DS9: “Defiant” and “Fascination”

Date: July 2, 2020

Season 3, Episodes 9 and 10

Musical Accompaniment: Marvel Movies Greatests Soundtracks

Interstellar News: Today I enjoyed a wonderful walk, excellent Italian food, and wonderful dessert.

Favorite Quote from “Defiant”:

GUL DUKAT: I cannot allow a group of terrorists to just walk away after invading our territory and…

SISKO: Then you must decide which is important to you. Your sense of Cardassian justice or the information contained in the Defiant‘s sensor logs.

DUKAT: I do want that information, Commander, and I would be willing to return your wayward ship. But someone has to pay for what’s happened here and I don’t want that someone to be me.

Sisko trying to cut a deal and Dukat explaining the line the won’t cross.

So what had happened in “Defiant” was…: Riker shows up and takes over the Defiant, but he’s not the one you think, he’s the one that goes by Tom. Gul Dukat is called in because Sisko believes Tom is part of the Maquis and that Cardassia is in trouble. Sisko heads with Dukat to Cardassia Prime to try and track down the Defiant where they talk about being fathers and are greeted by the Obsidian Order. Meanwhile Kira is stuck on board and tries to sabotage the ship and get into Tom Riker’s head. In fact she outright states he’s a bad terrorist while Sisko figures out where they are headed, but the Order tells them they can’t go and apparently has military ships when they aren’t supposed to. Sisko convinces Dukat to let Tom surrender, which he does, and to take the death penalty off the table.

“Tough little ship.”: I had completely forgotten about Thomas Riker and remember thinking this might be a legit consequence when he was first found and decided to stay in Starfleet. There were a lot of things that had to happen in order for their plan to work and where did they get all of their information from? How do the Maquis know things that Gul Dukat seemed utterly shocked by. I’m also a little confused by how quickly everything comes to a head, how Tom just decides to surrender after he was so gung-ho, but maybe he thought about the others on the ship. I also don’t understand why he kissed Kira before he left, maybe it’s just a Riker thing. For all of its flaws, there’s a lot of interesting things that happen here. Dukat is shown to be more of an actual person rather than a flamboyant know-it-all and we also see what he really cares about, Cardassia. It’s nice to see the Federation and the Cardassians can work together and it’s interesting to see what the Obsidian Order is up to given that we know so little about them. I also am really enjoying Sisko doing everything he can to keep the peace, avoid violence, and still get the best deal. 6 pieces of decadent cheesecake for this episode.

Favorite Quote from “Fascination”:

Sisko: Jake, the whole point of the Festival is to put all your troubles behind you and make a new start.

Jake: I could use one. Okay, I’ll go.

Sisko: Good. That’s the spirit.

Jake: But I’m not going to have any fun.

Typical teenager.

So what had happened in “Fascination” was…: Mardah has been accepted into a science academy on a different planet, so Jake is brooding. We’re finally going to see the Bajoran Gratitude Festival and lots of folks are visiting the station for it: Bareil, Molly and Keiko, and Lwaxana Troi. Bareil and Kira have sexy fun time while Lwaxana is all over Odo. The O’Briens have a bit of a fight and poor Molly is sick but on the mend. Kira begins the festival and suddenly people start acting weird. Jake falls for Kira, Bareil falls for Dax, and Odo is swaying to music. Keiko and O’Brien have another fight because Keiko might have to stay on Bajor longer and O’Brien is an idiot.

Keiko and offers to resign, but she tells him to go to the party Sisko is throwing. At the party, Dax starts to hit on him but she checks out after an exam by Bashir. Bashir and Kira get lightheaded and start making out, much to the chagrin of Odo who is sent to fetch them. Keiko arrives sometime later in a killer red dress and makes up with O’Brien, but Quark falls in love with her. It turns out Lwaxana has Zanthi fever which is throwing off her telepathic mojo and affected everyone else on board who had some sort of attraction before all this happened. Bashir saves the day through a correct diagnosis, and everyone will be cleared up in a day or two.

“I know what it’s like to be attracted to someone who doesn’t necessarily feel the same way.”: This was a tame Lwaxana episode and not one of my favorites as something was off about her. I will say that each time someone fell in love with someone new I screamed “NOOOOOOOOO” from the couch. I knew something was up but I was focused on the opening ceremonies because that’s when everything started to hit, so I thought something happened to the fire that Kira lit at first. I will admit I was a bit tired so I didn’t quite catch on that it was all Lwaxana’s fault, but she also didn’t get to say her line about the Chalice of Rixx or whatever, so I blame that. One thing I don’t understand is why O’Brien hasn’t been to Bajor to visit Keiko like he said he would, it’s only a three hour trip after all. If I lived only three hours away from the man I loved, I’d see them a hell of a lot more often. While this was a ridiculous episode we do learn that Jake has a type, Bareil is not a saint, and Dax is complicated. 4 great big salads for this episodes, pick your favorite dressing.

TA Out!