1.01 and 1.02: “Emissary”

OH BOY HERE WE GO.

OH MY GOD JAKE IS SUCH A BABY!!!!!!!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that one of the ways you know this is a pre-9/11 show is that one of the characters is not infrequently referred to as a former terrorist, and it’s used interchangeably with “freedom fighter”, and that character is one of the ones played by a white woman rather than the one played by an Arab man.
I appreciate that they actually make a point of showing that for all his…what might very generously be called “naive romanticism”, and perhaps more accurately “paternalistic imperialist fantasies”, Bashir is in fact really good at his job. His competence is one of the few things that makes him remotely tolerable early on in the show.
Off of that, I think one of the reasons it seems so obnoxious and wrong-headed from Bashir is that he’s really the only Starfleet crew member who initially comes into the show with much of that attitude. Sisko’s having what I can only call a crisis of faith around Starfleet, O’Brien is openly mistrustful of the Cardassians; Jadzia has moments, but she also has more years of experience than Sisko and O’Brien combined to temper the enthusiasm and naivete. Worf has some trouble adjusting when he joins the cast later, but even then, he’s spent enough time as an outsider in Starfleet and has enough of a career behind him already that he doesn’t have nearly as much of a rosy filter over his vision. So rather than Kira’s cynicism or Sisko’s exhaustion being the exception to the rule, Bashir is the dude who really needs to read the room.
As Star Trek-ishly heavy-handed as it is (and tbh having been raised on Trek I tend to find the heavy-handedness kind of charming), Sisko’s encounter with the Prophets/wormhole aliens really is a lovely, poignant meditation on grief and trauma. Their patient yet merciless explanations that they aren’t the ones dragging him back to these places/times in his life, he is, ughhh just kill me right now because this rewatch is gonna be so full of emotions.
On a less heavy note, I feel like the DS9 fandom really does not talk enough about how horny Dukat is for Sisko??? Like we all know he’s horny for Kira and really pretty horny in general, but we really do not discuss how, when it comes to Sisko, he is attempting to board the Acela Express to Bonetown, morning fish juice and New York Times in hand, from MINUTE ONE. He is 100% ready to rail and/or be railed by Sisko on their shared desk.

Horniness rankings

Dukat. Let’s be real, if he’s in an episode, he is almost certainly going to top the Horniness Rankings. Holy shit guy, get your life right.
Bashir, who is horny for a. Dax and b. the FrOnTiEr. Again, GET YOUR LIFE RIGHT. How am I capslocking this at him rather than at Dukat? How?? Perhaps because I believe he can do better while Dukat never will?
Quark. On the one hand, I appreciate that his incessant sexual harassment of women around him is presented as gross, on the other hand, wowwwwww are there some Real Unfortunate Implications to that being because he is from a race of people who are defined physically by short stature and an exaggeratedly large appendage on their heads, and culturally by morality based solely on greed, who are slavishly devoted to backwards laws that are out of step with modern civilization, all making him therefore much more laughably unfuckable than others (BASHIR) whose behavior seems to be presented as, while annoying, ultimately unthreatening and perhaps even a little bit charming.
Sisko and Jadzia have some awkward low-key “oh no she’s hot now”/”oh no I find him hot now” horniness for each other and it’s hi-friggin’-larious.

rewatch prewatch

So, a few days after I decided that substack wouldn’t work for this and paid for web hosting for this thing, they launched a community discussion feature, OF COURSE. I’m probably going to stick with the blog format for the time being on the grounds of “eh, I’ve got it, might as well use it” but if anyone has strong feelings either way, let me know.

Anyway, this weekend, I ended up rewatching some Next Gen as well, including, most relevant to this endeavor, “Ensign Ro”, so if anyone wants to rewatch that in the next few days and then discuss on this post, feel free! Otherwise, here is the viewing schedule for June.

June schedule

June 11: “Emissary”, both parts
June 18: “Past Prologue”
June 25: “A Man Alone”

welcome (?!?)

Hello! Still getting this up and running, but welcome to Bad Pajamas, aka the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine rewatch project that I impulsively decided to start one day. The title pays tribute to the hideous sleepwear that everyone on the show wears, and it was this or horny.space (on account of how horny Star Trek is in general and DS9 in particular), but it turns out that one’s already taken, which was disappointing but also probably for the best.

About the format: mostly I wanted this to be more of a community/group thing than just me rambling about my feelings because I know a lot of smart, funny, interesting people and I like enjoying things with them, and while I think I have my smart, funny, interesting moments, I also know that undertaking such a project on my own will be a lot more stressful and a lot less fun. My initial plan had been a Substack newsletter, but then I learned that Substack only allows you to have comments from paid subscribers; Twitter and Discord/Slack are too ephemeral; basically it was this or a private subreddit where people would have to DM me to join and this just seemed easier, although if it ends up just being me and a handful of friends (likelihood: 70-100%) I may end up going with the subreddit idea at a later date.

My current plan is that I’ll make a post for the week’s episode around Tuesday or Wednesday, which will probably have at least a few vaguely coherent notes of my own, and then an open discussion thread in the comments. I’m also planning on Fanwork Fridays, where we can all share links to fic, fanart, and other fan creations. There may be other content later, but those were the two categories that came to my mind first.

I’m still getting everything set up on the site and making sure it all looks/functions OK, but I anticipate getting this thing rolling in the next few days, so uhhhh GET HYPE I guess?