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Wacky Reviews: Star Trek

I remember the DS9 Companion noting that Avery Brooks and Colm Meany were bitching about having to spend so much time in make-up to get Klingon'd up, and Rene, Armin and Michael Dorn basically laughed at them since they had to do it every day since the show began.

I don't remember this other tidbit being in the Companion, but it was in the episode's Trivia section in IMDb:
Jadzia Dax was not a part of the mission, despite her intimate knowledge of Klingon culture, because Terry Farrell was allergic to the Klingon make-up.
Click to expand...
 
Looking for Par'Mach in All the Wrong Places - Bashir and Quark eavesdrop on O'Brien and Kira having an argument (we think it's Miles and Keiko at first.) Quark's ex wife Grilka returns to the station and Wof is instantly taken with her, but then disgusted to see her hugging Quark. Grilka explains to Quark that her house has lost much due to the war with the Federation (Quark: "War, what is it good for?") and he offers to look at her financial records. Grilka's guard Thopok (Phil Morris) warns Quark that if he fails to help Grilka he will die. Dax explains Klingon love (Par'mach) to Sisko Miles can't play in the holosuite with Julian because he's busy looking after Kira (including helping her out of the bathtub.) Worf throws Morn off his barstool in an attempt to impress Grilka. Grilka's advisor takes him aside and tells him she can't mate with him even if she wanted to as his house is disgraced. He also points out that Worf has never actually dated a Klingon woman (the whole "raised by humans" thing again.) Quark goes to Dax for advice on courting Grilka (with an angry Worf still in the room.) Worf actually ends up giving advice too. Miles gives Kira a massage. They both kind of get into it and there's an awkward pause when an oblivious Keiko walks in. Quark thanks Worf for his help and Worf feels vindicated: he really does know about how to impress a Klingon woman. Worf agrees to keep helping him and tries to teach Quark how to fight with a bat'leth in the Holosuite (with Dax.)

Grumpy Odo blames O'Brien for recent thefts in the upper pylons. Kira defends him and Odo wonders if she's starting to develop feelings for him. Thopok is angry that Grilka's having such a good time with Quark and challenges him to a fight to the death (fucking Klingons.) Miles wants to have an evening with just Keiko but she invites Kira to join them and orders Miles to massage her. Kira tells them she's going to Bajor in the morning but Keiko ruins that too by insisting Miles go with her. This story should have ended with Keiko secretly watching Miles and Kira having sex and saying "MY PLAN WORKED." Quark goes to Worf and Dax for a way out of the fight. Dax has an idea: Worf will remorte control Quark like a puppet during the fighting using some convenient technology. Dax thinks that Worf isn't really attracted to Grilka as a person, just the idea of her as the perfect Klingon woman. Quark and Thopok have their fight with Worf controllin Quark from another room (it's not clear how Worf can see what Thopok is doing?) Worf accidentally damages the control device and Quark stalls by invented a Ferengi right of proclamation, making a speech about Grilka. Worf regains control and wins the fight but won't let Quark kill Thopok. Grilka and Quark have wild Klingon sex (Dax makes sure to turn off Worf's control before they start.) Jadzia's been dropping hints that she's into Worf all episode but he hasn't picked up on them so she just outright starts fightng then sexing him. Miles decides he can't possibly go on this Bajor trip with Kira and runs off after one other awkward pause. Bashir is embarrassed when first Quark and Grilka and then Worf and Dax come to him with sex related injuries. Worf accepts that he's not a traditional Klingon man but is happy with his new untraditional relationship with Dax.

It's a worth follow up to 'The House of Quark'! The humour is all funny and the two love stories are pretty believable for Trek (and really this is just the star tof Worf/Dax, they're not hardcore IN LOVE yet.) The subplot with Kira and O'Brien is slightly less good but still funny and not treated too seriously. I LIKED IT.

SCORE: 8.5/10
 
I appreciate Apocalypse Rising because I think they realized Martok is great and they should get him on the show more. lol

Kira's preggo stuff was kinda annoying.
 
...Nor the Battle to the Strong - Jake and Bashir are on their way back from a medical conference. Jake is supposed to write an article on it but he explains, IN VOICEOVER (is this Star Trek!?) that he found it really boring. They receieve a request for help from a Federation hospital on a planet on the frontline line of the war against the Klingons and Jake convinces Bashir to respond because he thinks it'll be exciting. O'Brien is trying to find a new coffee for Kira blah blah blah who cares. Sisko is worried about Jake. Things are chaotic in the hospital with lots of dead or dying Starfleet officers everywhere and Jake keeps bumping into corpses and stuff. Bashir treats a man who claims to have been shot in the foot by a Klingon but who obviously shot himself to get out of the fighting. The cowardly guy's acting isn't very good. Jake ends up helping out and sees a lot more dead people. The harsh realities of war! Odo hurts himself back at the station because humanoid bodies are fragile and this makes Sisko worry about Jake some more. They get news that more Klingons are headed to the hospital planet so Sisko immediately heads there in the Defiant. Jake wonders how a Starfleet officer could be so cowardly as to shoot himself in the foot but Bashir says you can't know what it's like to be in combat until it's happened to you. Jake befriends a young medic who worries him with news that the war isn't going well and the Klingons are coming to kill them. The hospital loses power after the Klingons attack. Bashir suggests they could use the portable generator from his runabout and Jake goes with him to help carry it. Klingons start shelling them and Jake runs off in fear.

Jake comes across a field of dead humans and Klingons. A horribly wounded Starfleet officer (soldier?) hits him thinking he's a Klingon. He wants Jake to sit him up so he doesn't die with his face in the dirt. This guest actor's performance is very...war movie. It feels a bit out of place in Star Trek, but I guess Star Trek doesn't deal with soldiers very often. Jake wants to save the guy's life so this will all mean something but the guy tells him sorry but there's no hope and life doesn't work that way. Then dies in agony. Dax talks to Sisko about previous hosts who worried about their children. It's a good scene. Jake gets back to the hospital and finds that Bashir is alive and carried the generator by himself. Bashir apologises to Jake for getting him into this situation but Jake still feels ashamed of himself for running away. Jake talks to the deserter again and can now understand why he did what he did. The guy wishes he'd killed himself. Jake gets angry at some doctors who are talking about the best way to die. Julian knows there's more going on but Jake won't talk to him. The Klingons attack the hospital and they have to evacuate the patients. Jake hides under a table instead of leaving with everyone else and two Klingons nearly kill him (they easily kill two soldiers because they're not wearing Jake's plot armour.) Jake manges to shoot the ceiling and seal the entrance way, but it was probalby just dumb luck. Jake shows his article to Ben (that's what the voiceovers were!) and Ben says it takes real courage to admit to being a coward.

Kind of like 'The Ship' this is an episode that has good intentions but falters a bit in execution. I think it's a better episode than that, though, and it is Cirroc Lofton's best performance to date. But even at his best he's still the worst actor in the cast and some of the voiceovers are a bit cheesey. The episode relies a lot on war movie cliches and some work better than others. Jake having to help in the hospital and carry around corpses and stuff works very well. The scene with the deserter are hurt a bit by the guest actor. The scene with the dying man is a scene I remember not liking when I frist watch this episode. I liked it better here because of how brutal the soldier is with Jake. It doesn't feel like a Star Trek scene exactly but maybe that's not a bad thing? Anyway yeah the episode is pretty good.

SCORE: 7.5/10
 
I kinda think this might have been the best Jake episode (other than The Visitor).
 
The Assignment - Waste engineer Rom disgusts Quark by ordering a human breakfast instead of the usual worms and shit. Quark tries to tempt him back to the bar but Rom likes fixing toilets. Keiko's away on Bajor and O'Brien's killed her plants. He has to apologise to her, on his birthday as well. He blames Julian for it but Keiko doesn't seem too bothered, possibly because she was possessed by a hostile entity while in the Bajoran Fire Caves. She instructs Miles to do everything she wants or she'll kill Keiko (she kills Keiko for a few seconds as a demonstration.) There's no way he can stop her without her killing Keiko first. She wants him to do something to the communcations array on the station. Miles wonders why the alien didn't just possess him and do it all itself. Evil Keiko consists to go ahead with the planned surprise birthday party for Miles too. What a bitch. Rom gets to work the "swing swift" rather than his usual night shift because someone is off sick. O'Brien continues to try to come up with ways to knock out evil Keiko with the computer but they'd all take too long. He feels pretty awkward at the birthday party when Keiko brings out a cake in front of everyone. Jake asks Keiko if she saw any "Pah-wraiths" in the Fire Caves. Miles ruins the party by smashing a glass and cutting his hand. Typical drunken Irishman! Evil Keiko insists Miles sleep in the same bed as her. Miles has had enough after she threatens Molly and goes to talk to Sisko, but Keiko throws herself off the second level of the Promenade before he can get there.

She isn't too badly hurt but tells Miles this was his last warning and he has to stop trying to fool her. He's got thirteen hours to finish the work. He runs into Rom and is impressed by what a fast worker he is so recruits him to help with Evil Keiko's secret work. But he tells Rom it's a top secret mission so he can't tell anyone. Dax notices that changes have been made to the station's systems and suspects sabotage. Sisko and Odo are on the case and O'Brien is close to being discovered. Keiko makes a video call to him where she's brushing Molly's hair and subtlely threatens him by tugging Molly's hair. O'Brien fingers Rom as the saboteur. Rom of course won't tell Odo what he's doing because O'Brien told him it was a big secret. Rom calls O'Brien to visit him in the holding cells and asks him why they're trying to kill the wormhole aliens, as that's what all the modifications will do when they create a technobabble beam. They conclude between that the Pah-Wraiths, false Prophets to the Bajoran people, want to kill the real Prophets and take the Celestial Temple for themselves. This seems like the kind of thing the Prophets should have their Emissary Sisko trying to stop? Odo comes to O'Brien and tells him he knows he's the real saboteur. O'Brien knocks him out as luckily Odo's a solid now. O'Briena and Evil Keiko head out in a runabout for the final part of her plan. She tells him to target the Celestial Temple and that the blast will kill the Prophets before they know it. Oops, she slipped up there. He instead targets the runabout, killing the Pah-wraith. Keiko is restored. Rom is freed, promoted to the day shift and orders pineapple with his breakfast.

A previously mentioned, the reason they do so many torture O'Brien episodes is because Colm Meaney's so damn good in them. He gives another great performance here, elevating a fairly routine (but still well written!) alien possession episode. It must also be noted that Rosalind Chao gives her best performance ever here as the evil Keiko. She's really quite menacing, especially in the scene where she threatens Molly with the hairbrush. Rom is still annoying but used well here and it was fun watching him get arrested. Good stuff.

SCORE: 8.5/10


Trials and Tribble-ations - Agents Lucsly and Dulmur from Temporal Investigations arrive in the station, wanting to know why Sisko took the Defiant back in time and what he got up to. And they hate jokes! Sisko tells the story: the Cardassians returned the Orb of Time to the Bajorans and the Defiant was sent to transport it to Bajor. (I'm just going to write the rest in present tense because it's too confusing otherwise.) The Defiant picks up a merchant named Waddle who was trapped on Cardassia as well. The Defiant is sent back through time (AND SPACE, IT'S ALSO A SPACE ORB) and manages to cloak before encountering another ship...the Enterprise. The original one. And it looks pretty accurate to how it looked in TOS! (Lucsly and Dulmur note that Captain Kirk was a menace with 17 time violations on his record.) The Enterprise is orbiting station K-7 as we've gone back to 'The Trouble With Tribbles.' Waddle is really Arne Darvin, a Klingon spy who was exposed by Kirk in this time period. He was outcast from his fellow Klingons after that. Sisko and friends have to find him before he changes history so they wear original series uniforms. And haircuts! In the old days, operations officers wore red, command officers wore gold...and women wore less! (Dax looks attractive in a TOS uniform.) Sisko and Dax beam over to one part of the Enterprise, O'Brien and Bashir to another (they don't know how to use the old turbolifts!) and Odo and Worf investgate K-7. Odo watches Uhura and Chekov buy a Tribble. O'Brien and Bashir are nearly caught out acting suspiciously. Odo likes Tribbles and buys one but Worf is not impressed. Worf explains that Tribbles were once considered a mortal enemy of the Klingon Empire and wiped out. Odo wonders if Klingons still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt. Klingons arrive at the station and Dax recognises it as Koloth's ship. She wants to see her old friend but Sisko wisely won't allow it. A sexy sixties woman flirts with Bashir in the Turbolift. Bashir recognises that she has the same surname as his great grandmother and no one ever met his great grandfather. He wonders if he is destined to "do the nasty in the pasty" and become his own great granfather. This is great, of course.

Sisko and Dax watch Kirk and Spock in a seamless melding of archive and new footage. Dax rightly notes how handsome Spock is. She can't believe Sisko doesn't want to meet Kirk but he tells her they have a job to do. O'Brien and Bashir meet up with Odo and Worf in K-7's bar. O'Brien mistakes Lt. Freeman for Kirki (the obscure joke is that Freeman is played by William Shatner's stunt double.) Everyone but Worf is shocked to learn that Klingons who look nothing like Klingons have just walked into the bar. They ask Worf what happened to their foreheads but Worf simply says "we do not discuss it with outsiders" AND THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD HAVE STAYED. The bar fight breaks out as in the original timeline, only this time our four DS9 characters are involved. Worf easily beats up smooth-headed Klingons. Odo sees Darvin so he and Worf run off after him but O'Brien and Bashir are arrested by Starfleet security. Kirk questions his officeers, including Miles and Julian, and again I have to point out how impressive this all looks, even over twenty years later. Worf and Odo catch Darvin on the Defiant. He claims they're too late, Kirk will die...thanks to a bomb planted in a Tribble. Sisko and Dax head to the Enterprise's Bridge to use its scanners to find the Tribble bomb, the others (except Worf who is allergic to Tribbles) head over to K-7 to manually scan every Tribble. Kirk sits on a Tribble and it's lucky that wasn't the bomb! Dax remembers that one of her previious hosts slept with McCoy when she sees him on the Bridge. He had the hands of a surgeon. The find that the bomb isn't on the Enterprise. Sisko and Dax decide to follow Kirk around as logically the bomb would be in an area he would visit. They eventually find the bomb in the storage compartments Kirk is opening from below. A load of dead Tribbles fall on Kirk's head and Sisko tosses more onto him in possibly the cleverest moment in tv history. The Tribble bomb is beamed out into space to explode out there where it'll be no tribble at all. History plays out as it was meant to with Kirk exposing Darvin as a spy. Kira (she was in this episode!) finds out how to use the Orb to bring them back to the future. Sisko admits they didn't go straight home though, he first went to see Kirk and told him it had been an honour serving with him. One of the agents admits he would have done the same thing. There's something else they didn't tell Temporal Investigations though: Odo accidentally brought a Tribble back with him and now the Promenade is full of them (including one on Quark's head.) The Tribble race lives on!

So if you don't like this episode I don't actually want to know you. That's my short review. It's a loving celebration of Star Trek. It points out how different things looked in TOS, but in a gentle fun way, more "things looked so cool back then!" rather than "things looked so lame back then!" It's also technically hugely impressive (I'm sure they could do even more today in terms of melding the footage but there's more than enough interaction here to make it seem almost real) and just downright hilarious. The best "comedy" episode in all of Star Trek don't @ me.

SCORE: 10/10
 
Let He Who Is Without Sin... - Sisko and Odo talk to Dax about all the sex injuries she and Worf have suffered. They're going on vacation to Risa but Worf thinks it was inappropriate of Dax to have spend time with an old lover (the guy with the transparent skull) without telling him. Bashir and Leeta, who are apparently a couple (have we seem them interact since her first appearance in season 3?) want to come to Risa too. And Quark's coming too for some fucking reason! An increasingly grumpy Worf also proves himself a racist by calling Quark "The Ferengi" and not speaking directly to him. Jadzia changes to a bathing suit thing (yes it's the one redeeming point of the episode) but Worf won't get out of his uniform. Jadzia runs into Vanessa Williams (she has a weird alien name but who cares) who reveals that she killed Curzon Dax during sex (even though we saw a flashback of Curzon still alive on the operating table then the symbiont was transferred to Jadzia before) and Worf is worried Dax might want to shag her. The dialogue here is awful. The chairman of the New Essentialists movement (Fullerton) comes to Worf and explains that his organisation wants to shut Risa down because it's eroding the morals of Federation society. Worf sees Leeta getting a space massage from a man other than Bashir and is digusted. Then he sees Bashir with another woman. Worf compares Fullerton to Kahless five minutes after meeting him. We're lucky Worf didn't live in Germany during the rise of Hitler. Worf is impressed by Fullerton's speech about how going on vacation makes the Federation vulrnerable because Worf is an idiot. Bashir and Leeta explain that they're practicing the Bajoran Rite of Seperation which is why they've been with other people. Worf of course finds this disgusting because fuck this episode.

The Essentialists start tipping over tables and stuff as a demonstration of how dangerous it is to have a holiday. Worf wants to know Jadzia takes their relationship as seriously as he does but she wants him to be able to relax sometimes. Bashir and Leeta (can I just note that Chase Masterson is a terrible actress?) complete their Seperation Rite. Quark (he's in this episode!) found it disappointing. Leeta reveals she finds Rom sexy, which is somehow less believable than how Worf's been acting. Worf sees Dax and Vanessa doing pottery together and gets angry. He goes to Fullerton and tells him he knows a way to make people leave Risa. Something goes wrong with Risa's artificial weather grid and it starts raining. Worf reveals that it was he and the Essentialists who did it. That's right, Worf commited an act of sabotage acgainst a Federation planet. Fullerton makes another speech about something. Worf says if citizens of the Federation can't handle rain they won't be able to handle being slaughtered by the Jem'Hadar. Vanessa wonders if Fullerton was right since guests are moaning about the rain. Really? Jadzia tells Worf she thinks this is about her, not Worf hating vacations. He blah blah blahs about Klingons. Jadzia points out that Klingons love to have fun and sing and get drunk and stuff and asks why Worf holds back. Worf reveals that when he was thirteen he was captain of the soccer team and he accidentally headbutted and killed a human boy. You'd think this is the kind of thing that would have come up in TNG at some point. He's scared that if he loses control by having fun again someone else could die. Unless he's going to play football with Dax I don't see why he'd think that. There's an earthquake as the Essentialists have taken things one step further. Worf stops them because trust is an essential Federation value (what?)

From one of the best episodes to definitely the worst! I have no idea how Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe managed to write something so awful. Sure they write all the terrible Ferengi episodes too, but this is far worse and nearly completely destroys Worf's character. He only recovers because everyone just ignores this episode. The plot is horrible and makes very little sense. Worf and Jadzia as a couple don't seem suited at all here, I guess he's just really good in bed because I can't see any other reason Jadzia would stay with him after this. The football story is just cringeworthy. The other characters might as well not be in it (seriously why is Quark there?) and yeah there's nothing good here really!

SCORE: 0.5/10


Things Past - Sisko, Dax, Odo and Garak (who I guess was just recently released from prison but it's not mentioned here or ever) are returning to the station on a runabout from a conference on Bajor discussion the Occupation. Dax tells Odo he should be proud of how he acted during the Occupation but Odo feels uncomfortable. Worf and Bashir find all four in some weird coma state when they return to the station. Sisko wakes up on the station, but during the Occupation. The Bajorans there somehow see him, Odo, Dax and Garak as fellow Bajorans. It's a bit Quantum Leap. Odo starts freaking out a little. They spot Dukat talking to Thrax, the previous security chief before Odo. Some Cardassians take Jadzia away and punch Garak when he tries to stop them. Garak gets a nose bleed in the real world. Garak manages to find their identities and Odo recognises the names. They run into Quark who offers them worf for very little pay and treats them like idiots (this seems slightly at odds with 'Body Parts' which reveal that Quark was actually secretly nice to poor Bajorans during the Occupation.) Jadzia is brought to Dukat who tells her he's a lonely man who just needs someone (an attractive young woman) to talk with. Odo reveals that they've taken place of three Bajorans who were wrongly accused of trying to assassinate Dukat and publically executed.

Garak works out that they've actually only gone back seven years so Thrax shouldn't be the security chief: Odo should be. Odo suddenly sees blood on his hands when he's eating soup (it's not even blood soup!) They try to get off the station with help from the Bajoran Resistance, but there's an explosion on the Promenade and Sisko, Garak and Odo are arrested. Thrax accuses them of trying to kill Dukat and won't listen to Odo's reasonable explanations of what they were really doing. Odo becomes increasingly desperate with begging Thrax to conduct a real investigation but Thrax says he has enough evidence. Dukat talks to Dax about how he wants to be kinder to the Bajorans but the Resistance make it impossible. The Bajorans are like his children. It's classic Dukat. She knocks him out and breaks the others out of the holding cells. She's shot by a Cardassian during the escape and Thrax turns into a changeline when Sisko beats him up. Suddenly they appear back in their cell, Dax joining them now. They work out that everyting leads back to Odo, but Thrax asks to speak to him. Odo tells Thrax he's about to make a huge mistake but Thrax still won't listen and says the Bajorans are fightng against law and order and must be stopped. Thrax reveals he knows Odo is from the future and asks Odo what he's going to do now. Suddenly Odo is with Dukat and Thrax while the others are going to be executed. It should be obvious by now that Odo did everything we've seen Thrax do. He tells Sisko and the others that it was his fault the three innocent men were executed because he didn't do a proper investigation. Now that he's finally come to terms with it all four wake up. Bashir reveals they were locked in some version of the Great Link caused by leftover changeling cells in Odo's brain. Kira makes her first apparance of the episode (Nana Visitor hasn't been around much recently as it was around the time she gave birth) and tells Odo she used to believe in him because he stood for justice during the Occupation, but she doesn't know what to think now. Odo can't be sure that no more innocent people died on his watch.

It's an episode I didn't remember very well, but it is good. Rene Auberjonois is typically great. The set-up is pretty weird but it's all about exploring Odo's guilt over one particular interest and it certainly does that. It is strange though that every other time the Occupation has been mentioned we haven't seen Odo get all guilty looking like he does at the start of this one, but I guess you could say that's down to him being humanoid now and feeling more things. Or something!

SCORE: 8/10
 
Worf was worried about letting loose because he headbutted a boy to death, and yet he's had no problem repeatedly bonking Jadzia into the infirmary on a regular basis.
 
I can’t tell if the characterisation of Worf is especially bad on DS9 or if it’s that TNG never went into much depth. DS9 makes him an emotionally flat racist who’s just wrong all the time, while I feel TNG probably focussed more on Klingon ritual itself rather than how it affected Worf’s interactions with others.
 
The Ascent - Jake is moving in with Nog (who is returning to the station on a convenient one year field study the Academy has apparently always done) so Ben makes the "hoo HOOO!" noise. Odo ruins the homecoming by telling Quark he's to escort him to a Federation Grand Dury hearing. He think Quark's finally going to be put away. Quark seems quite calm about the whole thing and offers to play Fizzbin (a game invented by Kirk in 'A Piece of the Action' as I'm sure you know) on the runabout on the way there. He discovers Odo reading erotica too but Odo claims he's studying the criminal mind or some crap. Nog promises Ben that he'll keep Jake out of trouble and set a good example, then sets a cleaning rota and excercise routine for Jake after moving in with him. Quark and Odo continue to annoy each other on the runabout, until Quark finds a bomb planted by the Orion Syndicate. Odo manages to transport it away as it explodes but the runabout has to crashland on a barely habital cold planet. Jake and Nog continue their odd couple roommate b-story with Nog correcting the spelling and grammar on one of Jake's stories he read. Quark and Odo have to climb a mountain (Quark works this out with maths!) with a bulky transmitter to send a distress signal. There's only one survival jacket left so they have to take turns wearing it.

Nog and Jake continue their cliched arguments (one is messy, one is clean!) Quark and Odo are struggling with the climb, then find it's going to take even longer than they thought. Quark finally reveals that he's not a member of the Orion Syndicate, he's a witness testifying against them. But Odo thinks that Quark just couldn't pay the membership fee. Sisko and Nog decide they have to help Jake and Nog make friends again. Odo thinks Quark has died in his sleep but he hasn't (phew!) He goes deaf in one ear though. Quark and Odo's argument turns physical (after the word "fascist!" makes an appearance) and Odo suffers a broken leg. Quark carries Odo on a stretcher but says he'll use him as emergency rations when the food runs out. Quark eventually collapses and wants to give up. Odo tries to crawl up the mountain with the transmitter himself rather than give up. He doesn't get very far, but Quark takes over out of shame (though he tells himself it's because he doesn't want Rom to get the bar and Nog to be corrupted by Starfleet.) Sisko forces Jake and Nog back into the same room and they instantly make up. Odo records a final log asking to be cremated and his ashes stuck in his bucket and shot through the wormhole. That's what I want to happen to me when I die too. He's beamed up by the Defiant as Quark managed to send the message in time. They continue arguing in the Infirmary but in a knowing "we're friends really" way.

The Quark/Odo stuff is good because the two actors are so good. It's not very imaginative or anything, but it all very entertaining. The Jake/Nog story is pretty pointless (They fall out over something stupid then instantly become friends again! What drama!) but not too bad to ruin the episode. It's a good episode but not great.

8/10
 
Rapture - New uniforms! Like in First Contact! The Cardassians have finally released a painting of an ancient lost Bajoran city (B'Hala.) A prophecy says that only someone who has been touched by the Prophets can find the city (TECHNICALLY THAT COULD BE DAX THEN.) Sisko creates a pillar from the painting and studies it in the Holosuite, but something blows up on the Holosuite and injures him. Odo arrests Quark for having an exploding Holosuite. Sisko tells Bashir that colour seems bright to him now and Bashir explains that his neurons have been overloaded or something but it'll go back to normal in a few days. Kasidy is finally getting out of prisoner having served a longer term for smuggling medical supplies to needy people than Garak did for attempted genocide. Sisko continues to study the pillar in the Holosuite, where he's contacted by an Admiral who tells him Bajor's been accepted for membership into the Federation (the premise of the show!) Everyone is excited, including Kira who was once against Bajor joining the Federation. She credits Sisko with changing her mind. Then she finds Sisko in some kind of trance staring at the pillar. He wakes up and tells her he understood everything for a moment, the past, present and future (war with the Dominion.) Kira has to welcome Kai Winn to the station as Sisko is busy staring atthe pillar. Kasidy comes to the Holosuite to see Sisko and he passionately kisses her (she didn't know how he'd react.) He invites her to come to Bajor and find the lost city with him. What woman could resist! The beam deep underground on Bajor but just find a wall of stone. Sisko phasers through and finds the real pillar: it's the city. Kira believes it's a sign from the Prophets (Worf agrees, Odo thinks Sisko just got lucky.) Winn, surprisingly, now believes that Sisko is truly the Emissary and will no longer block Bajor's admission to the Federation. Kira says it takes a lot of courage to admit she was wrong, but Winn tells her she never lacked courage and spent five years in a Cardassian prison camp for teaching the Bajoran religion.

The Admiral comes to see Sisko on Bajor and asks how he really found the city. Sisko assures him it really was a vision. The Admiral is concerned because he needs Sisko overseeing Bajor's admission to the Federation, but Sisko wants to stay on Bajor to discover more about B'Hala. The Admiral (who is a bit wooden, sadly!) asks Bashir if there's anything he can do to stop Sisko having the visions. They watch as Bajorans crowd around Sisko as he walks through the Promenade, saying wise things to them. He even tells the Admiral that his son forgives him (they fell out.) Bashir does more tests on Sisko and he has another vision of B'Hala rebuilt and a crowd of locusts appearing in the sky. The locusts then head for Cardassia. WHAT COULD THIS MEAN. Bashir finds that Sisko's brain is starting to break down (or something) and he has to operate, but that will mean the end of his visions. Sisko doesn't want him to operate even though that mean his death. Jake and Kasidy are both angry, obviously, and want him to have the surgery. Sikso has asked for Winn's help in his spiritual journey and Jake wonders when he started to trust her. O'Brien and Dax also hope that Sisko has the surgery but Kira and Worf think Sisko should follow his faith. Winn shows Sisko the Orb of Prophecy to help him clarify his vision. Bajor is about to sign the papers to join the Federation officially when Sisko runs in and starts ranting about locusts (in a typical Avery Brooks way.) He tells Winn that Bajor can't join the Federation or it'll be destroyed then has a seizure. Bashir has to operate to save his life, but Kira reminds him that Sisko doesn't want surgery as it would mean the end of his visions. Bashir can't go ahead without the permission of his closest relative. Jake knows how much the visions mean to him but doesn't want to lose his dad so tells Bashir to do the surgery. Kira respects Jake's decision but Winn thinks it was selfish (Winn's still a bitch even when she's on the good side.) Avery Brooks does some Calculon acting when he wakes up ("YOU TOOK THEM AWAY!") The Admiral tells him it's not too late to convince Bajor to join the Federation but Sisko still believes in everything he said. Sisko tells him he's sure Bajor will join the Federation one day. Sisko goes back to Jake and Kasidy and holds their hands.

It's a very good Bajor episode and one that's probably been needed for a while. Sisko has gradually gotten more used to being seen as the Emissary as the show's gone on and this is his biggest test yet as he's willing to go against the Federation because of his visions. The debates on faith versus science are all well done (though it would have nice to give an example of how faith can also be destructive some time!) It's the strongest Sisko story for a while and the only negative would be for people who don't like Avery Brooks' acting, as there's certainly some overacting moments here. For me I'm pretty used to his style by now so it didn't bother me (though a few lines did feel a bit weird) and I think Brooks' intensity is good for stories where he's obsessed with stuff. Remember back in season one when he was obsessed with building that clock? This is like that, but bigger! I also like how they used Winn in a way where she wasn't the antagonist for once, while still keeping her true to her character.

SCORE: 9/10
 
My favourite scene from that episode is when Kai Winn puts Kira in her place about having courage despite not being in the resistance. It was good to get an idea of why Winn’s got such a chip on her shoulder all the time and it came out of the blue in a way that pent up frustrations often do.
 
The Darkness and the Light - A Bajoran vedek is assassinated. He was a member of Kira's old resistance cell and she gets a message saying "that's one" in a distorted voice. She tells O'Brien that if she wasn't pregnant she'd be on Bajor hunting the killer but he obviously supports her staying on the station. She gets a scrambled message from another old friend who fears for her life. Kira sends Worf and Jadzia to pick her up, but (after a cute bit where Worf quotes the Rules of Acquisition!) her friend is killed as she's transported to the runabout. Kira reveals her friend wasn't a member of the Resistence exactly but did smuggle information to them (Nana Visitor does some good acting here.) She gets a "that's two" message back in the station, playing on a PAD Quark found. Odo wants her to make a list of everyone the Shakaar Resistance Cell killed but she says that would be a long list. A message then comes in saying another one has been killed. Back in her quarters, Kira hears something but it's just her two old friends from 'Shakaar' (the guy with one arm and the woman) and they've knocked down her security guard. She wants to help Kira find and kill whoever's killing their friends but Kira tells them to leave it to the authorities.

Nog uses his keen Ferengi ears to listen to the recording of the killer's distorted voice. This helps Dax clean up the voice. It's Kira's! Then there's an explosion in the O'Briens' quarters. Kira goes to check it out, beating up several security guards who get in her way, then collapses for pregnancy reasons. Bashir repairs the damage (isn't he nice and not at all a changeling!) but has to tell her that her two friends are dead. Miles has plot armour so he wasn't in the room. She tells a sad story about her first time killing someone for Shakaar (she liked it because it mad her a member of the Resistance. Odo has narrowed down the list of potential killers and rightly fears Kira would charge off after them if he showed her. Kira of course sneaks a look at the list anyway and beams into a runabout to escape. She erases the names on the list so Odo can't follow her. We just cut straight to Kira finding the killer (lucky we didn't have to watch her check all the other names!) and he stuns her. She wakes up on a chair, a light shined oner her face, with the creepy Cardassian narrating her movements and calling her "it." He explains that he was a servant during the Occupation, working for a Gul who was in charge of a weapon's depot. The Gul's home was targetted by the Reistance and the Gu's whole family were killed. Kira's kidnapper was horribly scarred, but Kira argues that they were all legitimate targets because they shouldn't have been on Bajor at all (This goes slghtly against the end of 'Duet', maybe? Where Kira didn't want the Cardassian to die even though he'd been a file clerk during the Occupation. But anyway I guess how she felt longer after the Occupation was differet to how she felt during it.) The killer wants to deliver Kira's baby as it is an innocent, but Kira tries to explain that the baby is human and can't be born yet. She asks for a sedative before he cuts the baby out, but the medication she took earlier means the sedative doesn't work on her so she manages to kill him.

It's an attempt to bring ACTION KIRA back, the Kira of the first three seasons after she didn't get a whole lot to do in season four (her two centric episodes were really about Dukat.) It mostly works as Nana Visitor does some great acting throughout. The only part that isn't so great is once we find out the actual killer is just a creepy scarred Cardassian. He works fine, he just isn't hugely interesting. Like maybe it would have been better if he'd been a fellow Bajoran who was working for the Cardies during the Occupation and injured by the Resistance. It's also weird that Shakaar isn't in the episode at all and Kira doesn't even call him or anything. You'd think he'd be one of the killer's top targets. Anyway this is good!

SCORE: 8.5/10
 
I'm usually uncomfortable watching this ep, what with very pregnant Kira being terrorized and bound and tortured and having to kill someone single-handedly. I think the only other time I saw a very pregnant lady put under such distress was Tyne Daly on Cagney & Lacey.
 
The Begotten - Odo goes to Bashir with a pinched nerve in his back. He's not good at being a solid! Quark brings a baby changeling one of his contacts found, one of the hundred the Dominion spent off into space. Bashir helps cure its radiation sickness (or something) and Sisko suggests calling Dr. Mora for help. Odo wants to teach it how to shapeshift himself and promises the baby that no one will hurt it the way Mora did to him. Kira has finally gone into labour but that means O'Brien and Keiko have to do some dumb Bajoran ritual and boring Shakaar's there too. Odo keeps talking to the baby to show it love but is upset when Mora shows up on the station. Mora wants to take measurements and do scientific tests and stuff on the baby but Odo doesn't think that kind of thing is important and stops Mora from prodding at it. Mora thinks the things he did to Odo to get him to shapeshift were necessary, even though they weren't pleasant, and wonders how Odo will get the baby to shift. Kira insists on having the baby the traditional Bajoran way (even though it isn't Bajoran or her baby) despite the fact that it's taking ages. Odo tries to get the baby to shift by rolling a ball for it and pouring it into a bowl but it won't budge no matter how many shapes he pours it into. He gets mad at Mora when he measures the baby's volume and reports that it isn't growing as fast as Odo. They have an argument.

Odo finally agrees to use Mora's equipment as Starfleet is pressuring them for results. Odo reluctantly gives it a mild shock forcing it to move and smiles because he's proud of the baby (Mora did the same think the first time Odo moved.) O'Brien and Shakaar fight over who gets to help Kira (yawn.) Mora and Odo continue to work out their issues as the baby gets better at shifting, with Mora revealing how sad he was that Odo went away and left him. The baby makes a face. Mora praises Odo for forming a connection with the changeling. Odo admits that Mora's techniques did help him grow up. They have a drink together. Kira kicks O'Brien and Shakaar out for arguing. Shakaar tells him "next time you have a baby leave my girlfriend out of it!" as if O'Brien beamed the baby into Kira's womb himself. A drunk Odo comes to Quark's and buys him a drink(!) But something's wrong with the baby and Odo and Mora rush to its side. Kira lets the men in as she finally shoots the baby out. Bashir and Mora do surgery on the baby but there's nothing they can do to save it. The baby somehow merges into Odo's body, giving him his shapeshifting powers back. Odo turns into a hawk and flies about the Promenade. Odo tells Mora he finally understands what he went through when Odo was a baby and they hug. Kira admits to Odo that she misses the baby now she's handed it over to the O'Briens and Odo says he understands.

The baby changeling story is good. James Sloyan is always a great guest star and it's nice to see Odo and Mora finally settle their differences. It is kind of a shame that Odo gets his powers back though, I was enjoying him as a humanoid. I liked the subtle ways he acted more human over the last 12 episode. The story with Kira giving birth is crap and really they should have just had her give birth offscreen or done it a lot quicker earlier in the season (Nana Visitor gave birth during filming of 'Let He Who Is Without Sin'.) The ending with her and Odo is nice though.

SCORE: 8/10
 
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