Starts with Sisko in dress uniform. The boy is growing up, and is interested in (Bajoran) girls. They’re meeting a new species, the Watti. Heh, Sisko gets as far a “respecting” a woman, or new species. The talk about girls along with the soundtrack in my ears with the headset (I’m watching this on the computer) gives me a brief shot of nostalgia. Dr. Bashir can’t find his dress uniform (which for some reason they can’t just replicate), man does he ever start to not suck? The aliens come on board, and I don’t remember any specifics about this episode, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it. Ooh, the aliens want to gamble at Quarks, to Sisko’s chagrin. Cue intro.
Quark sets up a means of barter so that they may gamble. They are apparently good at it somehow and win a lot. Then Quark intercedes and rigs the game, as if it was necessary to do that.[1] Maybe the new aliens are somehow cheating? So far this episode is kinda boring, unless it’s me. It could be me. OK, the new aliens catch the cheating going on, and then introduce their own game. That part was interesting. Sisko is in his bed, and then suddenly on a floor in the next shot. It looks like some sort of playfield with a triangle pattern. My guess is that Sisko was somehow transported into the game, even though the floor pattern looks nothing like the game that was shown earlier, as far as I can tell. Cue commercial.
Sisko is trapped in an alien room, it looks like maybe he was transported to the alien ship. Maybe he’s the stakes of the game. Sisko pulls out a hand tricorder, opens doors, and moves along strange corridors, where bumps into the lead Watti who says something in alien, and says, “Move along home!” Hey, the title of the show! So I think that Sisko is somehow in the game. He runs into Bashir who is trapped against a wall somehow, as this is getting increasingly, though not very, surreal. Kira and Dax come in and the gangs all here. Kira is being unnecessarily defiant as per her character trope. There’s some weird attempt to make Bashir look like a fool. They decide to split up, so that they can cover more ground and they intend to stay in contact via their communicators and tricorders, though they are unable to contact the station via the communicators.
Jake, looking for his dad, finds Odo in his office, with an interesting lead in that makes you think it’s Ben for a second. Computer reports that Sisko isn’t on the station, and there is no record of him leaving. As Odo investigates, he runs into Lieutenant Security Guy – man, I thought we’d seen the last of him – acting kind of jackassy, “Constable Ohhhdoooooh! good morning to yah!” None of the senior officers reported in, but Lieutenant Security did nothing. Wow, that was a rather unsettling scene, but at least Odo has the reins. Cut back to Quark’s, and the board is ready to wagering. Quark is required to learn the rules as he plays, I hope they’re not playing Fizzbin.[2] Cut back to Sisko. He finds something. They gather on Sisko’s position and open a door to find a little Watti girl playing a version of hopscotch. They have to imitate her behavior to get past a force field and proceed. She then references a term in the game that Quark is playing. Where the lead Watti references a term the girl was saying. This is the concrete evidence that the game Quark is playing is linked to the experiences of our senior staff. Cue half way commercial.
Odo comes in to Quark’s where he discloses that the 4 senior officers are missing. Quark somehow connects this to the fact that he has 4 playing pieces, or “players” on the board, and takes the safer path for them. Cut back to the 4 senior officers, who figure out that they are in a game. They emerge into some sort of cocktail party where Kira starts being needlessly defiant again. They get past the trap or whatever it is and we cut back to Quark’s. This is a very sucky game which fails to interest me even though I have a page on games in TV that I started, and I will unfortunately have to add this to it. Cue commercial as Quark does something weird with a glass onion.
Odo with Lieutenant Security scanning for the 4 officers. They find something odd, possibly suspicious and Lieutenant Security says it’s against Starfleet Policy to just go on the Watti ship without permission, but Odo insists he beam Odo onto their ship anyway. This is another weird, cringey scene that just feels wrong. While messing around on the alien ship Odo falls into something that transports him back to Quark’s bar, where Quark makes a bad roll on his 4-sided dice.
Cut back to the senior station crew where they get attacked by a mini star formation that removes Bashir, just as he was starting to suck less, although he looked pretty wussy in the last couple shots. Back to Quark’s. Odo and Quark argue about what’s the right move. Now Quark must sacrifice one so that the remaining two may live. Commercial.
Quark says he doesn’t want to choose, so they choose one at random. Then we have some.. Rock climbing.a
Dax gets hurt and argues that they should leave her behind, she’d totally ditch Sisko if their roles were reversed, just the way the Marines don’t. They try to escape the earthquake situation, because everyone knows you can run away from an earthquake. Just a few more meters [feet x 3] and they’ll be a few more meters [feet x 3] along! They all fall off a cliff and are returned to Quark’s. The end. Okay, Quark lost, and everybody is safe because it’s only a game. That bit was kinda cool. Unsatisfying conclusion about Quark getting blamed for causing the whole thing by cheating, but it’s unskillfully swept under the rug. Quark tries to solicit Mr. Fallow, the Watti leader, to have the game as an offering in his bar, but I’m pretty sure that deal doesn’t materialize. The end. For real this time.
Final grade: D-
It only doesn’t get an F because the game concept gave me some interest, and Bashir had a few moments of not sucking. And the Watti leader guy was kinda cool.
I do vaguely remember this episode from back in the day, but it is very forgettable. Star Trek has some notoriously bad game references and episodes, see Next Generation episode The Game.
They actually tried to do a lot of neat things in the episode, unfortunately, little of it works, and there was too much padding. You could almost see the good episode trying to get out of this.
I’ll take an opportunity to explain my grading preferences. I generally prefer a 1-5 scale like so:
- 1. Hated it.
- 2. Didn’t like it.
- 3. Liked it.
- 4. REALLY liked it.
- 5. LOVED it.
But I’m following Phil’s lead on this for consistency, and the letter grades work fine as I’m basically using the same scale but with F as 1. They also allow for the adding of a little nuance with + and -.
1. Gambling odds ALWAYS favor the house, so if you’re making money, you’re basically cheating, there’s little to no need for the house to ever rig a game. That doesn’t mean they won’t, of course.
2. From Original Series episode A Piece of the Action.
