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Mar. 15th, 2015 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsAnd now we're done with Season Five of Deep Space Nine and I'm still reeling a little bit from how good the ending of the season actually was; I wasn't expecting any of that!
17. A Simple Investigation
Odo gets a noir plot! ... this is far from my favorite of Odo's noir plots. I would kind of rather have seen the wacky James Bond holosuite episode we were teased with in the very beginning and tragically did not get. Odo has sex with a guest star and gets over his issues about relationships? That's pretty much the point here.
18. Business as Usual
QUARK IS RUINED! ... after the events of like eighteen episodes ago which have not been mentioned since then, because we haven't had a Quark-centric episode except for the fanfic one where he and Odo freeze to death! Sorry that nobody cares about your troubles but you, Quark.
Anyway, Quark is ruined, so he takes up with a weapons dealer, and then discovers that when it comes to causing the deaths of millions of people he does in fact have a conscience. There are some things that niggle -- for example, we spent the WHOLE TIME hoping that Evil Weapons Dealer's Scantily-Clad Girlfriend would get to do something other than be decoration -- but it is a really good episode for Quark.
... also the B-plot is just Chief O'Brien wandering around Deep Space Nine holding a baby who cries if he puts him down, and, like, why couldn't we just have this instead of ALL the other O'Brien Suffers episodes? Imagine, instead of a whole episode about O'Brien angsting in a penal colony, a whole episode that's just "O'Brien Has Too Many Babies To Hold!" I would have been so OK with that. (And then Worf also takes a turn to cuddle the baby and I'M ALSO OK WITH THAT.)
19. Ties of Blood and Water
THE RETURN OF KIRA'S FAKE CARDASSIAN DAD! ;___; We've been waiting for this ever since someone hinted it was going to happen when he first showed up. (I actually got really excited when he said he couldn't take on the role of Chief Anti-Dominion Cardassian Propagandist, because I was hoping that we would have a double sweep and Quark's Cardassian freedom fighter girlfriend would show up as the second choice, but alas, it was not to be. But how great would that have been!)
Anyway, Kira has to watch her fake Cardassian dad die, and flashes back to when she had to watch her real dad die, runs through a gamut of awful and difficult feelings, and it's super good, and actually super hard to watch, but SUPER GOOD.
Also there are a few brief spots joy: first, when she introduces her fake Cardassian dad to his fake human grandchild, which has got to be the weirdest and yet most weirdly adorable chain of relationships EVER, and second, every time Weyoun shows up in the B-plot to popcorn.gif at Sisko and Dukat's incredibly dedicated nemisising. I feel you, Weyoun. I TOO want popcorn for those scenes.
20. Ferengi Love Songs
I don't know why I love "AUGH MY MOM IS DATING WHO?!?!" stories, I shouldn't actually love them, there's a whole weird misogynistic undercurrent to the idea of panicking because you can't control your mom's love life, but I DO, I do love them. I love them SO MUCH. The aghast face of a protagonist coming home and finding out that their mom is dating their nemesis or whoever just brings me SO MUCH JOY. This episode is like the apex of that trope. Quark comes home and finds out his mom is dating Wally Shawn, Ferengi Pope. HIJINKS ENSUE!!!!
And normally I don't actually love Ferengi HIJINKS!!!! episodes because I like it better when the Ferengi culture is treated more like a culture and less like a joke, but in this case I don't care, because QUARK'S MOM IS DATING THE POPE!
21. Soldiers of the Empire
Worf and Jadzia go on a life-changing Klingon field trip with Admiral Martok! This is obviously Jadzia's favorite episode of the season. Jadzia LOVES Klingon field trips. Jadzia especially loves Klingon field trips where she gets to hang out and bond with hot lady Klingon engineers while Worf is stuck as the glum second-in-command to an antsy General Martok in an episode that looks like it's rapidly heading into Mutiny on the Bounty territory.
But then Worf out-nobles and out-psychologizes everyone else, and everything turns out Klingon-tastic after all! And the crew is happy, and Martok adopts Worf into his noble house, and nobody talks about that awkward time Worf erased his brother's memory and sent him off to another planet. We will never speak of that again.
22. Children of Time
Man, I spent this whole episode convinced they were going to figure out some way to have their cake and eat it too -- I was really not expecting the whole colony of alternate universe future descendents to actually end up erased! That's kind of a bummer. But, I mean, unlike in some Star Trek episodes, it does make the moral dilemma a really legitimate moral dilemma -- though Debi and I were both pretty much agreed that Sisko has a clear responsibility to get his team back home, regardless of how sad it is that the alternate universe future colony will no longer exist if he does.
(Besides, we know from past evidence that if Sisko never makes it home, Jake will just spend his entire life searching obsessively for a way to get him back, and probably figure out a way to undo the whole thing anyway.)
Meanwhile, poor present-Odo spends the entire episode in a coma, unaware that Future Odo is about to RUIN HIS LIFE. Like, I'm all for Odo/Kira, but Future Odo is so creepy! Let this be a lesson to all of us that obsessing over a dead woman for two hundred years is DEEPLY UNHEALTHY!
What's missing from this episode: the scene where Odo wakes up from his coma, is visited by Creepy Future Odo, learns that Future Odo has dumped a whole feelingsload on Kira that Present Odo now has to deal with AND signed the nonexistence warrants of all his friends and neighbors without anybody's consent, and takes the opportunity to punch him in the face. That scene would have been really satisfying to me, personally.
(Meanwhile meanwhile, Bashir is really alarmingly excited to meet his female descendents. Given how gleeful he was at the prospect of potentially banging his grandmother in Trials and Tribble-ations, Debi and I spent basically the whole episode shouting BASHIR NO! I mean we do that during many episodes, but.)
23. Blaze of Glory
SISKO: Hello, Eddington.
EDDINGTON: I expected you to visit to gloat long before now. >:(
SISKO: Oh my god, for the last time, I'm not actually obsessed with you! I already have a nemesis!
But in this episode, Eddington goes out exactly the way he wants to: on a life-changing field trip with Sisko in which he not only has his full attention, but gets in some legitimate respected nemesis-frenemy banter and mutual life-saving to boot! It's basically Eddington's best day ever. Goodbye, Eddington. We'll miss you and your hilarious Sisko obsession, but this was a great send-off.
Also, the B-plot in which Nog earns the respect of the Klingons on the station is adorable. I grow ever fonder of Nog and the Jake-Sisko-sized stick in his ass.
24. Empok Nor
O'Brien brings Garak along on a field trip to an old Cardassian station, I think on the premise that Garak tends to have terrible luck on field trips too, so maybe for once it'll be a 'Garak suffers!' episode rather than an 'O'Brien suffers!' episode. Alas, it turns out it is in fact a bad day for both of them. But a worse day for the redshirts who come along. I'm always a little disappointed when DS9 has obvious redshirts; it's usually pretty good at avoiding the tactic of killing off random crew members for drama, but it's always so obvious when it's about to take that plunge.
The other thing that irritated me is that there's a symbolic scene early on when Garak and Nog are playing Kotra, and Garak is annoyed because Nog is playing Ferengi-style by taking defensive maneuvers and hoarding resources. How much better would this episode have been if, instead of basically being a plucky hostage, Nog then went on to play a major role in defeating Drugged Psychotic Garak by taking defensive maneuvers and hoarding resources? SO AWESOME. DS9 writers, that was a missed golden opportunity, and I am disappoint.
25. In the Cards
THIS EPISODE IS AMAZING. Oh my god. So Jake decides he's going to cheer up Sisko by winning him a priceless baseball card in an auction --
DEBI: OMG it's the holosuite baseball episode!!!
-- but instead the baseball card is bought by a MAD SCIENTIST who has turned up on the station to create an ELIXIR OF IMMORTALITY and escape the SOULLESS MINIONS OF ORTHODOXY who pursue him and his RESEARCH! He name-checks the SOULLESS MINIONS OF ORTHODOXY like five times. While Jake and Nog stare in increasing bewilderment and confusion at the fact that they've wandered accidentally into a sixties sci-fi B-movie.
BECCA: This is better than a holosuite baseball episode!!!!!
And then Jake and Nog bounce their way around the station on a scavenger hunt to help their mad scientist achieve immortality, spreading confusion and joy wherever they go, INCLUDING IN MY HEART. Then they accidentally convince Weyoun, who's on the station for a serious B-plot with Kai Winn (hi Kai Winn! I love episodes where you're ambiguously not evil! <3) about convincing Bajor to sign a non-aggression treaty with the Cardassians, that they're on a SECRET MISSION, dragging Weyoun straight into hilarious B-movie land with them. All of this is resolved when Weyoun basically decides to adopt their mad scientist and they go off to have a beautiful mad science romance, and EVERYTHING IS DELIGHTFUL.
What I love about Jake and Nog at this point is that, like, they're not even friends? They don't actually have anything in common at all, they're just people who have so much shared history and have spent so much time together that they know each other better than anyone else and are basically contractually obligated to have each other's backs. They're not friends, they're just siblings. It's pretty wonderful.
What I love about Weyoun at this point is that he is also joining the long line of people who want to be Sisko's #1 nemesis, and Sisko is just like, dude, you're not even #3 in line. #1 is Dukat, #2 is Kai Winn. #3 slot is kept empty in respect for Eddington, who tried so hard, and got so far. (In memoriam. Moment of silence.)
Also, Bashir's teddy bear! Kira hiring Jake to ghostwrite speeches for her! This episode is gold.
26. Call To Arms
But not as gold as Call To Arms?! WOW. What a fantastic season ender. I LOVE EVERYONE. Rom coming up with genius mechanical ideas while panicking about his wedding; Jadia and Worf, throwing themselves gleefully into the roles of STAR-CROSSED LOVERS KEPT APART BY DUTY; Odo and Kira figuring out a way to de-awkward their relationship just in time for everything to go to hell; Sisko figuring out how to keep Bajor safe even at the cost of DS9 and the Federation, and going ahead and DOING IT, because Sisko is wonderful; Quark and Rom! QUARK AND ROM STAYING BEHIND TO PROTECT EACH OTHER, that adorable kiss on the head, oh my gosh. <333
AND WEYOUN AND DUKAT AND SISKO, HAHAHAHA. Weyoun trying to smug his way through conversations with Sisko, sliming on about how much respect he has for him, and Sisko just like "I ... don't care about you? WHERE IS DUKAT."
DUKAT: Sisko left a MESSAGE for me! He says ... he'll be back. >:D
SISKO: I'm coming for you, Dukat!
DUKAT: Oh, I'M WAITING.
WEYOUN: ... oh my god. Oh my god, I understand now! You two were just -- just using me as a nemesis go-between! I never meant anything to either of you!
DUKAT: >:D
Dukat and Sisko: reunited as nemeses, and it feels so good!
And Jake and Rom! JAKE SISKO. What a dumb kid, I never expected to love him as much as I do. Every scene this season where he shows up as a hilarious well-intentioned and probably stoned ARTISTE only makes me love him more. "I'm going to stay behind and be a reporter!" WHAT A TERRIBLE IDEALISTIC STUPID MOVE. I want a whole show about Undercover Agent Rom and Baby Reporter Jake. And Sisko and Nog, come to think of it. I love that Sisko and Rom have basically swapped sons.
DEBI: I want a scene where Sisko tells Nog, "you're like the son I never had!" and Jake is like "hey!" and Sisko pats his head and is like "and you're the son I did have."
And Odo and Kira and Quark, stuck on the station and forced to work with Dukat, and everyone else out there on various starships, and Sisko is not entirely sure how he got custody of Garak in the divorce but THERE IT IS, and wow, I'm really excited for season six! Which is good because I'm about to watch the first episode in two minutes. :D
17. A Simple Investigation
Odo gets a noir plot! ... this is far from my favorite of Odo's noir plots. I would kind of rather have seen the wacky James Bond holosuite episode we were teased with in the very beginning and tragically did not get. Odo has sex with a guest star and gets over his issues about relationships? That's pretty much the point here.
18. Business as Usual
QUARK IS RUINED! ... after the events of like eighteen episodes ago which have not been mentioned since then, because we haven't had a Quark-centric episode except for the fanfic one where he and Odo freeze to death! Sorry that nobody cares about your troubles but you, Quark.
Anyway, Quark is ruined, so he takes up with a weapons dealer, and then discovers that when it comes to causing the deaths of millions of people he does in fact have a conscience. There are some things that niggle -- for example, we spent the WHOLE TIME hoping that Evil Weapons Dealer's Scantily-Clad Girlfriend would get to do something other than be decoration -- but it is a really good episode for Quark.
... also the B-plot is just Chief O'Brien wandering around Deep Space Nine holding a baby who cries if he puts him down, and, like, why couldn't we just have this instead of ALL the other O'Brien Suffers episodes? Imagine, instead of a whole episode about O'Brien angsting in a penal colony, a whole episode that's just "O'Brien Has Too Many Babies To Hold!" I would have been so OK with that. (And then Worf also takes a turn to cuddle the baby and I'M ALSO OK WITH THAT.)
19. Ties of Blood and Water
THE RETURN OF KIRA'S FAKE CARDASSIAN DAD! ;___; We've been waiting for this ever since someone hinted it was going to happen when he first showed up. (I actually got really excited when he said he couldn't take on the role of Chief Anti-Dominion Cardassian Propagandist, because I was hoping that we would have a double sweep and Quark's Cardassian freedom fighter girlfriend would show up as the second choice, but alas, it was not to be. But how great would that have been!)
Anyway, Kira has to watch her fake Cardassian dad die, and flashes back to when she had to watch her real dad die, runs through a gamut of awful and difficult feelings, and it's super good, and actually super hard to watch, but SUPER GOOD.
Also there are a few brief spots joy: first, when she introduces her fake Cardassian dad to his fake human grandchild, which has got to be the weirdest and yet most weirdly adorable chain of relationships EVER, and second, every time Weyoun shows up in the B-plot to popcorn.gif at Sisko and Dukat's incredibly dedicated nemisising. I feel you, Weyoun. I TOO want popcorn for those scenes.
20. Ferengi Love Songs
I don't know why I love "AUGH MY MOM IS DATING WHO?!?!" stories, I shouldn't actually love them, there's a whole weird misogynistic undercurrent to the idea of panicking because you can't control your mom's love life, but I DO, I do love them. I love them SO MUCH. The aghast face of a protagonist coming home and finding out that their mom is dating their nemesis or whoever just brings me SO MUCH JOY. This episode is like the apex of that trope. Quark comes home and finds out his mom is dating Wally Shawn, Ferengi Pope. HIJINKS ENSUE!!!!
And normally I don't actually love Ferengi HIJINKS!!!! episodes because I like it better when the Ferengi culture is treated more like a culture and less like a joke, but in this case I don't care, because QUARK'S MOM IS DATING THE POPE!
21. Soldiers of the Empire
Worf and Jadzia go on a life-changing Klingon field trip with Admiral Martok! This is obviously Jadzia's favorite episode of the season. Jadzia LOVES Klingon field trips. Jadzia especially loves Klingon field trips where she gets to hang out and bond with hot lady Klingon engineers while Worf is stuck as the glum second-in-command to an antsy General Martok in an episode that looks like it's rapidly heading into Mutiny on the Bounty territory.
But then Worf out-nobles and out-psychologizes everyone else, and everything turns out Klingon-tastic after all! And the crew is happy, and Martok adopts Worf into his noble house, and nobody talks about that awkward time Worf erased his brother's memory and sent him off to another planet. We will never speak of that again.
22. Children of Time
Man, I spent this whole episode convinced they were going to figure out some way to have their cake and eat it too -- I was really not expecting the whole colony of alternate universe future descendents to actually end up erased! That's kind of a bummer. But, I mean, unlike in some Star Trek episodes, it does make the moral dilemma a really legitimate moral dilemma -- though Debi and I were both pretty much agreed that Sisko has a clear responsibility to get his team back home, regardless of how sad it is that the alternate universe future colony will no longer exist if he does.
(Besides, we know from past evidence that if Sisko never makes it home, Jake will just spend his entire life searching obsessively for a way to get him back, and probably figure out a way to undo the whole thing anyway.)
Meanwhile, poor present-Odo spends the entire episode in a coma, unaware that Future Odo is about to RUIN HIS LIFE. Like, I'm all for Odo/Kira, but Future Odo is so creepy! Let this be a lesson to all of us that obsessing over a dead woman for two hundred years is DEEPLY UNHEALTHY!
What's missing from this episode: the scene where Odo wakes up from his coma, is visited by Creepy Future Odo, learns that Future Odo has dumped a whole feelingsload on Kira that Present Odo now has to deal with AND signed the nonexistence warrants of all his friends and neighbors without anybody's consent, and takes the opportunity to punch him in the face. That scene would have been really satisfying to me, personally.
(Meanwhile meanwhile, Bashir is really alarmingly excited to meet his female descendents. Given how gleeful he was at the prospect of potentially banging his grandmother in Trials and Tribble-ations, Debi and I spent basically the whole episode shouting BASHIR NO! I mean we do that during many episodes, but.)
23. Blaze of Glory
SISKO: Hello, Eddington.
EDDINGTON: I expected you to visit to gloat long before now. >:(
SISKO: Oh my god, for the last time, I'm not actually obsessed with you! I already have a nemesis!
But in this episode, Eddington goes out exactly the way he wants to: on a life-changing field trip with Sisko in which he not only has his full attention, but gets in some legitimate respected nemesis-frenemy banter and mutual life-saving to boot! It's basically Eddington's best day ever. Goodbye, Eddington. We'll miss you and your hilarious Sisko obsession, but this was a great send-off.
Also, the B-plot in which Nog earns the respect of the Klingons on the station is adorable. I grow ever fonder of Nog and the Jake-Sisko-sized stick in his ass.
24. Empok Nor
O'Brien brings Garak along on a field trip to an old Cardassian station, I think on the premise that Garak tends to have terrible luck on field trips too, so maybe for once it'll be a 'Garak suffers!' episode rather than an 'O'Brien suffers!' episode. Alas, it turns out it is in fact a bad day for both of them. But a worse day for the redshirts who come along. I'm always a little disappointed when DS9 has obvious redshirts; it's usually pretty good at avoiding the tactic of killing off random crew members for drama, but it's always so obvious when it's about to take that plunge.
The other thing that irritated me is that there's a symbolic scene early on when Garak and Nog are playing Kotra, and Garak is annoyed because Nog is playing Ferengi-style by taking defensive maneuvers and hoarding resources. How much better would this episode have been if, instead of basically being a plucky hostage, Nog then went on to play a major role in defeating Drugged Psychotic Garak by taking defensive maneuvers and hoarding resources? SO AWESOME. DS9 writers, that was a missed golden opportunity, and I am disappoint.
25. In the Cards
THIS EPISODE IS AMAZING. Oh my god. So Jake decides he's going to cheer up Sisko by winning him a priceless baseball card in an auction --
DEBI: OMG it's the holosuite baseball episode!!!
-- but instead the baseball card is bought by a MAD SCIENTIST who has turned up on the station to create an ELIXIR OF IMMORTALITY and escape the SOULLESS MINIONS OF ORTHODOXY who pursue him and his RESEARCH! He name-checks the SOULLESS MINIONS OF ORTHODOXY like five times. While Jake and Nog stare in increasing bewilderment and confusion at the fact that they've wandered accidentally into a sixties sci-fi B-movie.
BECCA: This is better than a holosuite baseball episode!!!!!
And then Jake and Nog bounce their way around the station on a scavenger hunt to help their mad scientist achieve immortality, spreading confusion and joy wherever they go, INCLUDING IN MY HEART. Then they accidentally convince Weyoun, who's on the station for a serious B-plot with Kai Winn (hi Kai Winn! I love episodes where you're ambiguously not evil! <3) about convincing Bajor to sign a non-aggression treaty with the Cardassians, that they're on a SECRET MISSION, dragging Weyoun straight into hilarious B-movie land with them. All of this is resolved when Weyoun basically decides to adopt their mad scientist and they go off to have a beautiful mad science romance, and EVERYTHING IS DELIGHTFUL.
What I love about Jake and Nog at this point is that, like, they're not even friends? They don't actually have anything in common at all, they're just people who have so much shared history and have spent so much time together that they know each other better than anyone else and are basically contractually obligated to have each other's backs. They're not friends, they're just siblings. It's pretty wonderful.
What I love about Weyoun at this point is that he is also joining the long line of people who want to be Sisko's #1 nemesis, and Sisko is just like, dude, you're not even #3 in line. #1 is Dukat, #2 is Kai Winn. #3 slot is kept empty in respect for Eddington, who tried so hard, and got so far. (In memoriam. Moment of silence.)
Also, Bashir's teddy bear! Kira hiring Jake to ghostwrite speeches for her! This episode is gold.
26. Call To Arms
But not as gold as Call To Arms?! WOW. What a fantastic season ender. I LOVE EVERYONE. Rom coming up with genius mechanical ideas while panicking about his wedding; Jadia and Worf, throwing themselves gleefully into the roles of STAR-CROSSED LOVERS KEPT APART BY DUTY; Odo and Kira figuring out a way to de-awkward their relationship just in time for everything to go to hell; Sisko figuring out how to keep Bajor safe even at the cost of DS9 and the Federation, and going ahead and DOING IT, because Sisko is wonderful; Quark and Rom! QUARK AND ROM STAYING BEHIND TO PROTECT EACH OTHER, that adorable kiss on the head, oh my gosh. <333
AND WEYOUN AND DUKAT AND SISKO, HAHAHAHA. Weyoun trying to smug his way through conversations with Sisko, sliming on about how much respect he has for him, and Sisko just like "I ... don't care about you? WHERE IS DUKAT."
DUKAT: Sisko left a MESSAGE for me! He says ... he'll be back. >:D
SISKO: I'm coming for you, Dukat!
DUKAT: Oh, I'M WAITING.
WEYOUN: ... oh my god. Oh my god, I understand now! You two were just -- just using me as a nemesis go-between! I never meant anything to either of you!
DUKAT: >:D
Dukat and Sisko: reunited as nemeses, and it feels so good!
And Jake and Rom! JAKE SISKO. What a dumb kid, I never expected to love him as much as I do. Every scene this season where he shows up as a hilarious well-intentioned and probably stoned ARTISTE only makes me love him more. "I'm going to stay behind and be a reporter!" WHAT A TERRIBLE IDEALISTIC STUPID MOVE. I want a whole show about Undercover Agent Rom and Baby Reporter Jake. And Sisko and Nog, come to think of it. I love that Sisko and Rom have basically swapped sons.
DEBI: I want a scene where Sisko tells Nog, "you're like the son I never had!" and Jake is like "hey!" and Sisko pats his head and is like "and you're the son I did have."
And Odo and Kira and Quark, stuck on the station and forced to work with Dukat, and everyone else out there on various starships, and Sisko is not entirely sure how he got custody of Garak in the divorce but THERE IT IS, and wow, I'm really excited for season six! Which is good because I'm about to watch the first episode in two minutes. :D
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Date: 2015-03-16 09:59 pm (UTC)Honestly the only thing I really am surprised about is that they didn't put self-sealing stembolts on the list of things that Jake and Nog had to scavenge.