My One Summer Mission

Three months after finishing watching DS9 S1, look who's finally made some icons!

Preview:



( 96 icons )

As always, take at will, but please comment!

Overall Reaction: No real episode notes for this, I just sat glued to my computer screen for fifty minutes. This is great television, and it's the first four-star episode of DS9 for me.

I don't even really have anything to say. I've always been interested in the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict aspect of the show and by Major Kira's past as a freedom fighter, and this is a gripping look at the tragedy in Bajor's past and at the role of one powerless person in a war, a person who has been complicit in atrocities but is attempting reparation. The acting is powerhouse, the drama is riveting, the Holocaust parallels are handled tastefully and from an unusual, compelling perspective. I was crying by the time the episode ended. Really top notch.

Star Rating: ****

Quote of the Episode:
“I am alive. I will always be alive! It's Marritza who's dead! Marritza, who was good for nothing but cowering under his bunk and weeping like a woman.” ("Gul Dar'heel")

She lives!

Yeah, so this last semester was really busy, and, while I had insomnia that guaranteed I technically had tons of free time, it was more the kind of free time where I could do nothing more taxing than playing Bejeweled and watching Modern Family -- taking notes on things was beyond me.

But I watched nearly all the rest of season one of DS9 today, and I have some posts to make! Hopefully I shall keep the momentum up this summer, since I'm, you know, NOT DOING ANYTHING ELSE.

Episode Notes: ( Apparently there was a...space puppy in this episode? )

Overall Reaction: This episode rates a relatively mediocre rating from me because I think that -- assuming whatever was going on with O'Brien was the A-plot -- I paid no attention to the A-plot whatever, and what I took away from it was pretty silly. But, you know, O'Brien has a digital space pup now. Good for him.

As far as the part of the episode I actually paid attention to, this was for the most part not my favorite Lwaxana Troi episode, probably because of how sexual harassmenty it was. Okay, so she is quite sexual harassmenty of Picard as well, but Odo is the only character who is less good with people than Picard, and he took his complaints rather tactfully through the official channels, and Sisko basically cracked up. I have a strong "WOMEN CAN SEXUALLY HARASS TOO" button and this was pushing it. Sisko! It is so inappropriate to tell someone who tells you he is being made uncomfortable by someone (a) that he should enjoy the attention, (b) that that person is powerful and therefore he should ignore it, and (c) that he needs to get laid. Especially given that later in the episode he told a story about punching an ambassador who tried to take advantage of a female crewmember.

That said, I really enjoyed the scene in the elevator where we got to get a bit more insight into Odo -- oh god, his story about being told to be the "life of a party" and be a chair or a cat was heartbreaking -- and to see an unusually grounded and understanding Lwaxana. The moment when she took off her wig was really lovely. So the episode did have its redeeming features, despite being sort of average on the whole.

Star Rating: ** 1/2

Quote of the Episode:
"Every sixteen hours I turn into a liquid!"
"I can swim." (Lwaxana, gamely hitting on Odo)

Episode Notes: ( Read more... )

Overall Reaction: A strong Kira episode, with some interesting commentary on the discomforts of authority, blurring the lines between the good guys (the Federation) and the bad guys (the Cardassians) a bit more than one would see TOS. Kira offered an interesting position on it, as someone who is coming from the underdog position, struggling against oppression, to someone trying to restructure her society, to temper herself and mature while remaining true to her ideals in her suddenly much less clear cut world.

Star Rating: *** 1/2

Quote of the Episode:
"You're on the other side now. Pretty uncomfortable, isn't it?" (Sisko, on being a uniform)

I don't have many episode notes for this, so let's just skip to...

Overall Reaction: Um, this was all a little heart-clenchy, what with the MURDERED FAMILY and the possibility that Odo could find OTHERS LIKE HIM and how he SAVED THE LITTLE GIRL AND HER DADDY DESPITE HIS DEDICATION TO STRAIGHTFORWARD JUSTICE. And Quark is all upset when he thinks Odo has died. I mean, it could use more Kira, and I could have been paying closer attention, but still.

Star Rating: ** 1/2

Quote of the Episode:
"The usual, Odo?"
"Nothing."
"The usual." (Quark and Odo)

Now, this guide to Star Trek that I've been writing is all well and good, but today I thought, "What if, like me, you only care about Data in your watching of TNG?"

And so I created a quick guide to seasons one and two of TNG that really pares things down to the essential.

( 1x01-2: Data tries to whistle. )

( 2x01: Data witnesses the miracle of childbirth. )

Dammit, my computer shut itself down for updates and I hadn't saved my notes on this episode.

Oh well, now we'll never know what it was about.



Okay, okay:

Overall Reaction: Hahahahahahahaha, person who plays Julian, you have a completely inappropriate amount of fun with this episode. "I am... as you would say... FIT... AS A... FIDDLE?" All that eye-rolling! Priceless!

I actually didn't call the ending to this, but that was more because I was a moron than anything. I definitely suspected the woman of being Vantika -- at least until the crew did -- but when she was acquitted, I was all, "Is it the annoyingly smug Starfleet security officer? Oh please, oh please."

Of course, he'd never interacted with Vantika in any way, least of all while he was still living. >.<

This post has become one big catalogue of my fail and I'm ending it now.

Star Rating: **

Quote of the Episode: I'm going to go with the fit as a fiddle one.

Episode Notes: ( Restraining orders sadly don't work against Q. )

Overall Reaction: Not one of the stronger Q episodes in my mind -- the plot was relatively predictable given that he was involved, and he spent half of it stalking someone who wasn't Picard. She had just, you know, slept with Picard. (Maybe they just made out or something, I forget the details of their relationship.)

Vash is undeniably fun, though, and it was nice to have her back. I like to pretend that she's the great-great-great-etc.-granddaughter of Indiana Jones and Marion. We know they spawned; it's totally possible.

Star Rating: ** 1/2

Quote of the Episode:
"What did they call you? The god of lies?"
"They meant it affectionately." (Vash and Q, being awesome)

AND

"You hit me? Picard never hit me!" (Q, missing his boyfriend)

Episode Notes: ( Waffle hangnail... )

Overall Reaction: Oh my gosh, the scripting process for this episode must have been sheer madness! How meticulously scripted do you think it was? Sometimes it mightn't have mattered, but other times the timing had to be on the dot! Occasionally I wondered if they just let people improv, but humans are notoriously bad at randomness -- even typing two random words up there I almost did two foods, and then was halfway through writing "hangover" when I thought "hahaha, a waffle hangover would be hilarious" and went off on a complete mental tangent. Like I am now. I'd love to see the script for the show. Did they create a random word generator, plugging a selection of words into a, I don't know, BASIC program from the dictionary and letting it write the script for them?

Um. This was a solid episode, if you completely handwaved the idea that a disease could spread aphasia like wildfire throughout the crew. Kira was a total badass in it. Yup.

Star Rating: ***

Quote of the Episode:

"Care to place a friendly wager?... If it's your reputation you're thinking about, no one need ever know."
"It has nothing to do with my reputation. The truth is, I never... learned the game."
"You mean you sat here for all these years and you don't even know how to gamble?"
"That's correct."
"No wonder you always look so bored." (Quark and Odo, two of the only people who can talk for most of the episode)

Episode Notes: ( Yesssssssssssssssssssss. )

Overall Reaction: Apparently there was some sort of plot, here? Something about the sacrifice of revolutionary ideals and working from within the system? Some sort of spy intrigue?

Well, normally I would eat that stuff up with a spoon, but I must have been distracted by all the GAY.

Gaaaaaaaaaay.

That Garak, aside from being one heckuva character -- I can see why he was ultimately brought in as a pivotal figure, and I enjoy his repeated assertions that he is just a "simple" tailor -- could not have been hitting on Julian more and it was DELIGHTFUL. Especially Julian's utter obliviousness to it (because he's obviously going to be the butt of every single joke in DS9). Everyone around him is all, "Wow, sweetie, you got asked out on a date. How are you so dumb?" And he's all like, "Spiiiiiies!" And just by sheer coincidence, he was almost right.

Basically, I nearly split my face grinning while watching this. There were sort of jazz hands! For serious! If he straightens up in the future I do NOT WANT TO KNOW.

Star Rating: ***, but ONE MILLION for Garak

Quote of the Episode: Okay, so I go to a college where people will frequently say, "Um, we should watch that movie sometime, for class" and shuffle off and trick you into what they consider a date with their social awkwardness. This, however, combined with shoulder-touching and a tone of frank appreciation, is not doing that:

"You may also know, I have a clothing shop nearby, so if you should require any apparel or simply wish, as I do, for a bit of enjoyable company now and then, I'm at your disposal, Doctor." (Garak, who's a fucking spy)

Dear lord, Julian, not everyone has to hump the leg of their prospective dates like you do. ♥