Deep Space 9 Livetweet, S2, Episodes 22-26
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DS9 S2 Ep 22, “The Wire”
– I love learning anything salient about the art of these cultures. The Never Ending Sacrifice sounds like a dynastic webnovel affair, or like the play “A Dream Like A Dream”:
“Inspired by Buddhis[t] principles, the drama unveils its stories by exploring the recurring cycle of life. The entire play is like a grand journey, starting from the end of life, and observes possibilities for people’s liberation from suffering[.]
The play has many unusual aspects. Consisting of two parts, it lasts about eight hours long, which is a big challenge for both the crew and the audience. It’s also an integration of stories happen[ing] in various places and times, with time ranging from the early Republic of China to modern times, place ranging from Taipei, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing and Normandie.” (https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514f7859444e31457a6333566d54/share_p.html)
– “We’ll go to my quarters to drink—” Garak finally making his move, eh?
– Odo monitors all Quark’s communications. It’s not legal. Bashir is cool with it, though, because it’s “in the interests of Station Security.” DS9 would let the police state fuck it until it passed out from dehydration. DS9 wants to gag on the police stat’s cock like this is a Taxianjun flashback.
– Odo: Ah, the Obsidian Order. You’ve got to hand it to them—
You do not, under any circumstances—
– Garak has a BDSM ‘pain2pleasure’ machine in his brain.
Katy: Just say ‘sex implant’. Surely the plot is that Bashir has to bang Garak to generate natural endorphins. (She also did fake sniffling for Bashir when Garak suggested they weren’t friends.)
– At last we’re enjoying some confirmation of Garak’s stupid “is he or is he?!” spy status.
– Katy: This replicator looks like a cat face. Maybe Garak just likes cats.
Me: His dad has the same model. I guess this was like, a “you love cats, right son?!” birthday present Garak couldn’t bring himself to get rid of.
– Drug withdrawal!Garak is being a bitch.
– We’re doing some very recycled Brechtian/Malaparte World War II trauma monologuing, but it’s more effective than anything has been for hours and hours of programming. “Reptilian Chalk Circle”. Garak is rather effectively gay; Bashir seems a bit bored.
– Garak and Bashir smarm at each other. Garak tells Bashir about his ex boyfriend and how they betrayed each other, blah blah. It is a fucking weird method of hitting on someone. The true complicating factor, however, is that Bashir is a shiny-leafed houseplant. How can you romance a houseplant? He is a peace lily that successfully cultivated a human form: the most unfuckable creature on this station, Morn included.
– Me: Why does Bashir get to use an official runabout to go bother Garak’s dad?
Katy: Sisko’s very tired. He just let him have it.
– Garak’s hateful dad takes a moment to be a cunt. Also Garak never had an ex boyfriend, ‘Elim’ was always himself; I guess Garak’s been keeping company with Miss Rosy Palm for some years.
– Garak says some dumb shit about how his fake backstories are all true, especially the lies! I don’t know exactly what that’s ripped off from, but it’s absolutely from something else. I can taste imported ham on the wind. Mm. Gabagool.
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DS9 S2 Ep 23, “Crossover”
– Kira deals with Bashir’s inability to shut the fuck up; Bashir is absolutely unendurable this week. If he were suddenly replaced in every scene by Arnold Rimmer, everyone watching and in the show would praise the great improvement in the ambiance.
– What a relief that the Mirrorverse has opened is yawning space yoni, putting an end to this fucking conversation.
– Mirror Kira: I’m gaaaaay! Can you tell by my loopy louche walk? Only a homoseeeeexual walks in this maaaaaanner!! And I have a tinfoil headband!
Katy: Kira’s found someone she dislikes even more than Bashir: the evil gay version of herself.
– What is that evil headband? What in June Hudson’s holy name??
– Evil Odo hates jokes, which is identical to regular Odo. Both are cops. I see little, if any, difference.
– Evil Kira is super fucking smarmy, but she’s fun.
– Kirk headfucked goatee!Spock into being real good, which is hella cute.
– Evil Kira is so, so into Good Kira—fine. The BingGe/BingMei vibe intensifies, and Regular Kira rides the whirlwind (and herself, probably).
– Kira: who the fuck is ‘Kirk’?? Do you know?
Bashir: Uuuuuh yeah, I fucking. Yes.
– Bashir to O’Brien: Actually [in my world] we’re best friends—
Katy: No you’re not.
– Evil Pirate Sisko has chaotic energy. Idk, it works!
– Evil Kira offers us the most characterisation anyone on this show has yet. Why is the best written episode episode so far???
– Ol’ turtle face Odo almost managing a smile, here.
– House of Duras mentioned!! Ayyyy, the girls and their girls.
– ‘You’re not accustomed to this workload are you?!’ No Chodo, he’s fuckin clarified that already.
– Sisko doin’ a ‘bellion with Smiley. How are these two particular parallel universes so fucking linked and close?? This is like Time 3??
– Katy: I think Kira was LEAST happy to discover that some version of her was fucking Sisko.
– Regular Sisko: Where the fuck have you two been?!
Bashir, in greasy rags:
Kira, in party dress: …well I discovered I’m bisexual?
Sisko: Fucking WHERE, at an avant-garde production of “Rent” in the Delta quadrant??
Bashir, weakly: How we gonna pay…
Dax, clenching fist: Last year’s rent?
– To echo fandom, where the fuck is Mirror Dukat at while Kira sits in his chair? Like, is he a farmer? Are he and Kira finally the Nazi power couple of his dreams? …omfg is he her step dad? Does she call him, Dad? Is that why she’s Like This????
– Katy: I’m watching this whole show so we can get to Trouble with Tribbles II
Me: I’m still on step-dad Dukat making Evil Kira play catch.
Dukat, Nazily: Are ya winning, son??’
Evil Kira: Papa: I am.
– Back in the proper universe, what if Dukat’s five-year strong campaign to bang Kira just ends in Kira/Ziyal? Like, the Justice this has.
– Also I’m sure, just S U R E there’s shitty Ferengi-produced bondage porn about a certain notable Klingon House called “Under Durass”.
– So in retrospect, Crazy Lesbian Week has been the best episode of the whole series so far. It’s also the only episode so far that’s been even a little camp. Like, they suddenly remember that Camp existed, that they were fucking Star Trek, and that they could thus Access the Golden Camp Register, no problem.
– Another thing is, as Star Trek goes on and becomes more interested in its own fandom, it features more and more Really Insufferable Men. TNG lets Barclay creep in, but in Voyager he’s a big old character. DS9 opens the door to Bashir, who’s Arnold Rimmer but it’s not a joke, to Smarmlord Garak, Dukat: the Fun Nazi!, Odo: Boring Gooman, Quark: Small-Time War Crime, O’Brien: Full-Time Racist, the series of processed string cheeses Kira dates (she also nearly dates the Fun Nazi, and does date Boring Gooman, who’s also going steady with: fascism) and Sisko: Forever Mad. After that, it’s just a parade of wankeries. Tom ‘Fuckboi’ Paris, whatever Nelix has going on, the bitchy EMH, Q Is Straight Now. I didn’t like Early Riker, but that beard changed him. Half this cast needs a beard.
– No one on DS9 has a fucking cat, a la Data. Would not happen. On the gritty! frontier!!, no cats. They have Cardassian space rats, and no cats to catch those. And no one’s been like “hey, I want one of those space rats as a pet,” or “I will make these space rats fight, for money.” Wasted opportunity.
Surely weird-ass Dax looks at these things and is like, “they’re so cute!!” as everyone around her winces.
Or Kira’s like, “oh don’t knock ‘em, they’re good eating.” O’Brien whimpering “what do we do about the rats?!” as Kira slides over a selection of pertinent chutneys.
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DS9 S2 Ep 24, “The Collaborator”
– Katy: Does q ever come back?
Me: …yes.
Katy: Is it… not good?
Me: No. It is not.
Katy: Surprised he could be bothered. Picard’s not here, what’s the point?
– Kira has great bedroom hair this episode. Vedic Barreil, meanwhile, only has a substandard orb experience.
– Kai Winn is here to smarm her way through yet another horrible conversation with Kira, who fuckin sees her.
– Sometimes I remember how good Odo’s actor was in that one scene in Legend, playing an evil swamp monster. What happened to you, Rene?
– Interesting that this collaborator who wants to live out his twilight years on Bajor didn’t come in a better disguise. Or indeed, in any disguise.
– This bitch is gonna finger—yeah I knew it would be Barreil. Whenever Kai Winn says ‘my child’ you just—hurt your jaw with the clenching.
– Kira’s white top with a cut out neck is excellent. I think she’s always wearing it under the uniform top, but it’s no less good for that.
– We get a decent hint regarding Odo’s thing for Kira, here. If I were physically capable of caring about Fash Gordon, that would be nice.
– To make a big public corruption case, I think Kira should seek official authorisation to get this locked data? It would take time, but this is going to be reviewed and subject to considerable scrutiny, and therefore has to be seen to be aboveboard. I don’t think anyone ever gets data appropriately in DS9. There’s some big ‘fuck the rules!!’ energy about how they approach procedure that feels immature and kind of hostile to Star Trek as such. (And if you say “but you can’t make procedure interesting!”, I will print out “Nirvana in Fire” and smother you with its million pages.)
– I can’t remember this episode at all, but Vedek Barreil will have done some shady shit to cover up for Kai Opaka for the good of Bajor in a tense time.
– Barreil has gotten high on the orb, just licking it 4x a week.
– Barreil apparently didn’t Wars Crime to protect Opaka, but rather some villages. It’s not something that can ever look good, even if it made sense at the time. And now Kai Winn will be in charge. And she’s politically the worst. Cool cool cool.
– Kai FUCKING Winn. ‘Feeling the pagh’ like she’s gonna yank Kira’s ear clean off. Israeli-coded Dolores Umbridge is one of DS9’s best contributions to culture.
– Yeah, Barrel was indeed acting to protect Opaka’s reputation, he was just blowing smoke about the villages. Smelled it on the wind. This episode was very good on a plot level but like. It had the nutrients, but no flavour? It was like a Terry Nation script draft before Chris Boucher got to it. No one on this writing staff can plate a dish. What is wrong with these people?
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DS9 S2 Ep 25, “Tribunal”
– Treated Katy to my ‘screaming cat’ rendition of the DS9 theme; she loved it.
– This next week brought us an actually-decent character interaction between the team members. O’Brien is fussy about the station: I now know something salient about O’Brien. Characterisation occurred. This is a stunning development, for DS9.
– Katy: I hope O’Brien has a nice holiday.
The Cardassians: *board the shuttle*
Katy: …so not a great holiday, then.
– The Cardassian interrogators are making O’Brien strip. Katy agrees, because his shirt is terrible.
– In case you’re wondering, Cardassian prisons, aka Four Lights Hotel, have not gotten more fun since last we saw them. They have not installed better lighting or anything.
– Odo is officially a Cardassian court Nestor, but doesn’t count as a collaborator at any point in the show thus far, because that would be narratively inconvenient, I guess.
– Really glad we’re going further with shit Garak said about Cardassian trials as a social system, doing more world building for this species.
– Why not coerce Garak into helping you understand Cardassian trials? Probably need to lampshade why they’re not asking.
– Odo decent this week. Actually a strong episode.
– Katy and I both think this court set up is a lot like the one in the first episode of Blakes 7.
– This episode sets up nice semantic layering regarding this trial as a public viewing experience, and the show trial as a show (and in so doing, generates some meta-commentary on DS9 as visual entertainment).
– Interesting that the Maquis are slinking in to disclaim ownership of the guy who set O’Brien up.
– Oh my god I love this awful Dickensian lawyer. Great fucking job being the worst.
– Katy is infuriated that the Federation isn’t doing anything about the attempted framing.
– Once again this show doesn’t give a shit about trauma. The last thing I want after torture and near execution is to pretend everything is cool on a spa get away? I want fucking therapy, stat.
– Katy: All kinds of bad stuff has happened to Miles this season!
Me: Is it just that he’s the kind of guy shit happens to?
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DS9 S2 Ep 26, “The Jem’Hadar”
– The week after O’Brien got kidnapped and tortured on his family vacation, Sisko decides to take a working family vacation. Combination scheduling guys and writer’s room: stagger your episodes, I am begging you.
– Quark is attempting to squirrel his way onto the trip. Sisko is in hell.
Katy: I think he sees the black humour in it.
– Sisko knows Quark is trying to hard sell his billboard scheme.
– Katy hates Sisko’s shirt for being too tight.
– Nog is actually decent at science class.
– “I don’t think I remember you, me and mom ever having more fun together!”
And now, Quark is your new mom!
– Quark camps like the would-be stepmom in Parent Trap.
– Sisko is flirting with Quark. It’s weird.
– Why is this Weyoun being tracked by the Jem Hadar?
Sorry a Vorta, not a Weyoun exactly. Or perhaps she’s just Vorta-looking? Very much so.
– Yeahhhh, bring back the Tulaberry wineeee!
– The Dominion soldiers are mad they’ve only captured a human and a Ferengi, rather than members of a sexier race, like the Klingons.
– Super weird that the Jem Hadar are talking about the Bajorans pejoratively as a Spiritual People? Uuuuuh, your Brand, guys.
The writers’ room has evidently not decided what the Dominion is yet.
– It’s wild that Quark claims the Ferengi didn’t have slavery. Frankly I just don’t believe it? It’s racial capitalism, not racial fapitalism.
It’s possible that at some point Ferenginar executed economic reforms curtailing slavery to feel up mobile labour, end duties of care, create more economically solvent customers and keep the market flowing. Such reforms would probably be aimed at preserving capitalism as such rather than individual capitalists, and undertaken bc slaves aren’t optimal labourers and consumers.
Quark’s speech here is highly lauded and oft-quoted, but nonsensical in world-building terms and totally unearned in the moment. It’s like, Peak collective nostalgia re: the intellectual heft of DS9.
– Nog is wearing cute blue green nail polish.
– Dax is fucking some captain. They hate each other, but it’s a sexy hate.
– Everyone’s off rescuing Sisko. Who the fuck is staying to watch the station??
– Bashir and Kira are back in a shuttle together, but he’s not sexually harassing her anymore. That’s Growth.
– The writing team hasn’t yet decided that Nog is gonna be a good engineer, like his dad. Some of these scenes would have been an optimal time to show the beginnings of that (and retrospectively, it feels actively weird in a Watsonian sense that Nog would be completely at sea in this scene at this age).
– The also-imprisoned ‘not Vorta’ extra of the week is surely marked for death.
– This episode makes great use of the production team’s having the models, graphics and sets for the Enterprise. The lensing is tight to prevent clear 1:1 identification of the two bridges. Excellent capitalising on extant materiel.
– The also-imprisoned girl ‘not Vorta’ is a fucking Vorta! I knewwwwwww.
– Are Vorta usually telekinetic? I don’t remember that coming up in the subsequent presentations.
– Interestingly, this girl doesn’t react to Odo at all. Again, probably the writing team hadn’t yet decided on these elements of the world building. Honestly, script your whole show before shooting. If that sounds crazy from a Western tv production perspective, that’s because Western tv production sets itself up for failures like this. You just wouldn’t see this shit with a 50 episode block-shot Asian drama.
– An entire 500 person ship got totalled in this rescue mission! Hot damn. Okay I checked, it was Galaxy Class, which means a crew compliment of 1,000 to 6,000. Fuck? I hope they mostly disembarked while at DS9, leaving only combat-necessary personnel.
– We’ve now survived season 2! Soon the writing staff will return from TNG/the War.
One more season, and then Worf returns to us. Come, Worf! Come, and make Odo look still blander by standing next to you and having roughly the same Brand (but more noir) (and more fash) (and the same backstory angst, but less nuanced honestly and staler for going second and all-around less fun).
