DS9: “Things Past” and “The Ascent”

Date: July 28, 2020

Season 5, Episodes 8 and 9

Musical Accompaniment: Songs that start with the letter ‘F’

Interstellar News: Happy 7 months worth of posts! Today we have two Odo heavy episodes.

Favorite Quote from “Things Past”:

Odo: How much damage would it do to the timeline if Quark were to suffer a mysterious accident?

Sisko: I’m not sure. But maybe we should conduct a little experiment and find out.

Quark being a little shit while Odo and Sisko consider the consequences.

So what had happened in “Things Past” was…: Sisko, Dax, Garak, and Odo are in a runabout returning to DS9 from a conference but as they approach Worf gets no answer and Bashir finds them in a coma. The foursome wake up on Terok Nor and realize that they’re almost 10 years in the past, but they all look like Bajorans to everyone but themselves. Dax is taken by Dukat to be his “friend” and the men are taken to Quark’s for work. They figure out who they are and Odo keeps hallucinating and acting strangely, but some of the pieces don’t make sense for the others. It turns out that Odo, acting as Security Chief under the Cardassians, executed three Bajoran men and later did a deeper investigation only to realize they were innocent all along. He never wanted anyone to know, but now the others do. They all wake up and Bashir figures out the plasma storm created something akin to The Great Link, and Kira doesn’t know how to process this revelation.

“Let’s assume that’s a no for the moment.”: The mystery here is interesting but the ending is disappointing. Let’s start with the good parts. Dax plays the shy Bajoran woman until she knows what Dukat wants and then she’s back to her usual self once she’s developed a plan. I love that she’s the one who needs to save the men who have gotten themselves trapped. We get to see a little more of what DS9 was like when it was Terok Nor and in a flipped version of “Necessary Evil” where we see Odo as a Bajoran. There are some parallels here where Odo was still trying to find himself then and he’s back here doing it again. This time he’s unsure of himself because he’s still adapting to being mostly solid and he’s completely embarrassed he was ever on the side of injustice. Garak is amazing, as always, and I could watch him and Odo snark at each other forever.

Where I stop liking the story is at the end. Bashir is utterly useless and there was nothing he could do medically until Odo willed himself and the others out of the coma-link-thing. The worst, though, is his conversation with Kira at the end. This is a wonderful opportunity for them to put their past behind them because they both did things they weren’t proud of, I mean Kira even says that. But their conversation leaves much to be desired and really brings this down to 4 holding cells for me.

Favorite Quote from “The Ascent”:

Odo: Quark, there’s no way you’re going to be able to drag me up that mountain.

Quark: Just watch me.

Odo: Stop trying to be a hero. You’ll get to the top faster if you leave me behind.

Quark: Don’t you get it? I’m not trying to rescue you. I’m taking you along as emergency rations. If you die, I’m going to eat you.

Odo: You’re joking.

Quark: Waste not, want not.

I was really hoping “waste not, want not” was either a Rule of Acquisition or an Old Ferengi saying.

So what had happened in “The Ascent” was…: Jake is moving out of Sisko’s place and into one with Nog who is back on the station for field study. Nog is all rules and regulations while Jake is enjoying the bachelor life and it’s a regular The Odd Couple situation. They argue and Nog moves out but Rom and Sisko realize the boys can learn a lot from each other and make them move back in together. They make up and decide to play dom-jot.

Quark brings some root beer over to Rom’s for Nog’s homecoming but Odo takes him on a runabout for a Federation grand jury hearing. Quark suggests they play fizzbin, a nice callback to “A Piece of the Action“, but Odo is more interested in his romance novel. Quark hears something, it’s a bomb, the detonate it and have to make an emergency landing. Almost everything of importance was destroyed in the explosion so they have to hike up a mountain with a transmitter. As they are wont to do, Odo and Quark fight and fight and fight. It’s cold, they’re tried and hungry, and the mountain goes on forever. At one point tensions are high enough that they physically fight and Odo breaks his leg. Quark drags him and the transmitter along until it’s too much and then… Bashir, Worf, and Dax come to the rescue because Quark made it to the top.

“I just wanted you to know I meant every word of it.”: This episode was full of odd couples. Jake and Nog were best friends but a year at Starfleet Academy has made Nog more disciplined and Jake is, well, living on his own for the first time and is all too happy about it. His conversation with Sisko reminded me of the “12 o’clock rule” I had with my parents all through undergrad. On the weekend they couldn’t call me before noon unless it was an emergency. This was mostly because they would both call at 8:00 am after I had been the designated driver for my older friends (I was the youngest and the only one with a car for a while). It’s also fun to see Sisko and Rom, another odd couple, bonding over their sons and seeing what a good influence one could have on the other… a far cry from Season 1.

Quark and Odo, on the other hand, are far too similar. They are both outsiders who have been evicted from their home land. They both have something that maters to them more than anything else, for Quark it’s profit and for Odo it’s justice. They each know how to hit the other’s buttons but they also know when to laugh about their differences. Part of this episode really reminded me of The Bucket List, especially the climbing the mountains bit. Overall it was a cute bit for various “couples”, but nothing spectacular and deserves only 6 hours of climbing.

TA Out!