Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

This week on Deep Space Nine, Dukat (Kathy Bates) and Sisko (James Caan) crash land on one of Star Trek’s less convincing standing sets, and then have a proper talk about their Feelings and Values. (Antipathy, and for one of them, Racism.)

Some time in 2374, Ben Sisko, tired of helming Deep Space Nine in wartime, considers handing the job over to someone else. At the same time but in 1953, Benny Russell dreams of a version of himself living beyond the daily indignities of existing as a Black man in America. And meanwhile in 1998, people tuning in for this week’s episode of White People Living on the Moon find themselves watching something far better than they had a right to expect.

And all I ask is one little ship and a star to steer her by.

Five years ago, a high-concept space accident shrank the crew of a shuttlecraft, who were immediately forced to thwart the takeover of their starship by a group of alien intruders. And so it’s about time exactly the same thing happened again. But we’ve learnt a lot in the interim, apparently, which means that this time the script is sharper, the effects are slicker, and the tag scene is considerably more amusing.

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?

Fly me to the moon
Let me trek among the stars
Let me taste the cocktails
In some holographic bars
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you