Overall: 9.3
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Plot Synopsis:
All the adorable details in re: this episode can be found here.
(Hat tip to Memory Alpha.)
The Skinny:
Stephanie S.:
This is a very risky concept. Inverting the usual order of things and making the humorous plot the A-plot (and the deadly serious political plot the B-plot) can - and frequently does - end in total disaster. Fortunately, Ron Moore's script is powered with so much imagination and genuine good will that it succeeds brilliantly in the end despite the potential pitfalls. (Indeed, it makes you wonder why Moore did not tap into his evident capacity for humor while serving as the showrunner for Battlestar Galactica. In our opinion, BSG definitely needed the occasional comic relief moment.)
I think it's quite possible that Tim Lynch was right -- that this episode was written around that groan inducing "Lions and Gigers and bears" pun. I also think it's possible that the story blossomed out of a desire to cast Willie Mays as a nefarious time traveller. But whatever its origins, this script is crack par excellence. (In the A-plot, at least.) Cellular ennui as the cause of death? A cellular entertainment machine? The soulless minions of orthodoxy? Ron Moore was seriously on acid the day he came up with this stuff, but hey -- sometimes mind-altering substances do help the creative process. See also: several episodes of Farscape.
Below, SABR Matt notes that Jake's plot is nice as well as humorous. I agree 100%. Too much of what passes for comedy today, I feel, is based on a nasty sort of mockery that laughs without simultaneously loving the object. But there's none of that here. Everyone involved is sympathetic -- including Dr. Giger, who, despite his delusions and paranoia, turns out to be a wholly benign eccentric and nothing more. I honestly can't think of a better way to give everyone a break before it all goes to hell.
SABR Matt:
You know why this episode works? It's so simple, even a snobby Emmy voter can understand it. THESE ARE LIKABLE PEOPLE and we need to see them do likable things once in a while. This episode would have been a harmless, enjoyable diversion in season 2...but now that we've spent five years establishing a bond between all of these different crew members, it plays oh so much better! I would still like to smack Behr and co. for the use of "Lions and Gigers and Bears"...but on DS9...it works!
Part of the reason it works...is that DS9 is still the only Trek to have a functional (and well adjusted) family dynamic on screen full time. Ben and Jake have brought some of the very best emotional resonance the show has ever offered because the writers managed to make us care about their special bond. The ancillary acts of charity and good will that come from that father/son bond are a well-worn (and a personal favorite) TV trope...the concept that is at the center of acclaimed feature films like "Pay it Forward." Good will is contagious. I'll drink to that.
Oh and one other thing DS9 does that other Treks have failed at - when they set out to write fluff...they make it intentionally ludicrous, but keep everyone in character so that they actually get you believing the silliness. When TNG did fluff episodes, most of them weren't fluffy enough (they didn't have a good command of humor and, as my sister would call it, crack), and when Voyager did fluff, it tended to come off as just plain stupid, rather than witty and sublimely ridiculous. Here, we get the perfect balance of off-the-wall humor, pathos and political intrigue. Bravo! It's so pitch-perfect in tone that when the station's senior officers are all enjoying the rewards from Jake's hard work to please his father (culminating in that gift presentation and hearty hug), I am routinely moved to the brink of tears...in a comic relief episode!
Writing: 9.5 / 9.5
The A-plot is both hilarious and sweet -- and by the way, Kai Winn's appearance in the B-plot is itself terrific. I'm not sure the two plots necessarily fit together all that well, but that is but a minor quibble.
Acting: 9.0 / 9.0
The comic aspects are extremely well handled by everyone involved.
Message: 9.5 / 9.5
These writers just get it when it comes to family - not to mention charity - and how to revel in the simple miracles of life.
Highlights:
JAKE: Come on, Nog!
NOG: No.
JAKE: Why not?
NOG: It's my money, Jake. If you want to bid at the auction, use your own money.
JAKE: I'm human. I don't have any money.
NOG: It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement.
JAKE: Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.
NOG: What does that mean exactly?
JAKE: It means -- it means we don't need money.
NOG: Well if you don't need money, then you certainly don't need mine. (Snap!)
WINN: I'm here to meet with a representative of the Dominion.
SISKO: To what end?
WINN: I don't know. This meeting is being held at their request. You disapprove?
SISKO: I'm concerned. The Dominion is notorious for its political intrigue.
WINN: I have some experience in that area as well. (BWAH! That's quite an understatement.)
GIGER: Since you are not, in fact, working for the soulless minions of orthodoxy that have hounded my work and plagued my existence, I have decided to open negotiations regarding the sale of a mint condition 1951 Willie Mays rookie card, without the original packaging or chewing gum.
NOG: Excellent. We would like to open the negotiations with a bid of --
GIGER: (interrupting) The card is not for sale.
JAKE: What?
NOG: But you just said that --
GIGER: I am willing to trade the card in exchange for the following items.
(Nog takes the PADD.)
JAKE: Two litres of anaerobic metabolites suspended in a hydrosaline solution? A neodymium power cell? Where are we supposed to get all this stuff?
GIGER: Surely the station commander's son and a promising young cadet have access to a wide variety of equipment and supplies that would not be available to someone like myself.
JAKE: It's a very long list. It'll take some doing.
NOG: Wait a minute. What are you planning to do with these things?
JAKE: Nog?
NOG: Look, we can't start delivering equipment and medical supplies to you without knowing what you're going to do with them.
GIGER: Very well, young man. Let me ask you both a simple question. Do you want to die?
NOG: No.
JAKE: Not really.
GIGER: Of course you don't, so why should you? Why should any of us end up as putrefying corpses in wooden boxes stuck in the ground, or vaporised into subatomic particles and vented into the cosmos like a bad case of gas? No reason that I can think of. I have devoted my life to the study of death, and do you know what I found? Death is nothing more than the result of cellular boredom.
JAKE: Boredom?
GIGER: Think about it. The cells in your body have been doing the same job, the same dull monotonous routine, every day since you were conceived. Metabolize, divide, metabolize, divide. Wouldn't you get bored? Of course you would. So at some point, the cells just say, 'that's it', and you, the unwary victim of cellular ennui, are quite literally bored to death. (ROTFLOL! By the way, this is seriously where I originally learned the meaning of the word 'ennui'. Trek vocabulary lesson for the win!)
NOG: I never thought about it that way.
GIGER: Doctor Bathkin of Andros Three was the first to come up with the answer to solving the puzzle of death. Keep the cells energized. Keep them in the game by teaching them new mitochondrial tricks. Unfortunately, before he could finish his work, Doctor Bathkin died in a shuttle accident. Or so they say. And while the soulless minions of orthodoxy refuse to follow up on his important research, I could hear the clarion call of destiny ringing in my ears. And now, after fifteen years of tireless effort, after being laughed at and hounded out of the halls of the scientific establishment, after begging and scrounging for materials across half the galaxy, I have nearly completed work on this: the Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber.
JAKE: What does it do?
GIGER: I'm glad you asked. It is specially designed to transmit biogenic energy on a chromoelectric wavelength and send uplifting and entertaining messages to the nuclei of every cell in your body. Spend eight hours a day in this machine and your cells will never get bored. You will never grow old, and most important, you will never die. That is the goal of my work: nothing less than immortality itself.
JAKE: Excuse us for a moment.
GIGER: Of course.
JAKE: (sotto) What do you think?
NOG: (sotto) I don't know. I'm no expert in cellular chemistry, but his theory sounds a little odd to me.
JAKE: (sotto) He had me going there for a minute, but a Cellular Entertainment Machine?
NOG: (sotto) He's crazy, isn't he?
JAKE: (sotto) Completely. But he does have the baseball card.
NOG: (sotto) So?
JAKE: (sotto) So that means we've got to help him.
NOG: (sotto) I'm not so sure this is such a good idea.
JAKE: (sotto) Nog, I can't let my father down.
NOG: (sotto) Let him down? Your father doesn't even know this card exists. I don't know which of you is crazier.
JAKE: (sotto) I'm not crazy. I'm just a little obsessed.
NOG: (sotto) A little? (Hee!)
NOW: (to Jake) Okay. Let me show you a little something about incentive-based economics. (to O'Brien) Chief, may I ask you a question? Wouldn't you rather be doing something else right now?
O'BRIEN: Almost anything.
NOG: But isn't there something specific you'd rather be doing? Like going to the holosuites, maybe?
O'BRIEN: Sure.
NOG: I bet you'd rather be kayaking right now, wouldn't you? You probably haven't shot those rapids in weeks. No interruptions, no maintenance schedules. Just you and the river.
O'BRIEN: That's what I'd be doing right now if Decker hadn't gotten sick. But I have to recalibrate all these EPS regulators so they don't interfere with the station's artificial gravity grid.
NOG: What if someone else recalibrated the regulators for you? Someone like us?
O'BRIEN: You'd do that for me?
JAKE: Absolutely.
NOG: Don't give it a second thought. Just go shoot those rapids.
O'BRIEN: Thanks. Thanks a lot. I owe you one.
NOG: Our pleasure. And Chief? About that power cell?
O'BRIEN: Oh, yeah. I think I know where there's one. I'll have it sent up to your quarters. (Nice!)
JAKE: Can I ask you one question? Wouldn't you rather be doing something else right now?
BASHIR: No.
JAKE: No?
BASHIR: No. This is the first chance I've had to get any research done on my prion project in five months. You couldn't drag me away from here.
JAKE: Oh.
NOG: What Jake is trying to say is that you seem unhappy.
BASHIR: I suppose I have been feeling a little down, now that you come to mention it.
NOG: Just out of curiosity. If you had to name one thing that would make you happy right now, what would it be?
BASHIR: I don't know.
NOG: Humour me. One thing. Anything at all.
BASHIR: Kukalaka.
JAKE: Excuse me?
BASHIR: That's what I want. Leeta borrowed him, said he was cute, but she never brought him back.
NOG: Kuka-what?
BASHIR: Kukalaka. You bring him to me and you'll have earned yourselves five litres of anaerobic metabolites suspended in hydrosaline solution.
JAKE: Done. Just one thing, Doctor. What's a Kukalaka? (And we cut to: Lyta sleeping with a ratty old teddy bear. *sporfle*)
WINN: Weyoun has made a startling proposal. The Dominion wishes to sign a non-aggression treaty with Bajor.
SISKO: They're trying to split Bajor from the Federation.
WINN: Forgive me, Emissary, but you've already done that. It was your advice six months ago that kept Bajor out of the Federation. How did you put it? Bajor must stand alone. Well, we are very much alone now.
SISKO: Even though you're not a member of the Federation, Starfleet is committed to the protection of your world. We're not going to stand idly by and watch the Dominion conquer Bajor.
WINN: Can you promise me that you will not let one Jem'Hadar soldier set foot on Bajor? Can you promise me that you will use your entire fleet to protect our planet, even if it means sacrificing other worlds like Vulcan or Andor or Berengaria, or perhaps Earth itself?
SISKO: I can't make that kind of promise.
WINN: I wouldn't believe you if you did. So you see my predicament. If we ally ourselves with the Federation against the Dominion, we risk becoming the first casualty of the next war.
SISKO: And if you ally yourselves with the Dominion, you risk becoming the next conquered world.
WINN: A most unhappy choice. I have asked the Prophets to guide me, but they have not answered my prayers. I even consulted the Orb of Wisdom before coming here and it has told me nothing. So I come to you, Emissary. You have heard the voice of the Prophets. You were sent here to guide us through troubled times. Tell me what to do and I will do it. How can I save Bajor?
SISKO: You want my advice? Then this is it: Stall. Tell Weyoun you have to consult with the Council of Ministers, or that you have to meditate on your response. Anything you want, but you have to stall for time.
WINN: Time for what?
SISKO: I don't know. But I do know the moment of crisis isn't here yet, and until that moment arrives we have to keep Bajor's options open. (A beat.) I'm aware that this is difficult for you, given our past, but this time you have to trust me. (Good scene.)
(Nog is playing Klingon music at top volume as Jake works on a PADD. The soprano's top note goes through Jake's skull.)
JAKE: Nog! Turn that down! Nog! I'm working out here!
NOG: So am I! I have to listen to all of Worf's opera recordings and filter out the sub-harmonic distortions!
JAKE: Can you turn that down? I'm trying to add a little humour to Kira's speech to the Agricultural Delegation.
NOG: No! I have to listen at precisely eighty two decibels because that's the volume Worf listens at! Of course, if I could've simply told him why I needed two metres of electro-plasma conduit from the Defiant, he probably would've just given it to me and things would be a lot quieter around here!
JAKE: We can't tell anybody, Nog! (mutes the sound) Now, listen to this for a second. (reads) Thank you for that kind introduction, and thank you for inviting me to address you here today. I've always thought it odd that the topic of water reclamation was usually treated as such a dry subject. Is that funny?
NOG: No.
(Music back on.)
JAKE: I didn't think so either. (Heh.)
ODO: No, there is no record of a Doctor Giger being assigned to those quarters.
JAKE: He was there, Odo.
NOG: Maybe the soulless minions of orthodoxy finally caught up with him.
ODO: The who?
JAKE: We don't know who they are, but they were after Doctor Giger's Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber.
ODO: His what?
JAKE: It's a device used to keep the cells in your body from getting bored. You see, he was going to transmit messages to people's cells to keep them entertained so they wouldn't die off and as a result these people would live forever.
(Later...)
NOG: Do you think he's really going to charge us with filing false reports, obstructing justice and being public nuisances? I can't have that on my Academy record.
JAKE: I think he was just trying to scare us. (LOL!)
NOG: Jake, I'm really starting to worry about you.
JAKE: Come on.
NOG: Where're we going?
JAKE: Let me introduce you to a new human expression: we're going to beard the lion in its den.
NOG: Lions and Gigers and bears...
JAKE: ... oh my. (*groan*)
SISKO: You accused the Kai of burglary and kidnapping?
JAKE: We didn't really accuse her of anything.
SISKO: Oh, I see. You just implied it.
NOG: Exactly.
SISKO: Are you trying to be funny, Cadet? Because I'm not laughing.
NOG: No, sir.
SISKO: I want an explanation and I want it now.
NOG: Well, sir, it all began in my uncle Quark's bar when we saw this list of various --
JAKE: We were in the bar and I guess we got a little drunk.
NOG: Jake!
JAKE: It won't do any good to lie about it, Nog.
NOG: What? Captain, I would like to separate myself from --
SISKO: As you were, Cadet! Drunk. I see that my faith in the two of you has sadly been misplaced. You both are confined to quarters until further notice. Dismissed!
(Then, outside Sisko's office...)
NOG: What did you say that for?
JAKE: I didn't want him to know about the baseball card.
NOG: Of course not. If you tell him about the card, he might forgive us. He might even be grateful for all the effort we've gone through just to make him happy. And we certainly wouldn't want that! (Of course not!)
WEYOUN: Let's start at the beginning. What is the nature of your relationship with Doctor Elias Giger?
JAKE: We barely know him. He had a baseball card that I wanted to give to my father to cheer him up. My father's the Station Commander, by the way.
WEYOUN: I know who your father is. Go on.
JAKE: That's it. We wanted the card, and so we agreed to help him get a few things for his research. We got all the equipment, but he disappeared about three hours ago and we haven't seen him since.
(Weyoun looks at a Jem'Hadar, who leaves.)
WEYOUN: Do you really expect me to believe that everything you've been doing for the last twenty-two hours has been perfectly innocent? That it was merely a coincidence that Doctor Giger has been running experiments with highly charged polaric particles directly below my quarters? I suppose there's also an innocent explanation to the secret meetings you've been having with virtually the entire senior staff of Deep Space Nine, or that Kai Winn met with you immediately after leaving me? I suggest that you stop playing games with me and tell me the truth. Quickly.
JAKE: This is all just a misunderstanding. Nothing's going on, and we're certainly not involved in some secret plot against --
(A Jem'Hadar enters with Giger and the Andorian chest.)
GIGER: You betrayed me. You turned me over to these soulless minions of orthodoxy. Well, they won't discover the secret of my work without a --
(Another Jem'Hadar takes the chest.)
GIGER: Fight.
WEYOUN: So, there are secrets after all. There shouldn't be any secrets between friends, Jake. I do want to be your friend.
(Weyoun opens the chest and takes out the baseball card in its holder.)
NOG: Do something.
JAKE: All right. We'll tell you the truth.
WEYOUN: I'm listening.
JAKE: We weren't supposed to divulge this, but since you left us no choice. We're working for Starfleet Intelligence.
NOG: Oh, no.
JAKE: Forget about it, Nog. We have to tell him. We've been investigating the man whose picture is in your hand right now. Until yesterday, that man, one Willie Mays, did not exist in any historical documents. Then, in the blink of an eye, that card appeared on the station, and at that same moment a bust of Willie Mays appeared at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. There's only one explanation. We suspect that this man is from the future.
WEYOUN: A time traveller?
JAKE: That's right. And so far that card is the only link we have to him. We must to find out what he's planning to do in the past, or what he may have done already. We need that card. The entire future of the galaxy may depend on us tracking down Willie Mays and stopping him.
WEYOUN: I believe you.
NOG: You do?
WEYOUN: Yes. That is, I believe your first story. That you're two innocent boys trying to give a gift to Captain Sisko. (LOLOLOLOL! *dies and is dead from the hilarity*)
SISKO, v.o.: Captain's log, stardate 50929.4. Two days ago, this station felt like a tomb. I'd never seen so many of my crew depressed at the same time. But for some reason, it now seems as though a new spirit has swept through the station -- as if someone had opened a door and let a gust of fresh air blow through a musty old house. Why this is happening, frankly, is a mystery to me. After all, nothing has really changed. The Dominion is still a threat, the Cardassians are still threatening to take the station, and I can still see the clouds of war gathering on the horizon. So why do I sense a new-found optimism in the air? But maybe I'm over-thinking this. Maybe the real explanation is as simple as something my father taught me a long time ago: even in the darkest moments, you can always find something that'll make you smile. (Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.)
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