DS9: “Civil Defense” and “Meridian”

Date: July 1, 2020

Season 3, Episodes 7 and 8

Musical Accompaniment: Lots of Billy Joel. Heaps of Billy Joel. Tons of Billy Joel. Loads of Billy Joel. I think you get the point.

Interstellar News: It’s been six full months of this blog, woo hoo! Hopefully I’m still on track to finishing this goal by the end of the year.

Favorite Quote from “Civil Defense”:

Quark: Two hours ago you told me I was the most devious Ferengi you ever met.

Odo: I thought we were going to die. I was trying to be nice.

I absolutely love Quark and Odo together, they are just so wonderful.

So what had happened in “Civil Defense” was…: Jake and O’Brien are purging old Cardassian files as Sisko comes to get them for dinner and level one of Jumanji, I mean security countermeasures, are enacted and a pre-recorded video of Gul Dukat comes online. Sisko tries to surrender but no one has the right codes so Jake goes through the pipe to get them out before the killer gas comes through, though that triggers a station wide alert and we split off to three story lines.

Bashir, Kira, and Dax are stuck in Ops with some other station personnel. Dax tries to hack into the computer but she initiates level two. Garak figures out his codes allow him to move through the station and he encourages Kira to blow up life support to give them more time, but that initiates level three and the two-hour self-destruct window. Garak tries one more thing which initiates level four with a random death ray that takes out an honest red shirt. Gul Dukat randomly shows up because he got a distress signal from himself but when he tries to beam off his access is revoked by another Cardassian’s prerecorded message since it appeared as if he was abandoning ship, or is that station. Dukat tries something that actually works and they get all of the force fields dropped.

Sisko, Jake, and O’Brien are stuck in a room with ore but they MacGuvyer their way out of that room. When the force fields are dropped they are closest to the reactor so they attempt to stop it. O’Brien and Sisko have to travel through fire, but O’Brien has to be rescued by Jake and Sisko has very limited time to divert the blast to the shields, but he does save everyone. In the meantime Quark and Odo are trapped in security, have a few tender moments, and then act like an old married couple as the credits roll.

“I never knew how much this man’s voice annoyed me.”: This was a super fun episode because I kept expecting the guy from TV infomercials to come over the screen and exclaim “BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE”. It was hysterical that Gul Dukat recorded all of these contingencies and his voice just kept going, and going, and going. I love that Kira is still a woman of action and was happy to shoot things. Garak is a hoot, as always, and he totally called out Dukat on flirting with Kira… it was epic. Though most of the time was spent in Ops, it was good to see that O’Brien can MacGuyver his way out of anything and that Sisko and Jake were willing to help out where they could, those Sisko men are good people. The least amount of time was spent with Odo and Quark but every scene they were in was filled with comedy gold and I could probably watch a show with just the two of them bickering, like in the The Odd Couple. I give 8 high fives to Dax for being the only one to keep her eyes on the prize and constantly come up with things to try.

Favorite Quote from “Meridian”:

Quark: I’m working on a simulation of Ops. People want to know what goes on up there, and they want to imagine themselves fending off a Cardassian attack, or facing a fleet of Jem’Hadar ships.

ODO: Naked, I assume.

QUARK: Isn’t there some petty thief you can harass?

ODO: Just you.

Again, I love these two so damn much,

So what had happened in “Meridian” was…: Kira is drinking coffee and asking Odo if he’s ever tried food when a man named Tiron comes over and hits on Kira, so she uses Odo a beard to fend off the unwanted attention. Tiron tries a holosuite but really just wants Kira so he asks Quark to create one for him. Quark tries several schemes to get her scanned for the program but they all fail so he hacks into her files. Odo and Kira find out but decide to surprise Quark, so they wait until Tiron goes into the program and put Quark’s head on Kira’s body. Tiron storms out, Quark doesn’t get paid, and Odo and Kira have a good laugh.

Meanwhile, everyone else is surveying the Gamma Quadrant when a planet just randomly appears. They are hailed by the inhabitants, who are from another dimension, and beam down to join them for First Meal. In their other dimension they are non-corporeal and do not age or procreate, but every 60 years they get to enjoy life as humanoids. Unfortunately every time they are in the GQ their time gets shorter and shorter and they understand their time is limited unless Starfleet can help. Dax meets a man named Deral and they fall in love while figuring out how to stop the shift so they can stay in the GQ and have a future. Deral wants to leave with Dax and stay in the AQ with her, but then decides he needs to stay so Dax alters her molecules so she can transition with them. She says goodbye to everyone and beams down but the planet won’t shift with her on it so she’s beamed back to the Defiant and I sense she’s going to drown her sorrows in A LOT of ice cream.

“Yes, we’re both very lucky.”: There are basically two complete separate stories going on, one on the station and one off in the Gamma Quadrant. On the station Kira is a badass but also completely oblivious that Odo is completely in love with her. It’s wonderful that they’ve known each other for so long that Odo can quickly fall into step and play along with her ruse, but it gets super sad super quick when he’s staring at his hand where she touched him. I’m sure he’s completely confused because being in love is super fucking confusing, especially when it’s the first time you’ve felt it, but I wonder if it’s a different feeling than when he had liquid puddle sex with the female changeling back in “The Search“. Kira and Odo make a good team thwarting Quark in his devious exploits, but I am reminded of an episode of Babylon 5 where the commander wasn’t so lucky.

The story out in the GQ is an interesting one, but gets wrapped up in a love story because that was apparently the theme of this episode. I thought it was nice Dax was finally meeting someone closer to her own age, but it’s always hard for me to get behind a couple who’s been together less than 30 TV minutes. I will admit I totally thought Dax was leaving the show and I missed something, they really had me going until the very end. I also really felt Dax being scared of heights when she was in the tree, really diving in deep to her new relationship, and really being utterly heartbroken when Deral had to leave without her. Overall, though, both stories were super “meh” and I can’t go higher than 3 mini Reece’s cups.

TA Out!