Date: July 15, 2020
Season 4, Episodes 6 and 7
Musical Accompaniment: Random iTunes.
Interstellar News: I don’t even know what day it is anymore.
Favorite Quote from “Starship Down”:
Sisko: How long?
O’Brien: Twenty minutes.
Sisko: You’ve got ten.
O’Brien being realistic and Sisko expecting miracles, that the Chief delivers anyway.
So what had happened in “Starship Down” was…: Hanok from the Karemma meets with Sisko and Quark to discuss some recent issues with their trade, mostly because Quark was scheming. Two Jem’Hadar ships come to fire on the Karemma ship and all four ships enter the atmosphere of the nearest planet, a gas giant. The Defiant is shot at and begins to lose altitude, everyone is separated, and communications go down – very much like “Disaster“.
Dax and Bashir are stuck in a turbolift and have to snuggle to keep warm, they’ll run out of air in just a few hours. Quark and Hanok talk business and then have to diffuse an unexploded bomb. Sisko is hurt so Kira tries to keep him awake by telling him stories and Worf heads down to Engineering. Worf, O’Brien, and a trio of engineers go about trying to fix up the ship and O’Brien gives Worf some advice on how to treat the engineers. They destroy both Jem’Hadar ships, rescue the Karemma, and everyone travels back to DS9 where Hanok finds out he’s good at gambling. Sisko and Kira attend a holosuite baseball game, complete with hot dogs.
“Maybe I should offer them a refund.”: Although I like DS9 more than TNG, I’m sad this episode wasn’t stronger. It had some amazing pieces but some low ones too. I’ll start with the bad. Aside from Bashir saving Dax the rest of the pairing was just awful and felt like filler. Before Sisko is injured he says something like “they might be closer than you think” and I have no idea why he said that or what purpose it served, it was just weird and ominous. At one point the engineers are given only 10 minutes to complete a task and one of them takes his sweet time loading up his tools and shooting the breeze with O’Brien. DID YOU NOT FEEL THE SHIP GET HIT YOU BUFFOON?!?! These are all relatively minor things but I felt they just brought the episode down a bit.
Now for the good. Quark and Hanok were fantastic because Quark never does give up and he can be quite endearing when he’s not trying to swindle you. Sisko is magnificent as he just lays there but Kira does her best to talk about work until she realizes she doesn’t want to talk about work anymore and she wants to be a friend despite his position in her religion. Worf, O’Brien, and the engineers (if I were ever in a band…) show Worf at his Worfiest and O’Brien trying to help him out because they know each other so well, and Worf actually listens! The two ending pieces are the best because Quark realizes he created a monster and Kira get the biggest grin on her face because baseball means she’s “in”. I also want to add a comment my husband made that caused me to laugh for several minutes, “The best thing about a vegan future is that you never have to worry about what’s in your hot dog.” I submit this episode for a 7 of clubs, paired with a 2 of clubs.
Favorite Quotes from “Little Green Men”:
Rom: Won’t you get in trouble for this?
Quark: Why should they? We forced them to help us by using our er…
Garland: Your insidious mind control powers.
Quark: That’s not bad.
Nog: For a primitive female, she’s pretty smart.
Nurse Garland for the win.
Sassy Sisko: “Only thing that worries me, no one warned Earth that they’re coming.”
So what had happened in “Little Green Men” was…: Nog is selling his boyhood treasures as he’s heading off to Starfleet Academy, Worf buys the tooth sharpener. Quark’s cousin finally comes through with a ship and he decides to take Rom and Nog to Earth, but mostly because he wants to smuggle things. Bashir and O’Brien give Nog an interactive guidebook that has an entry for Gabriel Bell, and Nog says goodbye to Jake. Just as they get near Earth they figure out the warp drive was sabotaged and Rom goes on a technobabble rant. They all wake up in a locked room and realize they’ve gone back in time to 1947.
The universal translators are on the fritz so we get to hear the native Ferengi tongue until Rom fixes them. Quark sets himself up as the CFO of the Ferengi Alliance as this is the ultimate profit grab, but Odo stowed away and no one wants to upset the timeline. The U.S. military doesn’t believe Quark’s there for a trade deal so they begin an interrogation where Rom folds like a cheap card table, Quark actually tells the truth, and Nog saves the day by telling a tall tale and hitting the guard. The professor and nurse help the trio escape with Odo and we do the reverse time warp.
“I’ve always been smart, brother. I’ve just lacked self-confidence.”: I still want to know how universal translators work, because they keep doing different stuff and it’s so confusing. Is Quark always speaking his native language and the device translates it to whatever the other person speaks? I want to know! This whole episode was delightful from Worf buying the tooth grinder to Rom being an engineering genius to Odo proving that he really does always investigate Quark, it was a nonstop awesome episode.
Jake and Nog get an adorable goodbye and the others also make a good show of participating in the sale and showing their support. There were two low spots, though. When Nog asks the nurse for an ear massage, which is the equivalent of a Fernegi hand-job, and then Rom pipes up too… sigh. The other is the misogyny of the time with the men talking down to the nurse and, to be honest, looking down on the professor because he wasn’t in the military. Otherwise this was fantastic because Quark did what he always does and tries to take advantage of the situation but Odo busts him and Rom and Nog try their best to stay out of the way. I will admit there was a lot of technobabble but it was fun to see that the Ferengi were the reason behind Area 51 after all. This episode gets an 8 digit security code for the door to the hangar. I promise, it totally works.
TA Out!
To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Gone Before 