"Meloras physical appereance makes no sense whatsoever. Why on earth should she have the same physique as a human?"
You're right, but DS9 is also a TV series that has to be filmed in Hollywood in 1993. They probably called Central Casting asking for a beautiful actress with 6 foot long arms and legs and came up emptyhanded...
Didn't Melora voluntarily accept the surgery? I didn't think it was forced on her. But it's been a while since I watched it.
What are the minimum physical requirements for Starfleet? Vulcans and Klingons have been established as much stronger than humans. Should they be able to make a rule that humans can't be in Starfleet? Melora isn't disabled, she's normal for her species. She doesn't bring the strength of humans, but perhaps makes up for it in different ways. If they ever have a mission in a microgravity situation, she'd be priceless.
Hey
kkt!
Interesting points, I'm trying to answer them:
1. Budget is a bitch. There's a reason why we don't see many strange, new, alien worlds, but mostly the insides of
caves on strange, new, alien worlds. But budget should never stop a series from making
sense. There are myriad ways to go around, from making her a TOS-like energy being to having wing-like prosthetics on her arms.
2. Yeah, she did accept the surgery on her own. But Julian was very persuasive about it, especially when she was about to change her mind.
3. Well, a human on a klingon/vulcan ship would certainly be the disadvantaged one (like Geordi on TNG). But he would still be able to perform all operations and physical requirements on par with the crew and work as part of the team.
But do you remember these guys? The Xindi aquatics from Enterprise:
I highly doubt a human would be allowed in
their astronaut corps, even with a diving-suit. Same goes for Melora.
What I would have done:
First of all, there is a good story hidden inside this episode. One that was even alluded to by Jadzia in the Runabout: Make it a love story where the two can't breath the same air. Have a distant starship make a medical distress call. And Bashir leads the female captain of this ship through the medical procedure to help the sick crewmember, all over radio communication. Then have them talk afterwards. Have them build a 'skype-relationship'. And then, when they meet for the first time, let them realize they don't
breathe the same gas, and they could never see and touch each other in person, because one of them must always wear a space-suit.
And make another story about a former Starfleet officer, who had a terrible accident and is now in a wheelchair. Who still wants to accomplish stuff, maybe has a new project that leads him to DS9. And the crew themselves being highly considerate and helpful about it, but don't realize that this person, in a wheelchair, is actually pretty capable of doing things on her own.
Again, people who can't fall in love because of the enviroment is interesting. Dealing with disabilities is not only interesting, but something that is way too rarely addressed in our culture. The big problem of
this episode is that they merged both these storys, and wound up hurting both of them.
And the horrible acting. And horrible dialogue. And the horrible Quark story. But there is no way to improve
that.
