#startrekds9

I just re-watched "Dr. Bashir, I presume?" Anybody want to discuss it? I love this episode because of the change it makes to Bashir's character and all the dynamics between him and his parents, and then between him and Miles as Miles comes to grips with his best friend's dark secret. Before this, Julian was just young, arrogant about his brains and athletic skills (and probably looks), but gradually growing into a more mature person and good friend. But this one puts such an interesting spin on his arrogance. When he was a young kid, he was probably marginally disabled, a failure by age 6. Then he went through most of his development being brilliant, and his father probably fostered arrogance rather than compassion for others, with his mother failing to counteract that influence. Then he found out it was all fake, and that it was a shameful secret that had to be kept. Leading to the level of arrogance mixed with ... something that we saw up until this episode. I love the scene where his mother tells him she was never ashamed of him, and he manages to take that in and forgive at least her. I also love the scene where Julian discusses the issue with Miles. Miles can hardly even stand to look at his best friend, he keeps staring away from him. Julian doesn't call him on it, because he feels like a "freak" (his word) all over again. I looked for reviews of this episode online, and mostly people seem to want to discuss whether canon is violated about the timing or legal implications of the Eugenics Wars. I don't think that's the interesting part of the episode at all. This episode isn't quite directly about disability (although it sort of is), but I feel like it's one of the better Trek episodes in how it deals with unaccepted differences among people. (Despite some truly terrible other DS9 episodes on disability, some flowing directly from this episode.) #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9

Just re-watched The Assignment (Keiko under Pah-wraith mind control). I love Rom's parts in this episode. When O'Brien leaves him in the brig and he asks if he has to stay and play the idiot, and O'Brien says yes, Rom's restrained anger and resentment are really evident when he says "I'm Quark's brother; I know the role." Then at the end, when Quark tells him he's happy for him, and Rom replies "No you're not. But thanks anyway, Brother." Plus the fact that Rom is the only one who figured out what they were actually building, and why. There's so much subtle stuff in here about power imbalance and belonging to an oppressed group. #StarTrekDS9 #StarTrek