S01E08 - Dax

• Most DS9 episode titles are thoughtful or clever but they got bored with this one and just named it after a character.
• Oh man I will never get tired of the “entire station falls apart without Miles at the helm 24/7” trope
• Ah! The first mention of the existence of the infamous raktajino! Love seeing the first time things get introduced that become such a show staple.
• I’m laughing so hard at Dax not even deflecting, just flat out ignoring each line of flirtation Julian tries on her.
• Dax always walks with her arms folded behind her back and I’ve tried this and it is uncomfortable
• Kidnapping! Punching! No, Julian! Eek! Intense!
• “Which not only compromises Bajoran security but also… *makes a crazy face* annoys us.” I luv you, Kira. Marry me.
• I can picture it, as soon as Sisko said they needed a place to do the hearing, Odo leaped at the opportunity to run to Quark’s and inform him they would be commandeering his holosuite. It’s the biggest joy in his life.
• I am also in luv with Anne Haney’s performance as the snappy Bajoran arbitrator, Renora. Marry me. (She played on an ep of TNG too!)
• Ahhh another Space Mystery™. Why won’t Jadzia explain? Who was the real murderer? How will this be wrapped up in a neat package in just 40 short minutes!?
• “If this is true I’d hang Curzon Dax up by his heels myself.” “Thanks for the confidence.” Odo and Sisko dry-sarcasming to each other makes my day.
• This makes me realize how carefully the DS9 creators worked to create unexpected characters for this show. The two ‘warrior’ types, Dax and Kira, are beautiful young women, not typical beefy men. The doctor is brilliant but socially awkward to the extreme. The commander is as unlike Picard, the captain of the previous show, as they could possibly make him. With each character they tried to take what we would expect and turn it on its head. (These were the days before 'subverting audience expectation’ was abused so much that it’s become almost a stereotype of bad writing, today.)
• They did a good job balancing the ep, it’s an entertaining murder mystery plot but also lets us learn about Dax’s character and Trills in general
• Julian getting all indignant when Tandro interrupts his testimony hee hee. Aww but then he gets distraught when the questioning turns against him and he walks right into it! He baby…
• I like that Odo is the one to interview Enina Tandro. He sees things in such black and white, the truth is the truth, that’s all there is. But then he gets exposed to this culture that won an entire war based on a lie, based on the person they thought this general was, but he wasn’t. Sometimes there’s more to truth than just facts.
• “Live, Jadzia Dax. Live a long, fresh, and wonderful life.” Wow. The last lines of this ep turned out to be heavily ironic…

• Moar TNG cameoooooos! Let’s go! *clap*

• Julian’s a dork, we all know this and love him, but I want to give an Emmy to Colm Meaney for the faces he’s making during the whole scene of Julian’s academy finals story. Miles never says a word the entire scene, his face says it all for him. Just puffs out a tiny sigh as he walks away. It’s perfect.

• Kira: Finally, a chance to shoot through a runabout door like I’ve always wanted!
  Sisko: Major. No.

• Miles only exists in episodes like this to identify who the TNG cameo characters are.

• I admit, as a kid I tried to convince myself I didn’t like Q much because he was such a popular character and I was one of those kids who felt threatened if I liked popular things, like it would erase my own identity to go with the crowd. Regardless, as an adult I love Q. I am so glad he gets a DS9 ep. And VGR eps! And yeah, throw him in a MLP cartoon, why the hell not!
  

• I think it’s kinda weird Vash was in the Gamma Quadrant for two years and her accumulated wealth for that whole time is just like five things? That’s the whole auction? Maybe Q took the rest of her stuff.

• Promethean quartz. Yes, Star Trek writers, that is totally an alien gem stone you got there, I can now tell. Thanks.

• “The captain likes a good challenge, sir.” Miles gossiping about Picard’s sex life to Sisko. Just DS9 things.

• Hahaha the dresser drawer makes a little electronic hiss as Vash puts her clothes away. Because it’s a space dresser, you see. This is the future.

• “What did they call you, the god of lies?” “They meant it affectionately.”

• Oh to be a fly on the wall when Sisko attended the official Starfleet briefing on Q!

• The entire boxing scene. Enough said.

• They ran out of prosthetics for some of the auction aliens so they decided blue fabric wrapped around the head was good enough

• Oh I love it when the A plot and the B plot come together so perfectly in the end! And hey, a space moth! Love it. Spaaace mooooth.
  

• I remember how much I loved this ep the first time I saw it. I really wish there had been more “whoa something random just came from the Gamma Quadrant, how we gonna deal with it?” plots during DS9’s run.

• Props for the opening scene, with the crew at Ops wanting to beam the alien to safety and he saying no, he won’t leave his damaged ship. Rather than waste time pointing out he’s being needlessly obstinate, they just find a different way to help him. They respect his opinion even though they don’t agree with it. It’s a small thing, but it’s very Star Trek.

• They kinda borrowed the idea of Tosk’s invisibility for the Jem'Hadar, later on, eh?

• “I am Tosk.” “That’s your name or your species?” “I am Tosk.” “Oh.”

• O'Brien makes himself a friend! I’m crying! Bless him.

• Tosk and O'Brien’s little shop talk about ship propulsion gives me life

• Tosk is SO much cute. Is there fanart of Tosk out there? I'mma gunna go look after I finish this episode.

• You know Odo could just disguise himself as part of the bulkhead but he chooses to be a painting. A really ugly painting. Just putting that out there.

• “Nobody’s abducting a prisoner out of my brig as long as I’m alive.” Mr. 100% Extra Forever, everyone.
  

• Anyone else kinda get the feeling the head Hunter might have known how this was all going to go down? After seeing Sisko’s sympathetic to Tosk, he’s just like “Release him to us” and goes back to his ship without waiting for a reply. Like he might have been hoping Tosk would get the chance to get out of his “cage” and the hunt could resume.

• Quark dragging conversation out of reluctant O'Brien, priceless

• Every time a Starfleet officer takes his comm badge off and throws it on a table to symbolize he’s going against his oath in order to follow his heart. I just… *chef kiss*

• Nice set up and pay off with the force fields. The earlier scene with Tosk and Odo shows us how easy it is to cut off an intruder in the corridors, so that we later understand how simple it would have been for Sisko to have Tosk and O'Brien stopped. Then we understand that, even with the dressing down Sisko gives O'Brien at the end, he really understands the action he took.

S01E05 - Babel

• I would be fully on board for a whole episode where we just follow Miles around as he solves station problems for everyone

• Mr. “I hate him but I will jump to save the stupid Ferengi from his customers who attempt to harm him via bad soup” Odo. You’re not fooling anyone.

• Sisko’s “What did I do!?” face when O'Brien blows up at being asked to fix the replicator

• “She’s flower units about the lad herself.” Can we give a giant shout-out to all the actors who must have practiced their asses off to speak random words and make it sound like attempted conversation? It’s one thing to memorize a flowing dialogue with other actors you’re sharing a scene with, but to memorize all these random words and deliver the lines as if you’re speaking English is just wow. Everyone did a great job.

• Man, watching this in 2020 gives a whole new perspective to the freight captain who wants to leave the station in the middle of quarantine. “None of my crew are showing symptoms so we should just be allowed to go on our way la la la that’s how it works right?”

• In later seasons it must have gone something like this: “We want Rom to be an engineering genius but we established in early episodes that he’s an idiot, what do we do about it?” “Why not both?”

• Noooooo not Julian! How will they find an antidote now!?

• Young Cirroc Lofton’s acting in this ep is adorable. I love when he runs to grab the nurse to help O'Brien.

• I approve of Kira’s way of solving issues

• Odo and Quark running Ops together because everyone else has the virus. That’s it. My day is complete now.

• I mean, do we assume all of the other Ferengi on the station are, like Quark, unaffected? And they didn’t show up at Ops because they just didn’t want to help?

• But no, if that was true Julian would have studied the Ferengi immune system to help whip up an antidote. So Quark is just randomly super healthy against this particular virus, I guess.

• Regardless, I’m now picturing a pack of Ferengi running Ops and it’s like that scene at the end of Ratatouille where all the rats are running the restaurant.

• You know with 100% certainty if this episode was made today, it would have been written that the freight captain Jaheel would have died as his ship exploded. We’re very into “you get what you deserve when you’re an idiot” morals in our society right now. But my favorite thing about Star Trek has always been that it shows a universe where we rise above the petty feelings we’re dealing with in our culture today. It shows a future where we are better than we are now. The future is better. So yes, Jaheel was a selfish idiot who almost blew up a station full of innocent people. And yes, Odo saved him and he survived anyway. That, my friends, is true Star Trek.

• Julian Bashir: meets new person, completely flustered, immediately accuses him of being a spy for his people. Smooth.

• The thing he does with his hand when the plant gets in his face!

• No but seriously these two are adorable. I remember wanting much, much more screentime for these two than they ever got, the first time I watched this series.

• And then he runs straight to Ops to tell everyone! Ahaha I love you Julian.
  

• Dax: “What do you think he might want from YOU, Julian?” *straight face* Oh, she knows…

• Watching this on Netflix. Not even gonna click Skip Intro cuz I love the opening song so much.

• I forgot about Kira and Sisko butting heads early on. I love how the relationships of this show evolve.

• Lursa and B'Etor! The somewhat random TNG cameos continue! Bring them on, I say!

• Okay Sisko gets his reputation as the Daddy because Bashir and everyone else always runs to him like, “Ah this scary thing happened what do I do!?”

• Garak guiding Bashir through the first steps of spy-dom awww~

• Joranian ostrich!? Haha gotta love the Star Trek trope that is “name something from Earth and put an alien word in front of it because this is THE FUTURE!!” If you do that today your audience would roll its eyes but with Classic Trek it’s just quaint and adorable. (I mean you can still roll your eyes but it’s also quaint and adorable)
  

• But really, Kira and Odo’s relationship is laid out so perfectly in this scene. They have so much mutual respect for each other and take strength from each other’s presence and I’m so here for it for the whole ride.

• Why are the character interactions so much more interesting to watch than the actual terrorist plot of the episode? Good writing that’s why!
  

• This opening with the weird alien game and the early 90’s CGI is just so very ‘Trek

• “I’ll never understand the humanoid need to… couple.” “You’ve never coupled?” Oh I love them.

• Keiko and Miles are great characters, and even though I remember the “husband and wife squabbling” tropes will get quite a bit grating over time, established domestic life wasn’t something that was really explored on Star Trek much in the past so I like that Trek keeps trying new things.

• More of my favorites are getting introduced today! Jake and Nog are two of my favorite DS9 charas. I’ve always had a soft spot for kid characters, and the growth these two go through as the show progresses is just great.

• Jadzia claims joined Trills don’t look for romance, ha! “We try to exist on a higher plane.” Well that’s a convenient plotpoint they were quick to never bring up again, wasn’t it.

• The whole plot of this episode is very much a TNG-type plot. Space-crime is committed, one of the cast is accused, must use science to figure out the answer. Go science!

• Oh man I forgot Rom shows up here and they completely change his character later on. Very much for the better.
  

• It’s funny how much of the “old west” themes DS9 had going on at the start. Odo is the Constable. Bashir talks about “frontier medicine” last episode. In this one Keiko establishes herself as a school marm, and a mob attempts a lynching.

• Look, this is only the second episode of the series and they take half the runtime to establish Quark and Odo’s hate-love-hate relationship and Quark jumps at the first word of a customer against Odo to defend his honor. I don’t think anyone who argues against Quodo really has a leg to stand on!

• Clever to connect DS9 to TNG right in the first ep, so that fans would come over to check out the new show

• This opening where we get to see the battle of Wolf 359 was intense!!

• Can’t say enough about how much I love the DS9 opening theme. The blue comet, the rotating shots of the station, the brassy instrumentals. Yes!

• Setting up Picard as someone Sisko hates was really ballsy. Picard was/is a super popular character. It’s taking a chance to start your new show with your lead at odds with an old favorite, but at the same time, we just saw Sisko’s wife die, so we sympathize with him even knowing it’s not fair for him to blame Picard for his pain.

• I love every single thing Avery Brooks does with his face

• I can’t believe they said “We need to show off our futuristic sci fi show’s shapeshifter’s abilities so we’ll just have a thief chuck a fucking mace at his head and shoot it as awkwardly as possible.”

• Glad to see any Sisko and Quark interactions are always a delight, right from day 1

• Kira offended by Bashir’s tactless enthusiasm~

• O'Brien’s farewell look at the Enterprise bridge! Trying to sneak off without saying goodbye! Oh, feels!

• “Computer, you and I need to have a little talk.”
  

• I always really liked the idea that the Prophets use your memories of people to appear to you because they don’t have physical forms of their own.

• “You exist here.” Such a power line.

• Sisko explaining the concept of linear existence–what it means to live as a person–is one of the best ideas from this whole show. Having to analyze and accept your own grief in order to communicate with creatures who have no concept of grief at all makes for some great science fiction.

• And we end with that great crane shot as it pulls back and up to the Promenade’s upper level! Love it. Love it all.

• Hmm, this two-part opener feels incomplete to me somehow, compared to my memories of seeing it 25 years ago. But I think I also had The Emissary novelization as a kid, so it’s probably just that I had more of an understanding of the scenes from reading the novel. Especially about the Prophets and Sisko interacting. Perhaps time I re-read that book.

aka: the total disrespect!

• “Today, there is a chance of thick fog in the Tokyo area. Those of you out in the roads, please take extra care to drive safely.” This weather report makes me nervous because if it wasn’t gonna be important later then they wouldn’t let us hear it and make it so obvious ya know? God, there better be no car crash or something.
• Azalea are really bribing people with the chance to win a bunch of money just for the 100k likes.. I know it’s more their manager’s planning but still.
• “A total of 100 million yen’s a small price to pay.” Bro what kind of life do you have where that amount of money is considered small?? I mean.. okay, comparing it now to USD I guess it isn’t as much as I previously thought but still, enough for me!
• Kongming really out here staring down on all of Shibuya like Itachi right before the Uchiha massacre.
• Yo wait a minute, are Eiko & Kabe really gonna perform in the exact same spot as Azalea?
• Dude oh my god, yeesss let’s go!
• Oohh even if Azalea does show up, the crowd can’t scan their QT code to give them likes due to the fog! At least I think that was the whole idea? Unless the fog just makes it harder for the crowd to recognize Eiko instead? Either way, having our girl play one of Azalea’s songs to grab everyone’s attention is smart too.
• Eiko had a QR code too but I doubt it would work the same way though, like Kongming doesn’t seen like the type to bribe the fans with money, just using the crowd’s knowledge of Azalea’s trickery is sly enough.
• Hold up that little history lesson about the arrows was actually kinda nice. Totally fit this plan as well, which I know is the whole point of hearing about Kongming past achievements but this is the first time in a long time where one actually made a good amount of sense to me ahha..
  
• We’re at 70,472 likes so far but not close enough, and with the real Azalea pulling up now, things are about to get heated.
• I’m probably being bias towards Eiko but I honestly don’t think the whole Azalea group is that good.
• Oohh Nanami finally recognized Eiko across the stage.
• I love how we know little to nothing about this super Eiko fanboy that we keep seeing glimpses of all the time yet he’s been around since the beginning and working with Kongming in the shadows.
• Kabe dissing not only Azalea but the crowd is everything I ever wanted right now. Dude is so damn quick with coming up with bars right on the spot.
  
• Broooo our boy is spitting facts!!
• Eh Azalea gained 98,749 likes but things are taking quite a turn with all the fake rumor chatter now.
• The whole crowd might hate us now but Eiko’s gonna make em fall in love I’m sure.. we just gotta wait til next episode of course..
• Oh hey, no crash happened, so that’s good.