Oh…. you want me to turn this off?
I’ve completed my re-watch of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Now it’s time to start Deep Space Nine! I am much less familiar with this show, though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen about 80-90% of the episodes. It’s been so long that I’m sure it will all feel brand new. My wife has never seen the show. She and I will go through, review every episode, and give commentary and a grade from A-F. There are SPOILERS for each episode below. Without further adieu, here’s:
“Civil Defense”
Synopsis
O’Brien and Sisko accidentally set off an old Cardassian security system on DS9, triggering a series of events that leads to the station going to war against its inhabitants because it thinks they are Bajorans in revolt against the Cardassian overlords. Gul Dukat himself shows up in a twist, offering to disable the station defenses if they allow a permanent Cardassian presence back on the station. When he tries to leave to give them time to think on his offer, however, he himself is trapped on the station by a layer of security he didn’t know about. Dax manages to shut down part of the station security, and Sisko manages to reroute power to prevent the station from blowing to bits. High fives all around.
Commentary
I don’t know what to make of this one. If this kind of episode showed up on TNG, it would be yet another in the slew of “everything manages to go wrong, somehow, on the Enterprise” episodes. I mean, really, how do they even allow them to use holodecks with all the nonsense they cause there? Anyway, because this is DS9, everything going wrong has a built-in way to make sense: namely, the station used to be Cardassian. And because we all know the Cardassians are nefarious, devious, and probably don’t have much concern for safety standards, the idea of everything managing to go wrong and the station beginning to wage war on its inhabitants is much more believable than it was on TNG.
That is exactly what happens here, too. DS9 begins to wage war on those living within it. O’Brien manages to trigger a security system, and from there things snowball until the station goes into a timed auto-destruct unless the Cardassian overlords override it. Then, Dukat shows up. Having Dukat arrive was pure genius, even if it seemed a tad contrived. Sure, Dukat was just patrolling nearby and got the distress signal and decided to violate Federation/Bajoran space. Right. But having him do so makes for a ridiculously entertaining piece in which he goes from lording everything over the current inhabitants to himself being trapped on the station. That was gold.
Of course, they manage to get everything figured out just in time. But along the way, Sisko had to leave O’Brien for dead to save the station. That little scene managed to show a few things. First, that Sisko is hardcore. He made the right decision, even if that meant leaving a friend for dead. That kind of decision is one that you often don’t see Starfleet people making the right call on. Second, Jake managed to get a time to shine multiple times in this episode, giving him broader capacities than he had before. It was a good development for him.
Grade: A- “A disaster scenario that gives room for both humor and great character development.”
Wife’s Grade and Comment: A “I give this an ‘A’ solely because the part with Dukat when it activated the super, super, super defense was hilarious.”
“Meridian”
Synopsis
While out for a pleasure cruise or something, the Defiant discovers a planet that just pops into existence. It’s a pleasant enough place, so the crew goes down to the surface. Turns out the planet shifts between dimensions at a somewhat predictable interval in time, though the stability is now threatened. Dax finds one of the inhabitants particularly alluring and she quickly falls in love. Meanwhile the crew figures out a way to keep the planet from shifting out of existence, allowing the inhabitants to stay in the “real world” permanently. The implementation of this plan will not, however, take place before the next phase shift, meaning that Dax and her love will be separated. Initially, he decides to leave to come with her. Then, Dax realizes the world’s importance to him and decides to go with him. Unfortunately, her presence on the planet interferes with its dimensional shift and she must be beamed back to the Defiant before everything goes wrong. She is forced to leave her love for 60 years. He may as well be dead.
Commentary
Can we talk about the weird inconsistencies in this episode for a minute? First, why couldn’t they have babies? It specifically said that they turn up exactly as they were before the dimensional shift, so why wouldn’t they continue to be pregnant? Why would the 60-year interval in mindland prevent them from procreating when it doesn’t impact their physical bodies. Second, what the hell happened to Dax? She just happens to fall head-over-heels in love over the course of like 4 hours–to the point where she’s going to take the Symbiont into a probably dangerous situation for it? Uh, sorry…. no. She wouldn’t do that. And that guy was kinda creepy too, the way he asked innuendo-laden questions almost immediately. “Do those spots go all the way down?” *wink wink.*
Despite all that, I somehow didn’t hate the episode, and as I’m sitting back pondering how to score it, I find myself wondering why. I don’t know if it was some of the sets I enjoyed, or if I just thought that Dax having a love interest she was serious about–however implausible–was a good development. Nevertheless, the episode managed to grab my attention, however implausible I thought the whole thing was. I feel like I should dislike it much more than I do. But I don’t. Maybe that speaks well for something about it–maybe I was captured by the allure of the planet and its mysteries as well. I don’t know. But if this is a “bad” episode for DS9, we have a really awesome show here.
Grade: C+ “Implausible, ridiculous premise with Dax acting very contrary to her own established personality. Yet somehow not terrible.”
Wife’s Grade and Comment: C “It just seemed so out of character for Dax. Also it was predictable as the end approached.”
Links
J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!
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SDG.
Eclectic Theist 