#ds9 s3 The house of quark

[bagheerita]

I know "The House of Quark" is an episode about... Quark, but I spent the entire episode kissing Miles O'Brien full on the mouth.

[dragontamerno3]

DS9 Watchalong

I had another few days of bad health and ended up watching episodes 3 and 4 back to back but didn't feel up to a recap. So there might be pieces of them that I missed.

Honestly, I thought both of them were a bit middling so these might be good ones to miss a full recap on lol

S3 E3 - House of Quark

Klingons aren't my favorite antagonist but its always going to be a dramatic time whenever they show up. This one felt a little sloppy though. The idea of honor was constantly shifting and it all felt silly.

I did love Rom in it, though. He was sweet at the very end and he was Quarks ride or die from the beginning. He might have been my favorite part but it's a close second to Quark literally winning a fight on his knees.

It was fun to see Quark win a battle through finances, too.

On the opposite side, it was super sweet to watch Miles go out of his way for Keiko. I hope he still ends up building the arboretum because that really would be a great way for Keiko to spend her time when she is on DS9. That said, it was nice to follow Miles through his various friends and the relationship talk with each of them only for him to realize that Keiko needed a job not a hobby. I'm dubious about the part where he's sending Molly with her for 6 whole months cause that sounds rough but Miles is a good man and a great husband for even considering it.

6/10

S3 E4 - Equilibrium

Okay, Odo trying to learn how to stir anything let alone a soufflé was kind of adorable. He tried so hard. I agreed with Kira that it was cute, even if I'm not a fan of their potential romantic relationship.

Also, just wanna say how sweet Jake is with them all. He's so at ease with his dad's coworkers. Everyone on the station is part of this family now.

I appreciate Jadzia's willingness to believe something is wrong the second she notices mood swings cause far too often people in shows/movies hide it for far too long. She just fully said there is a logical reason for this and my family can help.

I'm not surprised it was the Trill folks that caused it all, the few we've had a chance to interact with so far have been kind of arrogant dicks so a mind wipe would be right up their alley. Having a murderer as part of a past life, though, must be unnerving for Jadzia and I wish we would have touched on that a bit more. I don't need a full PTSD unraveling but she's just accepted it and is just living with the memories like it's no big deal. That feels... awkward? It left something to be desired at least.

5/10

[aro-misterspock]

I want to live in that half second in which there was a Klingon house of Quirk.

[zenosanalytic]

DS9: The House of Quark

Ok so I just got done with The House of Quark(S3 e3), and I just want to say that, This Headcanon about Quark being a novelist?, Totally true. If you don’t think Quark novelized the Shit out of the death of Kozak, his “Seduction” by Grilka, and his Confrontations with the Klingon High Council, including how he put his neck on the block rather than fight D’Ghor, as some cheesy, exploitative, steamy Romance narrative named The Duchess of Qo’Nos or Klingon Heat or something, then you don’t know Ferengi. Also you have no poetry in your soul u_u

I bet it was a Sensation. I bet it was top of the Ferenginar Bestsellers list 3 years running, minimum. Nobody believed it, and Quark didn’t even try to pass it off as real, but every Ferengi who read it said to themselves, deep inside: “I Could be that brave. I COULD take down a Klingon House with accounting!”

[discotreque]

LwD 2.04: Mugato, Gumato

This show likes to hop back and forth over the line between “high-concept sci-fi adventure with plenty of laughs” and “frenetic slapstick comedy with plenty of sci-fi tropes,” and I enjoy both sides of that line, but it’s hard to find as much to say about an episode that lands as far into the slapstick zone as this week’s did. I’m not on a deadline or a word count here; I don’t need to fill space just listing all the jokes you probably laughed at too—and don’t get me wrong, I laughed a lot—but, you know, I might still list a couple.

FOR EXAMPLE: The joke about the many, many ways to pronounce the titular beasts got to me every. single. time. Shaxs says “these mugatu are endangered” on the transporter pad, then materializes on the planet and within seconds starts scanning for “gumato life signs.” 😙👌 (He also says their genitals are vulnerable to phaser fire, which, uh... same?)

I couldn’t help wondering if the spoooky bartender’s thick Maine accent was a Stephen King reference.

Not so many gorgeous space setpieces this week, but the colours in this one blew my whole damn mind.

Oh, okay, when Boimler and Rutherford just fuckin'.... threw their tricorders at Mariner's face? And of course she failed to catch them, because she’s not actually the Starfleet version of the Winter Soldier? I literally laughed so loud I woke up my cat. I love those dumb idiots <3

One of my very favourite episodes of DS9 is “The House of Quark,” where Quark resolves the plot by literally bringing spreadsheets in front of the Klingon High Council, so the resolution to this one—with Rutherford deploying a Captain Kirk–style handmade bamboo cannon... which turned out to be a holo-projector... to explain why the Ferengi would be better off running a nature preserve—had me just howling.

Two running threads seem to be establishing themselves in S2: Mariner slowly lowering her emotional defenses and being vulnerable with her friends—so I'm gonna cry at some point!—and the question of whether Freeman is a good enough captain for a better ship—which, I think she is, and I think some of her struggles as the captain of the Cerritos come down to an impulsive streak that might actually be an asset on less routine assignments.

And I am so much more invested in either/both of those character arcs than I've been in any of Disco or Picard’s season-sized puzzle-boxes. (Disco S3 was a marked improvement in that regard—was Picard S2 taking notes? We shall see...)

Lingering thought: is shovelling mugato shit really better than whatever that guy would have been doing on a Federation penal colony? Yikes.

[chronotopes]

headcanons abt how platonic relationships among the crew develop thruout ds9? v vague prompt plz feel free to narrow it down/thoughts on any platonic relationship development in ds9

OOOH okay i’m going to go in for, like, some General Thoughts. like, brief insights. 

quark is, like, terrible, but jadzia genuinely does enjoy his company. ezri grows to, too, because deep down under all of the Bull Shit about having a thing for her he does care for her, and he’s one of the first people to talk to her like she’s something like Jadzia Two: Electric Boogaloo, which i think ezri appreciates in anyone who’s willing to consider her like that even for a bit. now within the show he has ulterior motives for this but i think ultimately he comes around to understanding it. whereas julian is kind of the reverse in that he knows how to deal with the switch intellectually but somehow actually Acts in a worse manner

speaking of julian… he and jadzia are SUCH good pals, of the wingman for each other and talk shit after work and be the only people sometimes to entertain each other’s Nosy Instincts variety. it’s such a refreshing turning point in equilibrium when julian Grows Up a bit and not only does he not hit on her, he actually manages to act as an emotional support for her. i think they have a lot of moments like that s3-s6.

i wrote up that one manifesto ages ago about how his Oh I Was Into Jadzia All Along thing is a manifestation of his insecurities. hmm i also think some of the biggest conflicts between them come from disagreements similar to the one they have in the quickening. what i mean is.. i’m pretty sure i’m about to rip off my own fic but ezri’s last memory of a Jadzia Thought about julian is ‘he won’t be able to save me, and he’ll blame himself, which is selfish and i’m mad at him for it. he’s about to ruin everything’, something along those lines. which is not entirely fair of jadzia even though she is correct in a manner of speaking, but she’s young and angry about dying and she senses the Weirdness between them and uhh i’m sorry i took this in a terrible direction

moving on. i have probably mentioned this hc before, but when they both get old, kira visits ben in his bajor house and she talks about how strange it is, witnessing a generation that grew up without the occupation - how this is such an overwhelmingly good thing to witness but simultaneously a strange disconnecting experience, one that makes you feel like a relic. and then he tells her more about the prophet vision from far beyond the stars - how it’s not the same, but how he too carries memories of oppression brutality that - in his case - no other living person does. and they toast to keeping alive their histories and then go on to reminisce about quark’s old schemes or something. 

garak and odo keep doing their coffee dates in the later seasons, even when the narrative forgets about odo’s relationships with anyone except kira. garak, i think, once he’s comfortable enough w/ odo’s presence, makes all these fun little quips about whether odo and quark are An Item, and does the “garak darling they don’t even have this gay stereotype in the future” thing where he bugs odo about his fashion sense, like, constantly. in return, odo makes fun of garak’s taste in literature, which - while he has a good taste in the classics - is FAR less uniformly highbrow than garak presents to julian, and odo knows this as somebody who has actually interacted with multiple cardassians

THANK YOU this was such a good prompt and i want to do more friendship insights than just this but i don’t want to take up everyone’s entire dashboards

[sshbpodcast]

A Great Deal of Agreement on the Highs and Lows of S3 DS9

by Ames

Season three of Deep Space Nine is where we really start to see the serialized format getting embraced, but the balance isn't quite there yet. There's some good stuff here, sure, but the level of focus is going to improve later so we're stuck with a season that's a bit in transition and may not know what it is yet. Maybe adding the Klingons into the mix will fix it in the future; we'll wait and see.

For now, this season has seen the most agreement by far from your plucky hosts at A Star to Steer Her By in our top and bottom three episode list. Read on for what is sure to be our shortest season wrap article yet, and/or catch up in the podcast episode here (wrap-up discussion starts at 45:37) featuring bonus rankings from guest star James Rossi!

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Bottom Three Episodes

We were this close to rolling a yahtzee and entirely overlapping our bottom three episodes of the season, if not for one vote that blew it. Typical.

“Prophet Motive”: Ames Forever fed up with silly episodes, Ames just had to be different and take out her frustrations on Zek. But admit it: everything in this episode is a dumb punchline and its attempt to parallel with “Emissary” just doesn't measure up.

“Meridian”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake Do the writers ever have anything good for Jadzia to do? Did they check to make sure their romantic leads had any chemistry? Did anyone ask "Is doing Brigadoon in space a good idea?" No, no, and HELL NO.

“Fascination”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake We're back to Lwaxana just showing up to be thirsty and not really a character, which is a shame. Even worse is having her horniess be contagious and lead to a wholly ridiculous mess that really did not need to exist.

“Distant Voices”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake It's been a while since we've seen an episode this far from the mark. From the tropey coma dream conceit, to the baffling character doubling, to Quark's unnecessary accent, this one fell to the very bottom. We wish this episode an unhappy birthday and no happy returns.

—

Top Three Episodes

Again, a lot of agreement about what the good stuff this season was. Two episodes swept the judges' picks, but everyone added their own unique flavor for their third. That's a spicy jambalaya!

“Visionary”: Ames True to character, Ames loved watching Miles suffering in this one and getting killed not once, not twice, but thrice! Don't think about the science for more than a moment or it falls to pieces; just sit back and enjoy the time travel.

“Family Business”: Caitlin Getting to meet the feminist icon that is Moogie is a highlight of this entire season. This episode really fills in a lot of the Quark family dynamic, builds more of the weird and problematic world of the Ferengi, and even gives Rom some great one-liners!

“Civil Defense”: Chris Attention podcast listeners: Your attempt to seize control of this blogpost is going to fail. You are valuable listeners and we wish you to enjoy this post. However, if you do not return control of this listicle to your SSHB hosts, we will be forced to take action. You have eight minutes to make your decision. Hugs and kisses!

“The House of Quark”: Jake Quark really shines when he is outside his wheelhouse. The Klingons really shine basically all the time. So fittingly, this episode really shines by giving some great moments between two figures that are usually strictly comic characters but also have a ton of substance. Qapla'! 

“The Die Is Cast”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Whatever you think of the rest of this story arc, the Odo-Garak scenes of this episode are things of beauty. The two outcast characters really get to examine what's inside of them, even when what's inside of them is primarily goo. Especially when what's inside of them is primarily goo!

“Second Skin”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake This story has a lot in common with "Face of the Enemy" from The Next Generation, including us liking it a whole bunch! Nana Visitor absolutely rocks out, and our new favorite fake dad Ghemor adds a ton of nuance to the whole Cardassian race.

—

You never know what's going to pop out of the Gamma Quadrant next (spoiler: it's Changelings; it's always Changelings). Check back here for more, listen to new episodes on Soundcloud, follow A Star to Steer Her By on Facebook and Twitter, and shore up your defenses: the Dominion is coming for you.