UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me by an astute reader that it might look like I’m talking about Ellen here (Spoilers!: Ellen was the astute reader). I’m not. I’m talking about me. You know, that guy who wrote the really boring summaries to the first two episodes of DS9? Yeah, that guy.

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Looking back on my first two posts, I’ve realized that 1) writing plot summaries is as boring as reading them and throwing plot information in that isn’t relevant to what I want to talk about it a pointless waste of everybody’s time 2) the feeling that I am not writing enough about each episode of a television show that has approximately 90 jillion episodes is madness and 3) I have to force myself to admit that sometimes an episode is going to be boring.

I was feeling like I had to write a lot because the page looked so empty, which is silly. Of course it did - we just started! So I need to relax a bit.

I’m also not going to try to write and watch at the same time. I’ll collect bullet points as I go, and then if I want to write anything more or expand on any of them, I’ll do so afterwards. Unless there is something I want to comment on because I am a NO RULES REBEL and this is my DS9 blog and I do what I want.

Last entry, I said I didn’t think the show would be picked up anywhere today and left it at that, but I wanted to explain that the Bajoran terrorism aspect wasn’t the only reason. It’s just not ’00s television. For example, here we are, three episodes in already and nobody has had any sex at all yet. We’ve seen a marriage destroyed by war, but that’s the closest we’ve gotten to romance. There’s been hardly any violence, either. Nobody has violently interrogated anyone yet, hardly any shooting has occurred, and if my math is right, nobody died at all in the first two episodes (excepting only those who died in flashbacks). I guess what I am saying is that I’m sad about how television sucks now, but I think there are enough blogs on the internet about how much television sucks now (and probably about as many about how it’s awesome because personal opinions are complicated things) so I think I’m going to leave that particular point alone from here on out.

And lastly, before I start this episode, I want to note that this is the last episode on the first disc and that makes it the last episode that I have seen recently. I have to admit that I was not coming into these three episodes fresh, because I had gotten it early (I use Netflix for watching TV series, and the first disc of DS9 showed up sometime during the second season of TNG through some weird hiccup that has never been repeated) and watched it long before I had the idea to write about each one.

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A Man Alone at Memory Alpha.

• The DS9 theme music reminds me of Fanfare for the Common Man.

• I don’t know if it says more about me or Trek, but I find the O’Brien family to be one of the more believable relationships in Trek

• One of the others is the love/hate friendship/rivalry between Quark and Odo.

• If I had some sort of itchy color-changing prank substance, I don’t think I’d ever actually use it. I’d be too embarrassed to pull a prank that stupid.

• Our first murder! A mystery!

• People have to push buttons to open doors on DS9. That is awesome.

Another thing, in addition to whimsy and intrigue, that Star Trek has traditionally been pretty terrible at: games. The “brain teaser” that Dax is working at is just about the worst idea for a game since that supposedly super-addictive put-the-thing-in-a-tube game in TNG. We’re talking silly to a degree that science has difficulty measuring because silly computing technology hasn’t advanced to the level of these game ideas yet, and may never do so in our lifetimes. I’m glad we never got to see Parrises Squares played, because at least we can still pretend that’s awesome.

The murder mystery is a sci-fi locked room puzzle. This is so much better a puzzle than the brain teaser that it should probably be embarrassed to be in the same episode. The victim, a particularly ridgy (and therefore clearly eeevil) Bajoran criminal named Ibudan, was murdered in the holosuite. The door was opened only twice, and nobody but the victim went in or out. The victim was staying alone BUT! SUSPICIOUSLY! he was staying in double quarters. The only DNA that was found in the holosuite was that of the victim and the investigators. So the only person who could have done it is a shapeshifter, and the only one around is Odo, but the viewers all saw the actor’s name in the opening credits so even though the victim’s personal itinerary showed a meeting with Odo scheduled for the time of his murder, we know that since he’s played by René Auberjonois he cannot possibly be guilty.

This is the kind of plot that couldn’t find real resolution outside of science fiction, despite the lack of space ships and legitimately alien aliens. Star Trek is often classified as “hard” sci-fi, even though it’s more of a space opera, but when it does try to kick it old school it tends to do very well. The episode where Dr. Crusher is the only on on the Enterprise to notice that other people keep disappearing is another example of a good sci-fi story that couldn’t really be another kind of story. I really enjoy these episodes, and I’m hoping that the stationary nature of the setting will deliver a lot more of them.

The solution turns out to be that Ibudan, the victim, was actually the murderer, and killed his own clone. But as Odo so helpfully points out, killing your own clone is still murder. This is an important lesson, so I’ll repeat it: Killing your own clone is still murder. Are you listening, science? This is important.

This entry is about as long as the other two, but that’s ok because it was mostly navel-gazing instead of episode summary. Navel-gazing is what blogs are for. I’m not sure I’ll be able to update at all next week, but starting as soon as I can I’m going to try for two updates per week. That way I won’t have to be at this for another three and a half years.

If I sign off with “peace and long life” every time, would that be too lame? Or would it be just lame enough?

Don’t get me wrong. I love the TOS episode The Naked Time immensely. It’s delightful, it’s ridiculous, and you can almost see slash fanfiction being born when Spock gets all weepy about human emotions.

This is a remake of that episode. It is not an improvement on that episode.

Anyway, the general plot is that there is a research vessel sending odd messages… or their communications have been crossed with one of those commercials you see on late night TV for chat lines. Hot, single researchers are waiting to talk to you, baby. The Enterprise goes out to investigate and finds everyone dead. The bridge crew has been blown out an open hatch into space (someone explain to me why there even is a hatch leading to open space on the bridge in the first place) and just about everyone else has frozen to death, and most of them are naked (ooh, shock, titillation) except for one woman in the shower with all her clothes on.

This, of course, is the key for Riker. Why search databanks for history of crewpeople “suddenly acting out of character” or “going buck wild and having a ship-wide orgy” when you can search for records of “showering with clothes on.”

Anyway, Geordi starts to sweat and goes around infecting people, and Wesley acts really pathetically desperate for the Captain’s attention. Yar and Wesley are both infected by Geordi with intoxihol water, which apparently is self-replicating as well as (hello techonobabble!) a simple form of water that has been altered by powerful gravitational forces to pull carbon from the host and act as an intoxicant. Oh yes, that all makes sense.

So anyway, back to Riker (and Data) searching for Riker’s hunch. It isn’t enough to reference back to TOS by making the episode a transparent rewrite of the old script, but we also have to reference the original Enterprise and even have Picard mention Kirk by name. Hooray, we have a cure!  Except that we don’t have a cure at all, because then the episode would be way too short.  Also, there has to be some kind of race against the clock, which is, in this case, a collapsing star.

So Lt. Yar’s intoxication exhibits itself by having her turn into an unattractive sex-beast. Fashion in the future is apparently heavily reliant on hideous, eye-bleeding print fabrics. Lucky for her, the corridors are full of extras stumbling around all hot and bothered.

Meanwhile, Wesley has become this episode’s Kevin Riley, but where Riley took over Engineering on the Enterprise and declared himself Captain, Wesley… takes over Engineering and declares himself Captain. Huh. Of course, Riley made all kinds of crazy pronouncements, like women wearing their hair down and Wesley…. makes all kinds of crazy pronouncements, like dessert before and after every meal. What the fuck, writers, are you even trying? I’m surprised Wesley isn’t singing weepy Irish ballads over the comm.

But back to Lt. Yar! She’s changed clothes now and is a bit giggly, but really? Her hair looks awful and her outfit is hardly revealing when you consider what half the non-crew women in Olde Trek wore. Jeannie (as in I Dream Of) wore sexier outfits and she was barred from showing her bellybutton on TV. Also? Talking about rape gangs? Probably not great for the mood.

This is what I typed for the rest of this scene as I was watching: Why is Data fully functional? Also, ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.

I’m not sure how much of it is just me (like Roast Beef, I suffer from a case of the Dignities) but I really disliked the fact that the intoxication took the form of everyone being all hot hot hot for each other. Yes. I get it. You can totally show more scandalous things on TV in the late eighties than you could in the late sixties. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Troi gets infected, and as a half human, she’s kind of the anti-Spock, but they both have their moments of omg I feel so huuuuuuuumaaaaan, though hers is far less overwrought. And less interesting.

In the end, Wesley Crusher, Boy Genius, saves the day. Jeez. Never mind that your takeover of a vital section of the ship and letting whatshisname take out the isolinear chips in the first place is what almost got everyone killed, you were able to kind of save the day (by suggesting that Data save the day then reprogramming the tractor beam while simultaneously being a smarmy little brat to the chief engineer), handshakes all around.

I have to keep reminding myself that TNG is pretty new and at this point, trying fairly hard to assure fans that this is the Trek they knew and loved, though at this point, I think they’re still being way, way too heavy handed about it. The show hasn’t had time to develop it’s own character yet, and if one ignores all the overblown sexuality in this episode, it is doing a fairly decent job of being something different than the oft grandiloquent TOS. The sooner it moves out of this phase of “Remember Star Trek!?!?!? Remember how much you loved it?!?!?!” the better.

The first Garak episode! So soon!

Here’s a detailed summary for any interested parties.

When TNG tries to do certain things, like whimsy or intrigue, it invariably fails. Fortunately, instead of failing in the “contempt for one’s audience” way that it easily could, it nearly always fails in the “(probably) unintentional comedy” way. This, if you have to fail, is a pretty good way to fail.

DS9, on the other hand, manages intrigue pretty well (although how it fares at whimsy, or if it even attempts it, remains to be seen).

We open with Enthusiastic Frontier Doctor Bashir meeting Plain Simple Garak, Cardassian clothier and rumored (gasp!) spy at the replimat

Bashir’s trip to ops to gossip about meeting Garak segues us into the meat of the episode. The station rescues a Bajoran terrorist from Cardassian pursuit, and now they have to decide what to do with him.

This is further complicated by a blast from the past - Lursa and B’Etor of the house of Duras - who also arrive in this episode. The background here is that they tried to overthrow the Klingon High Council in an arc from TNG, but failed and are now criminals on the run. I think they’re also hilariously ridiculous.

The Cardassians are pursuing him for terrorist acts* committed against Cardassians in Cardassian space, while the commander considers offering him asylum on the station, considering he was rescued while being attacked in Bajoran space.

I am comfortable saying that DS9 blurs the lines between good and evil better than most Trek with which I am familiar, but I can’t say that it is legitimately subtle television. The Cardassian military wear mean, angular uniforms and look like small-eyed, scowling reptile people. Garak’s eyes are softer and more expressive, his makeup leaves his mouth more mobile, and he wears brightly-colored clothes so that the viewer is not confused. The Bajorans, meanwhile, are all European-looking and human as the day is long with the exception of a few easy-to-overlook nose ridges and a weird taste for excessive ear jewelry. You can generally tell the good Bajorans from the bad ones by how pronounced their nose ridges are.

Still, it’s a slight upgrade from the previous shows, who would have the good-seeming bad guy reveal himself right from jump by making exaggerated expressions around the oblivious Starfleet crew or by simply doing something evil where only the audience could see.

So the playing field is laid out thusly: On one side, we have a Bajoran terrorist who is requesting political asylum. Kira supports this, because she believes that the provisional Bajoran government needs to reintegrate splinter groups like his in order to strengthen and stabilize and who, we will learn, is being played by the terrorist, who needs a small, warp-capable ship for an as-yet undisclosed reason. On the other side, we have the Cardassians, who have an apparently-legitimate claim on a criminal who has committed violent crimes in Cardassian territory and a pair of Klingon criminals who want to double-cross the Bajoran so they can paid by both the Bajoran criminal and the Cardassians. In the middle, we have Ben “Not Picard” Sisko, who has to decide whether to give the Bajoran criminal up to a probably very terrible fate with the Cardassians, or offer him asylum and risk an interstellar incident.

We get a little bitty taste of intercrew conflict in this episode, as Kira goes over Sisko’s head by reporting the issue directly to the Starfleet admiral in charge of that sector.

We get hints that Garak may be more than a simple clothier, as he hints to Bashir that the Duras women are worth watching. Later, he apparently bargains with them in his shop over the price the Cardassians would pay for the Bajoran, were the Duras women to deliver him to the Cardassians. I say, “apparently,” because he later invites Bashir to spy on his further negotiations.

As all the pieces come together, we learn that the Bajoran wants to build a bomb and needs parts from the Klingons, who want to deliver him to the Cardassians, but only after the Bajoran pays them for the parts he needs for the bomb which, incidentally, he wants to use to destroy the magic economy-boosting device wormhole.

The multiple factions playing off each other and multiple shifting alliances makes for more a more complex story than most TNG episodes. This doesn’t necessarily make DS9 a better show, but it does serve to make it a very different show. Without the exploration and discovery aspect of TNG, the stories have to be more character-focused and driven by interaction. With limited geography in which to resolve all the plots, the only interesting places to go are deeper into each character. It’s not Shakespeare, but it is Good Television.

The good guys win in the end, by the way, in case you didn’t want to read the summary but were still wondering.

More of those bullets I love so much:

• I’m pretty sure that they make the sickbay props out of whatever they have just lying around.

• There is a rat in a cargo bay. It turns out to be Odo, but he wouldn’t be disguised as a rat if it would be conspicuous, so we know there are sometimes rats on DS9 - another reminder that DS9 is kind of a hole. I don’t know how long this kind of thing will keep up, but I like it.

• Moreso than Emissary, this episode identifies Odo as DS9’s insider from outside. Like Spock and Data, he is not like the rest of the crew, and doesn’t fully understand them. The way he tries to imitate humanoids makes him more like Data than Spock, but he is filling the same role: look at our weird human ways (because, let’s face it, most of the pretty aliens are basically humans) from the perspective of someone who doesn’t share them.

• Bashir, nervous and stammering in any situation that doesn’t involve his considerable medical expertise, might be the only doctor in all of Trek that isn’t a towering rock of stony self-confidence, and it’s kind of adorable, really.

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* I watched DS9 on the local Fox channel, if I’m remembering correctly. The use of terrorism without a capital T and without a constant reminder that it is Unamerican and Wrong and probably, God forbid, even Liberal is clear evidence that DS9 was Fox programming from the pre-9/11 era. I don’t even know where a show like this would be broadcast today. Maybe Sci-Fi? I don’t think any of the major networks would pick it up today, which is a shame. If the reader would like, at this time, to pretend that I have inked a long lament about the state of modern television, they may feel free to do so.

First things first: DUDES IN MINISKIRT UNIFORMS, WTF.

So, in Encounter at Farpoint, you’ve got the Enterprise, partially staffed and full of civilians (which I will get to later) heading out to jolly well explore new and exciting bits of space, but first they’ve got to stop by this new, suspiciously quickly built outpost and pick up the new first officer.

Oh, yeah, and they’ll have to prove humanity isn’t terribly barbaric and bloodthirsty to Q. But hey, no problem for an intrepid starship crew, right?

One of the major things I noticed here were the really obvious attempts to hearken back to TOS. The most obvious is DeForest Kelley popping up for no plot-advancing reason, with his cheerful anti-Vulcan bigotry expanded to include androids as well. Troi’s uniform with the minidress and high boots are also something of a throwback to TOS, though seeing the same uniform on about three male extras is a bit… different. (Paging Zapp Branagan…) Then there’s the design of Farpoint, both inside and out, which still does seem to conform to the sixties ideal of the future, at least in terms of architecture. Everything’s white with multicolored accents (usually pink, purple or red) and the fabrics lean heavily toward the spangled and shiny. I find it interested compared to Voyager, which seemed to favor the dark and industrial. The whole situation is actually very Olde Trek. Inexplicably powerful adversary who happens to be playful, bordering on malicious? Where could we have seen that before? Giant Space Jellyfish are also something I would not be surprised to see in a TOS episode. Hell, the TOS crew went up against such terrifying foes as a giant spinning cube! In space! And stock footage of tigers! Maybe I should stop name-dropping favorite TOS episodes and get on with it!

The next thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is the difference in design aesthetics. I know I’m placing everything in opposition to TOS and VOY, but you’ll have to bear with me, since those are my frames of reference. The original Enterprise’s bridge was full of primary colors and actually looked like it could be the bridge of a battleship in some ways - the amount of light, the gunmetal-greyness of everything that wasn’t yellow or red or black, and the angled overhead screens. From what I recall, Voyager’s bridge was almost always dark and dramatically lit and done up in a variety of shades of serviceable grey. The Enterprise-D’s bridge is bright and beige and… terribly, terribly bland. Like Picard is piloting a giant Holiday Inn. It probably seemed nice from the design standpoint of the late eighties.

Third thing that I want to discuss: I think I dislike all of the female characters who have been introduced so far. Troi and her feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings are overplayed in this episode, plus there’s the moment of OMG SEXUAL TENSION when Riker and Troi first see each other. Eugh. Lt. Yar is, at least so far, mostly just angry and trigger happy without anything redeeming or, really, interesting about her. Dr. Crusher’s okay. It’s still early and given that this is a pilot and not much chance for character development has been given, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

I think the rest of it can be in bullet points, here, because I think I hit upon all of the things I wanted to go into any depth on.

• I really did not know that Q was right there in the first episode, so my reaction was sort of “Wait, what, already?”
• Data’s Otherness is kind of pronounced, especially in his dialogue. “Inquiry: Snoop?” That, and “I’d love to be human, ever so much!” and lifting Wesley out of the holodeck stream one-handed. HAY GUYS, I THINK THERE’S SOMETHING UNUSUAL ABOUT THIS CHARACTER!
• I know how we’ll prove that we’re not a barbaric and needlessly aggressive race! We’ll break through this barrier and then fire torpedoes at the pursuing ship!
• While starships aren’t really designed for atmospheric flight, saucer-separation still seems like a bad idea from the idea of structural integrity. Of course, it wouldn’t be necessary if there weren’t inexplicably a fuckton of civilians on a Federation ship on what seems to be a potentially dangerous exploratory mission, but hey, whatever.
• It amuses me that there are scenes obviously meant to show the audience that the technology is NEW and EXCITING. Just ask the ship’s computer where someone is and follow the blinky lights to the amazing HOLODECK! And look, there’s that scamp, Wesley Crusher.
• I guess I felt like a certain amount of stuff was needlessly spelled out for the audience, and one of those things were the GIANT SPACE JELLYFISH. I think we could have figured out that they were happy from their tentacle high five without Troi having to tell us.

‘Til next time, internet. I’m out.

Hi, I’m Ellen, one of the other bloggingstartrek.net writers. If you’re unfamiliar with what we’re doing here, I recommend reading Drew’s first post. Me, I’m taking on The Next Generation.

I haven’t started yet, but I wanted to place myself within the larger framework of Trek as a whole first. I love the Original Series very much; it brings my dual loves of mid-century science fiction and 1960s television together in a glorious and absurd singularity. I haven’t watched the entire series, but I have watched large swaths of it, and I’d be watching it twice a week in syndication if I weren’t at work when it’s on.

I’ve seen an episode or two of TNG here and there, and the only movie that I sat down and deliberately watched was The Wrath of Khan. I’ve also seen parts of The One With The Whales. So, I can see where the TOS mission was to explore the edges of space, visiting colonies and unexplored planets. And I can see how Voyager stumbled into all their wacky adventures in the Delta Quadrant (yes I watched and enjoyed all of Voyager shut up) while trying to get home, but I actually have no idea what the TNG crew’s underlying mission is. For someone involved in a Star Trek-related blog, I am perhaps shockingly ignorant. My impressions, then, will be extremely fresh.

I’m looking forward to starting this whole endeavor, which I will be doing quite soon!

Hello, Internet! My name is Drew. This is bloggingstartrek.net, which is a blog about Star Trek. The premise is that several of us will be watching Star Trek series with which we are mostly or entirely unfamiliar and blogging about them, episode by episode, in order, right here. I’ll be blogging Deep Space Nine.

I remember watching DS9 when it started and thinking it was just amazing. I was around 11 when Emissary was broadcast for the first time, and I thought TNG was just the coolest show ever, so I stayed up and watched the premier of its new buddy (I didn’t know it was meant to be a successor, because I didn’t expect TNG to end). I liked it a lot, but it was on late at night and the rebroadcast conflicted with my Youth Sport Activity (the swim team, of all things), so I only saw a few episodes here and there during its initial run. It wasn’t until I was almost 20 that I started seeing it again on television which, coupled with the discovery that no nerd is alone on the internet, rekindled my interest in Star Trek.

Since I have a job that involves a good amount of solo downtime, I signed up for NetFlix and started watching TNG. Midway through, I found myself wanting to write about some of the episodes, and did so on my personal blog. Since I enjoyed it, I considered starting out right then to blog my way through the rest of the series, but ultimately decided to wait until I’d finished it and then start fresh with a new series. I also decided to ask some of my friends if they were interested in taking on some of the other series. Surprisingly enough, they were!

There’s no real official format, other than that we blog about each episode in order. Whether it’s strictly Trek or whether Trek is a jumping-off point is up to each blogger, and it might vary from episode to episode.

So here goes:

Today I’m watching Emissary, the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The start is kind of inauspicious: Flat scrolling text reminds us of the basic plotline of the TNG two-parter The Best of Both Worlds.

Fortunately, it almost immediately jumps to a new perspective on Wolf 359 - the bridge of one of the Federation destroyed by the Borg in the battle. I have to say, this does a far better job of making the Borg scary than TNG ever did. It also establishes right from the jump that DS9 is grittier and far less utopian than TNG - the ship is on fire, people are dirty and crying, uniforms are torn, and nobody is really staying calm. I think this is what appealed to me most, originally. It seemed more real.

Most of the episode is spent in set-up, and I think it would be cheap as hell to try to pad out my first post with plot summary, but I do invite you, gentle reader, to look at the helpful links to your left. One of them is to Memory Alpha, a huge Star Trek wiki just waiting for you to plunge whole hours into its various plot summaries, character bios, technical descriptions, and so on and so forth. I have been too scared of what goes on behind the scenes there to ever click one of the discussion pages, but the content that ends up getting published is pretty exhaustive. In fact, you know what? Here’s the episode summary.

Oh, incidentally, I am trying to watch the episode and blog about it at the same time, pausing as little as possible. This is an experiment that I am not sure will be successful, but I’m trying it all the same.

(Another thing I liked about this series: Miles O’Smiles O’Brien is a major character in this show.)

I find myself wondering whether Kai Opaka will become the Guinan of DS9, and whether that would be a terrible thing. I always thought Guinan was kind of a fun character.

Another thing I’m wondering is how Avery Brooks is so good at being Sisko in the present (ok, in the deep imaginary future, but we’re going to call it the present so that things don’t get all complicated) and so bad at being Sisko in his own memories with his dead wife. I’m not sure if it’s his halting delivery or the fact that he looks completely absurd in his beach clothes. It could be both - perhaps the latter caused the former.

The discussion of linear life vs. nonlinear life reminds me of a video a friend posted on a messageboard recently. It’s the philosophical flipside of the description of how a notional 4th-dimensional entity (given that the 4th dimension is time) would see one of us 3-dimensioners. I quite like it, actually, especially the part where the aliens don’t understand the point of baseball, although I think I like that part more when it’s out of context.

The basic premise is that the aliens they discover during the episode (inside a stable wormhole that will become a major plot point for the rest of their series) aren’t limited to linear time, and have no concept of a past or future. It’s fun to see Star Trek try its hand at Big Ideas, and this episode is no exception. They always do it at least pretty well, from a dramatic perspective, at least in my opinion. Things might get a little cheesy, but if you suspend enough disbelief, things can get pretty touching. This episode doesn’t get me as much as some TNG episodes (Family, Lessons), but I’m also not as invested in these characters as I was in the TNG characters. Yet.

An odd thing about how watching a show for a long time can get to you: I haven’t even finished TNG yet, but seeing the Enterprise arrive at DS9 when she returns at the end of the episode gave me a wave of nostalgia. It’s strange, because it’s been perhaps four days since I last watched an episode of TNG (I started DS9 early to kick the blog off). I also got a smile out of the group of wedge-shaped ships with the vaguely X-shaped wings that arrive at the very end of the episode. They’re science vessels this time, but during the run of TNG, that design has been all manner of things. I don’t know if that was a nod to Trek fans in general, or just a conveniently available model. Either way, I’m ok with it.

A few excuses to use WordPress’ bullet point feature:

• They drop the religious overtones in your path very early on, almost as soon as Sisko is on the station.

• Avery Brooks has enormous hands

• A lot of time is spent reminding the fans that Sisko is not just like Picard: he is hands-on, gets angry, has hair, etc.

• Dax isn’t into the contractions so much. I don’t know if that continues through the series, but it makes me feel like they’re trying to make sure I don’t miss Data too much.

• “Never trust ale from a god fearing people” is a bad bit of advice, considering how Catholic the Irish are reputed to be and how delicious their beers are. Granted, the most famous is a stout, but I still tend to doubt Quark’s idiom.

• It seems like some scenes were shown out of order - Miles’ disembarkation is shown halfway through Emissary, but I suspect it was meant to be shown earlier. Otherwise, he decided to change his uniform just to go back to the Enterprise and say goodbye before leaving for the second time (it is established earlier that he’d been settled in already by the time Sisko arrived).

• Gul Dukat is a pretty fantastic villain. I am excited about learning to love to hate him all again.

I’m still working out how I want this blog to go, so if anyone (including any other bloggingstartrek.net writers) have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them in the comments! I’m looking forward to this project partly as an excuse to catch up on DS9, but also as a way to practice writing and keeping up with a regular schedule, so I’m open to input from basically anybody at this point.

Ok!