DS9 S01E04 & S01E05

In this installment:
(viewed Sunday-Thursday, June 8-12)

Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S01E04 - "Babel"
Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S01E05 - "Captive Pursuit"

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"Babel"

• Poor Chief O'Brien.  I bet going from a (comparatively) new, shiny Federation starship to a falling-to-pieces Cardassian space station was a bit of culture shock.
• Speaking of maintenance:  It's made clear in this episode and in others that, in addition to servicing ships from the governments that either own or administer the station (i.e. the Bajoran Provisional Government and the Federation), Deep Space 9 also conducts maintenance and other services for third-party civilian and military space craft. 
  
  No mention is ever made of compensation on the part of the ships' owners, although one might imagine that various civilian and governmental agencies might have contracts with the Bajorans to allow their vessels to receive docking rights and maintenance services from the station--although that is, of course, entirely speculative.
• I like how O'Brien just gives Cmdr Sisko a big ol' heap of sass and then walks away, and Sisko doesn't do jack about it.  I mean...I don't think he'd take that from anyone else.  But he's like "Okay, the Chief's having a bad day.  I'll just give him some room."
• Constable Odo is a really, really exceptional bouncer.
• Ha!  I forgot about Quark's "big box of security access optolythic data rods".
• Part of me wonders if the writers were having a bad dialog-writing week, and just thought they'd come up with something where most of the dialog could be complete gibberish.
• ...in which Odo turns into a cart!
• Cardassians!
• Bajorans!
• "Unless I can find a way to counter the virus...he'll be dead in 12 hours."
  
  "And since they didn't write Garak into this episode, O'Brien is our most interesting character.  We can't let that happen!"
• Apparently Deep Space 9's docking clamps can be manually exploded to separate a ship from the station in an emergency.
• Ah, the old "infect the guy with his own germ so he has to help you" routine.  Very clever, Major Kira.
• On their own, I'm not particularly fond of either Quark or Odo.  I don't hate them, but they're not my favorite characters on DS9 or anything.
  
  But pretty much any episode where they interact with one another is guaranteed to be good for a few laughs, at a bare minimum.  This episode, while fairly weak overall, is no exception.
• Before going into business for himself on Terok Nor / Deep Space 9, Quark served aboard a Ferengi freighter for eight years.
• "If you need me use this string impact."

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"Captive Pursuit"

• Unsurprisingly, the Ferengi Commerce Authority doesn't seem to have regulations against codifying sexual harassment into one of your employee's contracts.
• Welcome to the Alpha Quadrant, sucker.
• "You can't go sneaking up on someone like that, friend.  It's an Alpha Quadrant rule."
• Tosk is freaking adorable.  I just want to hug the lizardy little fella.
• We find out during Chief O'Brien's initial conversation with Tosk that the permanent population of Deep Space 9 (not counting ships and transient guests, etc.) is around 300 people.
• We finally learn from O'Brien what the Bussard collector (called "ramscoops" in this episode) does:  "...to capture stellar gasses and convert them into usable fuel."
• And apparently Quark does not like being called "barkeep".
• These TRON-looking jag-offs (aka "Hunters") have got to go.
• Sisko explains to the head Hunter dude that most of humanity no longer hunts animals, but even species that do still hunt (e.g. Klingons) would never even consider hunting a sentient species.
• "Glass jaw!  Now I know why you wear a helmet."
• I didn't remember how...rule bend-y Sisko is pretty much from the get-go.  I like it.
• "You broke a lot of rules.  So...totally don't break any more, okay?"
  
  "Okay."