Lizstar

Gay Murr Girl

Liz, Goblin, Part-Time Shark, VTuber, retired speedrunner, author, GDQ staff, Sega fan, "Yuri Sommelier", Walking Encyclopedia of All Things Useless, Twitch partner, general menace. Says "Murr" a lot. This is not a place of honor, views my own, etc. Avatar art by me.


Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you're curious about a nerd's views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of this episodes! I've watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

We're watching Star Trek Deep Space 9 now!!! Every other week, we're going to be watching DS9 instead of TNG! You have no idea how excited I am~ I LOVE DS9. Let's do this!

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Battle Lines - DS9
6.5/10

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It's Kai Opaka's big return! She's here for a tour of the station Sisko offered her, and she's... a little off. She's giving gifts, and wants to go see the wormhole. She's giving big "I have cancer" vibes, and wants to live a little. The Pope Wants To Go On A Road Trip. Even has Shit Inevitably Goes South, she gives off the vibe of loving the rollercoaster they're on as their runabout crashlands on a planet. At least, until they land and she fucking dies

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Maybe we shouldn't have taken the Pope to an alien planet.

Anyways they're captured by aliens, who claim that the moon they're on is a prison planet, and now that they're here, they might as well ally with them. Actual good Bashir moments? He's willing to teach them basics of triage, and basically forces his way out of them holding him prisoner to heal Kira.

Then their new allies are attacked, and almost all killed. But then they... get back up. And guess who's also here?

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ZOMBIE POPE!

Turns out when people are here, they're never allowed to die. It's "designed to prolong the suffering". There's a lot of interesting stuff here. Kira's like "you all are SHIT at this war, the defense was so unorganized" and the leader was like "...what's the point, if you can't die?"

There's also a lot of stuff about war, and fighting, and how that never leaves you. Kira cries into Opaka's shirt, as she's terrified that that is her.

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Sisko tries to get the two sides of this war to come to a cease fire, so that they could all go free, and be teleported off once their rescue comes. The Ennis, and the Nol-Ennis decide that they'd rather die than let their enemies escape, even though they'd benefit from it. They're here, suffering, dying over and over, but they'd rather their enemies suffer with them. Pretty fucked up lol

Turns out that plan is bust anyway, though. The same thing that keeps people from dying also stops them from leaving. If they try, they'll just die for good. Well, that means the Kai's fucked, huh? But before they're able to tell her how fucked she is, she's like "Oh I'm staying btw. I gotta stay here to help them heal". It's a little sudden but she HAS been giving big I'm Gonna Die energy all damn day, so

Interesting stuff with Bashir here. He's a doctor, he saves lives. But he offers them the ability to Die For Good, to end their suffering. They're like "ohhhh yes PLEASE GIVE US THAT POWER, SO WE CAN FINALLY KILL OUR ENEMIES" and Bashir is like "yeah okay nevermind fuck that shit" and they warp out, Dax and O'Brien saving them.

Kai Opaka wishes them goodbye as she's like "our paths will cross again someday". No they won't lmfao Kai Opaka's shadow will be felt but she'll never return. It's very Anime. Ash made a new friend and they'll see them again soon or no they won't ever again. For this to have been better, we would have needed more Opaka in this season than just a few scenes in episode one for us to really care about her.

The Storyteller - DS9
4/10

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We got two plots here. On the one hand, Kira and Sisko have to work with a delegation of Bajorans. And the other is O'Brien and Bashir stuck in a Runabout together going to a place to do some medical stuff, and O'Brien fucking HATES Bashir and Bashir cannot understand why, he's such a likable guy.

The first signs of an actual good part to Bashir's character. His beginning bromance with O'Brien. They're here to save some old guy in a village, who's like "oh you're not the one the prophets sent for me" and then wants O'Brien instead. Then just kicks them out like "ah thank the Prophets". There's some monster that comes, and they need the old dude to save them, whatever that means.

Back on the station, there's a dispute. Two clans, and their borders have been determined by a river. The Cardassians diverted the river, adding like 20 miles for one of the clans, causing the dispute. This is like, a real thing, that happened irl. Interesting. One of the leaders is a young woman who's father used to be the leader, and she has a SERIOUS complex about it.

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This sick old dude yells at a cloud, but is not strong enough to defeat it. He calls for O'Brien, and basically makes him yell at the cloud too before dying. It's... not SUPPOSED to be funny, but it's fucking ridiculous. O'Brien is then made the new Sirah, the new protector of the village.

And back on the station, Sisko has to be the diplomat keeping a war from occuring between two villages. He is not great at this. They should have hired like, some kind of actual diplomat, because Sisko is no Picard. Intentionally, of course. But they keep wanting him to do Picard stuff lol

O'Brien is now the Storyteller, the Sirah. He's gotta stop this monster that'll come for one more night. He's VERY unhappy about it, but Bashir finds it hilarious. He's laughing, even as they bring O'Brien virgins he may peruse. I was really hoping this episode would make Bashir more likable. Oops.

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Oh I forgot to mention the C plot! The young girl leader makes friends with Nog and Jake. Nog has a crush on her and it's all just uncomfortable. A LOT of this episode is uncomfortable? And it's overloaded too, there's just too much of it.

I'm really checked out ngl. The Sirah summoned a monster using a shard of an orb. Y'all mother fuckers are shattering chaos emeralds???? Whatever, the monster is made to give the villagers something to rally against so they'll work with each other better. The only thing improving this plot is that O'Brien is the most put upon man in the quadrant.

Nog spills oatmeal on Jake and claims it's Odo. That's kinda funny. This episode isn't TERRIBLE, but none of the three plot points really have a great payoff, or are enjoyable even in the moment. The only true payoff is that it sets up dynamics with Bashir and O'Brien, who up to this point had not even interacted like, a single time.

Progress - DS9
3.5/10

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The Bajorans are gonna crack the mantle of one of the moons to get some energy. This is the fracking episode I guess. They're doing one last inspection of the moon before they do, and they find some people didn't heed the call for an evacuation. Some farmers who're like "THIS HAS BEEN MY LAND FOR YEARS AND I AIN'T GIVIN' IT UP". Ah. That kinda plot.

Meanwhile, in our B plot, Nog and Jake have a bunch of Yamok Sauce, a Cardassian sauce no one at DS9 would want anymore (I guess Garek isn't a fan). So they decide to make the most of it, and trade it to some traders for some... other useless garbage. So, the A plot is farmers, the B plot is a Zelda trade sidequest. Or maybe a Sierra adventure game.

Anyways why the shit are they cracking the moon that's like, an M-class moon???? That people lived on? Surely there's dead rocks around here they could deal with. But yeah the farmer is likable enough. I get his plight. He left Bajor years ago, wants nothing to do with it, this is his home, built it himself, it's very important. I get that. I just don't care. I've NEVER understood reverence and tying yourself to a Place, though that's a big cultural thing in Bajoran culture so like, it makes sense, I get it.

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He's also tying it to like, the Cardassians? "Sure, they can crack this moon and it'll kill me. I can't stop em. But you couldn't stop the Cardassians either. It's JUST like that! I'm just hanging on like the rebels did!" No my man, it is not like that. You're not a fucking Cardassian Slave. You're a farmer who lives on a house he built. Get a new one. Like "is it okay to force move people" is a fine enough theme for an episode, that's good, that's great even. I won't fully care or empathize but I get it. But like, at least have it be well written.

The other half of the episode is actually way better even if it literally has nothing to do with the other half. Jake trying to teach Nog that it's not JUST profit, trading for things other than money is good too, money is not all that matters.

I do at least like the Kira moments here, and her acting and lines are good, and I like the old guy's acting too, it's great. But I don't 100% like her immediate desire to like, quit and retire to just live and die with this grumpy old man. It does kinda make sense, as Sisko says, she's been used to fighting with the underdog. Now she's on the other side.

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In the end she burns down his fucking house. And then it just... ends. I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes, as the rightful government, you have to... burn down people's houses?

Not a fan.

If Wishes Were Horses - DS9
6/10

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What an amazingly pretentious name. This episode lulls you in with a false sense of security with Odo and Quark bickering and being wives, and then suddenly Bashir going to Dax like "YOU ARE CONSTANTLY IN MY THOUGHTS, WHEN I'M WITHOUT YOU, I CAN'T BREATHE, I HATE SAND" and Dax very VERY cleanly shuts him down. So at least there's that. Hopefully we never have to see this again.

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At least we get a palette cleanser of Miles telling his daughter a story. It's adorable. It's the story of Rumpelstiltskin which I'm sure will not come up at all in this episode. Miles and Keiko are about to smooch when Molly comes out like "DADDY, HE'S IN MY ROOM", which is not something you ever want to hear your child say out of context. Miles convinces her that's just a fictional story, and is like "why DO we tell kids stories about evil dwarves stealing children", and he opens her door to reveal

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What an utterly ridiculous ridiculous concept for an episode. Were they already running out of ideas? And as Rumpyboy is being a goofball, Jake brings home a Baseball Player from the holosuite, who followed him home. Now son, what did I tell you about adopting baseball players? And meanwhile, this happens.

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Now, thank GOD, Bashir doesn't immediately go "Oh hey she suddenly is real into me, she must have COME TO HER SENSES," no she thinks something is VERY wrong with her and starts scanning her. They discover that some kind of field that is making imagination come to life. It's a very goofy time.

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They determine that this HAS happened before. In some star system they'd never heard of before, and they'd never heard of it cause this anomaly caused the star system to fucking explode.

LOL the Baseball guy is like "IT SURE SUCKS THAT THEY KILLED BASEBALL IN THE 2000S, HUH?" ...??? They KILLED BASEBALL? Yeah I sure do remember the day Baseball died. And they were siiingin', byyye byyyye miss American Pie-

Quark claims Odo has no imagination, so Odo imagines Quark suffering. What a catty thing.

Turns out all the imaginations are like, working together towards some goal? It's interesting, but uh, was that Emu also working towards that goal??? What are they doing here?

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The rift is about to tear the station apart, but Sisko comes up with a new plan. If they imagine and believe that everything is normal, everything is normal. And so it is. Everything disappears, and it goes back to normal. But the guest start baseball star explains they're from another planet, on the other side of the wormhole. They're not malicious, they just wanted to learn more.

This episode was goofy but had some fun parts to it.

The Forsaken - DS9
7.5/10

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AWW YEAH BABY, HOT DOG, IT'S TIME FOR THE TRASHIEST WOMAN IN SPACE! Some Ambassadors are here, including LWAXANA TROI! She IMMEDIATELY causes a scene because someone stole her brooch. Odo does his Odo thing and sniffs out who it is, which makes her... VERY interested in him~

Meanwhile, Bashir is on Ambassador Duty, reining in all the other ambassadors, who are all Karens. Poor Bashir. I don't even like season 1 Bashir but he doesn't deserve this fate.

Troi basically pushes Odo down trying to make out with him, christ, momma Troi comes on SO STRONG. Odo is NOT interested, romance is weird to him. So he goes crying to Sisko, who basically laughs and is like "why is this a problem" which is a little weirdly... frat boyish? Like it's so close to him just going "BROOO, YOU'RE GONNA GET MAD PUSS, HIGH FIVE". Sisko, he's not interested, respect that. He also doesn't want to cause a diplomatic incident lmfao

And then they literally get stuck in the elevator together. It's a weirdly mundane of a problem for Star Trek? Oh no, they're STUCK IN AN ELEVATOR? And also one wants to jump the other's bones.

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I like how Troi keeps changing outfits and hair each scene. The first one was pink! She's perfect in her trashiness.

Meanwhile Bashir is complaining to Sisko about how he forced this job of trying to keep angry ambassadors happy. The job is DREADFUL, and it's literally just so make Sisko comfortable so he doesn't put up with a bunch of Karens. Sisko, AGAIN, just kinda laughs about this. Why is Sisko being a weird dickhead this episode?

Another thing about this episode is O'Brien's relationship with the computer. Basically, he hates it. It doesn't work right, he wants to completely rework it and replace it. Once they start uploading data from some weird probe that came through the wormhole, though, it starts becoming more docile and making up problems to keep O'Brien near it, like a needy child.

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Weirdly enjoyable scene with Momma Troi and Odo??? Troi is like, listening for the first time EVER, as Odo talks about himself, and his history. His "childhood" as a science experiment. He was "the life of the party". Oh also, he's in hour 15 of 16, after 16 hours he has to become a blob in a bucket, or he'll start to suffer violently. Oops. If I was in this situation I'd rip off my pants, tie then up, and then go "become a blob in my pants". But like, not in a horny way, this time.

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TROI IS BEING SO WEIRD. SHE'S LIKE, SUCH A GOOD PERSON IN THIS EPISODE. So caring and supportive. She takes off her wig (it makes sense in context) and curls him up as a blob in her dress (it is less horny in context), and takes care of him. It's.... really heartwarming. Everything eventually works out, O'Brien solves the issue by adopting a dog. It makes sense in context.

This episode isn't anything AMAZING but it has a few fun moments. Good development with Odo, and I liked the payoff with Bashir, too.

Dramatis Personae - DS9
5.5/10

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Our episode starts with some Klingons fucking exploding, one of them going "VICTORY" after he teleports on DS9 with damage. At the same time, some Valerians, who are well known for smuggling weapons to Cardassians, are here doing routine normal stuff. Sisko refuses to do anything. That's not great of you, Sisko.

Apparently, according to Quark, the Klingons were going into the Gamma Quadrant for routine bio scans, and they said they'd "bring something back that will make their enemies tremble". Odo then has a fucking heart attack or something that's GENUINELY upsetting to watch, and as he wakes up, Bashir is... weirdly evil. Nothing in this episode is clear yet, but there's lots of politics going on. There's some lines being drawn, with some people being SO weird and not acting themselves, being weirdly aggressive.

The people who are NOT being weirdly aggressive or just off (Dax is weirdly stuck in stories) is basically Odo. It's weirdly uneasy and uncomfortable to watch. Especially as the ones who are weird are like "remember who your friends are" and "whoever goes against Sisko is against me", and the others are like "huh that's not weird, totally normal". But at least Odo is like "What the SHIT is going on"

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Kira tries to stage a coup, trying to get Dax on her side, and then fucking attacks Quark and breaks his god damn neck. He wants to sue, but Odo is like "okay shit is getting to be too much. I've gotta figure out what's going on." Everything else is super uncomfortable, but Odo's straightman reactions help save this a bit.

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They finally get the logs cleaned up from the Klingons. Basically, there were telepathic books they found that told the story of a power struggle that destroyed an ancient civilization. Those books caused the Klingons to reinact the power struggle. And now everyone here is too, basically playing parts of a war that happened centuries ago. Everyone but Odo. And once Odo figures this out, he does things in a VERY smart way.

He plays along. He pretends to be all up in this, playing people's roles against them. Very clever, Odo. Bashir is a political minor who wants to be a major, and Odo basically works with him to play both other factions (Kira VS Sisko) against each other, so that he can "gain control", AKA lock them down and fix their fucky brains. He succeeds, then... vents the brain gas into space? Weird.

Weird episode. Liked Odo tho. It just didn't really do enough with this concept.

Duet - DS9
8.5/10

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A medical patient reaches DS9, suffering from a disease that was gotten from a mining accident as a Bajoran prisoner camp. Kira goes down to meet this Bajoran survivor, and oops, it's actually A CARDASSIAN! OH NO!

Kira IMMEDIATELY arrests this dude. He has that disease, which means he was probably at the labor camp. He lies and says he's not and actually has another disease that's SIMILAR but not the same. He's weirdly gregarious, chuckling lightly. No Cardassian who chuckes lightly would be evil!!

Also all the Bajorans are extremely racist. A drunk Bajoran is like "Uh no I'm not gonna be in jail with ONE OF THOSE". I get it, but it's a little heavy handed. If he WAS at the labor camp, he was probably a war criminal. The Cardassian still pretends to be innocent, claims he was a filing clerk, and that there were no actual atrocities. Instead, they were rumors to try and rule in fear.

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Using CSI Picture Enhace bullshit, they manage to find out that he's AGAIN lying. Turns out he's ACTUALLY the person in CHARGE of the labor camp. He's a weirdly loud and insane guy about himself, thinking he was AMAZING, and doesn't regret ANYTHING he did. He ends up admitting EVERYTHING. It's weird. But I think it's because he knows he's just going to be fucking killed anyway. Maybe it's to make them feel better? his acting is AMAZING.

And then, things start to... make less sense. Odo, being the incredible detective he is, is like "wait how did he know who you were". They call up YOUR OL' PAL GUL DUKAT, who's like "Uh, the man you claim to have is dead????" Odo thinks this guy wanted to be caught.

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The truth comes out. He was actually the dude he claimed to be at first, who changed his appearance to that of a war criminal, so that he WOULD be killed. He WANTED to die, to stand for his crimes, to attone for his guilt. And to change Cardassia, to make them ADMIT that what they did was wrong, and to change themselves for the better. Kira refuses to be a part of it. "It would just be another murder of an innocent."

In the end, a Bajoran stabs him anyway. Why? He wasn't Gul Darheel? "He's a Cardassian. He deserved to die". It's a downer ending, kinda surprising, and I'm not 100% sure I liked it. But it still fit for Kira's character development. Over all, very good episode. Great acting and character development for Kira.

In the Hands of the Prophets - DS9
9.5/10

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Our season finale! And this introduces a character who will become a major character for the rest of the series. A woman named Winn, a religious bishop basically, walks in and listens to Keiko teach about the wormhole. She gets antsy, claiming that Keiko is teaching BLASPHEMY. Ohhhh boy. A religious extremist, my favorite~

Kira actually AGREES with Winn. She's like "Hey maybe we should teach both fundamentalism AND your... philosophy? Or we can have two classes!" And then people start refusing to sell to them :D Telling them to "seek the prophets" instead.

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This Fundie is pretending to be the REASONABLE one. That's SUCH a thing, that's EXACTLY what they do. She's "making concessions" (bullshit). Keiko fights back, bringing a WAR. She starts teaching about people who were subjugated and mistreated by religion fundamnetalism. That's the funniest shit ever. You go off, queen.

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This is Bareil Antos, another religious leader, and the person most considered to be the next Kai. He's a progressive. He immediately is like "Oh all thsoe old rituals the other religious leaders did you to? Bullshit. I should do away with that.". Gosh it's good to see a progressive is going to become the next pope :D That's nice, always great when that happens.

There's also a MURDER PLOT! Wow this is going swimmingly, huh? An Ensign was murdered, and it was covered up, the cover up pretending to make him look like an engineering accident, but they find out it was actually a phaser set to kill. Don't we like... have alarms for that??? That we've had for a hundred years?

Anyways someone bombs the fucking school.

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Winn is like "Are... are you implicating me into TERRORISM?" Uh... YES! And when they don't back down, she's like "Oh welp turns out you're actually a Satan, I have decided." HE'S LITERALLY BAJORAN JESUS?

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Hello, framing shot.

So, O'Brien has had this Bajoran assistant in the past several episodes. She's been very helpful and kind, but hasn't had too much like, character, until this episode. Yeah so it turns out she's the spy who's been killing people. Neli was sad, cause she was happy to see more side characters like in TNG, but not here lol. She runs to Winn like "Uh, I'm going to be found out and executed" and Winn is like "Ah that is a sacrifice the Prophets and I am willing to make, my dear."

Literally everything about this episode is SPOT ON about Fundamentalism. The violence with a smile and a "oh bless your heart, may you find Jesus". The sacrificing of lesser underlings, all in the name of God. Pretending to do the right thing but totally working to fucking assassinate the progressive candidate to the papacy.

Neela, the assistant Engineer, turns off weapon sensors. So it makes sense, then, why there was no Phaser alarm, though maybe they should have expected that sooner or brought it up.

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There's a fucking assassination attempt, which thankfully fails. Kira, who was supportive of Winn this entire time (Religious fundie leftist terrorist is a very weird combo but okay) is like "Okay. No that's fucked up", and realizes all of Winn's bullshit this episode was to get him to come to the station, so that he could be assassinated and she could become Kai. Kira realizes her mistakes, thankfully. And says she doesn't think Sisko is Satan. How nice of her.

Strong episode, very strong finale. And like I said, it goes VERY aggressive on this topic. It does NOT hold any fucking punches.

SEASON THOUGHTS

This was by far the best season 1 of any Trek until like, SNW broke that by a country mile. There were no like, horribly garbage episodes. Just a few stinkers. And mostly either just some "eh okay" or "wow that was really good!" episodes. It sets up the show in a great way, I think. It's very politically charged, with intrigue. Some of the TNG-esque monster of the week stuff doesn't QUITE fit, and Berman is still there ruining things. But we'll get there next season, I'm sure~


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