I heard the episode where Lt. Ayala shows up and challenges him to a debate is one of the best in Trek history.
Shatnertage's Mostly-1st-Time Watch Thread
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You know, at some point, you wish Morn would just shut up now and then, though he does say funny as heck jokes...
My favourite episode about Morn, and there's plenty to choose from, is that one where he took part in that famous heist and became incredibly rich, but he still chose to hang around with his good friend Quark. He's like George Clooney from those heist caper movies, but moderately more attractive. 
I couldn't tear myself from my TV as I was watching...
"Captive Pursuit"
This is the first episode that I can give an enthusiastic thumbs up to. It's got an interesting sci-fi concept, a moral dilemma, and some great interpersonal stuff between O'Brien and Quark and, of course, O'Brien and Tosk. It's pretty much everything I want to see in this kind of Trek episode.
I might be biased because I saw him speak at last year's Vegas convention (and interviewed him for an article I wrote), but I thought Scott MacDonald was great as Tosk. There's a real sense of alien-ness (thank God he doesn't have anything that looks like buttocks on his face) and he does a great job of acting underneath all of that make-up. And Colm Meany does a good job of selling him as a real character.
One thing I noticed about the first half of this episode is that Sisko seems to do a lot of listening. It'd be interested to compare how many lines of dialog he gets compared to other captains. Sure, he gets to make the Captain Kirk Speech when the hunters show up, but he doesn't do very much exposition before that--instead he listens, gives orders, and listens some more. I like that.
Funny opening--never before has systematic sexual harassment bordering on slavery been so mirthful.
And, while I'm in a humorous state of mind, I'll admit that when I found out the Tosk were bred to be hunted, my first thought was that they're the Dish of the Day for people who like a good workout before dinner.
It also occurs to me that if you got the Tosk and the Hirogen together, it'd be like crossing a masochists' support group with a sadists' convention. Yikes!
Interesting that it took Quark's presence for O'Brien to realize that he could bend the rules a little to let Tosk go, but it's appropriate. The final scene with him and Sisko was great, as was Odo's "pursuit" of them once Sisko told him to take his time.
Very thoughtful and thought-provoking episode. I want to see more like this. Seeing as I have a Q episode that isn't "Tapestry" next, though, I'm not so sure I will be in the near future.
"Captive Pursuit"
This is the first episode that I can give an enthusiastic thumbs up to. It's got an interesting sci-fi concept, a moral dilemma, and some great interpersonal stuff between O'Brien and Quark and, of course, O'Brien and Tosk. It's pretty much everything I want to see in this kind of Trek episode.
I might be biased because I saw him speak at last year's Vegas convention (and interviewed him for an article I wrote), but I thought Scott MacDonald was great as Tosk. There's a real sense of alien-ness (thank God he doesn't have anything that looks like buttocks on his face) and he does a great job of acting underneath all of that make-up. And Colm Meany does a good job of selling him as a real character.
One thing I noticed about the first half of this episode is that Sisko seems to do a lot of listening. It'd be interested to compare how many lines of dialog he gets compared to other captains. Sure, he gets to make the Captain Kirk Speech when the hunters show up, but he doesn't do very much exposition before that--instead he listens, gives orders, and listens some more. I like that.
Funny opening--never before has systematic sexual harassment bordering on slavery been so mirthful.
And, while I'm in a humorous state of mind, I'll admit that when I found out the Tosk were bred to be hunted, my first thought was that they're the Dish of the Day for people who like a good workout before dinner.
It also occurs to me that if you got the Tosk and the Hirogen together, it'd be like crossing a masochists' support group with a sadists' convention. Yikes!
Interesting that it took Quark's presence for O'Brien to realize that he could bend the rules a little to let Tosk go, but it's appropriate. The final scene with him and Sisko was great, as was Odo's "pursuit" of them once Sisko told him to take his time.
Very thoughtful and thought-provoking episode. I want to see more like this. Seeing as I have a Q episode that isn't "Tapestry" next, though, I'm not so sure I will be in the near future.
Captive pursuit has aged very well and is a fine episode. Enjoying your reviews.
This is easily one of the best of the early DS9 eps. One of my favorites, anyway.
Back with an episode that made my earlier trepidation seem absolutely...
"Q-Less"
We start by getting to hear Bashir's pick-up line, which involves him taking a test. And it seems to work! I absolutely loved the look on O'Brien's face as it was happening.
Which got me thinking that a few years ago I probably would have identified with Bashir--young professional, over-educated, eager. At this point, I'm identifying much more with Sisko and O'Brien--world-weary, hard-working, and skeptical of everything. See what a few years of family life will do for you?
So back to the episode: Vash shows up, fresh from the Gamma Quadrant, and Q isn't far behind.
Initially I thought this episode was going to be a real slog, but it was actually a lot of fun. After the introductions, a really pleasant romantic comedy breaks out--I especially liked the interplay between Q and Vash, and Bashir muddling along made things perfect. It was like a Hugh Grant movie, though in the Hugh Grant movie Colin Firth would have played Q. Hugh Grant, of course, would have been Bashir.
As a big rom-com fan, I always like to see elements from them show up in Trek. There were a few episode of Voyager where Janeway had some nice moments, and Paris and Torres had their share, too. Although when they take the comedy out of it and take a full-fledged romance novel approach, I find it pretty abysmal. I generally fast forward through the Trip/T'Pol stuff from ENT because it feels so forced.
You've also got anomalies (hey, who doesn't have a few of them on their ship/station) which, I'm sure everyone figured out about 2 minutes in, are tied to the glowing dingus (my Maltese Falcon tribute) Vash brought back. It's kind of idiotic that no one made the connection between Vash's cargo and the gravometric whatevers, but such is life on Deep Space Nine.
The boxing match was awesome, particularly Q's period mustache. His surprise as Sisko hitting him was pretty funny, too. Though I'm not quite sure what this implies about Sisko--that's he's a doer and not a ponderer, that he's more active than Picard, or that he's just a thug who solves problems with violence?
Those were the things that stuck out most for me--Bashir's nap was pretty funny, too. This was a fun episode.
"Q-Less"
We start by getting to hear Bashir's pick-up line, which involves him taking a test. And it seems to work! I absolutely loved the look on O'Brien's face as it was happening.
Which got me thinking that a few years ago I probably would have identified with Bashir--young professional, over-educated, eager. At this point, I'm identifying much more with Sisko and O'Brien--world-weary, hard-working, and skeptical of everything. See what a few years of family life will do for you?
So back to the episode: Vash shows up, fresh from the Gamma Quadrant, and Q isn't far behind.
Initially I thought this episode was going to be a real slog, but it was actually a lot of fun. After the introductions, a really pleasant romantic comedy breaks out--I especially liked the interplay between Q and Vash, and Bashir muddling along made things perfect. It was like a Hugh Grant movie, though in the Hugh Grant movie Colin Firth would have played Q. Hugh Grant, of course, would have been Bashir.
As a big rom-com fan, I always like to see elements from them show up in Trek. There were a few episode of Voyager where Janeway had some nice moments, and Paris and Torres had their share, too. Although when they take the comedy out of it and take a full-fledged romance novel approach, I find it pretty abysmal. I generally fast forward through the Trip/T'Pol stuff from ENT because it feels so forced.
You've also got anomalies (hey, who doesn't have a few of them on their ship/station) which, I'm sure everyone figured out about 2 minutes in, are tied to the glowing dingus (my Maltese Falcon tribute) Vash brought back. It's kind of idiotic that no one made the connection between Vash's cargo and the gravometric whatevers, but such is life on Deep Space Nine.
The boxing match was awesome, particularly Q's period mustache. His surprise as Sisko hitting him was pretty funny, too. Though I'm not quite sure what this implies about Sisko--that's he's a doer and not a ponderer, that he's more active than Picard, or that he's just a thug who solves problems with violence?
Those were the things that stuck out most for me--Bashir's nap was pretty funny, too. This was a fun episode.
This is not the only time you're going to hear that story.
I'm afraid I'll have to agree to disagree with you on the overall quality of this episode. But then, as you might recall, Q gets on my last nerve, so there's really not a lot for me to get enthused about here.
I think you'll be pleased with the romances that occur later on in DS9. The writers for this show definitely blow all the other Trek series out of the water in terms of how they develop the characters' relationships. That goes for friendships, too, and . . . uh, enemyships, to coin a phrase.
I think it implies that he doesn't take any crap. I mean, his station is in jeopardy and the primary suspect wastes his time by doing magic tricks and punching him in the face, and whereas Picard would just stand there and shout that he's not going to play Q's game, Sisko's like "don't fuck with me, bitch" and beats the crap out of him. I find it admirable.
Sisko has a shorter temper than Picard or any of the other captains. In fact, one of the best scenes in the show has him punching my favourite character across a room.As for Q-Less, I'm not a fan. I like Q on TNG, I think that he had brilliant chemistry with Picard, but I didn't like him being used on DS9 and Voyager because he felt out of place. My biggest problem with this episode is that Q and Vash take over the whole thing while the DS9 cast almost seem like bit-players on their own show. Thankfully, this is the only Q episode on DS9.
I can see that. It was almost like an "Assignment: Earth"-type backdoor pilot for a spinoff about the adventures of Vash and Q.
To me the most interesting thing about Sisko so far is that he's not in the mold of Kirk/Picard/Riker, who basically are married to their Starfleet careers. I liked how, in "Emissary," he mentioned that he was considering other options, and of course that he's been married and has a son. For Kirk or Picard, the worst thing that could happen would be losing command (I can't resist posting a link to this), but for Sisko's it's losing his son. That puts it all in perspective, and I can see why he's got much less patience for someone like Q.
Speaking of patience, it's time to enjoy a courtroom drama about...
"Dax"
There are lots of kinds of Trek: BattleTrek, JailbreakTrek, HostageTrek, PhilosophyTrek, ComedyTrek, even MusicalTrek. My consistently least favorite brand of Trek is CourtroomTrek. It's usually tedious and bears only a passing resemblance to any real courtroom proceedings, with amateurs representing clients who are fighting for their lives. Plus, these days, the glut of police procedural/courtroom shows on TV really makes it clear that, as drama, CourtroomTrek usually falls short.
So once it became clear that this was going to be a courtroom drama about the extradition of Dax, I hunkered down for a blah episode. And I wasn't far off the mark.
The best part of it, for me, was the Odo/Quark scene, which helped save the producers the cost of building a courtroom set and actually has some historical precedence--in some parts of the American West, circuit-riding judges really did preside in saloons. So that works on a few levels.
The story itself was lackluster. You'd think that this kind of issue would have come up somewhere else before and that whether the next Trill host is responsible for the crimes of the previous host would be well established in Trill law, if not Federation law. Instead it's up to Sisko and Kira to ferret something out.
It was nice seeing Fionula Flanagan in a Trek role, but it was easy to figure out that Dax was protecting her, hence his silence. Originally I thought that she was going to be the traitor, which would have put Dax in an even more morally ambiguous place.
And after hearing her talk a bit, I realize that the judge also played Rishon Uxbridge in "The Survivors." Cool.
There's interesting stuff in here, but the courtroom framing device kills it for me. It's not awful TV, but it gets a little ponderous with the makeshift legal proceedings.
One other thing--did they really say that Keiko was going home for her mother's 100th birthday? I couldn't have heard that right. Since she looks to be somewhere in her 30s, that would mean her mother had her in her 60s. Then the judge who wasn't Rishon Uxbridge was also 100. It's like it was centenarian's day or something.
To me the most interesting thing about Sisko so far is that he's not in the mold of Kirk/Picard/Riker, who basically are married to their Starfleet careers. I liked how, in "Emissary," he mentioned that he was considering other options, and of course that he's been married and has a son. For Kirk or Picard, the worst thing that could happen would be losing command (I can't resist posting a link to this), but for Sisko's it's losing his son. That puts it all in perspective, and I can see why he's got much less patience for someone like Q.
Speaking of patience, it's time to enjoy a courtroom drama about...
"Dax"
There are lots of kinds of Trek: BattleTrek, JailbreakTrek, HostageTrek, PhilosophyTrek, ComedyTrek, even MusicalTrek. My consistently least favorite brand of Trek is CourtroomTrek. It's usually tedious and bears only a passing resemblance to any real courtroom proceedings, with amateurs representing clients who are fighting for their lives. Plus, these days, the glut of police procedural/courtroom shows on TV really makes it clear that, as drama, CourtroomTrek usually falls short.
So once it became clear that this was going to be a courtroom drama about the extradition of Dax, I hunkered down for a blah episode. And I wasn't far off the mark.
The best part of it, for me, was the Odo/Quark scene, which helped save the producers the cost of building a courtroom set and actually has some historical precedence--in some parts of the American West, circuit-riding judges really did preside in saloons. So that works on a few levels.
The story itself was lackluster. You'd think that this kind of issue would have come up somewhere else before and that whether the next Trill host is responsible for the crimes of the previous host would be well established in Trill law, if not Federation law. Instead it's up to Sisko and Kira to ferret something out.
It was nice seeing Fionula Flanagan in a Trek role, but it was easy to figure out that Dax was protecting her, hence his silence. Originally I thought that she was going to be the traitor, which would have put Dax in an even more morally ambiguous place.
And after hearing her talk a bit, I realize that the judge also played Rishon Uxbridge in "The Survivors." Cool.
There's interesting stuff in here, but the courtroom framing device kills it for me. It's not awful TV, but it gets a little ponderous with the makeshift legal proceedings.
One other thing--did they really say that Keiko was going home for her mother's 100th birthday? I couldn't have heard that right. Since she looks to be somewhere in her 30s, that would mean her mother had her in her 60s. Then the judge who wasn't Rishon Uxbridge was also 100. It's like it was centenarian's day or something.
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I personally think that's the reason Sisko went to "that character" in the first place - just so he could punch him.
Shatnertage, think you meant "emissary" and not "Caretaker" 
That was the best part of the whole episode. In fact, in my brain, this episode has been renamed "The Arbitrator LOL Love Her".
Shatnertage, think you meant "emissary" and not "Caretaker"
Ouch. I did.
Fixed that.Thank God for the edit feature!
Which wouldn't have been such a bad thing if it had taken place later in the show's run, but six episodes in is too soon to move the spotlight onto the guest characters. You have to establish the mould before you can break it.
But it probably hadn't come up in Bajoran law.
Which means that Sisko had to argue to create a precedent. (Which means that Bajor follows the common law model. The British sure did export that model a long way...)The writers probably didn't put much thought into it, it was just an excuse to give Colm Meaney some time off as he was doing a film in Ireland at the time. In fact, he's missing for a couple of episodes in season 1 and the writers feared that he was going to try to leave the show to focus on movies (as he's quite famous in Ireland) so they were thinking of ways of writing off his character should they need to. Thankfully, Colm didn't leave and he stuck around to be tortured for a few more years, much to the audience's delight.
I think that Sisko went there to beat him to within an inch of his life, but "that character" was very persuasive so Sisko settled for smashing his head in.I personally think that's the reason Sisko went to "that character" in the first place - just so he could punch him.
Actually, it shows that Sisko is a man always under allot of stress.
That's the point to Sisko, is that he's got pressure on him internally and externally.
He's on a space station that still may contain Cardassian booby traps, a bitchy disagreeable First Officer and Chief of Security, a flaky Doctor, a mentor that's now not completely different person, a race of people that view you as their Jesus, Cardassians at your door step, a smuggler(Quark) and a spy/saboteur(Garak) possably plotting against you and a son possably being influenced by all of this. I Sisko's situation, something like Q can be the straw that break the camels back.
You have to picture Sisko as someone on the verge.
Indeed they did say that the O'Briens were returning to Earth for Keiko's mother's 100th birthday.
For what it's worth, according to Memory Alpha, the original script said that it was her funeral, not birthday, that they were attending. Something obviously got mixed up and then not much thought was spent on it.
For what it's worth, according to Memory Alpha, the original script said that it was her funeral, not birthday, that they were attending. Something obviously got mixed up and then not much thought was spent on it.
Also, it can't be that unusual, in an age where people are undoubtedly living longer, to have parents that much older than them.
I have a friend, my age, 17, whose dad is in his 80s. Since it's Keiko's mother, it's a little bit more tricky, but maybe Federation scientists managed extended the menopause, or Keiko was conceived through fertility methods.
Or it was the writers not putting much thought into it, which is more likely.
The thing I don't like about Dax is that they don't ultimately resolve the interesting concept of whether they actually are responsible, they use a quick get-out-of-courtroom free card by simply giving Curzon an alibi. It would have been more interesting to answer the original question.
I have a friend, my age, 17, whose dad is in his 80s. Since it's Keiko's mother, it's a little bit more tricky, but maybe Federation scientists managed extended the menopause, or Keiko was conceived through fertility methods.
Or it was the writers not putting much thought into it, which is more likely.
The thing I don't like about Dax is that they don't ultimately resolve the interesting concept of whether they actually are responsible, they use a quick get-out-of-courtroom free card by simply giving Curzon an alibi. It would have been more interesting to answer the original question.
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