DS9 S04E06 & S04E07

In this installment:
(viewed Sunday, July 12th)

Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S04E06 -- "Starship Down"
Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine, S04E07 -- "Little Green Men"

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"Starship Down"

• Hanok, the Karemma trade representative featured in this show, is yet another guest appearance by the very talented James Cromwell (perhaps best-known in Trek circles for having portrayed Zefram Cochrane himself in Star Trek:  First Contact).
  
  
  
  The many Trek faces of James Cromwell:
  Prime Minister Nayrok and Jaglom Shrek (both on TNG), Hanok (DS9) and Zefram Cochrane (STFC)
• Listen, Kira:  If Captain Sisko isn't comfortable being the Emissary, he's probably super-uncomfortable with there being a feast day in his honor.  I think we can all understand that.  Take it down a notch, weirdo.
• "Two ships have just entered sensor range.  They're Jem'Hadar warships."
  
  Yeah...that's never good.
• There's nothing you can't do with a good tetryon pulse.
• Can you put the warhead from a quantum torpedo into an atmospheric probe?  Sure.  That doesn't mean it's a good idea.
• This episode follows in the proud Trek tradition of taking a classic submarine fight and putting them into space:  Low visibility, slow maneuvering through the depths of the ocean nebula atmosphere of a gas giant, and the specter of sacrificing one or more crew-members when the integrity of the ship is compromised.
  
  This was most famously done, of course, with the Battle of the Mutara Nebula in Star Trek II:  The Wrath Of Khan.
• But of course Bashir seals himself in with Dax!  Why wouldn't he?
• Ah, this is the episode where almost everybody dies.  And not all at once, because the ship is in danger (although that happens, too), but each of them individually, in different parts of the ship.
• And while everyone else is almost dying, Quark and the Karemma representative are having a philosophical discussion about business practices.
• Also:  Worf is cranky (err...crankier than usual).  I love O'Brien's "Hey, they're engineers.  Be nice to 'em and give 'em a problem to solve!" speech.
• Kira, did I not just say to take it down an notch?  HE'S NOT THE SPACE POPE.
• I'll just come right out and say it:  The Bajoran language sounds like freakin' baby talk.
• And everybody's friends now!  Quark and Hanok are gambling, Bashir and Dax are playin' Darts, and Sisko invites Kira to a baseball game.  Huzzah!

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"Little Green Men"

• While I thought it was silly at first, Nog's trip to Starfleet Academy (and back) is one of the most interesting and unexpected character arcs in the entire show.
  
  
  
  
  
• Quark's new shuttle, which he dubs Quark's Treasure, is of a type that we've seen previously and will see again:  Weird, squat little Ferengi shuttles that look like crabs or whatever.
  
  
  
  
  
• "All I ask is a tall ship...and a load of contraband to fill her with."
• "Doesn't this Gabriel Bell look just like Captain Sisko?"
  
  "All hyoo-mans look alike."
• This episode is Trek's tongue-in-cheek attempt to explain the so-called "Roswell Incident", in which some people believe that the U.S military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft (and perhaps even recovered its extraterrestrial pilot(s)).
  
  It's one of the most well-known fables in American UFO lore, but most actual evidence points to the debris involved in the "incident" as having been wreckage from a highly-modified, high-altitude balloon which was being tested to see if we could detect Soviet nuclear tests (these tests were known as Project Mogul).
  
  The highly secretive nature of this project probably led the U.S. Air Force to simply allow the public to believe the UFO story for decades, rather than declassify the Mogul program.
• The Divine Treasury sounds pretty hilarious.
• I enjoy any Trek episode that shows us what life would be like in the diverse Federation would be like without the universal translator.  This is also one of the few (or maybe only?) times the UT is shown as actually being implanted in the head...or at least it is for Quark, Rom and Nog.
• Nuclear testing, smoking...humans did some pretty goofy stuff in the 1940s.
• Ha!  I had completely forgotten that Odo went with them.
• Part of Quark's plan to alter the future includes selling their shuttle to the present-day (1947) Ferengi, allowing them to have warp drive before other Alpha Quadrant / Beta Quadrant powers, including the Klingons and the Vulcans.  However, from what we know, the Vulcans were an interstellar power sometime before the 9000 BCE and Klingons around 900 CE.
  
  Then again, it's not like Quark is a history expert.
• Apparently Ferengi are immune to sodium thiopental.
• "Don't you people have laws against this kind of thing?"
  
  "Not when it comes to national security!"
  
  Oh, if only that weren't true :(
• Quark's Treasure is being held in Hangar 18, which is a reference the facility at what is now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where wreckage from the alleged Roswell UFO was supposed to have been taken.
  
  It's also the name of a killer Megadeth song.
  
  
• "Stand back, or I'll disintegrate this hostage."
  
  "With your finger?"
  
  "With my death ray."
  
  "Looks a lot like a finger to me."
• "What do we do now, General?"
  
  "About what, Captain?  All we ever found was a crashed weather balloon."