1.20: “In the Hands of the Prophets”

One season down, six to go. And y’all. Y’ALL. Y’all, I am kind of amazed that we’re here, not gonna lie. I half-expected that my ADHD ass would abandon this effort around “Move Along Home” at the latest. I am having so much fun doing this, and am so grateful to the handful of you who are joining me for it.

This also seems like an appropriate place to mention that I was on Antimatter Pod a couple of weeks ago, where we discussed religion in Star Trek! We touched specifically on this episode and Kai Winn, in fact. It was a ton of fun, and my thanks again to Liz and Anika for having me.

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1.19: “Duet”

W H E W!!!! Even by Deep Space Nine standards, this one is intense. This is the good shit, y’all. Cardassian war crimes! Kira struggling with trying to build something out of her anger and trauma! It’s even got Dukat being horny at Sisko!

(On that note, I feel like this is the place to mention that, title-wise, I always get this episode mixed up with season six’s “Waltz”, in which Dukat and Sisko get trapped in a cave together and Dukat calls Sisko “Benjamin” a lot.)

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1.18: “Dramatis Personae”

First, a housekeeping note: for some reason this weekend the comments got FILLED with spam — not sure why now, but there it is. I think I managed to catch all the spam and keep the real comments, but let me know if one of your comments got swept up, too. I’m tweaking my moderation settings, as well, which will (hopefully) help, but let me know if you run into problems commenting.

My notes on this one are fairly sparse, honestly. It’s just kind of…aggressively okay? Not bad enough to cringe over, but not good enough to be really noteworthy.

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1.17: “The Forsaken”

This is one of those episodes where I like it, but I don’t really feel like I have much to say about it? It’s fine! On a scale of one to ten, I’d give it a solid six and a half or seven, and if I make a list of episodes in the first season that shouldn’t be skipped, this would be on it! It’s not bad enough for me to have a lot to say, but it’s also not good enough for me to have a lot to say, either. So we may be out of here quicker than usual, let’s find out!

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1.16: “If Wishes Were Horses”

The main thing I always remember about this episode is that apparently instead of Rumpelstiltskin it was originally going to be a leprechaun, and Colm Meaney was like “uh can u not”. Which…child-stealing is not really a leprechaun thing, is it? Like, Rumpelstiltskin is a much better fit for that to begin with, IMO.

And whenever I rewatch, the main thing I take away is “well, that was slightly more interesting than I remembered”. Which…yes. IDK, for all the flak that “Move Along Home” gets, “If Wishes Were Horses” is usually the first one that jumps to my mind when I’m thinking of why I don’t really like Deep Space Nine‘s first season as much as the rest of the show (though admittedly, it’s usually followed by “Move Along Home” and/or “The Storyteller”). It’s one of Trek’s obligatory “Weird Space Thing/Godlike Alien brings characters/desires/fears to life” episodes, which can be fun but can also be pretty dull, and while there are some fun character moments, it’s hard for me to find anything especially noteworthy. Or, noteworthy in a good way, more specifically.

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1.15: “Progress”

OK, so my initial thought, actually, is that it feels a lot like Mullibok is meant to be younger? Like, the reluctant respect and affection that develops between him and Kira feels a bit like he was meant to be a bit younger, and for some attraction to develop as well? Apparently the initial vision of the character was as someone significantly “more manipulative and less likable”, so maybe that’s why it feels a bit odd to me.

But more to the point, I FRIGGIN’ LOVE BAJORAN INTERNAL POLITICS. I love, love, love that the rebuilding of Bajor is not a neat, simple, smooth process. I love that people have different ideas about what it will mean to move forward, to build a new Bajor and to live in it, that there are costs to everything, and that there aren’t always clear answers about who’s right. In “The Storyteller”, Kira and Sisko discussed a Bajoran saying, that “the land and the people are one”, but that was really more appropriate, thematically, for this episode.

(This also makes it a bit annoying that every place we see on Bajor seems to have a sunny Mediterranean climate. I mean, I get the Doylist reasons, and Star Trek has frequently just sort of ignored the whole thing where a habitable planet is unlikely to have one single climate all over anyway, let alone a single culture. But it still kinda bugs me.)

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1.14: “The Storyteller”

This is another one where the central plot — Weird Space Thing of the Week — is something I can take or leave, but as a vehicle for some great character moments, it’s a delight.

I do have some questions about this particular Weird Space Thing. Primarily: no one ever noticed this before? The Cardassians came down so hard on Bajoran religion and culture in their efforts to “civilize” them, no one ever noticed that this idyllic little village had this weird superstition completely unlike anyplace else on Bajor? No one else on Bajor knows about this or has ever tried to help/investigate? (Come on, you can’t tell me ghost/cryptid hunters wouldn’t know about this and be investigating. Also, good lord where is my spinoff about ghost/cryptid hunters in the Star Trek universe?)

It also seems a bit odd that the chief medical officer on the station is being called for a two-hour trip to Bajor for a medical emergency — I get that Bajor’s still recovering and the infrastructure is shaky, but the Sirah’s condition doesn’t really seem to be anything particularly unusual; there must be someone closer than two hours away who can take care of him. For that matter, aren’t there other medical staff on the station? What if someone has a heart attack back on DS9 in the few days Bashir’s gone? Hell, what if someone just falls and breaks an arm while he’s asleep? This is a recipe for burnout, Starfleet! Teach your officers how to delegate!!!

(I know the village’s magistrate was pretty vague and just told them that they were in danger of extinction, so Bashir assumes it’s some kind of disease, but also…no one asked more follow-up questions? Or, like, thinks to alert the Bajoran government, who are dealing with trying to rebuild their society, that they have what sounds initially like a potential outbreak of some devastating disease on their hands? MY QUESTIONS STAND.)

But back to the topic of character development

Like “Battle Lines”, this feels like another good use of Bashir. Which is to say: they’re embracing the fact that he can be annoying as hell. I’ve mentioned before that it can feel, early on, like we’re meant to find Bashir’s inability to take a hint sort of cute and charming, which just tends to make it all the more irritating (and, when it involves his crush on Jadzia, flat-out gross and creepy). They lean into it here, however, with him being at least as annoying as he is helpful (the way they call attention to the rank difference feels like a very deliberate acknowledgement of the way Bashir’s coming on so strongly makes things really uncomfortable and awkward, for instance). Somewhat paradoxically, the fact that the text is admitting that yes, he’s being moderately obnoxious makes Bashir a lot more tolerable.

Bashir and O’Brien’s relationship will evolve a lot over the course of the series, and it’s a lot of fun, knowing that they end up as BFFs, seeing O’Brien struggling valiantly to hide his low-key hostility. WHOMST AMONG US HAS NEVER BEEN THERE, O’BRIEN? I believe that is what the kids today call a “big mood”.

(It’s also kind of fun, knowing that the primary reason their friendship was pushed heavily later was because the showrunners found out about Garak/Bashir shippers, panicked, and started avoiding putting them in scenes together, given that a large part of the fandom then proceeded to start shipping Bashir/O’Brien. I was never really into that pairing myself, but I *am* into doing things out of spite, so I wholeheartedly support the effort.)

The B plot

JAKE AND NOG ARE SUCH KIDS, BLESS THEM BOTH!!!! That’s most of what I’ve got. I was, however, weirdly delighted by Odo’s little smirk after he chases the kids from their hangout spot above the Promenade. You like the kids, Odo, don’t deny it.

Just. In a world where a twelve-year-old Black child with a toy was gunned down, and the shooting was ruled justified, with many, many voices rising up to defend his murderer because hey, he looked much older and was clearly a scary thug — in a world where the President of the United fucking States stands by his call for the state to murder a group of Black teenagers for a crime they did not commit — it feels really, really important to have this portrayal of a fourteen-year-old Black boy who’s treated by the narrative as just that: a fourteen-year-old boy. Jake Sisko is an awkward teenager who wants to play games, look at cute girls, and hang out with his best friend. He occasionally grieves for his dead mother, fights with said best friend, and needs advice from his father. He’s a kid. And it’s incredibly depressing and infuriating that, nearly twenty-five years after this episode aired, it’s still unusual for a Black teenager to be allowed to act his age.

I also appreciate how, for all that the plot with Varis isn’t treated as anything particularly out of the ordinary, it’s also, when I spend more than a few seconds thinking about it, completely brutal: Varis doesn’t have parents to turn to for help, like Nog and Jake do, because her parents were murdered. She’s a child, and she’s negotiating land rights on behalf of her people because anyone else who could do so was murdered. It’s a really lovely example of what makes Deep Space Nine so memorable: it would be so, so easy to let Varis’s storyline just be straight melodrama, but it’s not. She’s a sympathetic figure, but she’s also flawed; she makes missteps and struggles and, like many other Bajorans, she’s learning how to live in this new world they’re trying to build.

I have one more question

Why does Odo need a bucket, anyway? Can’t he just…be goo on the floor? Maybe he gets crud in him, like when you have to pick lint and cat hair off your clothes. Or…does he not have quarters? I guess if he’s living in the office, it’s pretty rude to other people working there to just be sleeping on the floor.

Horniness rankings

Nog’s entirely age-appropriate crush on Varis is pretty friggin’ adorable.
Bashir is channeling his horniness into enjoying the drama that plays out before him, and it’s also pretty hilarious.

1.13: “Battle Lines”

OK, first things first: WHY THE HELL DOESN’T THE RUNABOUT HAVE SEATBELTS? Like, OK, theoretically there shouldn’t be any need for them, but things happen! This is a troubling oversight, Starfleet.

With that out of the way: this is a really solid episode. The plot itself is straight out of the original series, but there’s also a lot that makes it uniquely DS9, too. There are some truly fun moments between characters, and I’d probably identify this episode as the one where Kira’s character arc really begins. On which note…

Area woman can’t deal with Kira Nerys

KIRAAAAA, ugh, my emotions. She talks in “Emissary” about Bajor as a whole, but this is the first time we’ve really gotten any in-depth look at the personal toll the Occupation took on her. We’ve seen previously that she’s impulsive and pragmatic, that her first instinct when faced with a locked door is to get out her phaser. But only now does the show call our attention to where that instinct came from: “I’ve known nothing but violence since I was a child.”

Throughout the rest of the show, Kira will struggle with this — yes, she was forced to grow up much too fast, but the other side of the coin is that, not having been able to grow up normally, she’s now stuck in the patterns of her youth. This episode is really the beginning of the arc of her trying to grow up in a way she wasn’t allowed to do, to find ways to make peace with her past and channel her passion into building up herself and her world rather than tearing down the Occupation.

I also love that even though it hasn’t really gotten any significant attention thus far, we’re still seeing Kira and Sisko’s relationship evolve, and Kira grow more comfortable with Sisko in particular and the Federation crew in general. Sisko gently needling her with “when you’re through feeling underappreciated” in the opening, after letting her see Dukat’s file on her, was perhaps disproportionately delightful to me, and Bashir attempting to comfort her in her grief over the Kai’s death was genuinely sweet.

Speaking of Bashir, this episode was a really fantastic use of him. The absolute inability to take a hint when he invites himself along on the trip! His complete failure to read the situation when he and Sisko are working on an escape plan, so his light “isn’t that a bit like assisting a jailbreak?” is met with Sisko stonily shutting him down!

On the flip side, though, his snapping “oh, for God’s sake” and snatching his kit back from the Ennis guard so that he can see to Kira’s injuries is a moment of uncharacteristic anger from him. We’ve seen something like it only once before, in “Emissary“, when he snaps at Odo to help him or get out of his way. As I said then, the character’s saving grace early on is that he A) is actually really fucking good at his job, and B) takes it really fucking seriously. He’s another character whose arc I love, but this episode is maybe the first time I really like him.

Area woman only slightly better-equipped to deal with Bajorans in general

LORRRRRRRD the Bajorans give me so many feelings, in no small part because the things the show does with Bajoran religion are extremely friggin’ Jewish.

Kira: I’m afraid the Prophets won’t forgive me.
Opaka: That is why you need to forgive yourself.

W H E W. That is JEWISH AS HECK, y’all.

I have, uh, cut several paragraphs and several hundred words from this post about the Jewish holiday of Tisha b’Av, and another few hundred about the High Holy Days and Jewish ideas of atonement. (I am, however, going to be talking about religion in Star Trek on Antimatter Pod this weekend, so y’all may not be spared some version of those thoughts.) Suffice it to say that Kira’s journey over the course of the series, her struggle to make peace with her past and to find her identity outside of the context of the Occupation, hits me hard, in places that are inextricably bound up with my Jewish faith.

BUT I DIDN’T CUT EVERYTHING, SORRY, PREPARE FOR SOME JEWISHNESS!!!

The concept of Teshuvah — repentence and atonement, in a larger sense, but also, literally, “turning” — is a big one for the High Holy Days, but there’s a lot in it about repetition, the patterns that we fall into. The holidays come every year, after all — every year, we’ve got more to atone for. Every year, we have to face the ways we’ve disappointed ourselves and others, and every year, we have to start again, even knowing that we’re going to be back here next year. Which is…resonant as hell with this episode, thematically: every day, the Ennis and the Nol-Ennis are given a clean slate, and within a matter of hours, they’re back where they began.

In the words of Rabbi Alan Lew:

Transformation is not something that happens once and for all time. […] Transformation does not have a beginning, a middle, or an end. We never reach the end of Teshuvah. It is always going on. We are awake for a moment, and then we are asleep again. Teshuvah seems to proceed in a circular motion. Every step away is also a step toward home.

And it may never be clear to us that the work of transformation has borne fruit. This is usually the case in the realm of spiritual practice. Real spiritual transformation invariably takes a long time to manifest itself in our lives. Spectacular, immediate results — sudden changes in aspect or in the way we see the world — are always suspect, and usually suggest a superficial rather than a profound transformation.

Sisko and Bashir, the Federation officers, are disappointed at their failure to create any sudden transformation — they seem to be on the verge of a breakthrough, and then negotiations fall apart and the Ennis and Nol-Ennis go back to killing each other.

On the one hand, it’s a sad ending. (My mom, who loves the character of Kai Opaka, is still mad at DS9 for getting rid of her so soon.) But on the other hand — what a profound, and, in its own way, profoundly hopeful ending.

It’s not going to happen overnight. A single cease-fire doesn’t mean the war is over. It’s going to take work, a lot of it. And yet these people are not given up as a lost cause, abandoned to their hatreds — Opaka is determined to start doing the work, determined to stay even before she learns that she’s physically incapable of leaving. Deep Space Nine is often called darker than other series in the franchise, and yeah, it’s that, but I disagree when I see it called pessimistic. It’s not, really, not at all — the hope that characterizes Star Trek is 100% still there, DS9 just…comes at it from a different angle.

On a less intense note

A few things I enjoyed:

The bisexual pride flag color scheme of Opaka’s robes
Bashir looks much better with his hair messy, IMO
Jonathan Banks and the fun moment of recognition I always have when I remember he’s in this episode

Horniness rankings

Me, for this show, apparently??? I mean, I think we all knew that at some level, but I surprised even myself with this post. Also: me for Judaism, but as someone on Twitter (I want to say it was Talia Lavin, but I’m not finding it in her history) once said, it’s an extremely horny religion, so that’s kinda to be expected.

I also feel like it’s worth mentioning that Kira is mad about Dukat’s file on her because he’s completely dismissive of her. The attention of the Galaxy’s Horniest Lizard has been primarily focused on Sisko thus far, and mostly remains so, but as time goes on it expands to the people around Sisko as well, so, uh, sorry about that, girl.

1.12: “Vortex”

This was a surprisingly engaging episode, actually? LOL that sounds harsh, but a lot of the first season just kinda leaves me cold. We’re already reaching a point where both writers and cast are starting to get more of a handle on the characters, though, which helps to liven things up a lot. Additionally, this is an interesting episode in terms of the groundwork it lays for later developments.

The fact that Croden considers the shapeshifters a legend is interesting, as is the fact that there’s some truth to what he says about their having been persecuted by the solids. He’s also bang on in his comments about the shapeshifters’ general personalities: the Founders are later established as having a strong sense of justice that can very easily become too rigid, even turn into fascism; they have very little trust in other species, which can also turn, as Quark points out, into paranoia.

This is also the first time we see Odo’s weird smile and okay, I admit I’m not the biggest Odo fan, but I love his awkward smile so much.

Shout-out to the props team

I really like both the shiny purple mug Quark is drinking out of in the opening, and the bottle Rom brings on the tray. And the glimpse we get of the Vulcan ship, too, actually.

On the subject of Quark, I feel like it’s a very interesting little characterization thing that he’s got a drawer full of security clearance widgets? It struck me as a subtle way of telling us that, like Garak, he actually has the means to do some serious damage to the station. You can argue that he wouldn’t just out of self-interest, since that’s where he lives, but he could also sell them to someone who does want to fuck things up on the station and disappear into the Gamma Quadrant or something.

The climactic scenes though

First, I have some questions: why would Odo be knocked unconscious by rocks? He doesn’t have bones. Or a brain, for that matter. And doesn’t he revert to his liquid state when he’s unconscious, anyway? I watched this episode with my mother, who initially thought that he was faking it as a test for Croden, and frankly, that might have made more sense.

That aside, apparently the writers and producers were concerned about the reveal of Croden’s daughter being too sappy. Instead, I’ll let my mother, with whom I watched the episode, explain why it resonated pretty hard:

Odo, preparing to transport them both to the Vulcan ship: Don’t thank me, I already regret it.
Mom: …but of course he’s helping them anyway, BECAUSE WHAT KIND OF MONSTER WOULD SEPARATE A PARENT AND CHILD TO SEND THE PARENT BACK TO CERTAIN DEATH?

So, yeah, ouch.

Horniness rankings

There is very little horniness in this episode, although Quark and Odo are basically Kate Beaton’s Nemesis comics. Like several other duos on this show, actually (Sisko and Eddington, Dukat and Sisko, Dukat and Kira, some hints at it with Dukat and Garak…let’s be real, pretty much Dukat and anyone he interacts with more than once), which might be why it has such a special place in my heart.

1.11: “The Nagus”

Okay, this feels more like the show that Deep Space Nine is going to become, I think. As with “Q-Less”, the focus is entirely on the characters, with the external plot serving their storylines, rather than the other way around.

My last rewatch was with my then-roommate Mindi, who loves Nog and Rom, and when I yelled “THEY’RE SUCH GOOD BOYS!!!!” over Jake and Nog I got all nostalgic for sitting on her couch, trying to avoid being attacked by one of her cats, and was sad that she was not here to watch it and yell with me.

For real, though, I feel like Nog has one of the more underrated arcs on the show. He starts as a pretty one-note character, a plot device for Sisko’s parenting arc, and by the end he’s the first Ferengi in Starfleet and dealing with PTSD.

(Also: I get that the Ferengi were concerned about Federation ~indoctrination~, and the fact that a woman was the authority figure in the classroom. But they’re not illiterate! WHY CAN’T NOG READ, this is concerning!!!!! What the hell, Rom? Was it supposed to be his mother’s job to teach him, and since she’s [footage not found], Rom just figured “oh well”? I HAVE QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS.)

Speaking of characters being fleshed out more

This was the first episode where I really felt like Jadzia was recognizable as the character she’ll become over the course of the show. Initially, they’re trying convey Dax’s centures of life experience by trying to make Farrell play Space Galadriel, which is frankly a misuse of Farrell’s strengths. As they move away from that, letting Jadzia have more of her own personality, Dax shows up instead as a confidence and self-assurance beyond Jadzia’s years, and she’s playful and adventurous instead.

That transition starts for real in the second season, but Farrell’s performance here hints at it. Which is to say, I love the following things in her scene with Sisko:

The way she turns her chair backwards like the Cool Teacher
The fact that she admits her parenting advice might not actually be all that helpful
The fact that she just…stays there, eating Jake’s dinner, when Sisko leaves??? EVERYONE ON THIS STATION IS SUCH A MESS AND I LOVE IT

Also, O’Brien’s “what, what? oh no” face at Sisko’s “Your daughter’s three, wait until she’s fourteen” is glorious.

OK but yikes though

WHEW, the whole bit about the Ferengi being jazzed about doing business in the Gamma Quadrant because no one there will know yet that they can’t be trusted, and they can break their word with impunity. Like. W H E W. Got it, Star Trek, they’re untrustworthy and suspicious, and are naturally greedy businessmen, and they’re also short with comically oversized head appendages! I get it. I get it, Star Trek, and it’s not great! IT’S NOT GREAT, STAR TREK.

(Hell, it makes Nog’s illiteracy even weirder and more unbelievable. How are we supposed to trick the goyim with all our learning and fancy contracts full of loopholes only we know how to exploit if we can’t read or write those contracts? At least keep your offensive stereotypes consistent, Trek!)

That said:

Wallace Shawn as Zek is just chef’s kiss
Quark going full Don Corleone is delightful. Armin Shimerman is ALL IN on this show and the fact that Quark is given more to do than just be a ~~Jewish~~ Ferengi stereotype is one of the things that makes the other Ferengi appearances bearable.
I also like that where Nog is concerned, Sisko is occasionally inclined to…something almost like NIMBY-ism? The tension he’s struggling with feels very real: yes, he absolutely believes in the Federation’s ideals about diplomacy and reaching out to different people, but in practice, dealing with Ferengi in his daily life, it’s hard for him. I also like that this tension isn’t something that’s quickly resolved — a couple of seasons down the line, he’s reluctant to recommend Nog for Starfleet Academy, immediately assuming that it’s some sort of prank or scam.

One last thing

“You don’t GRAB power, you accumulate it quietly, without anyone noticing!” SERIOUSLY STAR TREK WHAT THE FUCK. Like, granted, actual fucking Nazis weren’t being called “very fine people” by the President of the United States when this was airing, so while it’s aged poorly, it might be slightly more bearable in an environment where white nationalism isn’t increasingly mainstream. But still, good lord.

Horniness rankings

The Nagus, which, you know what, good for him. I also really love how pretty much from the beginning, Deep Space Nine’s holosuites are for porn. Jake and Sisko were in a fishing program in the pilot, but since that was on a starship instead of the station, it’s the exception that proves the rule.
Quark, particularly for the special pleasure he takes in trolling Odo about his new status as Nagus, good lord, I love it.
Dax, for Sisko’s aubergine stew, apparently? I mean, it sounds great, but come on, Dax, boundaries!!! Although Sisko doesn’t seem to mind, so who am I to judge?