Now that I’ve written more than 200 reaction write-ups to Star Trek episodes, I thought it might be helpful to have a Trek Index. Since I have made few other concessions to usability or SEO throughout this blog, for no reasons other than pure laziness, I hope it will be useful.
The link will remain handily available in the sidebar.
S3E23, “Family Business” (story: Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe)A fun episode with lots of gross Ferengi stuff, including, but not limited to:
Aside from the opportunity to spend some time on the Ferengi homeworld and see their society in action, we meet Ishka, Quark and Rom’s mother, who has gotten the family in some trouble with the Ferengi authorities on suspicion of female profit-making. Ultimately the charges are sorted out in the same way that one imagines all crime is managed among the Ferengi, which is based on the principle that the richer you are, the more you can get away with. Potential legal trouble is bribed or negotiated away, if, as one surmises, the criminals have the means to do so. Along the way, all manner of financial needling takes place. Quark has to pay the Ferengi liquidator (kinda like IRS agents) just to learn what he’s being charged with, and that’s just the start. He has to pay to use elevators and “tip” (also a bribe) any minor official he speaks with.
Ha-ha! What a society! Can you imagine! Oh, actually we can, because that is like 98% where late-stage capitalist America is already. The rich have teams of great lawyers and powerful connections. The rest of us don’t. We also pretty much accept that we’ll have to pay premiums to park closer, get there faster, get the good versions of otherwise crappy stuff, have fast internet, have reliable internet, have any internet, watch any TV show other than “Kevin Can Wait,” ever see Hamilton, sit in seats with any kind of good view, sit in seats *at all*, get through airport security before the plane actually leaves, take luggage, be even slightly comfortable on the plane, get off the plane sooner, play full versions of video games that we already paid for, have household goods last more than a couple of years without degrading into toxic plastic garbage, own rather than rent, drink an adult beverage that doesn’t come in a plastic bottle or a box, get the medicine that actually works, the car that actually runs, the clothes that will survive wearing and/or washing, get proper medical care, see a doctor that will care about you, a lawyer that will care about you, an insurance company that won’t sue you for making claims, eat healthy, avoid having your entire field of vision compromised by advertising at all times, prevent political or corporate interests from selling your personal information, prevent other political or corporate interests from exploiting your personal information, provide your kids a with useful college education, provide your kids with a useful grade school education, provide your kids with a nonlethal day care, or have any semblance of privacy or dignity for your entire adult life.
So what I’m saying is, life on the Ferengi homeworld is only barely useful for satire, but is at least entertainingly played for comedy, because what else can we do about any of this.
Anyway, Ishka is a really fun, sharp character with such finely honed profiteering skills that she eventually wears down Quark’s conservative resistance. It’s the second time Quark has accepted a female into the business world, and both times, because she was so dang good at it. Maybe at some point we can count on Quark making a political difference among the Ferengi, now that he’s armed with some good examples, and has some connection to the Nagus. But I’m not holding my breath. Rom also continues to show his more progressive side, supporting both Nog’s efforts to join Starfleet, and his Mom’s work. I may stop labeling Rom “hapless.” He’s not the brightest, but he’s a good dude.
The episode also has a minor B story about Jake successfully matchmaking Sisko with Kasidy Yates, a freighter captain that occasionally stops over on DS9. We see just the beginning of this, but they seem to hit it off. She is smart and interesting, and inexplicably likes baseball, among other things Sisko likes, and is also, as they say, easy on the eyes. I’m sure we’ll see more of this as the show progresses, but I like how they are tackling it. Sisko is naturally going to be hesitant to get involved with anyone (especially when the matchmaker is his teenage son), and the usual TV thing would be to contrive some situation to get them together immediately, but they’re happy to let them have a brief coffee before she has to run. Also I really like Sisko: he is a good guy that likes cooking and baseball. He is my kind of fellow.
Overall: Let’s go 4 out of 5.
We already know Winn is in over her head as Kai, but it doesn’t stop her from netting an interim First Minister gig when the previous one dies. The hits keep on coming: Winn contacts Kira to get help with a brewing problem on Bajor. A group of farmers is refusing to return some important equipment to the government, and Winn wants it back so Bajor can produce some crops for export and sweet, sweet cash. Kira gets the bag because their leader is her former resistance leader, Shakaar.
We don’t really need another episode about Winn being an inept leader with garbage interpersonal skills. But it is a good Kira episode. She travels to meets with Shakaar, where she learns that the government is reneging on a promise that they could keep the equipment much longer. Somehow Winn didn’t mention that, as she’s very willing to let a few individual starve for the greater good. There’s an interesting nugget in here about how a recovering economy would bump into tough choices like this. Especially if its leadership is stubborn and undiplomatic, and prefers quick, easy political victories over long-term thinking. But Kira is much better at nuance, and she manages to defuse tensions so things can work themselves out. In the end, Shakaar takes it upon himself to run for First Minister in opposition to Winn’s recklessness. Please let this happen.
It’s as much a damning episode for Winn as it is a strong episode for Kira. She continues to be willing to make the tough decisions, but pivot to better choices when they make more sense to her, no matter who that might put her up against. Ultimately her loyalties are to what’s right. (No wonder the similarly-motivated Odo has developed a crush on her.) Also an important one for Bajorans. They live on an ostensibly crappy planet (though in part, made that way by Cardassian exploitation) and continue to find ways to work together to make it better.
There’s also a totally unrelated silly B story about O’Brien going on an epic darts winning streak at Quark’s pub, until he wrecks up his shoulder reaching for his beer. Bashir patches him up, but when he’s recovered he’s lost his mojo is back to normal at darts. I’m not sure what the point of any of this was. Practice safe beer-reaching form? Darts are a cruel game? We are all mortal? It was fun but I felt like they could’ve used the eight minutes or whatever they spent on this to fill out some more Bajoran stuff.
Overall: Another very solid 4 out of 5.
Like the recent “Distant Voices,” a chance for the regulars to play outside their usual characters. Dax announces that it’s time for a ceremony in which she’ll meet all her former hosts. She has to recruit some pals willing to be imparted with her hosts’ personalities temporarily so she can converse with them. Everyone agrees, knowing full well that the premise of this episode is that one of them is going to run amok.
Mostly everything proceeds normally. The sequence of Dax meeting most of her previous hosts was pretty fun, if necessarily quick and sometimes silly. All the regulars just pretend to be someone totally different for a few minutes. The anticipated difficulty will be with Joran (the evil personality we learned about back in S3E04, “Equilibrium”), but Sisko agrees to handle him, and does so from a holding cell. This scene was super uncomfortable but gets played really well. Avery Brooks can do super creepy. The audience is *certain* something is going to go wrong, and it does. Joran immediately starts beating up his Sisko body, forcing Dax to open the cell. It has all the cringing subtlety of a Friday the 13th scene where everyone makes the dumbest decision possible, but is resolved quickly and turns out to be all for misdirection. The real problem arises when Curzon, inhabiting Odo, claims they’ve bonded and refuses to leave. The new Curzon/Odo is a boisterous loudmouth, represented by Odo’s usually reserved slicked-back hair pumped into Stalinesque glory. He drinks constantly and bellows and seems like the kind of guy that would give you a crushing handshake while blowing cigar smoke in your face. But you would still sort of like him? I was remembering the Futurama episode where Bender turns into a human and has no practice with moderation so he’s dancing all night while scarfing hot dogs and downing pitchers of beer and kissing everyone, all at the same time.
Jadzia eventually works out some lingering feelings between her and Curzon and things get resolved, which is sort of the point of this bizarre Trill ritual, one supposes. A Trill is an amalgam of any number of personalities and they all have to get along. Trills: still pretty weird, but I think I’m understanding them better.
Meanwhile Nog is practicing for his Starfleet entrance exams by working on his piloting skills in the holosuite. Quark still doesn’t really approve of his nephew trying to get into Starfleet, and suggests that he could make more money writing holosuite programs, especially of an “intimate variety,” which is pretty weird career guidance from one’s uncle. It did get me wondering whether Ferengi have a lot more profitable businesses of the morally questionable variety. Like, casinos aren’t ubiquitous among humans because many people don’t approve of gambling. Adult shops are usually found out of the way rather than in shiny family-friendly malls. But I could see them being everywhere on the Ferengi homeworld. They are profitable, and that trumps all. Although they are also a pretty conservative culture, so, who knows about the adult entertainment market, but their homeworld has to be like one giant Las Vegas strip.
Anyway Quark goes so far as to sabotage Nog’s test, with “you’ll always have a place at the bar” as extremely shitty consolation, but Rom stands up to him. Quark says he’s acting in the best interest of Nog, but Rom threatens to burn the bar to the ground if he continues to interfere with his son, and has talked Sisko into allowing a re-try. Rom, you are officially no longer hapless.
Overall: Maybe the most effective Trill episode so far. I definitely enjoyed Rene Auberjonois’ performance as blustery Curzon/Odo. The Joran misdirection also subverts expectations in an interesting way. 5 out of 5.
“The Adversary” is a solid thriller of an episode. It is also enviro-friendly because it is made of over 80% post-consumer material. I feel like I’ve seen much of this already, and that’s because a lot of the key setups and premises are straight from other stuff.
Tense scenes taking blood samples to identify the imposter? Check. It’s from The Thing in very specific terms, and the general situation where people are standing around knowing the guilty party is hiding among them in plain sight is in every-ish mystery story ever. They even go to this particular well twice in the same episode.
Trapped on a speeding death machine with little hope of escape? Check. Speed. Nothing’s immediately coming to me but feels like a SF premise I’ve seen.
Enemy running around the ship picking people off? Check. Alien, various horror stories, etc.
That’s not to say they didn’t still pull it off. It’s a good example of all three of these types of stories, wrapped into one. So I did dig the episode for the most part, although for a thriller it dragged a bit at times, too. I’m not selling this, am I? Well, I dunno. It was fine. Some takeaways for the end of the third season:
Overall: I didn’t love this one, kinda felt like it was largely a miss, like they were trying to make something happen but just leaned on other ideas that have been around a while. It was engaging though. Sounds like 3 out of 5.
Season wrap:
Honestly, this might be the best season of any Trek show ever. Up there with TNG seasons 4 & 5, at least. They have really found something on this show that works perfectly. Great characters, solid storytelling. Lots happening in the overall context of the show, but every individual episode is well-crafted, too. Sisko has had the biggest transformation, growing from boring bureaucrat into Captain Charisma. Really looking forward to season 4. (And Worf!)