Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Maybe he was preparing for 420, when he gets stoned in full Worf make up in the privacy of his own home.
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The Human Adventure Continues: Talking About Star Trek
- Thread starter Johnny Unusual
- Start date
This excellent column also goes into the invention of Kirk as a maverick horndog, and how at odds that is with his portrayal in TOS.
Kirk is a lot of things, depending on what the story at the time wants to say. Sometimes he's the progenitor of 'cowboy diplomacy' that later series take the idea to pick up and run with. Other times though, he's rigidly by-the-book. Sometimes he's got this natural swagger, other times he's talking about how he was the victim of bullying at Starfleet Academy for being too bookish and timid. The caricature of Kirk that exists in the popular imagination is definitely an invented one, but I wouldn't ascribe the movies for being at any more fault for that than the original show. He's still a pretty measured, cool, calculated character with a lot of complexity and emotional depth in the films as well.
I just had a thought: In City on the Edge of Forever, could Kirk have saved the timeline by taking Edith Keeler with him to the future, instead of having to make sure she died? If she's removed from the past, that would basically count as her dying, right?
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Continuing DS9. Tantalizingly close to the end.
Prodigal Daughter
An episode that follows up an O'Brien story but really is an Ezra story and its... perfectly fine. Its something of a murder mystery but on that end its not so good and as a family drama, its serviceable. But revealing Ezra's backstory a bit doesn't really make the character stronger to me.
Prodigal Daughter
An episode that follows up an O'Brien story but really is an Ezra story and its... perfectly fine. Its something of a murder mystery but on that end its not so good and as a family drama, its serviceable. But revealing Ezra's backstory a bit doesn't really make the character stronger to me.
Ezri is a challenge. I blame a lot of that for only being introduced and gone after one season. What I got out of that episode is she was the family 'diplomat' that had to keep peace between every one else much of the time. And maybe didn't have as much time to figure herself out as needed, and that might be reflected part in her - frankly - anxiety about the whole Dax addition to her life. Had the plates spinning okay til suddenly WHAM, you're joined. I think the writing just blames her confusion over the lack of training but to each their own.
I really like Ezri. I think she's inherently a lot more interesting character than Jadzia was. Jadzia being a trill is mostly just a sci-fi excuse to have a woman take on the active story role of an old man who is a wisdom dispensing, self-confident person with a yolo attitude b/c old man. (Jadzia basically bleeds naked old guy in the gym changing room energy.) Because normal women can't be those kinds of things. Which is a pretty garbage thought process that's indicative of where we were at in TV/media in the mid 90s. She walks on screen having already figured herself out, despite being recently joined. It just always seemed like the writers never fully capitalized on interesting symbote tales until Ezri where we get to more fully deal with a character confused by who they are and actively trying to sort it all out. Ezri is who Dax should have been from day one, or the story of introducing her should have come earlier in the show since the whole examine what it's like to have someone basically reincarnates should be actively explored on screen instead of just being flavor text once in a while. I get the feeling the writers of Star Trek Discovery agree with me, when their symbiote is more in the Ezri mold of having to figure themselves out versus the Jadzia I'm superwoman from day one.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I think both are fine but neither quite make the symbiont stuff work. Both have good actresses bringing a lot of life and charm to the role. But they also have the disadvantage of not having a lot of the "weighty" backstories other cast members get. They've tried by the symbiont's murderous past and Ezri's family drama but they still don't have arcs that work for me (with Jadzia/Worf being a low point. I'm more of a fan of the Worf character but Jadzia can do SO much better). But maybe Ezri's story will by the series' end.
I will say, I like the personal stuff much more than when the show tries to dig into symbiont lore, which never became interesting for me.
I will say, I like the personal stuff much more than when the show tries to dig into symbiont lore, which never became interesting for me.
DS9 S6E22: “Valiant”
At one time I probably disagreed with this notion. But this might be one of the most distasteful and macabre, and therefore one of the worst episodes in Star Trek. Made even worse by how terrible the acting is.
At one time I probably disagreed with this notion. But this might be one of the most distasteful and macabre, and therefore one of the worst episodes in Star Trek. Made even worse by how terrible the acting is.
FelixSH
(He/Him)
I generally agree with Wisterias take on Ezri. Jadzia is, to me, the weak member of the cast that was never really figured out. I don't mind her being introduced as fully formed as a joined person, but then you would have needed to kill her off later. I feel like they really NEEDED to kill her off, just so we can see how that change actually effects the crew, who knew the old host, but also kind of know the new one, because the symbiont is the same. Maybe do that change after the third season, so we get to know both hosts, and can really explore the change.
But yeah, I prefer Ezri to Jadzia feels too flavorless to me. She might have worked in a cast that is generally weaker, but DS9 has such a strong crew that she is drowned out by all these other colorful characters. I mean, Nog, Jake and even Rom feel like more interesting characters to me than Jadzia. But even that speaks more to how much they got out of the side characters in this show.
But yeah, I prefer Ezri to Jadzia feels too flavorless to me. She might have worked in a cast that is generally weaker, but DS9 has such a strong crew that she is drowned out by all these other colorful characters. I mean, Nog, Jake and even Rom feel like more interesting characters to me than Jadzia. But even that speaks more to how much they got out of the side characters in this show.
zonetrope
(he/him)
I'm doing a full VOY watch-through for the first time and just finished the Scorpion two-parter (aka the one that introduces Seven of Nine). This show takes a lot of shit, and it has some really bad episodes and dud characters. But it can be really terrifying in a way no other Trek really manages. This is a smaller crew than the Enterprise, alone in a section of space where everyone, everywhere is constantly out for their heads. There's a sort of existential dread to the Dominion in DS9, but with the Federation around, the show has the tone of a political thriller. Voyager at its best feels like pure horror.
And then there's Chakotay, but can't win 'em all.
And then there's Chakotay, but can't win 'em all.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
The Emperor's New Cloak
Even among the mirror episodes this is a lesser one and having it be a Quark/Rom episode somehow doesn't help. Everyone is eating all the scenery they can to keep it alive but its kind of forgettable. Also, mirror universe Vic Fontaine feels like a deliberate trolling of the fans. Its the LEAST sensical mirror universe character.
Even among the mirror episodes this is a lesser one and having it be a Quark/Rom episode somehow doesn't help. Everyone is eating all the scenery they can to keep it alive but its kind of forgettable. Also, mirror universe Vic Fontaine feels like a deliberate trolling of the fans. Its the LEAST sensical mirror universe character.
How come? Macabre, sure, but why distasteful?
Did they do much with that idea, though? They always seemed to have enough resources, unless the episode revolved around their lack of resources.
zonetrope
(he/him)
It's not so much the resources, more that hostile enemies are just constantly on their ass, and many of the neutral civilizations the crew encounters are extremely distrustful of them. The territory feels very consistently unfriendly in a way you don't really get in the series set in Federation space. The Gamma Quadrant is fairly similar in DS9, but for plot reasons they don't spend nearly as much time there.
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Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
More DS9!
Field of Fire
A pretty generic thriller story with a Silence of the Lambs inspired gimmick. Its not bad but man, the solution just... sucks. Its pretty dependent on making massive jumps in conclusions, racism (on fictional races) and ethical breaches that would be interesting if the show wasn't that interested in sidestepping it. The premise of a sniper with a magic bullet is interesting but I feel like the idea came before the solution and no one bothered to crack the solution in a satisfying way.
Chimera
Turns out a changeling doesn't have to be a Founder to suuuuck. Not a bad episode, certainly better than the last, focusing on a new character who, due to terrible life experiences, is terribly anti-social. Decent enough Odo episode and touching on something introduced way back in the day. But this one isn't going to stick with me.
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
The writers are really all in on Fontaine to a degree that is baffling. Its not even like I hate Vic, I'm just confounded why they make everyone who isn't Worf love Vic so much. As the heist segment goes, its... alright. They do the big thing which is to lay out the plan and then have things go wrong and force the characters to come up with new solutions. I've certainly seen it done a lot better. Really, the most interesting thing is a conversation where Sisko discusses his concerns romanticizing an era that was a lot less tolerant than the holosuite version and Kassidy believing that its OK to have a better fantasy version, which is more interesting to me than "will Vic keep his pretend bar?"
Also, Bashir does nothing Ezri couldn't have done anyway.
Field of Fire
A pretty generic thriller story with a Silence of the Lambs inspired gimmick. Its not bad but man, the solution just... sucks. Its pretty dependent on making massive jumps in conclusions, racism (on fictional races) and ethical breaches that would be interesting if the show wasn't that interested in sidestepping it. The premise of a sniper with a magic bullet is interesting but I feel like the idea came before the solution and no one bothered to crack the solution in a satisfying way.
Chimera
Turns out a changeling doesn't have to be a Founder to suuuuck. Not a bad episode, certainly better than the last, focusing on a new character who, due to terrible life experiences, is terribly anti-social. Decent enough Odo episode and touching on something introduced way back in the day. But this one isn't going to stick with me.
Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
The writers are really all in on Fontaine to a degree that is baffling. Its not even like I hate Vic, I'm just confounded why they make everyone who isn't Worf love Vic so much. As the heist segment goes, its... alright. They do the big thing which is to lay out the plan and then have things go wrong and force the characters to come up with new solutions. I've certainly seen it done a lot better. Really, the most interesting thing is a conversation where Sisko discusses his concerns romanticizing an era that was a lot less tolerant than the holosuite version and Kassidy believing that its OK to have a better fantasy version, which is more interesting to me than "will Vic keep his pretend bar?"
Also, Bashir does nothing Ezri couldn't have done anyway.
People like to hate on nuTrek for being grimdark, but DS9 episodes like these are way worse, IMO. A whole group of essentially children are murdered after uncharacteristically being gigantic dipshits. And what's the purpose? The moral of the story here? Ambition is bad? Smart people are stupid? Why are all of these Starfleet cadets just have zero critical thinking skills? Why is Nog being called a Lt Commander when he's only got Lt Jr Grade pips? It's all made even worse by how bad the acting and writing is in the episode too. It's just no bueno.
Nah, I get it. The TNG writers were just really obsessed with English Language Literature. DS9 they just really like the Rat Pack. Voyager they're just really into Classic Cinema/Americana.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Except it goes beyond "shared interest" and more "close confidant that everyone knows and trusts to a fan fiction insert character degree".
I'm further into Enterprise and...yeah I don't know. It's better? But like...uh....???? It kinda reminds me of TOS or even Season 1 TNG in that only a few characters get any character development in any way, and most of the episodes are plot-focused and have very little in the way of character work. It also assumes you have familiarity with other Star Trek, so when they announce that things work a certain way you get thrown off because "that's not how Star Trek works", but that wouldn't do anything for a new viewer. Which isn't me so whatever, but still, I feel like they rely on that crutch a whole helluva a lot. It's...fine I guess? Everyone boils down to one character trait and they solve problems in space (or create problems in space) and that's it. It absolutely has the "this is like that TNG episode, but worse" syndrome. It's overall fine but like...eh??? More character work would be appreciated but I guess it just isn't that kinda show. Voyager was the same way for the most part, so if Voyager was More TNG But Worse™, this is Even More TNG About Buildings and Food, And Even Worse™ Diminishing returns, for sure
Other tidbits:
- A Night in Sickbay was absolutely maddening. Archer had kind of grown past Space Racist Conservative Dad™ and then...he just was back, in full force. He eventually accepts that he was being an asshole, but it takes 35+ minutes to get there and it's excruciating. Also this is the THIRD episode where one of the major plot points is "hey Captain maybe you need to get laid more often" and it's like...how often is this gonna be A THING
- They're still hitting up that Temporal Cold War thing and I'm like...guys, this has never been interesting, please stop.
- I feel like someone somewhere was smoking a cigar and said "We gotta make Star Trek sexier! SEXIER!!!!", it feels like the amount of times they sexualize Hoshi/T'Pol or make a thing excuse to get Trip or Archer shirtless are just through the absolute roof. It's like every other episode!
- I feel like Scott Bakula probably really likes water polo and put a clause in his contract that was like "Hey I wanna have Archer like water polo too". This is all stuff I made up, but also, it's my head canon and it is real.
- Travis is really just...like, the most unfortunate character. He feels like he'd be more at home in a Flash Gordon-style serial. Everything is "wow, shucks, thank you, sir!" Also as the only brown character on the show, it does feel extremely weird (at best) that he is deferential to the Captain (a white dude who's kinda Space Racist™) at all times and has absolutely zero character traits aside from "I grew up on a space ship". Even during off-duty and informal things he still consistently refers to the Captain as Sir at all times, and immediately backs down if the Captain ever challenges anything he says even a tiny bit. It feels...just kinda gross? Yes I know he's the Captain and he's the Ensign and being respectful isn't bad, and while he's a little less stiff with the other crew members, he is overly polite and stiff with them as well. You could say it's bad acting, but also he's the character who has all the bad shit that happens to a crew member happen to him specifically, and this shit doesn't just appear out of thin air, you know?
One or multiple writers somewhere decided that the only brown character was going to constantly be taking orders from the white guy, be overly polite in all of his interactions with the crew, and constantly have bad and violent shit happen to him. It's just one of those things where pretty much any time Travis has a bigger role in an episode, I usually walk away from it going "*furrowed brow* ...hmm" and that feeling has not gotten any better as I've gotten farther in.
- Same goes for Hoshi. There's been 3 or so episodes so far where the main plot has revolved around "Hoshi is weak and scared", and each time she "gets over" it and everyone's like wow Hoshi is now dependable and a valued member of the crew...until the next time that Hoshi has a breakdown again and we reset. Of course the female character is the weak one *eyeroll*
- T'Pol fairs better overall, and the core of the show is Archer/T'Pol's friendship (with a dash of Trip just kinda being around) which is done pretty well, but the caveat here is that at all times she's wearing a skintight body suit or having someone rub goop on her in a bra because "decontamination protocols" and it's like -_-;;
- Phlox is my favorite character on the show (I did enjoy the one that had him trying to solve a plague and was presented as a letter to a colleague he was writing through the episode) because his reaction 99% of the time is to laugh and go "well this is stupid and sucks, alright let's do it". As a nurse who is often forced into situations that are shitty but I have no choice but to go through because it's what the patient needs, I FEEL THIS. Also he's got a bunch of weird animals which is just an excuse to show weird puppets sometimes and I'm into that
- Actually the best character is Porthos, that dog is ADORABLE
Anyway it's...got problems, but whatever. Suitable background noise for exercising. Maybe it'll get better...? Plus there's a dog! Dogs! YES! I hear there's eventually Mirror Universe stuff, and I've never been a big fan of those episodes, so hopefully they don't lean too hard on that.
Other tidbits:
- A Night in Sickbay was absolutely maddening. Archer had kind of grown past Space Racist Conservative Dad™ and then...he just was back, in full force. He eventually accepts that he was being an asshole, but it takes 35+ minutes to get there and it's excruciating. Also this is the THIRD episode where one of the major plot points is "hey Captain maybe you need to get laid more often" and it's like...how often is this gonna be A THING
- They're still hitting up that Temporal Cold War thing and I'm like...guys, this has never been interesting, please stop.
- I feel like someone somewhere was smoking a cigar and said "We gotta make Star Trek sexier! SEXIER!!!!", it feels like the amount of times they sexualize Hoshi/T'Pol or make a thing excuse to get Trip or Archer shirtless are just through the absolute roof. It's like every other episode!
- I feel like Scott Bakula probably really likes water polo and put a clause in his contract that was like "Hey I wanna have Archer like water polo too". This is all stuff I made up, but also, it's my head canon and it is real.
- Travis is really just...like, the most unfortunate character. He feels like he'd be more at home in a Flash Gordon-style serial. Everything is "wow, shucks, thank you, sir!" Also as the only brown character on the show, it does feel extremely weird (at best) that he is deferential to the Captain (a white dude who's kinda Space Racist™) at all times and has absolutely zero character traits aside from "I grew up on a space ship". Even during off-duty and informal things he still consistently refers to the Captain as Sir at all times, and immediately backs down if the Captain ever challenges anything he says even a tiny bit. It feels...just kinda gross? Yes I know he's the Captain and he's the Ensign and being respectful isn't bad, and while he's a little less stiff with the other crew members, he is overly polite and stiff with them as well. You could say it's bad acting, but also he's the character who has all the bad shit that happens to a crew member happen to him specifically, and this shit doesn't just appear out of thin air, you know?
One or multiple writers somewhere decided that the only brown character was going to constantly be taking orders from the white guy, be overly polite in all of his interactions with the crew, and constantly have bad and violent shit happen to him. It's just one of those things where pretty much any time Travis has a bigger role in an episode, I usually walk away from it going "*furrowed brow* ...hmm" and that feeling has not gotten any better as I've gotten farther in.
- Same goes for Hoshi. There's been 3 or so episodes so far where the main plot has revolved around "Hoshi is weak and scared", and each time she "gets over" it and everyone's like wow Hoshi is now dependable and a valued member of the crew...until the next time that Hoshi has a breakdown again and we reset. Of course the female character is the weak one *eyeroll*
- T'Pol fairs better overall, and the core of the show is Archer/T'Pol's friendship (with a dash of Trip just kinda being around) which is done pretty well, but the caveat here is that at all times she's wearing a skintight body suit or having someone rub goop on her in a bra because "decontamination protocols" and it's like -_-;;
- Phlox is my favorite character on the show (I did enjoy the one that had him trying to solve a plague and was presented as a letter to a colleague he was writing through the episode) because his reaction 99% of the time is to laugh and go "well this is stupid and sucks, alright let's do it". As a nurse who is often forced into situations that are shitty but I have no choice but to go through because it's what the patient needs, I FEEL THIS. Also he's got a bunch of weird animals which is just an excuse to show weird puppets sometimes and I'm into that
- Actually the best character is Porthos, that dog is ADORABLE
Anyway it's...got problems, but whatever. Suitable background noise for exercising. Maybe it'll get better...? Plus there's a dog! Dogs! YES! I hear there's eventually Mirror Universe stuff, and I've never been a big fan of those episodes, so hopefully they don't lean too hard on that.
The stuff about Travis being overly formal all the time I... kinda like? I get where you're coming from though. But the broader arc of the show, if you haven't picked up on it yet, is the NX-01/Archer going from being glorified astronauts and slowly transforming over time into serious business Starfleet that your average Star Trek fan would find more recognizable and be comfortable with.
Travis is the lowest ranked guy, he's wide-eyed, he doesn't have pre-established relationships with anyone like Archer and Trip have in order to fall back on being comfy bros, and he comes from a naval tradition already. He picked joining Starfleet over continuing the family tradition because it's the place he wanted to be. So the way I see it, he's just a super gung-ho kid and is fully embracing the Starfleet ideal there.
Other characters slowly follow him over time. Trip is probably the biggest example of which, where he goes from being Archer's drinking buddy/bff, and finds himself adjusting his relationship and how he talks to his captain over time as the enormity of their jobs begins to set in and he begins to take extra seriously his role in being a supporting role to Space-George Washington.
Most of those trends though, are only something you can really begin to appreciate in hindsight, once you've got a full appreciation of where things started and where they ultimately end up at. Someone stuck in the middle, I don't begrudge them not quite being able to see or appreciate the full picture just yet.
All that said though, I definitely do share your apprehension of white people at the top of this rigid hierarchical structure. I've commented on it in the past, how that's probably a big factor for how racist Star Trek fans cling to a show that seems like it would be antithetical to their worldview, and why those kinds of fans tend to really go hard for TOS/TNG, and then go really hard against shows like VOY or any of the new stuff, where someone not a straight white male is in absolute control. It's one of the reasons why I really appreciate DS9 and VOY specifically these days. Both shows do such a great job of setting someone who isn't straight/white/male in the captain's seat, and having them take control in ways that challenge preconceptions of how ideals of authority should even operate.
I don't think Travis' characterization or character arc is necessarily bad, but I don't think they gave him enough to do, so he ends up feeling kind of like an afterthought, even considered over the course of all 4 seasons. (This is also true for Malcom and Hoshi, I think.)
Trip on the other hand yeah I went from disliking to really appreciating over the course of the show. He definitely become one of my favorite crew members.
For better or for worse, Enterprise really cares the most about Scott Bakula, Trip, and T'Pol.
Trip on the other hand yeah I went from disliking to really appreciating over the course of the show. He definitely become one of my favorite crew members.
For better or for worse, Enterprise really cares the most about Scott Bakula, Trip, and T'Pol.
The driving creative force behind ENT was literally just to do a soft remake of TOS, which definitely included realigning the show around three TOS-like characters, instead of the more ensemble pieces that TNG became and defined DS9 and VOY. Archer, T'Pol, and Trip are literally just Kirk, Spock, and Bones, but one of them is a girl now so that we can be overt about the sexual tension between the three and not spook the homophobes.
DS9 S7E05 "Chrysalis" - Woof. I do not think this is the absolute worst episode ever like I assume many people do. But any distaste for this episode is very fairly earned. The core intended message of the episode is a good one, fairly ethical, and worth discussing/focusing an episode around. How the episode goes about doing so is like a minefield of icky however. Julian Bashir - DS9's resident rehabilitated sex pest - invents a procedure to help someone who is basically non-functioning autistic become "normal" with some technobabble and sci-fi shenanigans. Ok, weird but whatever. Bashir then proceeds to fall head over heels in love with her however, and that's where things go from weird to yikes in a hurry. There's just SO MANY LAYERS of problematic here.
So yeah. Uncomfortable, weird, gross, yikes. Season 7 of DS9 has some really good episodes and stories, but it's also full of so many moments like this that is just a minefield. Another episode I'm not looking forward to getting to is the one where Worf goes full toxic ex-boyfriend on Ezri. (Holy shit is DS9-Worf a terrible person.) If this was just a normal drama show, I don't think I would mind as much. But this is Star Trek. I don't need my Star Trek characters to be the Roddenberry ideals of perfect, evolved humans that lack all characters flaws and don't engage in interpersonal conflicts. But I generally would like my characters to be likable, that I can root for, and to especially show evolution and progress in their character development over the years. An episode to confront Bashir's sex-pest ways would have been better at home in the first couple seasons to address that character flaw of his early. Instead, this one comes out of left field and acts like a character assassination for a problem of his that he had mostly addressed and gotten over off-screen. It sucks!
VOY S5E02 "Drone" - This might be my favorite Bryan Fuller thing in Star Trek. It's poignant, got a good emotional core, has some cool scif-fi concepts that don't completely mess with continuity in lazy ways (unlike some of Fuller's other episodes), and it has some really well written moments of symmetry in the dialog. But it's also probably a victim of the show's serialized nature. This would have been better explored as a two-parter, or been a background story that evolved over several episodes. Because as it stands, the strong emotional impact that the episode wanted to portray is fairly blunted when we just haven't spent as much time with One to actually care for him for when he finally departs. It's just the unfortunate double-edge of that model of TV production.
Bashir finds himself attracted to her because she not just embodies a lot of things he finds attractive in a partner, but because she shares the same incredibly rare background as him and he's fantasized all his life about finding someone just like himself that he could commiserate with. And the episode frames the relationship in a way that implies he's so blinded by the excitement of finally meeting this dream-woman of his, and so relieved to not feel lonely and desperate anymore, that he's completely oblivious to and probably intentionally overlooking huge glaring red flags she puts up about how this is a deeply problematic and gross relationship he's begun to engage with. Which is a good message to tell people! I think there's probably a lot of people who have overlooked red flags in relationships because they're too head-over-heels with someone, that they're idolizing them and seeing what they want rather than what's really going on, and letting their loneliness and desperation get the best of them. That's all fine.
The problem is, it's nakedly obvious how problematic this relationship is, and the episode basically serves as an unintentional character assassination of Bashir. That he'd overlook the unethical nature of a doctor-patient relationship is bad. Something to his credit he immediately recognizes and severs that relationship by referring her healthcare to a colleague. But he still charges ahead despite it still being problematic. Imagine a teacher dating their student a day after they graduate. It's no bueno! Then there's the fact that he's not only attracted to her for her talents and background, but also because of her child-like wonder with which she sees the world. Which is like, big pedo energy and something he should have immediately recognized but takes all episode for him to do so. She'd been so cognitively disabled for so long that she's basically got the life experience of a child. She's technically not a kid of course, but it's just weird oh weird. She has to suffer a mental breakdown for him to finally realize the shitty situation he's put her in and how this relationship is completely fundamentally inappropriate.
To the episode's credit, it goes about explaining and condemning why everything involved is problematic and bad, in pretty clear terms. But the problem is in the presentation. It's written and presented from Bashir's perspective, and seems chiefly involved in using him as a relatable character to teach like-minded men a lesson through his follies. The romance (
) here is dressed up and presented with all the visual language of a romance we're supposed to be rooting for. The episode is almost entirely concerned with Bashir's character growth and his partner is mostly just a plot device to enable that. The message is a good one for certain audiences, but for anyone who can spot how wrong this is from a mile away, it's just torture to have to watch the guy stoop to such embarrassing and gross lows. This might be the worst Bashir episode, and it's really shitty that after having been mostly rehabilitated from his sex-pest ways from the first two seasons, that he'd relapse like this so hard in the final one. What an off-putting episode!
The problem is, it's nakedly obvious how problematic this relationship is, and the episode basically serves as an unintentional character assassination of Bashir. That he'd overlook the unethical nature of a doctor-patient relationship is bad. Something to his credit he immediately recognizes and severs that relationship by referring her healthcare to a colleague. But he still charges ahead despite it still being problematic. Imagine a teacher dating their student a day after they graduate. It's no bueno! Then there's the fact that he's not only attracted to her for her talents and background, but also because of her child-like wonder with which she sees the world. Which is like, big pedo energy and something he should have immediately recognized but takes all episode for him to do so. She'd been so cognitively disabled for so long that she's basically got the life experience of a child. She's technically not a kid of course, but it's just weird oh weird. She has to suffer a mental breakdown for him to finally realize the shitty situation he's put her in and how this relationship is completely fundamentally inappropriate.
To the episode's credit, it goes about explaining and condemning why everything involved is problematic and bad, in pretty clear terms. But the problem is in the presentation. It's written and presented from Bashir's perspective, and seems chiefly involved in using him as a relatable character to teach like-minded men a lesson through his follies. The romance (
) here is dressed up and presented with all the visual language of a romance we're supposed to be rooting for. The episode is almost entirely concerned with Bashir's character growth and his partner is mostly just a plot device to enable that. The message is a good one for certain audiences, but for anyone who can spot how wrong this is from a mile away, it's just torture to have to watch the guy stoop to such embarrassing and gross lows. This might be the worst Bashir episode, and it's really shitty that after having been mostly rehabilitated from his sex-pest ways from the first two seasons, that he'd relapse like this so hard in the final one. What an off-putting episode!So yeah. Uncomfortable, weird, gross, yikes. Season 7 of DS9 has some really good episodes and stories, but it's also full of so many moments like this that is just a minefield. Another episode I'm not looking forward to getting to is the one where Worf goes full toxic ex-boyfriend on Ezri. (Holy shit is DS9-Worf a terrible person.) If this was just a normal drama show, I don't think I would mind as much. But this is Star Trek. I don't need my Star Trek characters to be the Roddenberry ideals of perfect, evolved humans that lack all characters flaws and don't engage in interpersonal conflicts. But I generally would like my characters to be likable, that I can root for, and to especially show evolution and progress in their character development over the years. An episode to confront Bashir's sex-pest ways would have been better at home in the first couple seasons to address that character flaw of his early. Instead, this one comes out of left field and acts like a character assassination for a problem of his that he had mostly addressed and gotten over off-screen. It sucks!
VOY S5E02 "Drone" - This might be my favorite Bryan Fuller thing in Star Trek. It's poignant, got a good emotional core, has some cool scif-fi concepts that don't completely mess with continuity in lazy ways (unlike some of Fuller's other episodes), and it has some really well written moments of symmetry in the dialog. But it's also probably a victim of the show's serialized nature. This would have been better explored as a two-parter, or been a background story that evolved over several episodes. Because as it stands, the strong emotional impact that the episode wanted to portray is fairly blunted when we just haven't spent as much time with One to actually care for him for when he finally departs. It's just the unfortunate double-edge of that model of TV production.
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Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Truth. Jadzia never quite clicked for me but their romance makes zero sense to me.