[3 Star Trek: Voyager Kickass Movies
Saija Grzegorek
Welcome back, everyone. This is gonna be the best Part IV since Rocky IV. We've traipsed through 103 of the show's 173 episodes, so that means we have...hmmm...carry the one...um...70 episodes left...that's right...70. So, hows about we press on?
Once again, the methodology is every episode counts as a distinct entry on this list, even if the episode in question was part of a two (or more)-parter. The only exceptions are the pilot, the series finale, and the season four premiere, which all aired as two-hour presentations. Those are counted as one entry for the list (note that they count as two when I list their season and episode numbers). So, we're about three-fifths of the way there. Let's dig into Part IV.
This late season three entry introduces two fairly important elements to the series. First, and the one that most explicitly gives the episode its title, is the story of Quark and Rom's mother, Ishka. We'd heard bits and pieces about how male-dominated Ferengi society was, and we'd definitely seen most Ferengi on this show and TNG be chauvinistic in an 80's Wall Street sort of way, but this is the first time we see the full extent of how poorly women are treated on Ferenginar. And who better to demonstrate this than the other new recurring Ferengi character introduced here, Brunt? Brunt's a perfect weasel, and Ishka's a perfect little firecracker. While this episode represents the high point of the Ferengi Equal Rights plotline, this story carries on to the series' next-to-last installment and is generally rewarding despite some of the dire episodes it gets trapped in. The other major element introduced here is one Kasidy Yates, who persists as Sisko's love interest for the remainder of the series. His early interactions with her were cute without being too cute, which got the relationship off to a good start.
Trivial Note - Jake mentioned setting his father up with a freighter captain in "Explorers", the previous episode. Ishka is played by Andrea Martin (best known for SCTV) in this outing. She wouldn't return to the show for reasons I'm not aware of, and Cecily Adams would take up the role in all subsequent appearances. Jeffrey Combs had played an alien sleazeball in "Meridian" earlier in season three. His performance went over so well that he returns as Brunt here. Brunt is a recurring antagonist in the Ferengi episodes for the rest of the series. Combs would also take on the role of Weyoun, another recurring antagonist, beginning in season four's "To the Death". He plays both roles in season seven's "The Dogs of War".
I'll try to keep this under 1,000 words. The series finale of DS9 is one the most jam-packed episodes of any show you'll ever see. We get weighty resolutions to the Dominion War, the Cardassian Rebellion, and the Pah-wraith storyline, while just about every significant relationship on the show is tied off in some way or other. What works - the Battle of Cardassia is an excellent set piece, both in the large-scale ship-to-ship combat scenes and the boots-on-the-ground Cardassian Rebellion scenes. The two play together well, with Damar getting a fittingly noble death, Weyoun getting his final death, and Odo making the move that really brings about the end of the fighting. The sequence where the Cardassian ships turn on the rest of the Dominion fleet is totally awesome and earned. Most of the character bits work here, as well, and the show makes you feel how terrible this ordeal was for the Cardassians in the end. Also, Vic's performance of "The Way You Look Tonight" is super cool. What doesn't work - after years of buildup, Sisko's grand purpose as Emissary was pretty anticlimactic. The timeline of the Dukat/Winn plot was wonky throughout the entire final arc, and that's only magnified here, as they enter the Fire Caves of Bajor and apparently stay there for several days without food or water, given how the episode is edited. The whole thing feels like too much of an afterthought considering how huge the show wanted the conflict between the Prophets and the Pah-wraiths to feel. Also, maybe ease back on the montages a bit, guys.
Trivial Note - There are too many to list. Terry Farrell and the producers couldn't agree on compensation for her image, so Jadzia awkwardly doesn't appear in any of the montages. Casey Biggs wanted Damar to have a final line, as the script just called for him to die in the fighting. He improvised "Keep..." as that's all he could come up with on the spot, but it seems oddly fitting. Most of the extras during the final scene at Vic's were recurring actors out of makeup or crew members, and the scene morphed into a wrap party after shooting finished. Avery Brooks actually hit Marc Alaimo in the sequence where Sisko ineffectually punches the possessed Dukat. Brooks jacked Alaimo's face up pretty bad, but Alaimo kept going until the scene was over. Shooting had to be delayed for a few days to allow Alaimo to heal. Quark's line quoted above is the final spoken line of the series. The scene between he and Vic was the final scene shot. And the shot of Kira and Jake looking out one of the Promenade windows is a reversal of a similar shot in "The Visitor", with both coming after Sisko has "died" (really he becomes displaced from the timeline in both instances). Final note, Sisko's stay with the Prophets after his battle with Dukat was originally intended to be permanent (a sort-of death, in that sense), with Kasidy's pregnancy meant to represent a continuation of Sisko (as we've seen in other shows and films over the years). Avery Brooks objected to the idea of an African-American man leaving his pregnant wife, even under these circumstances, so Sisko's fate was made more vague. I left several out, but my fingers are starting to bleed.
And from the final episode we transition almost all the way back to the beginning. "Past Prologue" is an underrated offering from the series, both in terms of quality and importance. Shot after "A Man Alone" but aired before it, this episode settles into the type of low-key, character-driven storytelling that propelled the series in its early seasons. Until the Dominion War arc began on this show, Trek had always made a habit of showing the aftermath of things. Aftermaths are often a budget-conscious story choice, as it's cheaper to hear about a war than to see it, but they also provide some compelling characterizations for the people who're left to pick up the pieces. Here, it's Kira picking up the pieces of her life as a freedom fighter and re-shaping them into a career as a significant member of the ruling organization. It's a difficult transition for her to make, and for Bajor as a whole. And thus begins a storyline that provides the series with much of its structure going forward.
Trivial Note - Peter Allan Fields wrote the shooting script for this episode, and he introduced several key elements to the series in it. Kira's friendship with Odo is first noticeable here, which was Fields' idea. He'd add to that relationship a bunch more with season two's "Necessary Evil". Garak also appears here for the first time, and he has his first interactions with Bashir. They'd also become a key pairing on the show. Garak working as a tailor on the station was added to his story as a way to differentiate him from the Cardassians who had appeared in the pilot or on TNG, all of whom had been military men. Fields wrote for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and the spy organization in that series used a tailor shop as a front, to which Garak's choice of profession serves as an oblique reference.
There are two distinct, but related, storylines in this episode, but one of them far outweighs the other. Kira goes into labor with the O'Briens' baby, and things pretty much go as you'd expect, with a little pointless sparring between Shakaar and the Chief added in to pad the story out. The real focus of the episode instead goes to Odo, Dr. Mora, and the infant Changeling. Despite the two of them coming to some sort of terms with each other in "The Alternate", Odo and Mora's relationship is just as fractured as ever here, but again, the writing really nails the deep-seated bitterness present in their interactions. Take their father/son-like bickering from "The Alternate" and now add a son/grandson to the mix. And while it seems too easy for the dying infant to absorb into Odo's body and allow him to be a Changeling again, it makes for a beautiful climactic scene.
Trivial Note - Odo's first transformation after regaining his Changeling mojo is to become a Tarkalean hawk, which was the most mentioned form he wanted the infant to learn. It was also a nice continuity touch by the producers to make sure you see Odo's uniform fall off when he transforms. All the prior morphing scenes with him hadn't needed to keep track of his clothes, since they were part of his body. This was an actual uniform, which would've been easy to forget. Nana Visitor objected to the notion that Kira would happily give up the baby to the O'Briens after she'd carried him for five months, so the final conversation between her and Odo was changed. Also, the generally accepted theory on Bashir's time in the Dominion prison camp holds that any episodes that aired after "The Ascent" but before "In Purgatory's Shadow" feature the Changeling Bashir. This was due to the uniform change that occurred starting with "Rapture". If this is true, then it's Changeling Bashir who delivers Kirayoshi O'Brien and who attempts to save the infant Changeling in this episode. That's creepy.
Season five starts out pretty heavy with "Apocalypse Rising" and "The Ship". ("...Nor the Battle to the Strong" follows this episode, and it's pretty heavy, too.) So it's nice that the third episode is both romantic and funny to counter-balance the offerings that surround it. First off, the title is one of Trek's best, making an exceedingly rare reference to country music in the franchise (this, in fact, may be the only one). Then we call back to one of season three's best episodes (and one of the show's best comic pieces), "The House of Quark", with the return of Grilka. Mix in a little Worf and Dax, particularly Worf's general cluelessness regarding Dax's feelings for him, and a dash of Cyrano de Bergerac, and you have the perfect countermeasure to the increasingly doomy astropolitical climate around the station. The scene where Worf throws Morn out of his seat at the bar is magnificent, and the scene pictured and quoted above is wonderful, as well. Worf and Quark should've been thrown together in more stories, but this'll do.
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