Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch

[Lemming]

Remember laughing out loud at Picard trying to find something to say to the departing O'Brien.

"This was your favourite transporter room, wasn't it?"
"Number 3, yes sir"

God, the things he would get up to in Transporter Room 3! Staring blankly at the control panels for hours on end, on his own.

Wonder if they were trying to make Picard look like as much of a knob as possible. I seem to remember that later on when Sisko gets promoted to captain, O'Brien says some kind of particularly egregious anti-Picardism like "hooray for Starfleet's newest - and best - captain!"

[Joe Qunt]

Is there a schedule? I missed the first episode and I'd like to watchalong with the second.

[Blumf]

Sisko's blooming visions are the weak point of it for me, not because of any tension with the to be established facts of the Prophets, but they're just a little shit, dramatically ALIEN aliens are cool and all that but when they get curious about kissing I stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.

"What is this 'Donkey Punch' you show us?"
"I do not understand 'Cleveland Steamer'"
"The concept of DVDA makes no sense to us, how can mere three dimensional beings position themselves in such a way?"

Ben having to go back to the Kai and tell her "You might want to think about secularising your society, your gods are a bunch of dip-shits"

Apart from the Prophets, which will always sucks, very nice opening. Lays out the setting, gives us some already quite well formed characters, and has a bit of action.

I'll stick up for Bashir here, as although Kira was right to chew him out for being insensitive, he was also right. He would be getting a lot of action and adventure out on the Federation frontier.

Another thing I don't think anybody has picked up on yet, is the completely blasé reaction to seeing Odo's shapeshifting Sisko has. Sure the locals would be familiar with him but, whilst there are known changelings in the Trek universe (ST6), they are rare. Surely a quick "you can do that?" between Sisko and Odo was called for? Then the later scheme to disable the Cardassian ship with Odo seems a bit out of character for him, for a person who prides himself on being lawful-neutral, this is a bit out there.

I'm going 8/10, a few rough edges take it down from a 9, but it's still very good.

[daf]

THE O'BRIEN'S ENTERPRISE QUARTERS - Evening

O'BRIEN : Ah, another Transporter Room shift over with for another day . . . Tarkalian Guinness, double sweet, double hot . . . Hey! What's that you're knitting there?
KEIKO : Guess
O'BRIEN : would it be socks?
KEIKO : Cold
O'BRIEN : Not a vest is it?
KEIKO : Getting warmer!
O'BRIEN : A jumper?
KEIKO : Mmm . . . Like a jumper - but it's split open at the front with buttons down one side.
O'BRIEN : Oh no - Please tell me you haven't . . .
KEIKO : Haven't what? There, finished it - now go and try it on.
O'BRIEN : [face starts turning purple in simmering rage]
KEIKO : What? What? What's wrong?

Spoiler alert

O'BRIEN : YOU KNOW I HATE THE BLOODY CARDIES!

[close]

[Lemming]

Is there a schedule? I missed the first episode and I'd like to watchalong with the second.

No schedule as such - we're all watching it individually and then rating/discussing together here, so we'll eventually likely fall into a casual rhythm of doing one every couple days or so (or whatever people prefer). We'll probably move onto "Past Prologue" in a day or two when everyone who wants to join the rewatch is on board, so you can still join in with "Emissary", but feel free to jump in at any point you like!

[Zero Gravitas]

Ben having to go back to the Kai and tell her "You might want to think about secularising your society, your gods are a bunch of dip-shits"

Was kinda planned, Sisko returned the tear/orb to Kai Opaka at the end of the episode in a deleted scene, tried to push the wormhole aliens line with her but she was like "Cool bro, the fact that you're such a disbeliever is why you were chosen as emissary, they're gods, no take backsies, la la la la."

Is there a schedule? I missed the first episode and I'd like to watchalong with the second.

Just prepare something in notepad and wait patiently for @Lemming to make his leading post at 4AM or...ooh 09:28:14 PM long may it continue!

[Johnny Textface]

God it really looks bad doesn't it? Like Netflix is streaming a VHS. Did Paramount never remaster this badboy?

[Zero Gravitas]

God it really looks bad doesn't it? Like Netflix is streaming a VHS. Did Paramount never remaster this badboy?

Netflix is generally awful if you look too closely. No official remaster no, Since they were all fully edited on VHS any 35mm that exists is straight in camera shots, they were seemingly willing to go through editing and effects for TNG but unlikely for the later series.

But there are AI upscales from the DVDs that aren't too bad:

[Chairman Yang]

I believe all the clips of the show that are in the 2019 documentary "What We Left Behind" were all digitally enhanced and it looks pretty good.

This fella has pushed the show into a magical algorithm and the results vary.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Netflix is generally awful if you look too closely. No official remaster no, Since they were all fully edited on VHS any 35mm that exists is straight in camera shots, they were seemingly willing to go through editing and effects for TNG but unlikely for the later series.

You're right although it will have been a professional video format. The thing that makes DS9 and Voyager a bit more difficult (especially in the later series) is the increased use of CGI. Whereas a lot of the effects of TNG in the earlier series will have been practical and caught on film so it's more a case of scanning the parts and re-assembling.

You're also right that there's the simple ROI issue, I don't think Star Trek TNG did as well as they thought it would, although it has much more syndication potential than the other two, so it's unlikely the studios would do it.

[Johnny Textface]

Emissary is really quite a strong opener to a series. Lots of quality philosophy and intrigue, interesting characters and political possibilities. Just a shame it looks like a prick. Sisko is odd. I'd give it a 7 but not sure on the process of using the scoring system and am not worthy anyway. But I'm in this with you.

Pop quiz. Did they introduce the synth baseline in the opening theme at the exact same time as Sisko's beard and baldy look? We will find out. Oh yes.

[MojoJojo]

.

You're also right that there's the simple ROI issue, I don't think Star Trek TNG did as well as they thought it would, although it has much more syndication potential than the other two, so it's unlikely the studios would do it.

As I recall, with TNG the idea was to sell the remaster on Blu Ray as a premium product. But it was around the time streaming took off and the arse fell out of the physical media market so it didn't do very well.

[Mr Trumpet]

I believe all the clips of the show that are in the 2019 documentary "What We Left Behind" were all digitally enhanced and it looks pretty good.

This fella has pushed the show into a magical algorithm and the results vary.

They haven't fixed that thing with the big battle sequences where the ships in the background aren't doing anything. No shooting or nothing.

[Lemming]

Moving onto episode two but anyone who wants to join in the rewatch can still post their score/review for Emissary, or just join in with Past Prologue!

S01E02 - Past Prologue

Bashir meets Garak, the last Cardassian still aboard DS9, while Kira is reunited with an old friend who has some pretty strong ideas about the future of Bajor.

- Here we go, Garak and Bashir first meeting! Bashir, with his total lack of social skills, immediately broaches the topic of Garak being a spy, as is the hot goss around the station. This is of course COMPLETELY untrue, so Garak gives Bashir a little intimate-shoulder-touch of a goodbye.

- Thrilled by the whole experience and experiencing a homosexual awakening, Bashir goes bounding up to Ops to tell everyone of this meeting, where nobody gives a shit. O'Brien just straight-up ignoring him, fucking brutal. No time for banter anyway, there's a Bajoran scout ship approaching with a Cardie trying to take it out. Sisko hails the Cardies and tells them to back off, as this is Bajoran space. No luck as usual, and the Bajoran ship starts breaking apart, so Sisko orders that the pilot be beamed out. He arrives in Ops and immediately requests asylum, but get this, he's an OLD MATE of Kira's from the Bajoran underground!

- The Cardies finally hail DS9, and demand that the Bajoran, Tahna, be turned over on the grounds that he's a Kohn-Ma terrorist. Sisko says he'll look into it and decide whether or not to grant asylum. With the Cardies stalled, Sisko and Kira discuss the Kohn-Ma - apparently they're mad bastards who murder Cardies and even assassinate unsympathetic Bajorans. The discussion turns into another of Sisko and Kira's trademark BIG FIGHTS where Sisko says he won't allow a terrorist to take shelter on the station.

- Kira gets shoo'd away so Sisko can give Tahna a PROPER GRILLING. He admits he's been going about murdering people, but that he's ready for NONVIOLENCE NOW. Meanwhile, behind Sisko's back, Kira contacts a Starfleet admiral to tell her what a dork Sisko is. She gets brushed off with a few promises that Starfleet will "stay in touch with the situation".

- Sisko concludes his interview and tells O'Brien he's gonna go bone up on the Kohn-Ma. O'Brien issues his daily reminder that he KNOWS WHAT THE CARDIES DO TO THEIR PRISONERS, and voices his opinion that it'd be immoral to turn anyone over to them. Right afterwards, the admiral who Kira talked to earlier calls Sisko, so they can talk shit about Kira behind her back. Haha! It's like high school!

- Dax delays the Cardies for a bit but the Gul eventually gets through to a face-to-face meeting with Sisko. Sisko tries his hand at diplomacy again and, as always, this ends with the other person stomping out in a blinding fury. Tahna is granted asylum, and he and Kira get the chance to make lovey eyes at each other and bond over their shared inability to let the war go. Turns out Tahna is, predictably, an ethnonationalist nutcase who has a go at Kira for being an integrationist BETA CUCK. BAJOR FOR BAJORANS! Kira tries to sell him on her groovy liberal view of things, which goes over like a lead balloon.

- Look who's arrived on the station - the Durex Sisters! (RIP, killed by Riker in Generations) Odo gives them the same unrelenting flak he gives literally all visitors, then reports their presence to Sisko, who is just absolutely snowed under today. Odo wants them arrested, so Sisko enters his second diplomatic nightmare of the day, insisting that the sisters should be left alone so long as they don't break any laws.

- Bashir saunters into Quark's to sit with Garak. "ENHANCE MY EVENING!" Garka is SPYING the latest fashion trends by people-watching in the bar. When Tahna comes in, the sisters follow him out into a SHADY ALLEYWAY to make an ILLICIT DEAL. They're tailed by Odo, who transforms into a rat, and hears their DEVIOUS CONVERSATION. I love how Odo can get the rather complex, fur-covered form of a rat absolutely perfect, but can't do a human nose.

- Some time later, Kira's buzzing about her plan to get amnesty for the Kohn-Ma, which she's managed to push through the provisional government. Sisko congratulates her, then pulls the rug out from under her by roasting her for her discrete chat with the admiral. Haha, oh shit! Scary!

- Odo and Sisko discuss what Odo learned, and decide to keep Kira in the dark for now. While they chuckle at her obliviousness from Sisko's office window, the Durex Sisters go to visit Garak, and offer to turn Tahna over to the Cardassians in exchange for payment.

- Kira bounds into Tahna's room to tell him that she's managed to secure amnesty for him and his chums. It all goes to shit again and he ends up screaming his nationalist slogans at her once more, and tries to pressure her into a nice cuddly bit of Diet Terrorism-Lite. He doesn't tell her what this will entail and, to keep the plot interesting, she doesn't ask.

- Garak spooks Bashir by telling him about the arrival of more Kohn-Ma terrorists, and recruits him into a COVERT SCHEME to find out what's up with the Durex Sisters. Bashir rushes to Sisko for help and tells him the whole plan. Sisko reckons it sounds like fun and instructs him to go along with it. At the same time, Kira goes to ask Odo for help, and winds up telling the whole truth to Sisko.

- Before meeting with the Durex Sisters again, Garak shoves Bashir behind a curtain so he can hear what goes on. They learn that Tahna is making a bomb! Uh oh! Emergency group shit-your-pants meeting in Ops to panic over what to do. Kira insists that she be allowed to act as a double agent by joining Tahna on a runabout in order to foil his plans from the inside. Sisko decides to show some of that classic Starfleet optimism and trust her.

- Sisko and O'Brien (DREAM TEAM) hide behind a moon in a shuttle and giggle to themselves while Tahna and Kira board a runabout. Tahna prepares the bomb and completes his trade with the Durex Sisters, giving him the explosive material. Sisko and O'Brien move to intercept, and Tahna realises Kira's not on his side and gives her a BACKWARDS PALM STRIKE to the face.

- At gunpoint, Kira is forced to turn the runabout back towards DS9. Sisko warns the Cardies and gets absolutely owned by the Gul (lol @ the wince he does here), and then orders O'Brien to prepare to shoot Tahna and Kira down. Turns out Tahna's big plan is blow up the entrance to the wormhole, which he thinks will remove the Cardies and Federation from Bajoran space. Before he can detonate it, Kira pulls off a TEXTBOOK JUDO THROW on him and hand-to-hand ensues. Kira's set the shuttle to enter the wormhole, so they can both watch an attractive CGI screensaver out the window while slamming each other's heads into the consoles.

- The bomb goes off harmlessly in an empty bit of the Gamma Quadrant. Piece of piss. Sisko finally manages his first ever successful attempt at diplomacy, and gets Tahna to stand down. He's brought back to the station, where he's MANHANDLED by Odo. He gives Kira one last whinge about how she's Not A True Bajoran Anymore ;_;, and gets carted off.

The prevalence of the Dominion later on in DS9, and of course the eventual Dominion War, always vaguely annoyed me because I thought the post-war stuff with the Cardassians and Bajorans was so much more gripping. There's a lot of mileage in stories like this one, about people who just can't move on and are basically still fighting a war that everyone else considers to be over.

And - not to bash TNG too hard - but it's unbelievably refreshing to have something that's actually got some nuance and complicatedness to it after seven seasons of TNG. Kira never gets a big Picard speech about how right she is, and Tahna is never written as a hopelessly evil fuckhead like many of Picard's foes were. Tahna's ethnonationalism is pretty revolting but it turns out that his newfound commitment to nonviolence is genuine and his plan to destroy the wormhole might actually fulfil his aims, and while he's motivated by dodgy ideology, other less offensive people (like Kira herself in Emissary) have made the case that Starfleet has no business on Bajor. Kira's in similarly muddy territory - she's fighting for a future that she's not even really sure she wants, and she has no idea what it'll look like. It feels like she's partially tempted into joining Tahna just because her own position is so shaky - essentially "let's trust the Federation and the Cardassians not to fuck us over in the same way we've been fucked over for years on end before now".

Speaking of TNG, DS9 really goes out of its way to have the characters ripping the shit out of each other, setting itself apart from its predecessor. I forgot how much it genuinely feels, at least in these early episodes, like Sisko's grip on the station is laughably weak and the entire thing could fall into anarchy at any moment, it's great.

Other obvious thing to mention is Garak, who is fucking ace (that's why he's our 10/10!) and makes a fantastic first impression here. Did they just pair him with Bashir at random and accidentally strike gold first try here?

8/10

[daf]

2 | "Past Prologue"



Think a Tailor Sold Her Spy

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Garak's Bashir Flirt #1 : Plain Simple Garak
• Sherlock Bashir Investigates : "The Garak Spy Suspicions"
• Crankypants O'Brien #1 : Cardie Complaint
• Eye-poppin' Klingon Boob-Window
• The Klingon Double Diamond Chug-a-Lug Snug
• Odo Disguise #2 : The Scuttling Rat
• The Bashir Baffling "New Suit" Sketch
• Bashir's Changing Room Eavesdrop Mission
• Kira's Terrorist Tussle Face-palm WALLOP!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• The Sisko vs Kira Oily Water Warfare Waffle
• Bajor For The Bajorans [calm down Enoch!]
• Odo's Beepy Prod Pad
• The Joranian Ostrich Parable Parallel
• Gold Pressed Latinum #1 : 13kg Terrorist Transaction
• Shuttlepod Space Chase
• Kohn-Ma Rejected
• Explosion Ejected
• Tahana Dejected
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

6/10

[Malcy]

Don't remember L'ursa & B'etor being do early in the first run.

@daf i posted in the Orville thread earlier and tried very hard not to make t look like on of you review psts as tempting as it was!

[Zero Gravitas]

Past Prologue

We all were sea-swallowed, though some cast again,
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.

Bashir shaking his teacups like nervous and breedable little twink is a little too comic for my liking, Robinson has a good Garak from the start "Plain, Simple Garak" hard to know if he was aiming for subtle friendly inscrutability here or was really looking for something to warm up those cold station nights, but I know what's going in my slash.



Cute how Bashir and Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi are comfortable enough with the station and the sets to pull off this boyish leap



Quite liking how he's the excitable little graduate here, I'd forgotten that aspect to him in the early series, everyone treats him with suitable amused contempt as it's just after breakfast time and no one has introduced them to raktajino yet.

So Bashir is set up as a cat's paw fucktoy and then the action starts, a Pakled ship/Fajo's Ship has had blocky brown nacelles strapped on the sides and is now a Bajoran freighter under attack by those damned cardies.

The occupant was some made up word that will gain meaning shortly, and he has a nasty seatbelt bruise on his chest, makes sense why no one is strapped in on federation ships now.

Turns out he's the bad kind of terrorist, not Kira's good kind of terrorist, so he's like Osama bin Laden and Kira is Nelson Mandela, whatever he just seems more practically motivated whereas Kira is happy to be the federation lap dog.

Lursa and B'Etor show up and show off the middle of their boobs



Garak seems to be disgusted staring at their exposed jubblies as he points them out to Bashir when he comes to interrupt his oggling in Quark's further pulling him into the intrigue.

Odo gets a chance to show that his mass isn't constant when his size is changed, else that mouse would have landed like a...mouse the mass of an odo, probably shifts some of his mass into subspace to adjust his density.

Garak does the thing:



The new Bajoran dude is super naughty, Kira is pushed into admitting it to Sisko by a bored Odo



Bashir takes a break from trying on clothes and overhears Lursa and B'Etor and Garak from a nook, he's too stupid to join up the dots so Garak just expositions to him to speed up the plot.

They attempt to trap bad Bajoran into doing the bomb trade, it goes wrong as he palm punches Kira in the nose.



Turns out the bomb was going to be used to blow up the wormhole entrance, but when it does explode safely in the gamma quadrant it's a bit of a damp squib, not ever rocking the boat runabout



We get to see the sexy USS Ganges with sensor rollbar on top.

Anyway, he's captured, puddle cop does a bake him away toys.

Credits.

The core plot with Bajorans not all being angry militia members, weird priests or inscrutable priests doesn't really fire me up, the interactions between Kira and Tahna Los and pretty good, the quandary Kira finds herself in is pretty deep out of the gate, it's a testament to Nana that she unpacks and sells it well, perhaps if this was a little later in the season and we knew her a little it'd seem she was being pulled uncomfortably from one moral position to another but here either would initially seem likely.

Garak and Bashir save the episode, more Garak really because much like in the plot Siddig is overpowered skilfully by Robinson.

Six "why is whorf here he's from TNG"s out of 10



Past Prologue - 6/10

[daf]

@daf i posted in the Orville thread earlier and tried very hard not to make it look like one of your review posts as tempting as it was!

Haha - no problem! Whatever works! :)

[Chairman Yang]

Bashir takes a break from trying on clothes and overhears Lursa and B'Etor and Garak from a nook, he's too stupid to join up the dots so Garak just expositions to him to speed up the plot.

Garak isn't particularly committed to his cover story with the Cardassian Funeralwear Winter Collection.

[Chairman Yang]

It's going to get boring if I say it every episode but Deep Space Nine is just far better written than the other Trek series. Even the ropiest episodes have a commitment to characterisation and world building that you just don't get elsewhere. Past Prologue is a good example of a naff story with some lovely scenes scattered here and there.

Kira's conflict is really engaging. I didn't imagine she was considering joining the Kohn-Ma but watching her go through the ringer, kicking off and being gently smacked down by Sisko, and turning to Odo for support is all great stuff. Garak is obviously amazing from the start but I think my favourite scene was Odo pining for the days of the Occupation, what a twat!

The problem is that the story takes far too long to get going and suffers from three terrible casting choices...

Tahna Los is ostensibly a super fucking badass terrorist so violent even Kira takes pause and yet he acts like a smirking carpet throughout. Nana Visitor is doing her best here, but even after Tahna's INEVITABLE BETRAYAL her scenes opposite Tim Heidecker have so little weight to them. I'm begrudgingly giving him an Interesting Bajoran Man token for punching Kira in the head. Also, I guess he was right all along because the wormhole is way more trouble than it's worth.

Tahna Los


When Lursa and B'Etor turn up in this episode my heart sinks, they're so unbelievably rubbish and add nothing to the episode... well they add four things to the episode, but come on, this is some Scooby Doo level scheming going on here.

Kira never gets a big Picard speech about how right she is, and Tahna is never written as a hopelessly evil fuckhead like many of Picard's foes were.

I love the traditional DS9 UNSETTLING ENDING so much, where things just sort of drift off into a melancholic nothing. It feels a lot more naturalistic than the pat endings that TNG relied upon.

So this story is a useful introduction to a normal day on the station, but isn't anything to write home about. Kira and Garak prop up the intrigue in the episode, but it's smothered by some bland guest performances and broad writing.

5/10

[Blumf]

Past Prologue - S01E02 (fuck you Netflix!)

This is our introduction to Garak. That is all you need to know about this episode. The end. Thank you.

Oh, all right. It's an overall pretty perfunctory story. Bit or world building, some character dynamics expanded on. As (nearly) always with DS9, we're allowed a bit of nuance with everything. Tahna isn't an amazing character, but the ideas of deep division within the newly liberated Bajoran society, as well as deep wounds, is a useful one to highlight at this moment. Also good to see that, although he has a violent background, and a Rivers of Hasperat (or should that be Root Beer) speech, he is trying to do things in a peaceful way. This is the kind of thing I've been moaning about in The Orville thread, which has been far too blunt on complex issues.

They attempt to trap bad Bajoran into doing the bomb trade, it goes wrong as he palm punches Kira in the nose.

That'll be Babylon 5's Patricia Tallman, doing an excellent job of taking it in the face.

And fuck all the h8rs, the Duras Sisters are great, although somewhat misused here, where you need a more serious tone. Damned Generations killing them off.

You'll see that Andrew Robinson was very much playing with Garak's sexuality here deliberately, but the usual producer fears kept it in check. Doesn't matter, it still works and we all know. Very much a delight, with poor the young doctor being dropped in the deep end (good spot with his boyish jump off the lift @Zero Gravitas )

Overall, there's a lot I like but, Garak aside, nothing amazing. 7/10

[Zero Gravitas]

I'm sure all real Garak heads know, but Andrew Robinson kept an in character diary/history for Garak that he later converted into a biography, as one would expect very strong voice permeates it, some of the plot is a little...arbitrary and for me not particularly well grounded in what we know of cardassians or the station under Dukat...the sort of rationalizations an actor would accrue to explain his backstory when none was given to him I suppose, a joy to see what was brewing in his mind during his tenure as the character nonetheless and it's the only semi-canon explanation we're going to get for some of his backstory particularly his animus with Dukat, expansion of the Tain relationship and his exile.

[Lemming]

So this is everyone currently giving reviews and scores for the rewatch, I think:
Lemming, daf, Chairman Yang, Zero Gravitas, Blumf
Tell me if I missed anyone - just marking it down so I can keep track of scores for the BIG END-OF-SEASON SCORE ROUNDUPS and all that. Again, if anyone else wants to join the rewatch at some later point, feel free!

S01E03 - A Man Alone

Odo becomes the prime suspect in a murder case that he's investigating.

- Prepare yourself for agony - SEASON ONE BASHIR is approaching Dax with amorous intent! Dax is busy dicking around with a CGI SPHERE. Mercifully, Sisko arrives before Bashir can go on with any more of his galling attempts at flirtation, and calls Dax away.

- News of the Gamma Quadrant is spreading, and prospectors are showing up at Quark's bar. Upstairs, O'Brien and Keiko are having a go at each other, which sets Odo off on his standup routine about humanoid relationships. Meanwhile, Sisko and Dax pick a table and try to get their heads round the whole Trill thing. The retcon of the Trill from "The Host" feels pretty glaring, but I'm not complaining, since "The Host" wasn't exactly fantastic. "IT'S NOT JUST BEVERLY, IT'S BEVERLY'S SMILE, IT'S HER KINDNESS, IT'S HER BEAUTY WITHIN AND WITHOUT!" Jesus.

- Keiko and O'Brien are trying to hash out a way forward - Keiko (correctly) thinks DS9 is a horrible shithole, and will be a dreadful place to raise Molly. O'Brien tries to encourage her to make a nice garden or something, but it's of no use.

- Odo, being a security-obsessed madman, attacks a random Bajoran guy in the bar before Sisko breaks it up. The guy's name is Ibadan, and he's a city in Nigeria. He's also a smuggler who price-gouged medication during the war and ended up killing a Cardie officer. Sisko determines that they can't do shit about this, and warns Odo away from VIGILANTISM.

- Ibadan's getting a massage from some alien who has fingers that look like potato waffles. Someone comes in and stabs him to death. Another victory for station security!

- Meanwhile, Jake's befriended Nog, one of the only other kids on the station. While they traumatise two random bar patrons, Bashir reveals that he's a deranged lunatic and has a go at Dax for having dinner with Sisko, and then refuses to take no for an answer when she tries to get him to fuck off. Jesus he's worse than I remember! Like, properly creepy!

- Sisko, Odo, Bashir and Kira check out Ibadan's corpse, which has had the murder weapon left lodged in it. I howled at Bashir saying "the cause of death is no mystery". Yeah mate he's got a fucking knife in his back!

- At dinner, Keiko raises concerns about how shit the lives of the kids are here. While she enthuses about her plans to start a school, O'Brien struggles to use a chopstick. Keiko takes the idea to Sisko, who approves, and also warns Jake off playing with Nog anymore, for Nog is BAD NEWS. Keiko reminds Sisko that she's not got any qualifications, but we don't have things like "training" or "DBS checks" in the enlightened 24th century, so he just clears a random room out and tells her she's free to get to work.

- Some guy says he spoke with Ibadan before THE BIG STABBING and that he suspects Odo of being the murderer. I literally only realised at this point that he's called Ibudan, not Ibadan. I thought they'd just straight-up named him after the city.

- The investigation goes ahead and everyone - including Odo - realises that he's the most likely culprit, since nobody other than someone who can turn into weird jelly could get through the crack in the holodeck door. His alibi is that he was busy being a big pile of shit in a bucket in the corner during the murder.

- Keiko starts shopping around and going up to parents to sell them on her CURRICULUM. She's so busy hassling Rom that she doesn't notice the SHADY CONVERSATION going on in the corner, involving three Bajorans and Quark. The Bajorans are convinced Odo's the murderer, but Quark leaps to his defence because he's in love with him they're frenemies.

- The episode was running a couple minutes under so we've got to watch Bashir scan a wall. When that's done, the Bajorans from the bar go to ops to take their case to Sisko and Kira, who basically reject their concerns and turn them away. Sisko and Dax say that the law must be followed and that Odo must be relieved of duty as long as he's the prime suspect, which winds Kira up to no end. Meanwhile, Bashir's found out that Ibudan was doing some weird scientific experiment stuff on board his ship, sequencing DNA or some shit. Bashir puts a petri dish in some blue Powerade, which will reveal more.

- Sisko calls Odo to his office and tells him he's OUTTA HERE and that he's putting Dax and Kira in charge of the investigation. Sisko's trademark Starfleet diplomatic approach fails again and sends Odo into a PROPER MOOD. He storms off to his office, to discover it's been fucked about with. Quark comes in and they have a very, uh, intense conversation with each other. Anyway, Quark's been trying to help by talking to his CROOK CONTACTS.

- A giant lump of shit is now growing quickly in the blue Powerade. Sisko accidentally invites Bashir to lunch, and is TRAPPED ALONE with the SEX-MAD SLIMEBALL.

- Back to the real plot: KEIKO'S SCHOOL. While she brainstorms some absolutely next-level seating arrangements, O'Brien comes by with Molly (hooray) and a present - it's a bell with which to annoy and repel the few children on board who may be willing to attend! Everyone's attention is drawn by an angry mob chasing Odo down the promenade. Bashir ignores it to check out the Powerade, which now contains one of those fuckers that killed Steve Irwin. A little later, it turns into... something, and Dax and Bashir realise it's got humanoid genetics.

- Sisko fails yet another speech check and angers the mob, leading Kira to knee a guy in the nuts and O'Brien to do some kind of insane martial arts masterpiece. Odo steps out to face the mob, and just as Sisko's about to botch another attempt at diplomacy, Bashir says he's got exciting news - Ibudan's not even dead!

- Ibudan cloned himself and murdered his own clone to frame Odo. We're going to let this new clone Bashir created come to life and live on Bajor, because UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE (not naming names, but Riker and Pulaski), we respect life, even of clones. Case closed, easy. Now we've just got to find Ibudan, who disguised himself as a MYSTERIOUS HOODED STRANGER. Odo turns himself into a chair to really fuck with Ibudan, and then arrests him, because "killing your own clone is still murder" (someone tell Riker and Pulaski!).

- With that minor B-plot finished, we're back to the A-plot - Keiko's School. Sisko forces Jake to attend, and Rom forces Nog. Things are looking bleak but then some random friendless losers show up, and it's all go! Hooray!

You can see why they shifted this one back in the airing order. It's a bit shit and wouldn't have made a strong impression as the first non-pilot episode. Don't look at this one too closely because the central murder mystery is pretty stupid. The thing that stands out to me is that Bashir can't tell whose DNA the clone has until its nearly fully grown - I don't know dick about shit when it comes to science, but surely any cell from Ibudan's body would carry his unique DNA? He should have been able to tell instantly, not dramatically at the last second before a mob ripped Odo apart.

Keiko becoming a teacher is a nice plot, though I'm not sure why O'Brien's initial idea of creating a botanical garden for new specimens from the Gamma Quadrant was dismissed so easily, because that sounds wicked. It feels a little bit like the writers were hammering her into a role that there's no prior indication she'd fit into. She has an existing career as a botanist which gets totally thrown out the window because the writers want her to be a teacher for some reason. Feels weird.

Some of the characters still feel a little bit off at this stage - Bashir's obviously just unbearable in any interaction he has with Dax, Dax herself is very thinly-sketched (and I honestly don't remember them ever really fixing that, but we'll see) and Odo's complaints about relationships feel like they're coming from some kind of painfully unfunny 1950s comedian (though he's only ever had Bajorans as a frame of reference, and they do manage to turn everything they engage in into an absolute clusterfuck, so god only knows what he's observed from them). Odo's shitfit over being taken off the case also comes across a bit out of character from what I remember of him, he's obviously the prime suspect and agrees as such and is totally unfit to be leading the investigation, and he'd surely see that.

I can't really tell if the writers wanted you to partially suspect Odo - it felt like "Past Prologue" was taking advantage of its early place in the show's run to sort of tease the viewer that Kira might actually go over to the terrorists, since you don't know the characters well enough to know otherwise and the characters don't know each other well enough to trust one another. Could have done the same thing here with Odo I suppose, there's a rather clumsy bit where Odo has a go at Sisko for potentially partly doubting his innocence.

Not a great episode on the whole but I think it does a solid job of continuing to distinguish DS9 from TNG - characters feel much more defined and are much more prepared to argue with each other. In fact, this is the third episode in a row (and there's only been three episodes!) where Sisko catches tons of shit from just about everyone he comes into contact with. I don't remember him being this put-upon, by the way - pretty much every attempt he makes at pacifying or reasoning with people totally fails, and his first officer (is Kira the first officer? I assume so) just keeps publicly ripping the shit out of him at any given opportunity. Wow!

4/10

[daf]

3 | "A Man Alone"



Trouble in the Massage Centre

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Highlights
• Bashir Chat Up #2 : Burst Bubble
• Odo's Curmudgeonly Coupling Cogitation
• The Steamed Azna Sketch
• Nog's Jumbo Jumja Stick Rocket Lolly
• The Garanian Bolite Mischief Sketch
• Sherlock Bashir Investigates : "The DNA Fragment Mysteries"
• Bashir's Growing Glutinous Goo Glob
• Sisko's Seven-foot Sisters Shagging Suggestion
• The Scooby Doo Rubber Mask Ripoff Reveal
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Quark's Dreamy Dax Boner
• Bashir Chat Up #3 : Champagne on Ice
• Bare-fist Juro Counterpunch
• Morn #2 : Odo Ostracising Bar Bolt-out
• Window Wrecking Mutinous Mob
• Bashir's Massive Petri Dish
• The Tri-phasic Cloning Twist
• Odo Disguise #3 : The Comfy Chair
• Keiko Classroom Club Closer
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

3/10

[Endicott]

In Emissary right before the opening credits sequence starts there is a shot of DS9 in orbit around Bajor. It's quite close in, Bajor is shown as a bluey planet. I can't remember ever seeing Bajor in the background ever again.

[daf]

Think that's because they moved the space station out of orbit (with a bunch of fire extinguishers and some anti-grav technobollocks magic) to bagsie the wormhole.

Not sure how far away they are - probably fairly close (a few thousand space-miles?) as they still pop down to Bahh-Jor every other week!

[Endicott]

I thought they put it back again? Anyway my memory might be very shonky.

[daf]

Not sure - anyway, that's something to keep an eye on :

• Major Bajor Planet Spot : #1

[Endicott]

Haha it's quite clear from the end of ep 2, the station is still right by the wormhole. What a daft thing to forget!

[daf]

Actually, they must be pretty close by - as all of the Bajoran prophets are based aroung the wormhole!

Most likey, the planet is sort of moon sized from the point of view of where the station is now located - and we havent seen it (yet) as it's placed 'behind' us (like we're looking 'North'at the wormhole and Bajor is in the 'south')