#s2 ds9 spoilers

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

the thing about gomens s2 is that if they don't kiss I will blow myself up. but if they do kiss I will also blow myself up

[hedonicghost]

HEDONIC DS9 ???

wouldn't have it any other way <3

genuinely tho yea its like. the only thing we've been thinking about lately. love those funky guys

[dragontamerno3]

DS9 S2 E2 - The Circle

Could this be a full season arc? TNG had a few episodes that looked back on previous ones but they didn't do full seasons and TOS barely had any consistency lol. Is this gonna be a thing? I'm here for it.

Everyone hanging out in Kira's room to say goodbye? I was full on squeeing at that. It was cute. And I'm glad we had a "softer" moment before the shit hit the fan.

Not sure how I feel about the Kira romance thing going on. It's not really a problem so much as I keep thinking "why?" whenever she's alone with that dude. It doesn't feel necessary and it doesn't feel like it adds anything. But this could be one of those "I'm too ace for this" moments.

I liked that she was getting restless in the monastery. I don't want to pin her down to just being a warrior as she's already been more than that but its clear that she's built for more than that life and its very in her character to kinda hate it there.

I was absolutely not surprised by any of the Circe stuff happening, every named character so far involved has "Religious Dickhead" tattooed across their faces. I despise them. As I'm supposed to. This is another time where I am complimenting the actors and the writers cause I am seething when they're on screen lol

I don't want ANY spoilers about how, what happens, etc, just a Yes or No answer in a way, but Winn gets whats coming to her, right? Like I need a light at the end of this tunnel lol

I like Sisko showing up to tell Kira, "look I'm still trying."

Of course the Cardassians are behind this. Odo was cute as a rat. Oh, and once again Odo and Quark, fave ship until Garak comes back again (where the fuck is this beautiful beasty anyways?!?).

Also, lol, the Circle *really* thinks Sisko's about to leave? They really haven't been paying attention have they?

And the Admiral? Telling him to go too? lmao like this would work

"Chief, how long would it take us to evacuate Deep Space Nine? ...I mean a complete evacuation? I intend to take all Starfleet instruments, materiel, in fact, all Federation property of any kind."

Malicious Compliance ftw

7.5/10

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Some good news and some bad news regarding Season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The good news is that now that the strikes are over, production of Season 3 is set to begin next month! This is good because there have been rumours swirling around possible cancellation in the wake of Star Trek Discovery being ended after its 5th season. But SNW continues (Lower Decks has also been renewed for Season 5). The only caveat to that is Paramount Plus still cancelled Star Trek Prodigy even with its Season 2 complete, so nothing is a guarantee anymore. (And even then, it's been reported that Prodigy S2 will at least get some sort of Netflix release).

(Further good news is Season 2, with its amazing musical and Lower Decks crossover episodes, is set for Blu-ray release before Christmas.)

The bad news - though this is likely educated speculation on Screen Rant's part - is the possibility that the 10-episode 3rd season my be split, with only 5 episodes airing in 2024 and having to wait till 2025 to see the rest. Aside from that wrecking viewer momentum, those 5 weeks will come and go very quickly. If this news is correct, though, they could be telegraphing some sort of 5-episode story arc, which should be good but I actually prefer SNW's episodic format as it better supports the type of experimentation we got with not only this past year's musical and part-animated episodes, but the episodic format is what made TOS what it was. No official word on any cast changes, though I will be surprised if S3 doesn't reintroduce Dr. McCoy in some fashion.

I haven't written much about SNW but it's my favourite of the live action modern Treks. I stopped watching Discovery and Picard but SNW has kept me. I've had songs from the musical earworming for the last week or so after I rewatched it. And I greatly appreciated the time-travel episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" for finally canonizing an explanation as to why the prequel series haven't always lined up with what we know as canon from TOS, TNG, etc. which as far as I'm concerned frees the writers to deviate and retroactively serves to rectify canon issues dating all the way back to some episodes of DS9, never mind Enterprise, Discovery and SNW itself. I will explain for those who don't know but I will put a spoiler break here for those who might be waiting for the Blu-ray or haven't had a chance to stream season 2 yet. If the break doesn't appear below, stop reading now if you don't want the spoiler.

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The episode reveals that due to the many time travel events over the years (including ones we haven't seen on screen by enemies of the Federation; the episode relates one involving Mary Queen of Scots (in-joke for the actress) what we have been seeing in SNW etc. is an alternate timeline. Maybe not as extreme as the Kelvin timeline of the films, but events such as the Eugenics Wars - indeed, the birth of Khan himself - were delayed by decades. This major change to the timeline - and then you fill in the blanks by factoring in even minor changes such as the guy who accidentally killed himself with McCoy's phaser in City on the Edge of Forever, Sisko replacing Gabriel Bell in the Bell Riots, the Voyager crew going back to 1996, Archer and T'Pol heading off agents of the temporal cold war in the early 2000s, etc. - and you can see how it's possible that things progressed differently resulting in SNW and Discovery being more technologically advanced than TOS-era ships should be as established in TNG, DS9 and Enterprise that used the original tech and designs. Also character differences, like Pike's crew being aware of T'Pring and Khan when Kirk's crew in TOS did now despite Spock having worked with La'an Noonien-Singh and Kirk being aware of La'an's feelings for him. Or the lack of reference to Kirk's brother, who dies in a famous TOS episode, having been former Enterprise crew. And it literally stems from two lines of dialogue. It's exhibit A of how quickly and simply a show like Doctor Who can fix things.

[the-plural-of-cris-is-crises]

Strange New Worlds Spoilers

So how far in the future were the Romulans from in this episode? Is it from Picard era? Is this another Romulan time travel thing blaming Starfleet for the Supernova like what created the Kelvin Timeline? (Nero specifically blamed Spock though)

Are they from the Temporal Cold Wars explored in Enterprise? Which was definitely farther in the future than Picard but not as far as Disco S3+. The thing she used to kill herself reminded me of the thing the Tal Shiar/Zhat Vash officers did in S1 of Picard except not quite so weapon-y. I know this isn't Zhat Vash I'm just saying it reminds me of Romulan tech from around the supernova and beyond that period of time which could lead back to Nero and the supernova (plus I mean they covered Khan in the Kelvin timeline although clearly differently than they do in this episode).

They mentioned Temporal Investigations which we know existed by DS9 era, although I got the impression they were much less getting-involved-y. Less "protect the timeline by actively preventing changes" and more "investigate time travel incidents of Starfleet officers to make sure they upheld the Temporal Prime Directive to the best of their ability" at least from how they were in Trials and Tribble-ations. Much less Crewman Daniels Time Agent-y where he goes around trying to preserve one specific timeline. Which means the Department of Temporal Investigations could later shift into the people fighting the Temporal Cold War stuff seen in Enterprise and this is an in-between state kind of?

Are the Romulans who the Future!Federation (what the Federation evolves into at least) at Daniels' time the main or one of the main enemies to Daniels' people during the Temporal Cold War? Does it have any connection to the Romulan drama going on in Picard era? We know from Disco that the Romulans and Vulcans reunify in the future after the Temporal Cold War(s). It seemed implausible that they were the main antagonists during that war to me. And the fact that Kirk was born in space like Kelvin!Kirk (but obviously not the same as AOS) and the Romulan thing kind of points to another Nero-like thing? Maybe?

How does this connect with like, Tallinn's people from Picard S2 that is implied to be the same time travel people as Gary Seven from TOS? Also I know Prodigy is canceled and probably won't have anything to do with this but I wouldn't mind seeing the Prodigy time travel mystery tie into this

Also, when did this take place in the past? Obviously early 21st century but like did they ever say a year?

Wasn't there an episode of TNG I think where there was some kind of time travel organization but it turned out the guy they encountered was lying about being a part of it and he stole the equipment from someone from the future but he was from the past? I don't remember that episode clearly enough to remember if the people he got it from could have been tied into this thing or not. I am way too tired to remember so many details about Star Trek's time travel stuff across all series.

[xeansicemane]

I've been doing a big think about ST: Picard.

Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Firstly, I want to say the series had a lot of cool ideas. Seven temporary making herself queen in S1 was very cool visually, I loved the concept of the La Sirena; it was interesting to see the logical fallout of the EMH program and what that could allow. I didn't entirely mind the way Q stepped out at the end of S2, and learning more about Guinan and her people was super cool. Heck, it was nice to see that Wesley's Space Jesus gig was going well.

But despite having a lot of cool ideas it never felt fully coherent. S1 was fun and interesting but the reveal felt a little stale in a post Mass Effect world. S2 ended up feeling like a way-too-stretched-out time travel episode that DS9 did a lot more elegantly with the Bell Riots. I enjoyed it, Trek is at its' strongest when it's making strong political statements, but again the ending didn't entirely make sense. S3 was the shortest on cool moments and ideas. I love a good battle at the center of the mind, and 7 of 9's whole kinda-deadname plot was sort of nice to see.

I get that S1 is about the consciousness of death making us human but they never really do the groundwork to justify that a human lifespan of 100 or so years is the most just and ethical lifespan. Picard is saved from one terminal illness only for organ failure to get him one day. The show never sits down and explains why the Federation isn't struggling against death in all its' incarnations - they have the tech for radical life extension but they just never do it, and the show never touches on that rather glaring oversight. People don't need to be immortal but what ethical imperative is there to only get a century in a galaxy full of wonders?

S2 is largely fine, it's a bit thin in places but it comes out to a pretty okay un-fucking the past and Q plotline. Can't complain about most of it. I even sort of liked the idea of the Jurati collective! The trouble is it was never explored in depth or even given screen time. I would have loved to see a radical reimagining of the Borg and what they could be and mean. My only two nitpicks are where the hell was she in S3 and how did an entire parallel collective go undetected? Like, they've been around for centuries and the normal Borg never got a stick up their ass about those 'defects'? Even a sentence or two would have assuaged my curiosity.

S3 is inarguably the weakest of the series. It's a lot of set pieces and a lot of hammy moments that ultimately don't cohere beyond a vague sense of nostalgia. Dr. Crusher's loss of Westley was sad, and I did think that was a good angle to develop the character along. However as we saw in S2, Westley is still out there and fine; he's not lost he's just refusing to take a minute to visit his mother ever. Dick move, Westley. The whole thing with the new breed of changelings barely made sense, and while I did love the big creepy flesh monster Borg queen I can't for a moment understand why her anger was directed solely at Picard. Picard isn't the one who took the collective down, Picard isn't the one who consistently outfoxed her and did real damage at the heart of Borg territory. That was Janeway. Like, okay if she wanted both of them dead that would make sense, but Janeway's name is mentioned only three or four times in the whole series and it's only to say she's busy.

Honestly I think it's because Janeway would've stopped the series two episodes short by just showing up with a gun and shooting the queen. And I do mean a good old fashioned slug thrower like an M1911 or something.

So, in the end seasons 1 and 2 are thoroughly okay Stars Trek, Season 3 is in my lower quartile. It still beats Enterprise but I'm not willing to say it beats the Animated Series.

[3gremlins]

so we finished season 3 of picard and it was just...so bad??!? ( bigger spoilers below)

it felt like the writers didn't even watch season 2 and therefore just did a worse version of s2 with the borg stuff (which is sad b/c the s2 agnes/borg queen stuff was really interesting! i would have loved to see that develop further. even if i didn't really like s2 that much it was still better than s3). idk it was just a boring retread of stuff they'd already covered in s1-2. Even the stinger at the end of the season was such a boring reveal b/c we just had a whole season with kinda boring Q hijinks (time travel shouldn't be boring AND YET. s2 gave real fringe s5 vibes T.T)

worf was still the best part tho, like spinoff with worf pls (riker and geordi can come. honestly everyone but picard and jack can come b/c everyone else is vastly more interesting).

honestly the biggest issue i have with the show is it doesn't seem to know what it is or who it is for (is it picard having a 2nd life with new people and experiencing new things? is it a nostalgia driven look at these characters as they age? does it want to invite in new viewers or is it for old fans?) and it keeps trying to split the difference and fail at both.

especially when you compare it to Strange New Worlds and Discovery which are fun and innovative w/the ip, it feels so clunky and dull. Anyway s1-2 are okay/fine (they have some good moments where you're like "oh maybe?" but a lot of times they repeat narrative devices like "in media res" and "i bet you're wondering how i got here" that drag it down) but s3 is just not good.

The whole "secret picard kid" thing felt kinda flat too since it was just a boring version of his arc with Elnor, superior adopted son (who was mysteriously never mentioned in s3 along with Seven/Raffi's relationship being reduced significantly...guess it got too gay :c )

also the whole "fuck them kids" plot device that felt like it was designed appeal to boomer audiences was just real weird and forced like i'm sorry but there's got to be a better way to just have your old dog crew w/o just fridging all your new characters* anyway don't really recommend, if you finished SNW and Discovery and are jonesing for more ST, i'd maybe just watch those again lol (or watch ds9/voyager instead of this)

(still loved worf tho, worf is best. the times where worf is offscreen are the worst)

*i also have questions about the non-human crew mates like romulans are much longer lived than humans and so are several other species so would they even mature at the same rate/be subject to the same issues as the human ones (it felt like they were kinda arbitrary with it like, these characters are played by actors under 25 therefore it counts)

[just-a-donut-who-reads]

DS9 2x23, Crossover

First of all, I LOVED THE CROSSOVER IDEA

I always wondered what happened in the Mirror Universe while Kirk was back safely on his ship, and now I know! Plus, that episode from TOS is one of my favourites, as well as being my first introduction to the idea of parallel universes.

Let's talk about what I really want to talk about. Mirror Kira.

I can't even put what I feel about Mirror Kira into words. No words babes. Literally none.

So I'm not even going to try. Here, have this picture.

That's it. That's the post.

[prettylittlelifeforms]

Rios: I’m from Chile I just work in outer space

Me:

[splendiferous-soup]

Neural networks

[ID: a drawing of Elim Garak from Deep Space Nine, specifically from S2 ep22, The Wire. Garak is drawn in dark blues and reds against a black background, shirtless and twisting in intense pain. An illuminated plume of red-hot tessellated patterns fans out behind his head like an overheating computer. His hair is long and unbound, and also unlike canon depictions of cardassians, Garak has webbing under his arms, plating on his forearms and calves, claws, and a thick tail. The first image has a glitch effect on it, while the second is the same drawing but without. The third is a close up. Garak is not having a good time. End ID]

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

[incredibletales]

The “every episode in a season”, “top 10 episodes” and soundtrack gifsets are by far my favourite ones to make. But they also take... so much... time. I have like six separate ones in my drafts in various states of completion and they taunt me.

[dragontamerno3]

DS9 S2 E24 - The Collaborator

I'm going to have to deal with this bitch until the end, aren't I?

I knew Winn became Kai because I am too much on the internet and something that is 30 years old is hard to avoid spoilers for. Not that I mind too many of them because I'm a fan of seeing HOW it happens more than I care about what happens. Honestly, though, I thought it would be by murdering Bareil or hiring someone else to do the dirty work of murdering him. I didn't expect him to step down.

I'm not a fan of all the religious messages in the show, tbh, and I am very thankful that they only pop up every handful of episodes instead of being constant because right now my religious trauma is screaming at me. I'm trying to buckle myself in for the rest of the show because I know Sisko's got a lot of shit to deal with so I'm hoping I'm going to be up for that ride. Honestly, though, with Winn in charge I'm not sure I will be.

I was never worried about Bareil being the Collaborator during the episode itself, even when there was evidence that he actually might have been. I honestly thought Winn had done so and had somehow blackmailed him into erasing everything or Winn was attached to someone else who did and she knew all the evidence was gone so she could point her finger at Bareil. I was surprised that it was the sweet Kai that died to start all of this nonsense to begin with. Letting her own son die in a "needs of the many" situation was a narratively great choice.

The weird Prophets visions were interesting to engage with but overall I felt they took me out of the story each time.

6.5/10 the episode was by all standards fine but I really lost interest during the visions. I'd dock more points because Winn is still alive but that may very well be the rest of the series so might as well suck that part up

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 3/15/22

huh my original fun little quip got eaten. whatever. come for a turn about the garden with me as opposed to our leisurely long ramble

listening the Franz Ferdinand song The Fallen off the album You Could Have It So Much Better.

LOVE a jaunty rollicking hook. LOVE some stupid little bible puns. no real chorus in this one but some fun phrases to shout in a car while you’re doing an inadvisable speed down a turnpike

Did I see you in a limousine Flinging out the fish and the unleavened 

and i have had to Really Think about how to pronounced “unleavened” ever since. does NOT rhyme with “limousine” in the common vernacular

oh right how did i find this: i went to high school from 2010-2013 okay this band was unavoidable, popped up in my sp*tify releases bc they rereleased it. think i originally originally discovered it from a CD at the library, specifically (sigh) the tim burton take on alice in wonderland’s soundtrack, they did a song about the lobster quadrille iirc? as was my wont, i promptly ripped that cd to my ipod touch and then went back and looked up more albums of the artists i particularly liked. and here we are today.

reading lobdell and rocafort’s red hood and the outlaws. i am part way through the third collected volume out of seven or eight, bc batman comics reliably turn my brain off at night. not that they make me sleepy, but i’m just invested enough in them to want to read them but also be able to put them down at random. if that makes sense.

the art in this thing is pretty great. very bad chronic case of tits and ass (not even equal opportunity tits and ass, which is a shame), but the linework is crisp as hell. i don’t really remember how i came across this, it’s been on my list for a while but got bumped up to the top bc i cannot yet pirate a good quality cam of The Battinson.

watching just as fnv is baby’s first leftist video game, i feel like ds9 is baby’s first leftist tv series? even tho sisko is not Not a cop? anyway i am fully “wow cool space station!” about this show (did i make that joke last week? i don’t care). i’m on s2e5 and bashir is. bashir is trying. he’s in his first job out of med school and he’s twenty eight and an idiot. he is slightly more of an idiot that me, who is twenty seven and in her first job postgrad.

also watching killing eve and losing my whole fucking mind but what else is new??? ep 1 has been out for a full month so i do not feel these are spoilers: did not super care for s2 and s3 but watching eve slowly become more and more and more like carolyn is delicious. also love her progression of bond girls and boys. love a bisexual disaster who goes “this is what i want and i’m doing it” with no real thought to if the thing she wants Is Actually the thing she wants. DELICIOUS you’re doing amazing eve

also the fact that villanelle did a born again christian thing to try to persuade eve she’s a good person? even is not religious why would that convince her??? did villanelle literally google “how to be a good person” and show up at the nearest church??? what a delightful mental image

these two shows could not be more different and i am having an outsized reaction to them this week bc i’m playtesting a bunch of really insipid stuff for work and it’s nice to be like! oh! these are grownup shows for grownups with lots of conflict and gray areas!!!! good for my brain!

playing love on the peacock express, the mystery train milf dating sim. love trains, love milfs. content specifically for me. it took me about one lunch hour to play through four endings, so i assume for people with a normal reading speed who don’t habitually skim it’s more like a three-hour dealio.

this is a light romance with some incidental mystery instead of a mystery-solving visual novel, which i do not think the itch.io page is great at conveying. you do get handed the mystery as you go along, but it’s a solid little visual novel with all the quality of life tweaks one expects from a much larger team. i admire this game’s commitment to not giving you icon customization. you’re a private investigator, that’s what you look like, deal with it. all the ladies’ routes are fun (i liked the butch’s route best bc i am a simple woman, there are platonic and romantic endings) and the bonus hidden route dipped the most into the private investigator schtick i think. pwyw on itch.

how did i find this?: a tumblr post from the devs i can no longer find :(

also i am obliged to point out the ukraine game bundle with some big fuckin names (celeste! fatum betula! wandersong! baba is you! the sword lesbian ttrpg!) and note that some of these folks are my dayjob clients but i cannot tell you which ones

making i made some more curtains but i’m unhappy with them. did finish the kitchen ones tho and attached all the fucking pom pom trim and AM happy with that set. also put up a knife strip but that’s not very photogenic. once i figure out how much the next round of doctor’s appointments is going to cost, my next unwise kitchen purchase will be whetstones.

[discotreque]

LwD 2.05: An Embarrassment of Dooplers

So I was a little nervous about this one! I hadn’t heard any spoiler-spoilers, but screeners have been out for weeks now, and I’d heard a bunch of individual, vague, non-spoilery hints about (1) big character moments, on the scale of a mid-season finale even though the show’s not taking a mid-season break; and (2) an ending that would make me cry.

I guess I imagined something relatively serious and dramatic, like “No Small Parts”? This show makes me cackle with laughter and giggle with nerdy glee and “d’awww!” at heartwarming friendships every week, but it’s only ever made me cry once—and then I was impressed that they were going to get there from the wacky hijinks we saw in the brief teaser.

The lack of a cold open made me apprehensive too—in my experience, that’s typically a sign that there’s so much plot in the rest of the episode that they need that extra scene—but after ~21.5 minutes of aforementioned hijinks, I was having so much fun that I’d completely forgotten about the alleged tear-jerker at the end…

…and they were not the tears I was expecting.

I didn’t think I’d be smiling and crying!!!! That was wholesome as SHIT!!!!!

I almost can’t believe they earned that—but they totally did.

After a Mariner–Tendi episode and a Boimler–Rutherford episode, we’re back to the “usual” Season 1 pairings… except the relationships between these characters have changed since Season 1. Mariner still feels thwacked in the abandonment issues by Boimler bailing for the Titan, and Rutherford’s having a tiny little existential crisis about losing an entire year of his life.

Both of which are extremely understandable and very heavy situations—and both of those situations get resolved because everyone in them is vulnerable with each other and honest about their feelings—AND that honesty and vulnerability brings both pairs of friends closer together. Are you kidding me?? I would watch SEVENTY seasons of that shit. Put it in my veins.

Onto the notes:

So basically Dooplers are Tribbles, but for cringe comedy instead of slapstick? Ohhhhh boy.

Look at Ransom the diplomat, tossing his own fork on the floor! I like that he’s actually a pretty competent Starfleet officer, despite also being a completely ridiculous person.

Wait a second, is that—OH HOLY SHIT, THE DOOPLERS ARE VOICED BY RICHARD KIND.

It makes sense that B. Boimler would find William annoying—who likes seeing their own flaws reflected back at them? And who could be a better reflection of one’s flaws than one’s literal duplicate?—but most interesting to me is that it implies on some level, Bradward knows the stick up his butt is a flaw. (Does William?)

Why does the Cerritos model have working phasers?!?!

I’m loving hot pink as the currently en-vogue colour for “dangerous sci-fi energy” in animation (cf. almost every previous episode of this show; Into the Spider-Verse; other stuff I can’t remember right now). As a former child of the 80’s, I’m living for it… but as a former teenager of the 90’s, I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to age as poorly as the harsh neon green of The Matrix, every Borg appearance on Voyager, and like 80% of the websites I made in high school…

SKANTS! SKANTS! SKANTS!

That fake-out joke with the fly-by over the Cerritos model was in the season trailer weeks ago, and I was so enthralled by that handsome lady that the sticker coming into frame still got me good 😂😂😂

BECKY Mariner????? omg yes

Some top-quality Boimler screams in this one. Poor Jack Quaid must drink gallons of throat-coat tea when he records.

One of the great things about Star Trek to me is that you never know what you’re going to get from any random episode. A murder mystery? A road trip? A spooky thriller? A cheesy romance? Broad comedy? Body horror? Didactic political screeds shrouded in tissue-thin science-fiction metaphors? Brain and brain, what is brain??? And after this many years of watching, you’d think I’d be hard to surprise. But if I ever told you I thought I’d see a Blues Brothers–style car chase through a frickin’ shopping mall on an episode of Star Trek, I would have been straight-up lying to you. I loved it, it worked for me, my jaw was on the floor and I was clapping with joy—but I’m definitely comfortable calling this one “unexpected.”

It’s CAPTAIN SHELBY!!! And an ancient babydyke crush rose from the depths of my childhood subconscious… (Also I think her Number One is based on the original makeup—eventually deemed too complicated—for Saru? Now that’s a deep cut.)

In 20th-century Trek, you almost never got to see what was going on inside a starship from the outside. Even after they switched from physical models (where it was next to impossible on a single episode’s budget) to CGI (which was still in its infancy, still not exactly cheap, and still broadcast in SD anyway), it was a rare thrill to see any meaningful interior details in an exterior shot. Disco’s modern VFX have given us some tasty, tasty treats in that department, but nothing quite as sublime as all the pink Doopler light glittering through the Cerritos’s windows.

Mariner says she’ll take her contact Malvus down with her, and threatens that they’ll end up “in the same cell.” Malvus is a Mizarian, a species introduced in TNG’s “Allegiance,” in which Captain Picard is held in a mysterious prison with one. I think I see what you did there, McMahan?

Bartender… so hot… lesbian circuits… overloading…

The Tendi and Rutherford C-story was, well, a C-story within a 22-minute episode, so there wasn’t much to it, but the one scene that mattered actually mattered a lot. I’m ambivalent on whether they should end up romantically involved—I’d prefer they don’t, but they’ll be one of the cutest couples in Trek history if they do—and as long as they keep that pure, sweet friendship between them at the heart of whatever else happens, I’m on board.

Carol Freeman was already one of my favourite captains before this season, and she’s been steadily moving up the list. The quiet throughline about her ambition to be on a better ship has been fascinating so far, and it’s starting to actually make me feel a little conflicted: I’m of course rooting for Captain Freeman to recognize her worth, make Starfleet recognize her worth, and become the ass-kicking captain of a hero ship that she’s clearly ready to be—but that almost surely means she’d be kicking ass off-screen, because LwD isn’t about those kind of adventures, and I’d be devastated not to have Dawnn Lewis on the show every week. So I’m kind of on the edge of my seat about this one!

I had so many favourite jokes this week I put them in a separate list:

“Even the replicated water on the Titan tasted better” is a low-key brilliant dunk on people who can’t shut the fuck up about the cooler places they used to live.

“Ooooh, they have a Quark’s now! That used to just be an empty lot where teens would make mistakes!” ← That’s literally me every time I go back to where I grew up. I felt so Seen™ I almost hid under a blanket.

“I would never go down the stairs!” (evil grin) (goes up the stairs)

The “well, shit” expressions from Mariner and Boimler as their crashed car sank right into the water… which started to bubble innocuously… and then the bottles of Data bubble-bath popped up, paying off a joke I thought had already been paid off—that was the one that woke up my poor cat this week. Just exquisite timing.

“YOUR PAGH IS WEAK, AND IT DISGUSTS ME!” “I don’t even know what that is, but I don’t like your tone!”

“Okona’s in there? He’s not even Starfleet! This is outrageous!” made me shout “NO!” at the screen like I was scolding my cat for scratching furniture. (She did not wake up that time.)

Best background joke: the neon sign at the dive bar advertising FREE SHOTS & BEERS. (Get it? Because they’re on a Federation starbase? Where nobody uses money?)

And of course Quark merchandised DS9.

This wasn’t just a standout episode of Lower Decks, this was a brilliant episode of Star Trek, period. The Dooplers, though extremely silly, are nevertheless also a clever sci-fi metaphor for real and relatable personal/interpersonal issues, and an effective plot catalyst for meaningful character growth from all four of our ensigns and the captain.

The jokes were hilarious, the action was kinetic, the A-, B-, and C-plots linked up thematically, the visuals were consistently and thoroughly gorgeous, the character beats—between Mariner and Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford, Mariner and Capt. Freeman—were all genuine, heartfelt and wholesome, and the references to other Trek canon were both deep and deeply affectionate.

Only 15 episodes in, and this series knows exactly what it is, exactly what it wants to do, and knows that it can knock our socks off doing it. Mike McMahan has said in recent interviews that the back half of S2 (and the apparently almost-fully-written S3) is a straight line uphill in quality from here—which surprised me at first, because McMahan seems like a pretty chill dude who doesn’t normally brag about his own work like that.

But then the Prophets sent me a vision of my space dad Ben Sisko, who reminded me of the words of 1930’s baseball player Dizzy Dean:

“If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”

[Thanks to cygnus-x1.net for the screenshots this week—I was too lazy to do my own.]

[hi-my-name-is-dotdotdot]

okok watched some more ds9 today (finished s2, started s3) and

the dominion

the founders

that REVEAL

was… very likely in hindsight but so unexpected when it happened

anyways the connectivity between episodes in ds9 especially with the dominion storyline is just. so good.

like when the dominion are first brought up they’re mysterious and basically all you know is they’re powerful but not why or how

everyone’s scared to talk about them and then you learn that they conquer planets, it seems pretty ruthlessly too

but at the same time, some planets are part of the dominion instead of conquered so what separates them, how do people join/why, and what holds it together

and then there’s the gem hadar or however you spell it, the extremely feared dominion police force

and then there’s founders who may or may not actually exist

and all of this builds faster and faster from just a mention in an episode and then a few episodes later to eventually three whole episodes in a row (and I think there’s like also a dominion war in a later season?)

and then. and then. that’s when you find out just a piece of the answer…

spoiler warning (no, really, I’m watching ds9 without knowing nearly anything about it and this is such a spoiler it woulda ruined it knowing)

THE CHANGELINGS ARE THE DOMINION

ODO’S PLANET EXISTS AND HE ISN’T THE ONLY ONE OF HIS KIND BUT THE REST ARE THE FOUNDERS OF THE EVIL DOMINION

(also their pretext of imposing order reads very similarly to the borg. is there a theme here? an underlying message? yes but it took me like 10 minutes to find the word “pretext” as what J wanted to say so I’ll think about it later)

also when Odo refused to join the great link because “I already have a link… A link with these people” (not an exact quote most likely)

like, *screeching noise* that’s some good character development right there