This week, we discuss one of Star Trek’s most sacred texts — a forty-five minute Ben Sisko soliloquy, in which he saves the galaxy in a trolley problem of Garak’s devising, killing in the process a Romulan Senator, an obnoxious blue guy and at least one really hot Romulan bodyguard. Is this a great episode, a truly great episode, or something else altogether?
First broadcast on Wednesday, 30 September 1998
and Wednesday, 7 October 1998
It’s an epic start to Deep Space Nine’s final season. Miles, Julian and Quark join Worf on a mission to honour Jadzia by blowing up a cartoon shipyard. Ben and Jake meet a (completly adorable) new Dax, drag Brock Peters through the desert for some reason, and then dig up a box. And Kira sits in a tiny spaceship waiting steadfastly for something to come along and resolve her part of the plot. And all the time, Joe and Nathan are cheering from the sidelines, enjoying a solid 90 minutes of getting to know these people again, and watching them set things up for a glorious final year.
When passive-aggressive Vulcan racist Captain Solok arrives on Deep Space Nine and challenges Sisko to some kind of sportsball game, a series of hilarious training montages ensues, followed by a Very Important Lesson about how utterly adorable Rom is. Bless.
This week, it’s time to ruin everyone’s fun, as Nathan declares that a Deep Space Nine fan favourite is an artistic failure, and compares it unfavourably to Take Me Out to the Holosuite. Is he crazy, or is it the whole damn system that’s crazy?
When the Lounge is taken over by violent mobsters, Vic Fontaine (James Darren) has no choice but to call in his fictional friends from the twenty-fourth century to help him out. A stylish and entertaining heist ensues, the good guys win, and we’re reminded (again) about how much we love these people.
After the Breen attack Starfleet Headquarters on Earth, Ben Sisko (Alan Dale), fearing for the safety of his new wife Kasidy (Lisa Armytage), gets all of her upcoming missions cancelled, with predictable results. Elsewhere on the station, Ezri (Annie Jones) and Worf (Guy Pearce) bicker about her budding relationship to Julian (Peter O’Brien). On Bajor, Kai Winn (Vivean Gray) and her new lodger Anjohl (Ian Smith) are planning to unleash the pah-wraiths on an unsuspecting galaxy. Which puts into perspective the plans of Legate Damar (Stefan Dennis), who merely wants to kick the Dominion out of Lassiter’s so that he can look at himself in the mirror without cringing.
