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Best Non-Traditonal Pairings

OldManDax

Captain
Captain
As a character-driven series that worked hard to develop its characters, and also developed a seriously large landscape, DS9 was smaart enough to pair and/or link certain characters with one another, in a way that repeatedly yielded great drama, pathos, humor and subtle truths. Sisko and Jadzia, Kira and Odo, Garak and Bashir, Odo and Quark - we saw these pairings often, and enjoyed them because the actors worked so well together, and the writers wrote so well for them.

Sometimes, though, the writers would pair two or more characters who we DIDN'T often see together throughout the series, and place them in situations where they had to work togethers, either out of professional duty (i.e they were under orders), or by dint of circumstance (something catastrophic or dangerous occurred).

These episodes, IMO, were often just as satisfying as the regular pairings, and gave our characters a chance to even further develop and expand. Some examples inlude: Kira and Bashir in "Crossover", Sisko and Quark in "The Jem Hadar", Worf and Garak in "In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light", Bashir and Jake in "Nor The Battle to the Strong", and Garak and O'Brien in "Empok Nor".

For me, the bset of these were Worf and Garak in "In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light". I never, ever imagined Worf and Garak being paired together, but when they had scenes together, I found that I was dazzled. Watching Worf, who is so committed to the concept of honor that he is irritated and disgusted by Garak, but must follow his assignment, and Garak, who's always a character with complicated motivations and uncertain priorities, was pure enjoyment, in the category of "too good to have missed".

Second, would be Bashir and Jake in "Nor The Battle to the Strong". For once, Bashir got to be the experienced, less naive one, who had to help the younger, "green", and ultimately unprepared student.

So, which episodes with non-traditional pairings do you think were the best? And which pairings would you have liked to seen more of?
 
You already mentioned the first one I thought of: Bashir and Jake in "Nor the Battle..."

The other one that came to mind is the resistance group during the occupation. You often saw the characters interacting with one another, but as a group, you rarely saw those characters together. One of my favorite scenes: It's a short one, but I loved the interplay between Quark and Ziyal during the jailbreak ("Sacrifice of Angels").
 
Odo and Garak was the best. Every second between those two is brilliant. Real shame the series didn't put them together more after those two episodes, other than one future brief humorous encounter. Lots of untapped potential there.

In my view Weyoun and Sisko was also the best. Their scenes together never fail to be hilarious and fascinating. Lots of untapped potential there too.
 
I agree with both Odo/Garak and Weyoun/Sisko. I think one they tried that was somewhat interesting but not as great as it could have been was Worf/Garak in "Purgatory's Shadow". I think they tried to go for the Odo/Garak thing between Worf and Garak, but unfortunately I don't think it was pulled off as well as it could have been.
 
With that cast, I have a hard time thinking up a combination of characters that wouldn't work.
But since I should mention one, how about Sisko and Garak? Two extremely strong characters who were each no smarter than the other one. Move and counter-move the whole time.
 
I realized that my initial post I created may be a little too narrowly tailored, and people may assume that I'm only asking for episodes in which characters were together for the entirety or at least majority of the episode. But as other posters have demonstrated, some of the best, most golden moments came in small, or singular scenes within a given episode. The aforementioned Sisko/Weyoun scenes in "A Call to Arms" is an example of that, for example.

One that I just thought of, and forgot initially: Bashir and Kai Winn in "Life Support". It's the scene wherein Bashir confronts Winn in her quarters about Bareil's condition, and comes to a realization, on the spot, that Winn is using Bareil as a pawn, as a means to an end. He accuses her of being a coward, in that deeply morally indignant way that Siddig was so good at, and vows to make her actions known, IIRC. At the end of the scene, she reminds him that "won't forget what he said here", or something to that effect. Anyway, that scene is pretty much gold, and I don't think we see too much interaction between the two for the remainder of the series, except perhaps in "Rapture" (although I did wonder what would've happened if that would've gotten back to Sisko - manipulator or not, Winn was still someone to whom Bashir should've shown a degree of deference, if only for her political importance; plus Bashir had something of a habit of interjecting himself into things, places and conversations into which he had no business, and acting somewhat inappropriately within those realms).

I also agree about the Odo/Garak interaction, although ironically, I don't find the infamous "torture scene" all that compelling, at least not compared to all the hype.

I seem to remember an early episode, probably around Season 2, wherein Odo & Jadzia go to investigate a strange object of some kind, necause, IIRC, Odo thought it might have some connection to his past. I remember finding their interaction very interesting.

And how could I forget Sisko/Garak in "ITPM"? And QUARK and Garak in "Body Parts"? And EZRI and Garak in "Afterimage"? I see a pattern forming here....
 
There were little with Jadzia and Kira and Ezri and Kira other then the mirror uniiverse pairing with Ezri and Kira. With women pairing, it was Kira and mirror universe Kira pairing. With Leeta, poor girl she never had alot of pairing with men but with other women, they had to be working in the bar with her.
 
Odo/Worf only happened a couple of times, but I always liked it.

The Way of the Warrior -
Odo: "I've been isolated from my people, too."
Worf: "Yes, I know. I've read your Starfleet file."

Worf ruins Odo's investigation...

Odo and Worf discuss different ways to keep people from entering your quarters and annoying the hell out of you... good stuff.
 
Ezri said:
There were little with Jadzia and Kira and Ezri and Kira other then the mirror uniiverse pairing with Ezri and Kira. With women pairing, it was Kira and mirror universe Kira pairing. With Leeta, poor girl she never had alot of pairing with men but with other women, they had to be working in the bar with her.
I'm not talking about THAT kind of pairing, dude. ;)
 
If we can talk about pairing with two men why we cannot talk about pairing with two women?
 
You've already mentioned Bashir and Jake, which is probably my favorite unusual character combo.

I also really enjoyed Garak and Nog, first in Empok Nor and then following up in Rocks and Shoals.
 
I thought the Chief and Bashir were what you might call a non traditional hook up. From the other ST series we always saw the Dr link us the Capitan and other big cigars.

Because the Dr was genetically enhanced and he spent a life time hiding it...perhaps him pairing up with the Chief was just part of his usual MO...you know keep a low profile...and only later on did he come to like the Chief as an individual.
 
Ezri said:
If we can talk about pairing with two men why we cannot talk about pairing with two women?
Oh, i'm sorry - I thought you were talking about the kind of pairing that many male DS9 enthusiasts, and a lot of heterosexual males in general get excited about, if you know what I mean; especially since you mentioned the mirror universe Kira/Ezri "pairing". Gues I missed the total meaning of your post.

And btw, I appreciated Jadzia and Kira too, in the few occasions when they were together. Didn't they have a bunch of scenes together (flying an old ship, with Jadzia taking the lead, IIRC) in a Season 2 episode?
 
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