When we last left our hero (me!), he was still in shock, having been so startled to find a three-part episode (Trek’s first!) so soon in DS9 that he was rendered speechless for eight straight days.  We rejoin him now as he tackles the next chapter in this three-part adventure, The Circle (The Circle is the next chapter, not the three-part adventure).

The Circle at Memory Alpha

Kira getting replaced turns out to be Kira getting promoted!  On her own merits?  Not really.  Bajor wants Li Nalas away from Bajor and away from The Circle, where he’ll be safe.  This sets us up, almost immediately, for a reminder that DS9 has a Circle problem of its own - sprayTERROR paint on the Siskos’ door!

Odo finds Kira packing up to go and calls her a quitter, reminding her of whom exactly it is that never wins.  Dax comes in, ostensibly to return a bottle of lotion, Dr. Bashir, space friend, comes in to offer his warmest regards, sweet Miles comes in to do the same, Quark comes in hoping for some alone time with Kira, but decides a party is just as good, and then Vedek Bareil-Neeson shows everybody how it is done by inviting Kira out to his monastery for some meditation and relaxation, bow chicka wow-ow.

At ops, we learn that Li Nalas does not want the job, and Sisko aims to get Kira back on the crew, but for now, she has to head down to Bareil’s monastery and arrange stones in a river (poorly).

Finding her stone-arranging skills are not up to par, Vedek Bareil decides it would be more productive to show her a glowy space orb.  Well, he calls it an orb, but it’s more of a low-fi hourglass shape.  Anyway, it gives Kira a Trek-style dream which amounts to the naked-in-front-of-the-whole-school dream, only somehow more meaningful (seriously), and later, Bareil-style nakeouts.  I have to wonder of the good Vedek was tweaking the orb somehow.  I mean, really.

Quark has discovered an exciting secret!  Some space florists are secretly supplying weapons to The Circle on Bajor.  Space florists!  I wonder if it is a front for the space mob.  Odo quickly blackmail-deputizes Quark to learn more.

In further Bajor adventures, Vedek Winn is at the same monastery as Bareil and Kira, and is still grasping desperately at the Most Passive-Aggressive Trek Character award.  What a wonderfully horrible character!

There is a lot going on at this point:  Kira is kidnapped by the circle, which turns out to be run by Minister Jaro, Odo stows away aboard a space florist ship and finds out that The Circle’s weapons are coming from the Cardassians, and Sisko, acting on new intelligence from Quark, is leading a rescue party to Bajor after Kira.

As it turns out, The Circle doesn’t know that the Cardassians are supplying them.  The Cardassians just want The Circle to drive out the Federation, so the Cardassians can move back in and take over Bajor again.  Li Nalas wants to turn public opinion against Jaro and his Circle, but the station cannot communicate with Bajor, so it is looking like he has to go down there in person.

Down on the surface, Jaro is trying to win Winn (hee hee hee) over to his side with all the diplomacy and tact of a thirteen-year-old boy asking his crush out on a date.

As we leave off with another TO BE CONTINUED, Bajoran assault ships are demanding that the Federation evacuate DS9 and Sisko is hitting a Prime Directive wall with Starfleet command.  He decides to follow the order to evacuate, but decides to take everything Federation-y with him, which Miles says could take days, which is far longer than the seven hours that the Bajorans have given them.  I smell an exciting standoff coming, but it’ll have to wait for next time!

• It’s funny how the ops turbolifts are either fast or slow, depending on whether the scene calls for a dramatic slow descent or a curt quick one.

• Odo disguises himself as a rat again.  It’s still great that rats are acceptable disguises, even in space.

• The Prime Directive is one of Star Trek’s main plot devices, but the  more times it gets violated, the more it telegraphs exactly what the characters faced with it will do (ie violate it)

Welcome back to the DS9 blog!  We had a brief inter-seasonal break (and also a brief disc break, which is a joke about how the post office broke the current disc the first time it was sent to me), but now we are back with Season 2, shiny and new!

Since TNG is the only other series I have watched all the way through, I don’t know what to expect from season changes.  With TNG, there is the whole mysterious “lost year” between seasons one and two, where the galaxy decided to be way less boring and Starfleet issued a wide-reaching “stop sucking so much” order to all personnel, and I’m wondering if I will see the same thing with DS9.  DS9 didn’t really stumble off the blocks the same way as TNG, though, and the people behind the show were also largely the people involved in TNG, so they already knew how to run a series.  We’ll see what happens.

The Homecoming at Memory Alpha

We start our WHOLE NEW SEASON with Odo chewing out Quark for giving him a good tip.   This seems to me like a rather counter-intuitive policing strategy.  Quark’s charming idiot brother Rom is also confused, but Quark is just following the 76th Rule of Acquisition.  Following this delightful exchange, Quark is accosted by David Bowie’s Klingonesque cousin, who asks him to sort out a Bajoran earring she was supposed to deliver to Bajor from a Cardassian.  She says any Bajoran would know what do to with it.

Quark brings the earring to Kira, who just takes it and storms off.  Women!  Put a piece of jewelry in their hands and they just go crazy, am I right fellas?

Speaking of women, Jake has a date with a pretty bajoran girl!  The commander thinks his son’s too young to take her to a holosuite and Ben won’t let him take her back to their quarters, but before the conversation can really get going, Kira is all up Ben’s face about jewelry.  Women!

Kira wants to take a runabout to Cardassia 4 to rescue the owner of the earring, who is supposed to be a great Bajoran war hero, Li Nalas.  Bajor doesn’t want to help, so she’s come to Sisko.

And, more trouble, there is a Bajoran group called The Circle who don’t want any non-bajorans on or around Bajor and they are spray painting their tag on the walls of the station, probably while wearing rollerblades or riding skateboards with their pants cut too big and their music turned up too loud, those damn kids.

After deciding that the return of Li Nalas could help the volatile political situation in Bajor, Sisko decides to let Kira take the runabout, but Chief O’Brien is part of the package.  Kira puts up some token resistance, as if anybody would not want to spend all the time ever with Miles, but that doesn’t last long.

On their way, they bluff themselves past a Cardassian scanning post, but it is way less hilarious than the Enterprise bluffing their way past the Klingon scanning post by leafing desperately through Klingon phrasebooks and just hoping for the best.  And what do they find?  A populated labor camp!  Bajoran prisoners!  CARDASSIANS BEING VERY BAD!

They can’t beam everyone out since the runabout transporters can only handle two at a time and there’s no way to know which bajoran is which, so they have to land and try to sneak in.  Their ruse?  Miles the pimp!  When a Cardassian tries to examine the “merchandise” (Kira), she punches him in the head and then the shooting starts.  This is a longer battle, ground or space, than any I recall happening before in the show!  This is the excitement of a new season.

I’m noticing that Star Trek seems to be of two minds about what makes for awesome shooting action.  In TNG, just about everybody’s weapons shot crazy beams that were where they needed to be instantly, but here the Cardassians are shooting bolts of energy that move slow enough to see (but fast enough to be exciting).  You’d think that kind of, you know, dodgeable weapons technology would have fallen by the wayside in the days when even the relatively low-tech Klingons have insta-beam weapons at their disposal.  But I digress.

Aside from four bajorans who stay behind to fight off the pursuing Cardassians and a handful who get excitingly shot, they manage to get away.  The fallout?  So far it seems like things went pretty well.  Mean ole Gul Dukat even calls to say he’s sorry!

But all isn’t well in DS9-town.  Despite the jubilation over Li Nalas’ return, a pack of Circle members jump Quark and brand their sigil into his head.  It’s kind of hilarious, but also pretty cruel.  Luckily, Dr. Bashir, space dermatologist, can make the scar disappear with his FUTURE SPACE TECHNOLOGY.

The Circle’s brand of anti-non-bajoran racism hits home - cute bajoran girl’s dad won’t let her go out with Jake because he’s not bajoran!  It’s hard to be a human on a largely bajoran space station, even though your government basically runs the place and your dad is their warrior-philosopher god-emperor.

And the bad news keeps coming!  Li Nalas doesn’t want to deal with the problems on Bajor, so he’s trying to stow away on a ship bound for the GQ (please don’t call it that).  Poor guy is overwhelmed by his heroic reputation, even though his deeds were exaggerated.  I smell a lesson about not running away from your problems coming up.  Oh, and here’s that lesson!  Right on time.

Sisko gives him a pep talk that is so successful that he not only gets himself promoted to a WHOLE NEW RANK that the bajorans make up just for him, but he is also getting thrust into Kira’s job!  This was one “TO BE CONTINUED…” that I absolutely did not see coming, no sarcasm - it didn’t say “Part 1″ in the title or anything!  WELL PLAYED, STAR TREK.  Tune in next time for the exciting continuation of this exciting episode/blog post!

• It’s season 2 and this is the first time I can recall that we really get to see the replimat in action

• We now know that Rom makes exactly 1/6 what Quark makes.  How depressing!  Poor Rom.

• Memory Alpha tells me this is the chapter in Star Trek’s first-ever three-part episode!  How crazy is that?  The better part of Trek fans’ whole month was taken up finding out what was going to happen next when this first aired.

• The only real change between the first and second season seems to be in the show’s ambition - the cast is still right where we left them, the uniforms are the same, the interior sets are largely the same (although I think there’s more than a few new pieces), but here we are in a three-part episode, right off the bat!

Hi there!  I’m Jess, your BloggingStarTrek.net Internet Agent-at-Large.  Now, let’s ignore for a second that “at-Large” usually means “not really employed by us anymore, we’re just saving face here” and face facts.  I consume a massive amount of internet media on a daily basis.  Some of this media is related to Star Trek, and it’s always a joy when it is.  So I am going to bring that to you.  No more furtive “What is up with Zachary Quinto’s eyebrows, really” Google searches , no more quietly trolling Keegan De Lancie’s Facebook page for photos of him on a sailing trip with his dad.  (What, you don’t do this?  He accidentally friended me years ago and I, uh.  I sneak peeks once in a while.)  I shall bring it all to you, o sweet, sweet readers.

So that you know you can trust me, and I will not break your hearts like Vash, let me present my credentials.  Here are some things that make me very happy:

Most things George-Takei-related.  Just think of it this way…

Drew:O’Brien::Jess:Sulu

(The colons are flower units.)

Yes, I admit it, I read Wil Wheaton’s blog.  Here is the thing, it is not awful!  You get videos of him playing Rock Band, stories about his kids, D&D commentary from a dude who is probably too old to be playing D&D, occasional rants about being seen only as Wesley Crusher, and in general a portrait of a gentleman who is simultaneously incredibly normal and incredibly not.  It’s a semi-uncomfortable thrill ride!  Also, I always liked Wesley, shut up Ellen.

and lastly, the sweetest face one could ask to look upon…

You thought I was kidding about the Facebook lurking, didn’t you.

Please don’t sue me, Mr. DeLancie, I love you just a little too much.

To further build my impeccable (I’m sure) Trek cred, here is something that makes me very unhappy:

Are they confused about something?  Doesn’t everyone know that Bones is the third cat?  He doesn’t belong there on the side sandwiched between Takes Her Shirt Off-hura and Cheerful Wet Guy-otty!  Oh Bones, the hip young crowd will never understand your salty, unpleasant charm, but you will always have my heart.

All right, that’s all for now, kiddies.  I’ll be back once a week to bring you the Trek cream of the internet, and a bit of the sludge too. Next time, maybe I’ll tell you who the Ancient Enemy in Star Trek Online will be.  Ooooooh, creepy.

Til then, friends…

SPOCK SMASH

I’d been holding off on mentioning Star Trek Online because I’ve been burned by Star Trek games in the past (I’m looking at you, Star Trek: Legacy), but I have to admit I’m getting pretty excited about this one.

Between planets that give me happy memories of Morrowind, new uniforms with a tiny hint of Phantasy Star Online, and just a straight-up awesome new Miranda design, I am hoping so much that this is the game that breaks Star Trek’s long marriage with video game mediocrity.

Go have a look!

We open on yet another meeting with the Ferengi, Least Threatening Race in the Galaxy. Picard has a headache, and I don’t blame him. I’d have a headache if I had to face such awful acting first thing in an episode.

Dr. Crusher, however, opts to freak the hell out.  (Women, amirite?)   Amongst our Space Advancements (so far, I think we have “Elimination of Capital Punishment” and “Vegetarianism” as new innovations since TOS - we were not getting preachy speeches when there were societies practicing capital punishment from Kirk, let’s face it, and you know he’s the kind of man who enjoys a good steak), we’ve eliminated the headache because we understand pain now. The common cold is also a laughable antiquity. Guess what else we’ve eliminated in the future? Subtlety. Seriously, I did not need the significance of Picard’s headache pounded home with a Space Sledgehammer. I can pick out foreshadowing without the writers erecting a neon sign over it that reads “THIS WILL BE SIGNIFICANT TO THE PLOT, PAY ATTENTION NOW.” Even Crusher’s worry could have gone more smoothly. All she had to do was not find a cause for the pain and be concerned, not go “OMG, WE DON’T HAVE HEADACHES ANY MORE, THIS IS IMPORTANT.”

The Ferengi continue to cringe and be awful and Wesley is wearing a shirt that I’m pretty sure is stitched together from scraps of proper uniforms.  He’s also (unsurprisingly) a bit of a snot here, coming up to the bridge to tell them that a ship is approaching instead of calling, and also that he was dicking around with the long range sensors apparently without permission.  Wouldn’t another officer be reprimanded for such shenanigans?  Hearts to Data, though, for the intrigued “Really?  How?” moment.  It’s like the only good piece of dialogue in the episode.  (Maybe I am being too harsh, but I did watch this two days ago and now I’m banging this out on my lunch at work, away from my notes.)

So!  The Ferengi are here to give the Captain a gift as a goodwill gesture or something equally implausible (but implausible on purpose, so okay, we’ll go with it), and that gift is a big hulking derelict  that the Captain used to… uh, captain.  It happens to be the historic ship where Picard invented the Picard Maneuver, which makes Geordi all excited because this apparently happened long enough ago that it’s in Starfleet Academy textbooks now.  The ship was badly damaged and abandoned after a skirmish with an unidentified ship, which we find out here was Ferengi.  DaiMon Bok is allegedly giving it to Picard to show no hard feelings and all that.

I’m going to apologize for my cheesiness in advance, but I’m still going to say “Beware of Ferengi bearing gifts.”  And because the Ferengi are actually pretty new to the whole Trek mythos at this point, I can also forgive the hammy freakouts of the 1st and 2nd officers from the Ferengi ship over the fact that they weren’t going to charge Picard anything for anything.

PS- Big help, there, Troi, sensing “deception.”  I bet the Captain wouldn’t have suspected they were up to anything without you!  Please go back to freaking out with Crusher in sick bay, kthnx.

The Ferengi leave and the Enterprise starts towing the burnt out ship with their tractor beam until they can meet up with a tug.  And by leave, I mean the Ferengi go to their own ship but keep pacing the Enterprise.  HMM, I WONDER IF THAT’S SUSPICIOUS.  Points to the crew for not loudly pointing it out like every other piece of foreshadowing so far.

Picard gets some PTSD, courtesy of a big, red, glowing, suspicious orb in his trunk in the old ship’s stateroom.   Welcome to the second episode in rather short order wherein Picard is driven to dangerous, erratic behavior by thought control!  You would expect Professor X to have some better natural defenses.  Picard’s flashbacks are intercut with Bok cackling madly over his own orb.  I guess Bok’s son was the captain of the ship that Picard done exploded and now he’s out for some blood revenge.  Oh, and Memory Alpha reminds me that there was a falsified log suggesting that Picard attacked without provocation, which also contributes to his little journey into Crazytown, specifically the neighborhood of Flashbackville.

At some point in here, Wesley saunters into sickbay, where his mother and Troi are fretting over the Captain’s brainwaves and casually notes that there are transmissions matching those patterns coming from the other ship.  WESLEY EX MACHINA saves the day after appearing only one other time in the episodes.  He can be annoying, even when he’s barely there!  Ending with a snarky, scoffing little, “You’e welcome, ladies… Adults!”  It’s like the writers WANT me to hate Wesley, hate him so bad.

In fact, Picard becomes such a happy resident of Flashbackville that he beams over to the other ship.  Riker invokes some bond-of-first-officers with the Ferengi Number One, and he tells Riker that the glowy ball is a forbidden thought control device and removes his captain from command.  Meanwhile, Picard is deep in the past and starts attacking the Enterprise (boy, I didn’t see that one coming, what with the multiple instances of Picard reliving the past over the last ten minutes!) in delusion.  Data is order to do what has never been done before, mainly come up with a defense against the Picard maneuver, which of course he does within minutes.  I’d make another deus ex machina joke (probably more appropriately) but I’m so fond of the Wesley one further up.

Once Data’s managed to stop Picard from killing them all (including the children, I’m not sure I’ll ever stop harping on why it is STUPID TO HAVE CHILDREN ON A WORKING EXPLORATORY SHIP), Riker gets through to Picard by speaking in a commanding voice, mostly, and convinces him to phaser the thought control device, which breaks him out of his flashback/hallucination.  Hooray!

We would be remiss in our Trek blogging duties if we did not share with you these shimmering, delightful gems.

Enjoy.