Deep Space Nine finds itself unexpectedly in sitcom territory this week, as the Nagus (Wallace Shawn) arrives on the station with a complicated scheme to expose the incompetence of his Large Adult Son Krax (a young Eric Trump in his first television role). Meanwhile, Commander Sisko discovers something delightful and heartwarming about his small teenage son Jake, who unwittingly teaches him a Valuable Lesson about kindness and trust.
This week, Kira moves a few steps forward on her long and problematic journey from terrorist to bureaucrat as she struggles with a decision to evict Brian Keith from a hastily re-dressed Standard Cave Set 1. In the meantime, Jake and Nog do some adorable capitalism, foreshadowing just how much we’re going to grow to love them by the end of the show.
You know how it is: it’s your first spinoff — a cast of delightfully high-concept characters set against a colourful backdrop, with story possibilities around every corner. But then you find yourself limping towards the end of your first season. You’ve done the plague one, the weird alien fugitive one, the buddy comedy one with the CGI shaving cream, and the terrible boardgame one that everyone will have such fond memories of. So what’s left? How about a story where all of your beloved regulars play people no one cares about, embroiled in a conflict that no one has any interest in? We can do that, can’t we?
In this week’s episode of Family Ties, when Quark (Michael J Fox) lies about his involvement in the death of a belligerent Klingon customer, he finds himself threatened, hauled off to Qo’nos, forcibly married, and required to defend the honour of his house before the High Council with a combination of Excel spreadsheets and extreme physical cowardice. Will he learn a Very Important lesson about the dangers of greed? (Spoilers: no.)
This week, Deep Space Nine serves up a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, in which a respected female character undertakes an ill-advised heterosexual romance with a creepy and unattractive white guy, which makes her look like an idiot. Meanwhile, over in the B-plot, Quark and Jeffrey Coombs try to get hold of some deepfake celebrity porn of Nana Visitor.
Stardate 46519.1: Surgically altered to appear Romulan, Marina Sirtis wakes up on board the Romulan Warbird Khazara looking as fabulous as she has ever looked and starts threatening an increasingly cowed Carolyn Seymour. The result — one hell of an enjoyable episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Eighteen months later: Surgically altered to appear Cardassian, Nana Visitor wakes up on Cardassia Prime looking incredibly striking, but her rich backstory, the show’s increasingly involved premise, and her willingness to just go for it as an actor — all of these combine to make one hell of an enjoyable and satisfying episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Basically nothing happens on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine this week, as Nathan undergoes a religious experience which inspires him to be terribly nice to people for a change, while Joe anticipates failing to win a major podcasting award. Still, sometimes it’s just nice to hang out with the people you love, isn’t it?
This week, Miles and Julian learn about larping and friendship, Kira learns about clay and the inevitability of authoritarian male religious figures, and we learn about subtext and delightful character development — all thanks to Jane Espenson, who, it turns out, is the real hero of the episode.
This week, we discover to our surprise that there’s a lot to enjoy in a flawed and ultimately unsuccessful episode episode of Deep Space Nine — two wonderful guest actresses, some (largely) cringe-free sexiness, and a mature and gentle romance. Meanwhile, some TV writers imagine a just reward for their life of constant backbreaking labour.
