Mini-Trek hiatus between seasons while we watched the new season of Humans. Resuming transmission…
S5E1, “Apocalypse Rising” (story: Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe)
Conceptually a way to resolve Odo’s revelation from the end of season 4 that Gowron is a secret changeling agent, but in practice, an excuse to get some of the regulars into Klingon makeup. I am good with that.
We get a pretty fun setup: For a few brave souls temporarily Bashir’d into having a Klingon appearance, there will be an opportunity to get close to Gowron. They must deploy some polaron emitters or some space crap that will cause a changeling to spontaneously lose its form and go blobby. He’ll be protected by his personal guard, on a Klingon planet, and they can only fire the emitters a single time or risk dowsing everyone with radiation poisoning. Sounds like a plan.
How it is a really good episode: About a million funny Klingon gags. O’Brien and Odo are awful at being Klingons and it’s quite delightful. Sisko is loving it and it’s even better. Our kind, thoughtful Ben utterly enjoys randomly whaling on his temporary fellow Klingons to build camaraderie. I think my appreciation for Michael Dorn also leveled up. Seeing three actors unaccustomed to being Klingons, and one really comfortable with it, actually accomplishes the mental trick of making me think: “Everyone act like Worf! He’s a real Klingon and just follow his lead.” But of course, he isn’t, he is also an actor playing a Klingon, instead of an actor playing a human playing a Klingon.
How it isn’t so good: The whole polaron emitter thing is painfully contrived, and then on top of it just becomes a stupid red herring. It’s staged poorly on top of that. They have a brilliant chance to fire the bloody things and they don’t, because, I guess Gowron’s speech is so rousing or something. But really they don’t just to pad out things long enough to where they’ll get caught and seemingly blow the whole mission.
But: I did like the mini-twist ending where we learn there is indeed a changeling infiltrating the ranks of Klingon leadership. But it ain’t Gowron, it’s Martok (I forgot exactly where we’d seen him but it was back in “The Way of the Warrior“). Odo was misled by the changelings into thinking it was Gowron, because they hoped the Federation would get rid of him, and clear the way for Martok to take over. But Odo’s an experienced security chief who deals with Quark on a daily basis, so he knows lies when he hears them, and sniffs it out.
Overall: Quite a good one, a lot of fun and moves things forward by resolving the Klingon issue so we can concentrate on the Dominion. I mean, the universe is complicated enough. 4 out of 5.
S5E2, “The Ship” (story: Pam Wigginton & Rick Cason)
Really more of a TOS filler episode than a DS9:
- Straightforward plot, with the captain alternating between tedious bartering with the alien antagonist and nagging at his crew to solve all the problems.
- Very harsh conditions reminiscent of a war movie.
- Chummy guest star whose imminent death is hopelessly telegraphed.
I’ve talked plenty about TOS episodes so I think I’ll keep this one short. It has its moments, but a lot of it isn’t super effective, and we don’t want Kiké to die, but we know the poor guy is going to, only after hanging on just long enough to fill out the 45 minutes. They do capture a Jem’Hadar ship, and actually make a point to honor their dead crewmembers for a change. And I liked the bit at the end where Worf sits with O’Brien as part of the Klingon ceremony to sit with the dead to protect them from predators during the journey to Sto-vo-kor.
Overall: 3 out of 5.
S5E3, “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places” (story: Ronald D. Moore)
Now this is some good Trek. A little Klingon/Ferengi relations, a little Cyrano de Bergerac. Great story, lots of excellent character and dialogue touches, and really funny. Actually it’s two layers deep on the Cyrano stuff. Worf is lovestruck by Grilka (Quark’s wife–briefly–from “House of Quark“), but when he’s told that she is not interested in him because of his family’s current reputation, he finds himself helping Quark, so he can at least woo her by proxy. But Dax, in turn, is helping Worf, because, as becomes obvious to everyone but Worf, she’s become similarly interested in him.
It all worked great. Really enjoyed how this one developed: Quark being not slimy, Worf actually being much better at impressing Klingon women than he thinks, and Dax, the lone voice of sanity, holding the whole scheme together. Fantastic ending when she declares her intentions towards Worf, and everyone compares their post-coital injuries in the infirmary.
There’s a B story here too, though I haven’t been discussing the ongoing Kira pregnancy thread much. The stories they’re trying to wring out of it have felt contrived and awkward to me. Memory Alpha tells me that Ronald D. Moore really liked the B-story here, about O’Brien and Kira becoming a little attracted to each other, but, I dunno. Not that I really understand how I would feel towards a woman who wound up carrying my offspring when my pregnant wife was injured in a spaceship accident, having not happened to have found myself in that particular situation, but I’m not sure where the lovey feelings come from. There’s been no hint of it at all. Odo kinda says it all when he wonders when Kira even started calling him “Miles.” As far as we know, he helped her out of the tub once and has given her foot massages. So we’re beyond the professional relationship at this point, anyway, but not sure if this was necessary.
Morn watch: With only a whispered “I will apologize for this at a later time,” Morn finds himself hurled out of his barstool by Worf when he tries to show off for Grilka. Worf later admits to having little idea how to court a Klingon woman, but one wonders how tossing poor Morn could be construed as impressive, other than the required physical strength necessary to dislodge him.
Overall: A perfect Trek episode, since I am ignoring the O’Brien/Kira story. 5 out of 5.
S5E4, “Nor the Battle to the Strong” (story: Bruce R. Parker)
OK, enough fun. War drama time.
I think this one works fine, but maybe not exactly how it’s envisioned. It’s supposed to be a story about Jake getting exposed to some of the Federation’s harsher realities, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since aspiring writers probably ought to experience a bit more in their lives than loitering on the promenade. We catch up with him as he’s failing to get an article written about Julian, because mostly Julian just wants to talk about exciting new lab procedures, and Jake doesn’t have the interviewing chops to steer him onto any better stories. It’s so boring that he encourages Julian to heed a medical distress call to a nearby battle front, despite Julian’s understandable concerns about dragging his commanding officer’s son into a war zone.
The violent, messy situation they arrive at ultimately makes this episode memorable. Despite the constraints of making a gripping war drama out of a 45-minute PG sci-fi show, they more or less pull it off. Like Jake, us viewers spend all our time in the climate controlled environs of the station while horrible wars are being fought in any number of distant outposts, of which we are only occasionally reminded. It’s a shocking contrast to suddenly find ourselves in a field hospital tending to war wounded. I thought the exhausting plight of the doctors at the front was well done. Maybe they should have a whole TV series about that, seems like a bountiful premise.
Unfortunately I’m not sure Cirroc Lofton really has the range for this one, so a lot of his scenes feel rather flat or forced. It’s easy to understand a kid getting scared and screwing up when bombs are dropping all around him or people are dying in front of him, so I think the context and story worked well, as does Jake’s maturation as a person (and the always well-done Ben-Jake relationship), even if the principal performance is weaker.
That Guy! note: Enjoyed the blue alien doctor being played by Mark Holton, the That Guy! who you may know as Pee-wee’s nemesis in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, “It’s Enrico Pallazzo!” guy from The Naked Gun, or Chubb the fat basketball player from Teen Wolf. Extremely solid That Guy!
Overall: 4 out of 5. Wiiiiiiiin….in the end!