After a hiatus much longer than either of us anticipated, we are back writing reviews of Deep Space 9.
Live watch / Plot
We open with a nice shot of Quarks Bar from the upper level. Odo is looking for Quark. These guys really are the best part of the show. 76th rule of Acquisition: “Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.” An interesting business / pleasure meeting for Quark. He is given a Bajoran earring that came from a Cardassian.
Kira meditating…. Quark gives her the earring. I’m just going to say that this feels really good to be back watching the show. Watching the intro now. The world has really changed. I miss the old days, but don’t dwell on it too long.
A scene with Jake and Sisko. Oh, Gul Dukat is in this episode, cool. Jake is having his first date, heh. Kira comes in, somewhat defiantly, as per her usual, and demands to speak with Sisko. They go to Quark’s bar as it’s like, the only place on the station. The Chunky Mug makes its appearance. Kira wants to borrow a runabout to rescue a Bajoran prisoner of war form Cardassia IV, Li Nalas. She describes the current state of Bajoran politics, which is mildly interesting. She wants to rescue Li, a war hero, to help unify her people.
O’Brien interrupts over the communicator to call Sisko to another location on the station. And we find graffiti placed there by “The Circle” an “extremist faction who believe in Bajor for the Bajorans. All other species are inferior and should be expelled from the planet.” Well, I’m all for Bajor for the Bajorans, but the graffiti and being complete isolationists seems a little dumb. I’m sure these guys are meant to be the bad guys, though.
Sisko consents to the use of the runabout, and insists that O’Brien got on the mission with Kira. I’m sure the Federation would be upset if things go awry. One irritating thing is that Kira objects to O’Brien’s presence before acquiescing, stating that it’s a Bajoran issue, but she made it a Federation issue by asking for their runabout.
So Kira and O’Brien head to Cardassia IV to rescue the Li, and it turns out there’s a whole labor camp with several Bajorans there. This is contrary to what the Cardassians had said when they said they had released all their Bajoran prisoners. They have to land to try to rescue all the prisoners they can. The rescue the guy they came for, but they don’t get everybody out.
When they get back, they get Li to immediate medical attention, as he got hit pretty bad. Kira finds Sisko on the phone with Gul Dukat, who says that they are sorry, the High Command was unaware of the prisoners there, and they have released all the rest of the prisoners.
So this guy Li is walking around the station with Kira and Sisko. While they wait for a diplomat to arrive, Minister Jaro, played by Frank Langella, but strangely not credited. Ooh, someone looks to be drinking Gatorade from a jar.
Jaro explains how dangerous Kira’s mission was, and if she ever disobeys the military like that again it will be the end of her career. I bet there are those that would not like to see this war hero back, as it could weaken their power on Bajor.
Li Nalis has attracted a crowd, being a famous war hero.[1] He is attention weary, though. Jaro comes up to him and takes the opportunity to address the crowd. Then Li Nalis retires to his room and has a little conversation with Sisko. General set-up info, it sounds like.
Quark and Rom having payday. Quark gets assaulted and branded by the Circle.
Jake gets dumped because he’s not Bajoran, heh. With what I know now about diverse peoples, let alone completely alien ones, that’s not a bad reason, actually. Of course Star Trek treats totally alien species as completely compatible, though. Still, there’s no reason they couldn’t be friends.
Li Nalis tries to stow away on a ship leaving for the Gamma quadrant, when he’s returned to Sisko, explains that his “leadership” is basically a tall tale. So he’ll go on to be the reluctant hero, it seems. Kira gets recalled to Bajor and Li Nalis gets assigned her post. To be continued…
Final grade C
This is a set-up episode so the plot is very thin and straightforward, and the expository dialogue is stretched to give this a full-length running time. It’s just good enough to give that a pass. It would have been more interesting to see Kira fail and the Federation come down on Sisko for giving her the runabout. That would have made a good self contained episode. After watching the first 4 episdes of this season, I felt I was being generous with a B even though going on a gut feeling of how not-bored I was watching the episode, so I’ve changed it to a C. The guy who played Li Nalis was good, and I vaguely remember him. I don’t actually remember this episode very much – making it a very skippable episode.
1. I get a mild kick out of seeing the all black and Asian Bajorans, as I don’t remember any back in the day.