DS9 S02E06 & S02E07

In this installment:
(viewed Tuesday, July 15th)

Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S02E06 - "Melora"
Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S02E07 - "Rules Of Acquisition"

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"Melora"

• Uh, I guess it's nice to know that--between actually repairing damaged limbs (or spines) and replacing them with prosthetics--there's not much call for wheelchairs in the 24th Century (at least not in the resource- and technology-wealthy Federation).
  
  
  
  
  But...you don't keep the designs for a really good wheelchair on file?  Just in case?
• And you've been on the station for months now (a year, maybe?) with a pretty darned good engineering team, and you haven't been able to figure out how to make "Cardassian construction" compatible with the antigrav used by standard Starfleet cargo carriers (and, by proxy, Ensign Pazlar's antigrav unit)?
  
  That just seems lazy :P
  
  (Curiously, we do see "anti-grav sleds" in use on Deep Space 9 later in the series.  I guess they got that particular problem sorted out.)
• The starship that delivers Melora to the station is the USS Yellowstone.  It's never shown on-screen or described in detail, but the Star Trek Encyclopedia lists it as a Sequoia-class starship with a registry of NCC-70073.
  
  As usual, the Advanced Starship Design Bureau website, hosted by the invaluable Ex Astris Scientia, has a conjectural design for the Sequoia class.
  
  
  
  (image courtesy of the ASDB at Ex Astris Scientia)
  
  It should be noted that there's no reason to believe that the Yellowstone mentioned in this episode has anything at all to do with the upgraded Danube-class runabout tested by Harry Kim in an alternate timeline in the VOY episode "Non Sequitur".
• Oh, and of course Dr. Bashir has a crush on the new ensign.  Of course.
• You could do things to make life easier for species like the Elaysians to operate in gravity more "normal" to other humanoid species, but eventually they would either adapt or suffer a physical toll (just as our astronauts' muscles can atrophy after long periods of time in low-gravity environments).
  
  So by now she'd  probably either be stronger and used to the gravity, or crippled from the physical stress.  That's my point ;)
• Well, this guy's makeup is just ridiculous.  How does he eat with that thing?
  
  
  
  Fallit Kot and his ridiculously improbably nose/mouth...thing.
• "I've come to kill you, Quark."
• Listen, independent or not we don't let ensigns take runabouts into the Gamma Quadrant by themselves.
• It's interesting that "jumbo Vulcan mollusk" would be a dish, given that most Vulcans are strict vegetarians.
• The guy who runs the Klingon restaurant is pretty hilarious.
• Julian the tennis pro?  Makes sense.
• "What kind of an architect would deliberately design a raised rim at the entrance to every door?"
  
  Cardassians, that's who.
• "This is astonishing!"
  
  Do they not do zero-gravity training in Starfleet?  O_o
• "Tell me something, Lieutenant.  You think there's room for...romance in Starfleet?"
  
  "I think so."
  
  "You've made it work?"
  
  "Ehh...now and then."
  
  "I mean, really work."
  
  "Oh!  Ha!  Really work?  Well, for that I'd have to go back 150 years."
• "Oh, it's you."
  
  "Don't be so happy to see me."
  
  "Alright, I won't."
  
  Another Quark v. Odo classic :)
• Oh, wait.  It's The Little Mermaid, not Aladdin.  I used the wrong Disney film in my title graphic :P
• The 16th Rule of Acquisition:  "A deal is a deal."
• When Dr. Bashir asks Chief O'Brien if the Rio Grande can beam hostages from the Orinoco while both runabouts are at warp, O'Brien says "I wouldn't recommend that".
  
  The ability to operate transporters while at warp has been pretty inconsistently used throughout Star Trek, being either possible or impossible (or at least inadvisable) depending upon the dictates of the script.
  
  And a lot of Treknology works that way (bending to the needs of the story), so I don't have many complaints about it.  But I do like to point it out and nit-pick it a little bit when I notice it :)
• Pro-tip:  When hijacking a ship, try to make sure one of your hostages isn't a 300-year-old veteran bad-ass.  Because she'll totally call your bluff.
• Aww.  The mermaid wants her fish-tail back.  But the sad Klingon music makes it all better, right?

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 "Rules Of Acquisition"

 Yeah, I know I already use this joke.  I couldn't help myself.

• "Alright, Morn.  You know the rules.  No sleeping on the Promenade. Go home."
  
  {Morn walks over to Quark's}
• Can't tell the difference between dabo and tongo?  Yeah, me neither.  I guess tongo has cards?
• "The risk is to you, Lieutenant."
  
  "I could probably think better without your hand on my thigh."
  
  Groping Starfleet officers totally wouldn't fly on a starbase.  Deep Space 9 is the wild west, yo...in both the good ways (Adventure! Excitement! Aliens!) and the bad ways (Sexual harassment and/or assault!).
• The 59th Rule of Acquisition:  "Free advice is seldom cheap."
• The 22nd Rule of Acquisition:  "A wise man can hear profit in the wind."
• And there are 285 (!) Rules of Acquisition, apparently.
• The 33rd Rule of Acquisition:  "It never hurts to suck up to the boss."
• Beetle snuff is revolting, but I guess not all that much moreso than actual snuff.  And I say that as an ex-smoker (Well, okay, an ex-unless-I've-had-a-coulple-of-cocktails-smoker.  Happy?).
• Apparently Major Kira is no fan of Grand Nagus Zek, or of the Ferengi in generally.  She was probably groped one too many times by Quark :P
• Bajorans:  You've got to love a people so agrarian that their government officials can be bribed with fertilizer.
• "We're going into the wine business?"
• The 48th Rule of Acquisition:  "The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife."
• Quark is an even bigger d*ck to Rom than usual in this episode. 
  
  DOWN WITH PEL, UP WITH ROM!
• Oh, wait.  I just remembered what's up with Pel.  He is actually a she, breaking barriers for Ferengi women.  Awesome :)
• The male member of the Dosi delegation, "Inglatu", is played by Brian Thompson.
  
  You probably remember Brian better for being that really huge muscular dude in every single TV show in the 1990s.  He played a number of roles on various Star Trek series and one film, including Klingons and Jem'Hadar and Romulans.
  
  I remember him most fondly as the freaky alien bounty hunger on The X-Files.
  
  
  
  
  You do not want to meet that guy on a dark mothership, amirite?
• The Dosi makeup is some real TOS-style stuff, too.  I bet Michael Westmore had a really good time with them :)
  
  
  
• It must be a rule that every elderly alien used for comic relief on Star Trek must have a giant, mute servant who goes everywhere with them:  Lwaxana Troi had Mr. Homm, and Zek has Maihar'du.
• "They're greedy, misogynistic, untrustworthy little trolls.  And I wouldn't turn my back on one of th em for a second."
  
  "Neither would I.  And once you accept that, you'll find they can be a lot of fun."
  
  Kira's summary of the Ferengi may be a stereotype, but it's not wrong.  It's also good enough to be the descriptive quote at the top of their Memory-Alpha page.  And Dax's rebuttal is equally accurate :)
• Hey, uh...Quark?  Your buddy seems to have a bit of a crush on you.
  
  Didn't they do that in a 1980s movie?  A girl goes undercover as a boy for a story in the school newspaper, and one of the boys falls for her?  It sounds very familiar.
• "On my world, women aren't allowed to leave the house, or wear clothes, or learn to read."
  
  Ferengi:  Space Taliban.
• Zek's shuttle is a standard Ferengi design, similar to the one first seen in the TNG episode "The Price".
  
  
  
  (image from Star Trek Fact Files, via Ex Astris Scientia)
• The 21st Rule of Acquisition:  "Never place friendship above profit."
• The 62nd Rule of Acquisition:  "The riskier the road, the greater the profit."
• "Who's the Karemma?"
  
  "An important power in the Dominion."
  
  "The Dominion?  What's that?"
  
  "Let's just say if you want to business in the Gamma Quadrant, you have to do business with the Dominion."
  
  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is officially the first mention (by name) of the Dominion--the galactic power about whom our intrepid heroes will gradually learn more, and with whom tensions will grow throughout the next 2-3 seasons until it erupts into the colossally destructive Dominion War.
  
  
  
  (the official emblem of the Dominion)