DS9: “…Nor the Battle to the Strong” and “The Assignment”

Date: July 26, 2020

Season 5, Episodes 4 and 5

Musical Accompaniment: More music on shuffle from my iTunes, today with hard and soft rock.

Interstellar News: I’m not sure how it’s going to be August at the end of this week, but there it is. One more episode of The Umbrella Academy covered and I forgot just how much I loved it.

Favorite Quote from “…Nor the Battle to the Strong”:

Jake: I wasn’t sure whether to show it to you or not.

Sisko: Anyone who’s been in battle would recognize himself in this, but most of us wouldn’t care to admit it. It takes courage to look inside yourself and even more courage to write it for other people to see. I’m proud of you, son.

Sisko is SUCH a good father.

So what had happened in “…Nor the Battle to the Strong” was…: Jake and Bashir are returning from a conference because Jake’s doing a profile on Bashir when there’s a distress call and Jake convinces Bashir it will be fun. Spoiler alert: it’s not. The Klingons have attacked a settlement and it’s terrifying for Jake, though he’s enlisted to help with non-medical stuff that needs doing. On the station Quark tries to make decaf coffee for Kira, Odo forgets he’s not a changeling anymore, and the Defiant has to head out to rescue Bashir and Jake because the Farragut was destroyed by the Klingons. The Klingons destroy a reactor so Jake and Bashir run to get the generator off of their runabout, but they are separated and Jake runs away in fear. He eventually finds his way back but is too wrapped up in guilt and ashamed of what he’s done. They have to evacuate the hospital and he panics and brings the roof of the cave down and he wakes up to Sisko and Bashir rescuing him and calling him a hero. He writes everything down and shares it with his dad.

“Listen to me, I’m actually rooting for a plague.”: Whoa is this a heavy episode. Jake doesn’t realize what the cost of a good story could be until he lives it. He goes from being a bored kid to understanding the horrors of battle in the span of just a few days. He realizes it’s a super good decision he decided not to join Starfleet and he’s probably also now not considering being a war correspondent. He really grows up in this episode and it’s easier to tell than the small changes we’ve gotten over the last four years. The other parts of the episode are equally as compelling as Sisko is trying to not worry about his son and, as a 33 year old who still has a father that waits up for her when she visits, I clearly know nothing about this as I wave my hands in sarcasm. Sisko tries to keep himself busy with his mind off all of the bad thoughts and the medical staff does the same, even if Jake thinks it’s in bad taste. Jake encounters a hard ass who tells him life’s tough, but he also had a run in with an ensign who shot himself in the foot and realizes he’s not cut out for Starfleet life, so it’s a whole spectrum of people in one episode to learn from. We also get the little bits like the discussion of pregnancy, Odo continuing to live with his changed anatomy, and a look at what life is like off station. I also enjoyed watching Bashir go from academic to field medicine in a snap and continue to be impressed by his professionalism and willingness to help, a far cry from his Season 1 persona. A 7 paragraph spread for Jake, on page 2.

Favorite Quote from “The Assignment”:

Quark: That’s the problem with working alongside humans, you pick up their disgusting habits. Bacon. Corned beef hash. What’s next, Rom? Orange juice and coffee?

Rom: That might be nice.

Quark: I don’t understand. You gave up a perfectly good job with me to work on the station’s waste extraction system?

Rom: A good waste extraction system is important. Imagine where we’d be without one.

Oh Rom, ever the optimist.

So what had happened in “The Assignment” was…: O’Brien meets Keiko and apologizes for Bashir killing her plants but she’s completely not phased because she’s actually another entity that’s inhabiting Keiko’s body. “Keiko” forces O’Brien to make repairs, on his birthday no less, and then throws him a party that evening. She tells him she has more work for him to do the next day and if he doesn’t Keiko will die. O’Brien goes to tell Odo and Sisko but Keiko “accidentally” falls and now he only has 13 hours. Thankfully Rom offers to help him and they begin to work on the refitting. Unfortunately Dax meddles and they have to alert Sisko to some potential sabotage, so O’Brien blames Rom and asks him to play along. Rom asks a good question – “why are we trying to kill the wormhole aliens?” and O’Brien realizes how he can get Keiko back. He takes “Keiko” in the runabout and aims the blast directly at “Keiko”, killing the thing inhabiting her. O’Brien returns to answer questions and Rom is promoted to day shift.

“You’re in trouble.”: For an “O’Brien must suffer episode”, this one is pretty meh. I mean it’s fun that we get a second rendition of “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow”, this time in English, because of the “Happy Birthday” debacle of Sports Night infamy. Yes, it really did take two people to write that song. But for all O’Brien is the “star” of the episode, is it wrong that I loved evil Keiko? I wonder if Mirror Keiko will have a similar personality in the Mirror Universe, because she looked like she was having so much fun. Rom is also superb in this episode, especially when he figures out what the pah-wraith was asking O’Brien to do because O’Brien was otherwise occupied. I love that Rom is trying to fit in and try things, even if bacon doesn’t agree with his system. It’s so wonderful that Rom has found what he has an aptitude and passion for, and that he’s really taken to living on the station. It’s a good thing Keiko wasn’t pregnant for this episode, though, that would have complicated the fuck out of everything. I also really enjoyed that Molly knew how much the plants meant to her mom and how she was not going be thrown under the bus by O’Brien. O’Brien has now made up for being a ponce in “LFpMIATWP” by doing everything he could to make sure both Molly and Keiko were safe. Unfortunately all of the fun bits were not enough to make me give more than 5 laughing reels to this episode.

TA Out!