DS9 Season Four: Klingon Overload

[meddow]

So, stuff that happened: Worf! The Klingons go nuts and attack Cardassia and then Deep Space Nine itself. Jake spends a lifetime saving his father, causing me to cry a lot. Bashir pulls rank on O'Brien. Kira talks Dukat have an adventure and messed up UST. Dax falls in love with her ex-wife, and Trek handles its first same-sex kiss with maturity. Quark, Nog and Rom visit Roswell, New Mexico. Worf and Dax go questing. Dr Bashir prefers his drinks shaken, not stirred. Sisko's mentor doesn't know that you can only pull off a successful coup on television if your name is Laura Roslin. Odo is Mr. Brightside. Kira and Dukat go Klingon hunting and have more messed up UST. There's another Klingon episode (oh, my god, am I sick of Klingons). Rom forms a union. Sisko's status a the Emissary is challenged. There's a not all that bad Klingon episode. O'Brien of course, gets tortured. The mirror universe would be tired if it was not still so cracktastic. I wonder if anybody informed Deanna Troi that Odo's her step daddy (surely Worf would tell her). In an episode in which Sisko is forced to send Kassidy to prison, Eddington puts the boot in. Weyoun finally arrives. Bashir's ego is both a deep character flaw and his greatest strength. Kira joins the O'Brien family. And the Founders try Odo.

I adore Worf within the TNG crew and when I started watching DS9, I was quite excited with the thought of Worf turning up. By the time he turned up, I didn't think the series needed him. I'd fallen in love with the crew and didn't think he would add much to the dynamic. But I was open to him winning me over. He didn't.

I mean, besides a love interest for Dax, what does Worf really add that wasn't already filled out by other characters? The role of stand-offish outsider was easily filled by Odo, and quick to battle second filled by Kira. And then they kind of made the chain of command all weird by having Worf the second in command on the Defiant, and Kira second in command on DS9. How would that work in the real world? Each giving the other orders based on what space they're in? Okay, that's a minor nitpick, but it really bugged me.

Also not helped is the added Klingon storylines. While I do like Worf, Klingons on the whole bore me senseless at best and bug the crap out of me at the worst. What really annoys me is the moral dissonance. The show goes to great lengths to portray the Cardassian and Dominion imperialism as wrong and the Bajorans retaliatory acts of terrorism as grey at best. Kira, Dukat and Garak are all characters with violent pasts who don't get passes for it. But then the Klingon's arrived and it's all 'oh, those crazy Klingons and their warrior culture and love of violence, don't you love 'em.' That's what always bugs me, Klingons have always gotten a violence pass because they're Klingons and no other species on the show does.

And then with Dax tied into Worf, most the Dax episodes became Klingon episodes and, come on, I like Dax as a character, but in the last two seasons there's only been one Dax episode I'd re-watch, which is Rejoined. That was a fantastic episode, managing to use the whole concept multiple lives to create some wonderful character drama to great effect. And I loved how re-associating thing created an nice metaphor of a homophobic society while at the same time, not a single character batted an eyelash about the thought of Dax being in love with a woman. Nicely done DS9.

Kira got some really nice character development this season, particularly in Return to Grace. My post about last season said that Kira only really had two storylines, this was whole new one, with Kira facing a return to her past life and choosing to save someone she views as like herself. And the fact that that person she saved is half-Cardassian and the daughter of a man she hates shows how far she's come since the first season.

Also, wow did the Dukat-Kira relationship become complicated. And also wow, Dukat is really something. First we get him telling Kira how she to him is the personification of the new Bajor in Indiscretion, then we get him desperately seeking her approval in Return to Grace. Essentially, he created a society that has become damaged and walled by his cruelty, and then he wants to hear it tell him how it approves of him and even admires him. How twisted can a person be? Good thing Kira's got a good head on her shoulders. But then, he's so charming. That relationship is wickedly messed up. More please.

Something I've been thinking about is would Kira's backstory be quite the same if DS9 was made today. Certainly, I can't imagine her being described as a terrorist so readily if DS9 was made today, just because the word has taken on much more sinister connotations in the past decade.

I loved the first mirror universe episode, but I'm quickly becoming sick of the mirrorverse. There's always moments of cracky brilliance, but wouldn't it be more interesting to explore another mirror universe – what with there being infinite parallel universes and everything. You know what I would like to see? An alt universe story about a universe where the Cardassian occupation of Bajor never happened and DS9 as a result was never built and the wormhole never discovered, but with Sisko destined to be the Emissary anyway. Yeah, its the alt!team get together and set events into action because events are supposed to happen storyline. It's been done 25 million times before, but I never get sick of it.

In terms of favourite episodes, you can all probably gather I loved Indiscretion, Return to Grace and Rejoined. Our Man Bashir is of course fantastic. Starship Down, Little Green Men, Accession and For the Cause also stood out. But of course, The Visitor was part of this season. It's the first time I've seen that episode, and it certainly does deserve its reputation for being one of the (if not the) best episodes of Star Trek ever. It was just perfect.

I know that season five moves away from the Klingon conflict and moves the show towards open conflict with the Dominion. I can't wait.