and Odo gets . . . Quark locked up in his closet . . .?
OKAY, ODO, NOT EVEN GONNA ASK. (I mean, I assume this was the same alien who decided to incarnate as Creepy Sex-doll Dax, which I have dubbed "Kink Bingo Alien.")
However, there were two things that really made this episode great: a.) every scene where Odo is running around chasing somebody's fantasy emus (look, I'm sometimes easy to please) and b.) the quick reminder we get that the things that lurk in Kira's imagination are a lot darker than everyone else's. At moments like these, Debi tends to say, "Kira is in the wrong show," but I actually really love how you get these brushes of Kira's much darker backstory in the middle of Wacky Hijinks Episodes. Because, like, that's how it works, isn't it? People's lives don't stay one genre throughout; having a tragedy in your past doesn't stop you from being stuck in the middle of a sitcom currently, but it does affect how you interact with it.
Also, in another round of 'Becca Completely Fails To Recognize Famous Guest Stars,' I only just now realized the reason Rumpelstiltskin looked so familiar is that he was played by Michael J. Anderson from Twin Peaks and Carnivale.
17. The Forsaken
The A-plot: Lwaxana Troi hits on Odo; Odo panics. Odo goes to Sisko for help dealing with this and Sisko is like "LOL," and part of me is like, "indeed, LOL!" and the other part feels that Sisko should really take his crew seriously when they complain about feeling uncomfortable because of sexual harassment. Then they get trapped in an elevator, because it is Lwaxana's turn to win at kink_bingo apparently, and Odo panics because he can't get to his bucket in time to turn into a liquid.
BECCA: But why does he need the bucket, specifically? Is it an emotional thing? Is it his security bucket? Maybe he'll leak if he just liquefies on the elevator floor.
DEBI: There are places Lwaxana could hold a liquid...
BECCA: @____@
(HER SKIRT. She ends up holding him in her skirt.)
The B-plot: O'Brien makes an alien friend! Admittedly it's a puppy computer virus, but still, it counts.
18. Dramatis Personae
A very strange episode in which everyone is taken over by the personalities of the players in an alien political power struggle, so everyone gets really paranoid and Kira starts planning a mutiny and everything is VERY BACKSTABBY AND NOIR.
Meanwhile Odo, who is the only one whose brain is telepath-resistant, spends the rest of the episode DEEPLY CONFUSED AND WEIRDED OUT because everyone is wandering into his office and hitting on him noir-style and it's like the Kink_Bingo Alien came back all over again except with all his coworkers, which makes it super awkward.
(Kira also hits on Dax, who is going to be so mad later that she spent the whole episode playing "senile old advisor" and was too zoned out to take her up on it.)
We're pretty sure that Bashir was not actually possessed by a telepath alien, he just noticed everyone going paranoid and noir all around him and didn't want to be left out.
19. Duet
This is probably the first episode to give Kira's backstory and character development the full weight it deserves. Kira confronts a Cardassian who leads her to believe that he was the "Butcher of Gallitep," the officer in charge of a labor camp on Bajor, but turns out to be the camp's file clerk trying to deal with his own guilt by turning himself into a Bajoran scapeboat and making his trial an opportunity to publicly admit the Cardassian atrocities.
The whole story is an obvious Holocaust analog, but, unlike most sci-fi Holocaust analogs, it's actually a really well-done and complicated story -- but the ending is wrong. Kira won't let the guy stand trial as the "Butcher of Gallitep," because he wasn't, and she recognizes and admires what he's trying to do and doesn't want him to die. All of this is good and important character development for Kira, and the guy shouldn't stand trial for things he didn't do -- he should be on trial for the things he did. He should have stood trial as a file clerk. The topic of bystander guilt and how to deal with it is a complicated one, but it's worth addressing publicly for exactly that reason. And he could still have stood as a Cardassian publicly admitting the atrocities, which is what he wanted to do all along, and which is probably as politically important as the actual question of guilt.
But instead then Kira tries to send him home and then he gets Tragically Killed by an angry Bajoran and Kira is sad, which is not the right ending for this episode at all.
20. In the Hands of the Prophets
Yesterday the Bajorans were Space Jews, today they're Space Fundamentalists! Keiko O'Brien gets in a fight with a Bajoran spiritual leader about what should be taught about the wormhole in schools, which turns out to be all part of a religious-political Space Terrorism ploy involving O'Brien's new engineer assistant, because Star Trek is really uncomfortable with religion.
Prior to all the terrorism O'Brien has a plotline of his own when engineer assistant tries to flirt with him, to O'Brien's deep discomfort.
DEBI: Has a Clo'Brien been flirting with people behind O'Brien's back?
BECCA: Unauthorized flirting only leads to trouble! JUST ASK ODO. Half of these last five episodes have been about people trying to flirt with him and usually it means someone or something has telepathically possessed the ship.
Then Sisko saves the rival Bajoran spiritual leader with a beautiful big "NOOOOOOO!" and flying spider tackle, and O'Brien has presumably learned his lesson: trust ONLY CLO'BRIENS.
16. If Wishes Were Horses
This is the episode where aliens infiltrate DS9 by leaking in through various people's fantasies -- so Sisko and Jake get a famous baseball player to hang out with, O'Brien's daughter gets Rumpelstilskin, Bashir gets a creepy sex-doll version of Dax which makes it super awkward for EVERYONE (@___@), and Odo gets . . . Quark locked up in his closet . . .?
OKAY, ODO, NOT EVEN GONNA ASK. (I mean, I assume this was the same alien who decided to incarnate as Creepy Sex-doll Dax, which I have dubbed "Kink Bingo Alien.")
However, there were two things that really made this episode great: a.) every scene where Odo is running around chasing somebody's fantasy emus (look, I'm sometimes easy to please) and b.) the quick reminder we get that the things that lurk in Kira's imagination are a lot darker than everyone else's. At moments like these, Debi tends to say, "Kira is in the wrong show," but I actually really love how you get these brushes of Kira's much darker backstory in the middle of Wacky Hijinks Episodes. Because, like, that's how it works, isn't it? People's lives don't stay one genre throughout; having a tragedy in your past doesn't stop you from being stuck in the middle of a sitcom currently, but it does affect how you interact with it.
Also, in another round of 'Becca Completely Fails To Recognize Famous Guest Stars,' I only just now realized the reason Rumpelstiltskin looked so familiar is that he was played by Michael J. Anderson from Twin Peaks and Carnivale.
17. The Forsaken
The A-plot: Lwaxana Troi hits on Odo; Odo panics. Odo goes to Sisko for help dealing with this and Sisko is like "LOL," and part of me is like, "indeed, LOL!" and the other part feels that Sisko should really take his crew seriously when they complain about feeling uncomfortable because of sexual harassment. Then they get trapped in an elevator, because it is Lwaxana's turn to win at kink_bingo apparently, and Odo panics because he can't get to his bucket in time to turn into a liquid.
BECCA: But why does he need the bucket, specifically? Is it an emotional thing? Is it his security bucket? Maybe he'll leak if he just liquefies on the elevator floor.
DEBI: There are places Lwaxana could hold a liquid...
BECCA: @____@
(HER SKIRT. She ends up holding him in her skirt.)
The B-plot: O'Brien makes an alien friend! Admittedly it's a puppy computer virus, but still, it counts.
18. Dramatis Personae
A very strange episode in which everyone is taken over by the personalities of the players in an alien political power struggle, so everyone gets really paranoid and Kira starts planning a mutiny and everything is VERY BACKSTABBY AND NOIR.
Meanwhile Odo, who is the only one whose brain is telepath-resistant, spends the rest of the episode DEEPLY CONFUSED AND WEIRDED OUT because everyone is wandering into his office and hitting on him noir-style and it's like the Kink_Bingo Alien came back all over again except with all his coworkers, which makes it super awkward.
(Kira also hits on Dax, who is going to be so mad later that she spent the whole episode playing "senile old advisor" and was too zoned out to take her up on it.)
We're pretty sure that Bashir was not actually possessed by a telepath alien, he just noticed everyone going paranoid and noir all around him and didn't want to be left out.
19. Duet
This is probably the first episode to give Kira's backstory and character development the full weight it deserves. Kira confronts a Cardassian who leads her to believe that he was the "Butcher of Gallitep," the officer in charge of a labor camp on Bajor, but turns out to be the camp's file clerk trying to deal with his own guilt by turning himself into a Bajoran scapeboat and making his trial an opportunity to publicly admit the Cardassian atrocities.
The whole story is an obvious Holocaust analog, but, unlike most sci-fi Holocaust analogs, it's actually a really well-done and complicated story -- but the ending is wrong. Kira won't let the guy stand trial as the "Butcher of Gallitep," because he wasn't, and she recognizes and admires what he's trying to do and doesn't want him to die. All of this is good and important character development for Kira, and the guy shouldn't stand trial for things he didn't do -- he should be on trial for the things he did. He should have stood trial as a file clerk. The topic of bystander guilt and how to deal with it is a complicated one, but it's worth addressing publicly for exactly that reason. And he could still have stood as a Cardassian publicly admitting the atrocities, which is what he wanted to do all along, and which is probably as politically important as the actual question of guilt.
But instead then Kira tries to send him home and then he gets Tragically Killed by an angry Bajoran and Kira is sad, which is not the right ending for this episode at all.
20. In the Hands of the Prophets
Yesterday the Bajorans were Space Jews, today they're Space Fundamentalists! Keiko O'Brien gets in a fight with a Bajoran spiritual leader about what should be taught about the wormhole in schools, which turns out to be all part of a religious-political Space Terrorism ploy involving O'Brien's new engineer assistant, because Star Trek is really uncomfortable with religion.
Prior to all the terrorism O'Brien has a plotline of his own when engineer assistant tries to flirt with him, to O'Brien's deep discomfort.
DEBI: Has a Clo'Brien been flirting with people behind O'Brien's back?
BECCA: Unauthorized flirting only leads to trouble! JUST ASK ODO. Half of these last five episodes have been about people trying to flirt with him and usually it means someone or something has telepathically possessed the ship.
Then Sisko saves the rival Bajoran spiritual leader with a beautiful big "NOOOOOOO!" and flying spider tackle, and O'Brien has presumably learned his lesson: trust ONLY CLO'BRIENS.
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-17 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-07-18 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 03:18 am (UTC)Bashir, Dax and Kira all do variations on that, Bashir a little less once he calms down but Dax's role at times seems to be let me tell you my sex stories or hint at them. I feel like Sisko and O'Brien are the only ones I believe actually have normal sex lives since they don't talk about them and children.
Which is hilarious, I love when Dax channels Nanny Ogg, but then the show doesn't always know what to do with those moments.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 03:31 am (UTC)O'Brien's sex life is probably complicated by all the clones, though.
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Date: 2013-07-18 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-07-19 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-20 02:29 pm (UTC)Also I have so much love for Majel Barret Roddenberry that I can't even.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-20 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-25 06:37 pm (UTC)I think Duet was where it properly sank in for me that DS9 wouldn't be the "Here, alien species, let us solve your problems and be on our way" kind of show. (Well, besides the fact that this crew has nowhere to go.)