DS9 S04E04 & S04E05

In this installment:
(viewed Thursday, January 1st)

Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S04E04 - "Indiscretion"
Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S04E05 - "Rejoined"

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"Indiscretion"

• DS9 episodes that involve a story element from Kira's past and the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor in general are generally pretty good.  If I remember this one correctly, it's no exception.
• I love that Odo expresses his support and well-wishes for Kira's search for survivors from the Ravinok, even though he doesn't think her efforts have a particularly high probability of success.  It's one of the small ways that the writers both deepened the bond between Odo and Kira, and also displayed Odo's incrementally-improving understanding of how the "solids" feel and act.
• "You can't go try to rescue your friends without taking a Cardassian chaperone.  Sorry."
• Also:  Kassidy Yates and Captain Sisko are totally still dating.  We just want to put that in this episode so that no one forgets about her.  She's important later.
• Oh, that Cardassian chaperone?  It's kind of our worst enemy.  Surprise!
  
  
  
• "Stop me if you've heard this one:  A former Bajoran resistance fighter and the former Cardassian administrator of the brutal occupation of Bajor are in a runabout..."
• "Ah, the infamous Shakaar resistance cell.  We never could quite eliminate that little group of yours.  And it was not from lack of trying, let me assure you.  I hope you don't take this the wrong way Major, but I've always admired you."
  
  Say what now?
• "I know you find this hard to accept, but I believe that in some ways the Occupation actually helped Bajor."
  
  "Which part, the massacres or the strip-mining?"
  
  SNAP.
• Quark's School of Playful Misogyny.
• General rule of thumb:  If you're about to test DNA to identify bodies and someone suddenly doesn't want you to help them, they have something to hide.
• This episode is the beginning of a widening of the scope of Dukat's backstory, as it's revealed that he had a Bajoran lover during the occupation.
• In which Dukat gets an ouchie on his tushy...
• "Tell me something...who's Tora Ziyal?"
  
  Well, that's going to be a whole thing.
• "Now I know why you're in such hurry to find the survivors.  You're hoping your daughter's still alive, and you can rescue her."
  
  "Not quite.  You see, if my daughter is still alive...I'll have no choice but to kill her."
  
  Okay, yeah.  That sounds like a Dukat solution to a Dukat problem.
• Interplay between Kira and Dukat is always some of my favorite dialog on DS9 (perhaps second only to any scene featuring Garak).  They're two of my favorite characters on the show, and they were played very well by their respective actors.
• While they've been mentioned many, many times before on Star Trek, I do believe this is the first time that we actually see the Breen (who will of course become major players later on in the Dominion War).
  
  
  
  Emblem of the Breen Confederacy
  
  It's also the first mention of their homeworld being a "frozen wasteland".
• And yes, the Breen outfits do look suspiciously like the Ubese bounty hunter Boushh from the Star Wars universe (aka Princess Leia's diguise when she shows up to rescue Han from Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi).
  
  
  
• In Ziyal's first couple of appearances, she's played by Cyia Batten.  Two other actresses will play her throughout the course of the series.
• And this would be the episode where we learn that the devil in our little play, Dukat, has a bit of a heart after all.  Not much of one, but he has one.
• Oh, and back to Ben and Kassidy.  Yay.
  
  (I actually like Kassidy a lot, this particular "B" plot just seems weird and out-of-place in this episode.)

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"Rejoined"

 "Sure you can do a same-sex kiss in this episode.  But we're talking two hot ladies, right? 
Not like...two ugly Klingon dudes?"

• Seriously, what kind of Trill would you be if you hadn't figured out how to do magic at some point during your bazillion lifetimes?  You almost have to assume that every joined Trill knows magic tricks.
• "So, there's a Trill science team coming here to use our stuff.  And the leader of the team is one of your ex-wives.  Err, one of your former host's ex-wives.  Or whatever.  My point is that you should probably take a vacation so it won't be weird."
• Like the TNG episode "The Outcast" before it, this episode (and the Trill taboo against "Reassociation") is a clear--but effective and welcome--allegory for taboos and discrimination in our own societies when it comes to gender and sexual orientation. 
  
  Just like TOS using the mirrored make-up of the aliens Lokai and Bele in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" to talk about a sensitive subject in the 1960s (racial discrimination), TNG and DS9 used alien cultural taboos to talk about sensitive subjects in the 1990s (sexual and gender discrimination).
• "I don't understand how two people who have fallen in love and made a life together can be forced to just walk away from each other because of a taboo."
  
  We don't understand it either, Kira.  Thankfully, it's a little bit better now in 2015 than it was in 1995 (although there's a ways to go yet).
• "What do Klingons dream about?"
  
  "Things that would send cold chills down your spine, and wake you in the middle of the night.  It is better that you do not know."
  
  Intense much?
• Oh hey, it's Lt. Cmdr. Eddington.  Yep, he's still a thing.
• "Our chaperone has left.  Let's trade earrings and hold hands."
• Aside from its value as social commentary (which is significant), this episode is a bit on the dry side for my tastes.
• By the 1990s, it was becoming more and more acceptable to feature same-sex couples on television programs.  From science fiction shows like DS9 to sitcoms like Friends, gay and lesbian couples were frequently secondary characters and sometimes even main characters.  Subjects important to that community were starting to be talked about in public.
  
  But if you wanted to do a same-sex kiss on your show, I'm sure it was still a little easier to sell if it was two attractive actresses and not to big, fat ugly dudes :P
• "But if you're sure, if this is what you really want...I will back you all the way."
  
  "I've lived seven lifetimes, and I have never had a friend quite like you."
• "I'm reading a massive plasma leak in the engine room."
  
  Well, that's never good.
• Walking on a plasma leak?  Way more impressive than walking on water, if you ask me.
• "And if you leave on that transport tomorrow, I think we both know you're never coming back again."Of course she's not.  Steamy kiss or no steamy kiss, we need you to marry a Klingon in a couple of seasons.