Re-Watching DS9

[Lord Garth]

"The Parliament of Dreams" (B5 S1E5)

Spoiler

All kinds of things happening here! Where do I begin?

I'll begin with Londo making a drunk fool of himself and doing it entertainingly! He loves everybody! When he's drunk, he's drunk. And, to top it off, when he's facing downward, his hair kind of looks like Vegeta's from Dragon Ball Z. Then he passes out and he's out for the rest of the episode.

Then there's G'Kar. I never knew he'd be this entertaining to watch, but Andreas Katsulas plays a great paranoid G'Kar. After the threat from another Narn that someone was going to kill him, he's looking out for anyone and anything.

Too many names to keep track of. Let's see if I can do this: Do'Kath, G'Kar's aide is killed. Tu'Pari, a Narn diplomat, lets G'Kar know that Du'Rog (his old rival) wants to kill him. Then there's Na'Toth, a Narn woman who's G'Kar's new aide, and isn't there to kill him. G'Kar is paranoid that anyone could kill him. Tu'Pari, it turns out, was the one who was hired by Du'Rog to kill G'Kar. I did it! I got it. I feel like I just went through the jungle gym. Eventually, I won't have to look up all these names anymore.

I love the double-twist at the end when it looks like Na'Toth might've been hired as backup in case Tu'Pari failed, but then it turns out Na'Toth was on G'Kar's side all along. Something you can pull off exactly once, when a character is new and you're still not sure about them, and they pull it off! Tu'Pari isn't killed, but his career is over now, he's a dead man walking, and Du'Rog will deny any and everything. I'm guessing we'll see Du'Rog again.

Catherine, Sinclair's old flame, visits. This one's kind of thin, but that's not a problem since there was so much for me to keep track of with G'Kar's storyline. Catherine and Sinclair are on-again/off-again, and now they might be on again. We'll see how this develops. I think Catherine's a better fit for Sinclair than Carolyn was.

Delenn's Secret. Delenn has an association she doesn't want anyone on the station to know about and she makes sure to tell Lennier, a.k.a Will Robinson from Lost In Space, not to spill the beans. I was wondering how long it would take for Bill Mumy to show up! Anyway, because Delenn's so concerned about her secret being revealed to non-Minbari, now I know it's definitely going to be revealed!

Babylon 5 vs. Star Trek on Religion: Star Trek, mainly in TOS and TNG, looks down on religion. DS9, by design, is more open to it, but it focuses mainly on Bajoran religion. From VOY on, I don't think think Star Trek really has a stance. So, Star Trek's hard stance against religion basically went away after Gene Roddenberry died. Babylon 5, on the other hand, embraces religion from the get-go, in full-force, complete with a literal line-up. That's one way for B5 to separate itself from Trek. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.

Summing Up: This episode covers a lot of ground and, I assume, sets up a lot for the future. Though, mainly, it's a G'Kar Episode. I enjoyed it a lot, so I give it a 9.

I have to do this to get it out of my system: "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"

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[DonIago]

^A couple of minor notes:
1) It's Kodath, not Do'Kath.
2) Du'Rog claims in the message he sends to G'Kar that he's dead.

 

[Lord Garth]

^A couple of minor notes:
1) It's Kodath, not Do'Kath.
2) Du'Rog claims in the message he sends to G'Kar that he's dead.

I was going by the spelling in the B5 Wiki. But apparently, they can't keep it straight. The article for "The Parliament of Dreams" spells it Ko'Dath, but when I click on the article for the character herself, it's spelled Ko D'Ath.

Episode Link and Character Link. It's like Early-Modern English, before spelling was standardized. Either that, or there's no proofreading on their Wiki.

 

[Lord Garth]

Two episodes in one day. "Two in one day?!" It's been super slow, so why not? One B5 and now one DS9.

"Playing God"

The episode where the Jadzia Dax we know for the rest of her time on the series really starts to assert itself. Fun-loving, tradition-ignoring, and tries out all kinds of new things. All of these had been there before in this season, but now it's all put together in one large, concentrated dose. And it's a good thing too, because Arjin is a bit of a dead fish. He certainly wasn't going to carry the episode. I also appreciate getting more insight into the other Dax hosts, how they were like when judging Initiates, and how hard Curzon was on Jadzia.

The episode isn't the only thing Arjin isn't going to carry, and "Playing God" is aware of this. Jadzia wonders to Sisko about what Arjin would bring to whatever symbiont he joins with. Arjin's personality isn't strong enough to balance a symbiont and previous hosts. Jadzia says she's worried about Arjin, then he blows up at her when she honestly says why and calls him on telling her what he thinks he wants her to hear. My takeaway is that Arjin is super-defensive because he wants to be become what he thinks he's supposed to become. He never stopped to think about what he wanted to become, only what he had to do, and then never put any serious thought into what he'd done once he was joined. It's like he's a college student who knows that he has to graduate but has no real plan for what he wants to do once he actually does graduate. He doesn't have a plan. Not even a badly thought-out plan. Just, "I don't know. I'll find out from the other hosts when I'm joined!"

The Technobabble B-Plot: Algae gets on a Runabout Nacelle, with Jadzia and Arjin aboard, they bring it to the station... and it creates a pocket universe. A universe that Jadzia eventually discovers has life. I thought I was watching DS9 Season 2, not TNG Season 7.

In the end, Sisko decides to have Jadzia and Arjin drag the pocket universe into the Wormhole, where it can expand without destroying anything. It made some nice visuals inside the Wormhole, but I'm not going to pretend I understand any of it.

Arjin's piloting skills are something that will look good, Jadzia says, if she recommends him. And they leave it open-ended. He doesn't know what he's going to do, besides prove himself, and the episode doesn't try to answer this question or solve all his problems within 45 minutes. This feels realistic.

Overall, I give it a 7.

Very Minor Thing: Cardassian Voles in the station. How can something that large manage to be so hard to find? And how much can they get into? It's not like a Cardassian Vole is small, like a house mouse.

 

[DonIago]

I'm not sure quite what it was, but I found Arjin interesting and perhaps a bit relatable (I've been working for the same company for almost 20 years and I still struggle with considering it my "career", and it's nothing I saw myself doing for so long), and I wish he'd been revisited at some point.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Spoiler: The Parliament of Dreams

This one was a bit of a relief for me after Soul Hunter, Born to the Purple and Infection. G'Kar gets to be the hero at last, or the protagonist at least, and it turns out that Andreas Katsulas was fairly good at acting. But Peter Jurasik still tried to steal the episode from him with his drunken speech on the table. The subplot with Sinclair and Catherine was a little less entertaining for me on my last rewatch however. I thought it came across a bit dated... as the dialogue felt like it'd been written in the 1940s.

Also, showrunner JMS always made an effort to be respectful to all religions and include characters who see things from a more spiritual perspective, though he did give a hint to his own personal beliefs in the line up scene - the first person Sinclair introduces is an atheist. By the way, Michael O'Hare did a great job remembering all those names, that was impressive.

Overall I'd give the episode a 6 maybe, as it's good but there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Playing God, on the other hand, I'd probably give... a 6. I thought it was fine, even if the tiny universe plot was bizarre and not very well explained. I still don't get how taking it through the wormhole saved our universe, as all they did was move it a few thousand lightyears. And the episode's tone was bizarre as well, with Sisko giving a solemn speech about how wiping out a billion civilizations will make him worse than the Borg, while the most important things going on seemed to actually be Dax's initiate and Jake's girlfriend.

I'm also still not sure if Dax's personality change in the episode was because she was trying to get a reaction from Arjin, or because the writers were trying new things to see if they could make the character work. Either way it seems that they were happy with the outcome as this new version of Dax sticks around. Thankfully.

 

[Lord Garth]

Spoiler: The Parliament of Dreams

I thought it came across a bit dated... as the dialogue felt like it'd been written in the 1940s.

Spoiler: The Parliament of Dreams

That's not a drawback for me. I like movies from the '30s and '40s. I'd go so far as to say I like them better than movies from nowadays.

And the episode's tone was bizarre as well, with Sisko giving a solemn speech about how wiping out a billion civilizations will make him worse than the Borg, while the most important things going on seemed to actually be Dax's initiate and Jake's girlfriend.

Yeah, I agree. I understand the point they were trying to make and the dilemma Sisko faced, but it felt lopsided. Especially when they were talking in the hypothetical as far as whether or not the life that existed in the pocket universe was sentient. I think the writers liked the idea of a pocket universe, then they realized they wrote themselves into a corner, and the Wormhole was their only ticket out.

 

[DonIago]

I agree that while the concept of a pocket universe was a relatively novel one for Trek, the discussion surrounding it was a bit too technobabbly for my satisfaction. I'm assuming the area of space where it originated had some unique properties, but it might have been better if they'd just said it had come through a spatial rift or such and they needed to dump it back into said rift.

 

[Lord Garth]

No episode today, but I must explain the avatar change. I had today off, but not Halloween itself. So, I celebrated it today, and I was Gene Simmons for Halloween!

Back to our regularly schedule re-watch tomorrow! In the meantime...

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[at Quark's]

I was going by the spelling in the B5 Wiki. But apparently, they can't keep it straight. The article for "The Parliament of Dreams" spells it Ko'Dath, but when I click on the article for the character herself, it's spelled Ko D'Ath.

Episode Link and Character Link. It's like Early-Modern English, before spelling was standardized. Either that, or there's no proofreading on their Wiki.

Or perhaps the character was a bit of a social climber and decided she could do with a fancier name at some point. "Ko D'Ath" sounds a bit posher, doesn't it ?

 

[Lord Garth]

I figured out how I see Bariel and Kira politically. Bariel is like a Democrat. Kira is like a Nikki Haley Republican who won't support Trump, because of his (lack of) character, and is supporting the Democrat.

 

[kkt]

I think the Bajoran political system is way too different from ours to make an analogy.

 

[Lord Garth]

I watched this last night but was too tired afterwards to post anything. So, I'm posting about it now. What an episode!

"Mind War" (B5 S1E6)

Spoiler

The Psi Corps finally get an episode focused on them! Talia, being the series' telepath finally gets an episode focused on her as a result. And last, but definitely not least, we finally get to see Bester! Like with Bill Mumy, I've known Walter Koenig was in Babylon 5 since the '90s. So, it was NOT a spoiler to me that he was there. And now that I've seen it, I can say that Bester didn't disappoint. From this one appearance, I can say that I find Bester way more interesting as a character than Chekov. Nothing against Chekov, he was always great for comic relief, screaming, and saying something came from Russia, but still...

Bester and his assistant, Kelsey, are after Jason Ironheart, a telepath with dangerously unpredictable power. He was an experiment gone wrong, where the Psi Corps wanted to see how they could weaponize telepathy. What Psi Corps wanted to do reminds me of how Weyland-Yutani wanted to weaponize the Xenomorphs in the Alien movies. Ironheart's uncontrollable power as he evolves reminds me of Kes at end of her stay on Voyager.

The real highlight was when Sinclair stood up to Bester, something very dangerous considering how much power and latitude Bester has. Talia knows Ironheart and Sinclair comes to realize Ironheart isn't the monster Bester and Kesley painted him as. As Ironheart tries to escape and begins to transform, Sinclair knocks out Bester and Ironheart accidentally kills Kelsey, before completely evolving and leaving B5. At the end, he says he'll see Sinclair in a million years. (Ummmm... I hate to tell you this, Ironheart, but Sinclair will be dead in a million years!)

When all is said and done: Bester put B5 in danger by misstating what was going on and leaving the crew in the dark, resulting in Kelsey's death. Sinclair assaulted Bester and helped Ironheart. They're both at a stalemate. So, they agree to a cover story that will protect them all. One thing is definitely sure: Bester will be back.

Catherine is also back, two episodes in a row, and she gets to do more than be Sinclair's girlfriend, because they give her a subplot with G'Kar. The B-Story serves to support the A-Story by saying nothing is as it seems.

Summing Up: This is my favorite episode of Babylon 5 so far. I can't find anything wrong with it. Both sides of the argument are built up well, the B-Story supports the A-Story, Sinclair has a bad-ass moment, Talia gets some limelight, Bester had a great introduction, and it ends with no one gaining an advantage over the other. I love it. I know I don't know the series that well yet, and there's probably better to come, I'll re-evaluate the entire series when I'm done with it...

... but for right now, I'm going to go ahead and give this episode a 10.

And, finally, just because I can:

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[Bad Thoughts]

No episode today, but I must explain the avatar change. I had today off, but not Halloween itself. So, I celebrated it today, and I was Gene Simmons for Halloween!

Back to our regularly schedule re-watch tomorrow! In the meantime...

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[Lord Garth]

I'm taking a bit of a break from Babylon 5 because after "Profit and Loss", I'll be watching the three TOS Klingon Episodes before "Blood Oath". Then I'm watching "Journey's End" (TNG) before "The Maquis, Part I". And I don't want a gap between Part I and II.

The line-up is going to be:

"Profit and Loss" (DS9)
"Errand of Mercy" (TOS)
"The Trouble with Tribbles" (TOS)
"Day of the Dove" (TOS)
"Blood Oath" (DS9)
"Journey's End" (TNG)
"The Maquis, Part I" (DS9)
"The Maquis, Part II" (DS9)
"Preemptive Strike" (TNG)
"The Wire" (DS9)
"Mirror, Mirror" (TOS)
"Crossover" (DS9)

I'm keeping the Klingon Episodes, the Maquis Episodes, and the Mirror Universe Episodes grouped together.

Then it's back to alternating between DS9 and B5 again.

 

[Lord Garth]

"Profit and Loss"

This is a very good episode, but I'm going to start off by saying I think "Profit and Loss" was an odd choice for a title. I don't think this episode was about profit at all. I don't think it was about loss either. Quark didn't really have Natima and she did offer him the possibility that they could be together after Cardassia became free and democratic. On the Garak end, he thought he might have a chance to be free from exile, but not really, and he killed Gul Toran to keep him from gaining any more influence on Cardassia. The title of the episode should've been "The Things We Do for Love", even though that's not really a DS9-style episode title. It's weird to start this off at the end of the episode, but I couldn't not comment on the title.

I really do believe that Quark loves Natima, but I don't understand what Natima could've seen in Quark. But then, she has a hard time seeing it as well. I think she was more attracted to Quark's humanitarian streak, helping Bajorans, than necessarily Quark himself. Then she was disappointed when it turned out he was more Ferengi than she thought.

The seeds for overthrowing the military government and allowing for civilian control are planted here. Eventually this happens at the beginning of the fourth season. In my opinion, that would've been a good time to bring back Natima. That they didn't was a missed opportunity.

Odo is true to his character in that he believes in justice more than rules or the law. He doesn't think anything Natima or her radical students has done merits handing them over to the Cardassians and a death sentence. He allows them to escape.

One of the main highlights of this episode is Garak. He hints at Bashir that he could be in exile and a former spy, before denying both. Then we find out in this episode that he is in fact more than just a tailor. We see the elaborate steps he's willing to go through to get what he wants, see what opportunities are out there, and how he'll stop whatever he perceives to be a threat, all while keeping a smile. And never has anyone else ever made following a wrong trend sound more dangerous.

There's nothing else that's springing to mind about this episode, other than I'm glad Sisko doesn't even try to hide that he doesn't like whenever his hands are tied.

I think I'm going to give this episode an 8.

 

[Lord Garth]

Just for reference, I'm watching the original 1960s version of TOS for these episodes, not TOS-R.

I was going to do all three episodes in one post, but I don't have it in me to do that. Instead, one episode per post. I don't want to sacrifice quality just to get through them quickly. I ended up having more to say about this episode than I thought I would.

"Errand of Mercy" (TOS)

The first appearance of the Klingons. Some of it they nailed down right from Day One, but not all of it. Obviously, they don't have the Klingon foreheads yet. We all know that, and I'm typing it just to type it. But they have the facial hair and the eyebrows. They're a warrior race and they fight to win. Kor thinks war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire "would've been glorious" and he wanted to meet Kirk in battle. This is all in-line with the Klingons we'll see later on.

What's not in-line is how fearful Kor's lieutenant is of him. And when Kirk captures this Klingon lieutenant, he tells Kirk what he needs to know out of fear. A Klingon from the movies or any of the later series would never do this.

The main Organian, Ayelborne, tells Kirk, Spock, and Kor that one day the Federation and the Klingons will become fast friends. Even though Kor says, "Never!" you can see signs of it here, even in this episode. Kor admits that he has an admiration for Starfleet in general and Kirk in particular. He thinks Humans and Klingons are similar as a species. He's also very quick to side with Kirk for a brief moment towards the end of the episode, when he thinks the Organians are their common enemy. I can see why Kor would have an easy time adjusting to the 24th Century where the Federation and the Klingons are indeed allies.

Some similarities between the Klingons in this episode and the Cardassians. The Klingons are on a mission to occupy Organia, just like they've occupied several other worlds. Sounds familiar? The Klingons have a long list of rules for the Organians, just like the Bajorans undoubtedly had a long list of rules under the Cardassians. For every Klingon killed, Kor threatens to kill 1,000 Organians. Sounds exactly like something the Cardassians would do.

The main difference between Dukat and Kor is that Dukat wants to rule over Bajor. Kor doesn't want to rule over Organia. He hates it. He's basically thinking, "I got stuck with this?!" He lit right up when he found out Kirk was there, to get him out of his boredom.

In "The Way of the Warrior", when there's fear the Klingons will return to the old ways, Worf references the same types of things that happen in this episode. A military ruler is installed, government officials are killed (that didn't happen here, but it could've if the Organians had put up a fight), and any resistance would've been put down.

One thing the Klingons have here that isn't referenced again is the Mind-Sifter. If this were later Trek, then it would sound more like something the Romulans would use. I'm thinking of "The Mind's Eye" (TNG) when the Romulans captured Geordi.

That's all I really have to say here. Next up is "The Trouble with Tribbles"!

 

[Orac]

Directed by John Newland who directed, hosted and narrated every episode of One Step Beyond.

 

[Lord Garth]

"The Trouble with Tribbles" (TOS)

I've always liked this episode, it's always been one of my favorites, and I had a lot of fun re-watching it just now. I know I'm going to revisit this episode again when we get up to "Trials and Tribble-ations". But for right now, I'm watching these TOS episodes as a lead-up to "Blood Oath", so I'll only be focusing on the Klingon aspect this time.

That being said, two key things here: First, this isn't a Klingon Episode, it's an episode with Klingons in it. It's really a Tribble Episode. Second, the Klingons in this episode are nothing like the Klingons we'll see in other series.

"Errand of Mercy" had Kor, who felt pretty close to what I normally think of when I think of Klingons. "Day of the Dove" will have Kang, who also fits. "The Trouble with Tribbles" has two main Klingons: Captain Koloth, and his lieutenant, Korax. (Darvin too, but we'll wait to talk about him until DS9 Season 5.) Korax is like the School Bully who's goading Scotty and Chekov in the cafeteria. He's like an Internet Troll egging someone on to flame him. He could've been any species. Koloth doesn't feel like a Klingon either. I won't say he feels like Trelane in TOS Klingon makeup, because Koloth actually seems like an adult, but I will say he could've been any species as well. But the Klingons were the Main Bad Guys of the series, so Klingons they were.

These Klingons are the least translatable into '80s and '90s Star Trek. So, when "Trials and Tribble-ations" wanted to contrast Klingons in TOS with Klingons in DS9 and its sister series, "The Trouble with Tribbles" gave them the most to work with.

One line of dialogue is compatible, though. When Korax says that half the Quadrant knows how big of a power the Klingon Empire is and that's why they're learning how to speak Klingonese. Right there, the Klingon language is established by name and he's referring to Quadrants on a large scale, similar to the way they're referred to in TNG/DS9/VOY.

Regardless of any of the above, I still enjoyed the episode a lot, I'd give it a 10 if I were rating these episodes, and I look forward to revisiting it again in a few seasons.

Next up is "Day of the Dove"!

 

[kkt]

Korax goading Starfleet officers in the bar didn't bother me. Korax was probably ordered not to start fights too, so he can honestly say Scotty threw the first punch. (Lying would not be honorable.)

I was a little troubled by what eventually happened to the tribbles. If we're supposed to feel too sorry for them for the little furry critters to allow them to be phasered or dumped into space, it no defense that they gave them to the Klingons, who probably shot them with disruptors or dumpted them into space. But the episode was running out of time and we didn't want the tribbles all over the Enterprise in the next episode, so...