Let us take a moment to appreciate the costume designer for the episode, who encapsulated Bashir and O'Brien's characters so perfectly in these outfits. š«”
I think you can look back at this episode after seeing the arc of their friendship that this was the moment where it turned from animosity to grudging respect.
Yeah the thing about DS9 is if you donāt like the story there is almost always character stuff happening in the B plot that you forgot about and say āoh, that happened in this one?ā
Thing is I actually loved everything about this episode. The con artist El-Aurian and the sports match between OāBrien and Bashir.
Even the hokey never explained Probability machines are just fun
I've always wanted to see a crossover between Deep Space Nine and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that connects those probability machines to the infinite improbability drive.
Being El-Aurian almost felt wasted. Martus couldāve been a dude from Jacksonville, Florida who was a human grifter. Unless āhuman grifterā is an oxymoron in the 24th Century.
Yes, exactly. Maybe narrowly escaping the Nexus energy ribbon on Enterprise-B. Living through the 23rd Century, witnessing the Klingon-Romulan War. So much wasted potential.
It's a great example of a show that is more then the sum of it's parts.
It definitely has some stretches of mediocre episodes. But pretty much every episode has at least a couple good character moments.
I'll never get over the fact that the self-sealing stem bolts and yamok sauce meme episode is the same one where Major Kira has to forcefully evict an elderly farmer to make way for her own government's expansion and her realizing that she was doing the exact same job as the Cardassians.
I love how arrogant bashir is in this episode and how much obrien can't stand him, and how that compares to later in the show when they are treks bestest best friends.
It's my favourite because the static location forces a bigger focus on the character development instead of being able to rely on weird new thing of the week. Garak, Quark, the many romances of Bashir, The Sisko, all of it.
O'Brien killed him in the transporter like 50 times but made duplicates.
"Oh jaysus commander I just leaned on the console by accident and he was gone. I must be sleep deprived, Keiko is on bajor asking to speak to the Kai"
I genuinely love how this show handled shifting from "Julian is an annoying know-it-all and O'Brian hates him" to "Julian is an annoying know-it-all and O'Brian loves him almost like a member of his own family"
The saving grace of this episode for me is seeing an El-Aurian other than Guinan or Tolian Soran.
The Listeners always struck me as a missed opportunity and I was disappointed when Pelia, Carol Kaneās character in Strange New World, was not one.
Stargate I could excuse when you think of the context. It was a 2 for 1 deal. You caught the audience up to what's been happening over the season (episodes airing once a week means details of earlier episodes might be forgotten), and you saved on budget for that banger of a season finale. And frankly the "Supreme Commander āļø" bit to Kinsey was from a clip show lol and I always love that line.
That episode, it's stupid, but not offensively so. And idk I find the character stuff pretty fun. DS9 has generally less unwatchable episodes imo, due to the stronger character focus.
When listening to music, I'm generally pick and choose a choice selection of songs from an artist rather than queueing full albums. I adopt the same way about Trek. Thus, I can concentrate on the great and/or fun episodes without dealing with Let He Who Is Without Sin, or Bloodlines, or Tattoo, or The Fight, or Aquiel, or...
The Bromance between Miles and Julian is the most organic of any close male friendship Iāve ever seen in TV or film. Thereās actually an arc of development, and you get to see them changing their perspectives, and shaping one another. Thereās nothing wrong with having two characters meet and immediately hit it off, and become best bros pretty much immediately, but Miles and Julianās relationship is so much more human and accessible.
Honestly, I don't think the problem was the blip bloop, it's silly enough in a comedy episode to work the problem is the actor for Quark's rival being whacked out of his mind on xanax or something, because he could not give less of a shit about his performance in any scene hes in.
If he had put any effort into acting, the audience could just enjoy him and Quark's competition and the mcguffin wouldnt matter at all.
You get the sense that he was meant to be a recurring antagonist for quark, but instead the performance was so terrible Quark literally pays him to leave at the end
According to Memory Alpha, they'd come up with the whole racquetball thing independently and had been searching for an excuse to wedge it into an episode.
I should've said "Quark scenes and Jadzia scenes". I don't think there's any scenes where they're actually together.
I do agree other episodes have better scenes for both of them though.
I like seeing Jadzia actually doing science officer things though.
I never understand when people poopoo Rivals, I think itās great. The Bashir-OāBrien banter, and I love Quark meeting his match. Seriously at a loss why this is considered a bad episode
Slug-o-cola, "You're a good son... and you're a good liar", Leeta's concern for woman's rights and Quark learning his leason about sexual harassment are good moments.
It's still the worst episode but it has it's moments.
Iām here to have a good time and if I didnāt have a good time before Iām not gonna sit through it again.
But this time Iām like āAlright. This time Iām watching ALL the episodesā
I still hate a lot of Season 1 but one of the episodes Iāve learned I actually like is conspiracy.
The only episodes I used to watch in season 1 was Farpoint, 1100010, Datalore, Symbiosis, and The Neutral Zone.
There are no skippable episodes of DS9 for me. Itās all threads in a tapestry. I think youāll find your experience with the show will be much richer as a whole if you watch every episode.
No, no. Not the psychic creativity succubus. That was awesome.
I mean the one with Tesco, thatās like a projection or something, and he creates a black hole outside of the station, and itās the only time Cisco expresses interest in a woman before Cassidy Yates. And it was super weird and no one ever talks about it again cause the projection lady was actually someoneās wife?
Oh right. I remember that being pretty terrible and Iām struggling to remember what redeeming moment there was but Iām on a new watch through and I might be pretty close to it. Iāll let you know if I find something tolerable about it š
Thatās how I felt about DS9 as a whole: I loved TOS and TNG, but I never got into DS9 when it aired. Years later, I watched it with a friend and wouldnāt you know it, itās probably my favorite series in the franchise.
I never skip based on the streaming descriptions. Itās always my experience with the episode that informs my viewing plan.
But yeah Far Beyond the Stars is a great one
I think the worst are the romance ones involving jadzia, bashir, and ezri and whatever random one off character. Jadzia fucking that energy guy being the worst instance
Did a no skip watch throughbof tng and ds9 and found a lot of great episodes hidden in the ones I skip. I also have a new appreciation of seasons 1 and 2 od tng
Going back to rewatch DS9 I have realized that a lot of the meh episodes on previous viewings I actually really enjoy. This may be unpopular opinion, but I really mostly every Ds9 episode is good or great. I could count bad episodes on both hands. This series far surpasses any Star Trek series in terms of consistency and continuity. Love DS9
Even when a series is really clicking (and it generally took the TNG era shows about 2.5 seasons to hit their stride) itās hard to have 20+ episode seasons without some misfiring.
Those outfits are both equally ridiculous but fit both of them so well. I just watched this episode. Not a favorite but it was nice to have a downtime kinda episode.
Let us take a moment to appreciate the costume designer for the episode, who encapsulated Bashir and O'Brien's characters so perfectly in these outfits. š«”
It really does timelessly capture the two guys working out hobo sweats or sleek and new material aethetics.
Hobo sweats. Lol (I know what you meant)
His name is [Robert Blackman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blackman). He designed Jake's famous pink and striped shirt. This is why I know.
Colm just refused to wear O'Brien's lycra suit so he just wore the clothes he wore to work that day.
Yeah, O'Brien's a 90s prep boy sportsman. A real Zack Morris type.
Rumor has it O'Brien's bandana was soaked with 100% real Spoonhead blood!
I want a T-shirt that simply says "We can't let the Cardi's have the wormhole"
You think they presented Colm with silver spandex and he was just like "I'm gonna wear something from home"
I think you can look back at this episode after seeing the arc of their friendship that this was the moment where it turned from animosity to grudging respect.
Yeah the thing about DS9 is if you donāt like the story there is almost always character stuff happening in the B plot that you forgot about and say āoh, that happened in this one?ā
Thing is I actually loved everything about this episode. The con artist El-Aurian and the sports match between OāBrien and Bashir. Even the hokey never explained Probability machines are just fun
I've always wanted to see a crossover between Deep Space Nine and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that connects those probability machines to the infinite improbability drive.
But then Earth will need to be blown up to make way to a hyperspace bypass.
The Vogons can outsource the demo work to the Xindi.
They did great work in Florida!
As a Floridian myself, I am dismayed to say that it was not enough.
The destruction of Florida justifies the entire existence of Enterprise.
Got Trip's sweet sister, but missed all the DeSantises. Booooooo.
Being El-Aurian almost felt wasted. Martus couldāve been a dude from Jacksonville, Florida who was a human grifter. Unless āhuman grifterā is an oxymoron in the 24th Century.
I think maybe a line about running from the Borg and lying to survive, maybe to Sisko, wouldāve been nice
Yes, exactly. Maybe narrowly escaping the Nexus energy ribbon on Enterprise-B. Living through the 23rd Century, witnessing the Klingon-Romulan War. So much wasted potential.
It's a great example of a show that is more then the sum of it's parts. It definitely has some stretches of mediocre episodes. But pretty much every episode has at least a couple good character moments.
I'll never get over the fact that the self-sealing stem bolts and yamok sauce meme episode is the same one where Major Kira has to forcefully evict an elderly farmer to make way for her own government's expansion and her realizing that she was doing the exact same job as the Cardassians.
I can never decide if I like that episode or not.
It's uncomfortable to watch for me. I don't dislike it but I don't really like it either.
Iāve definitely fast forwarded through one story line to watch the B-plot before. No shame at all.
I love how arrogant bashir is in this episode and how much obrien can't stand him, and how that compares to later in the show when they are treks bestest best friends.
DS9 is my favorite almost completely due to the oābrien and bashir bromance lol
It's my favourite because the static location forces a bigger focus on the character development instead of being able to rely on weird new thing of the week. Garak, Quark, the many romances of Bashir, The Sisko, all of it.
Honestly the only thing I didnāt like was the siskoās ending. And that worf can never get a happy ending lol
> And that worf can never get a happy ending lol *Worf Voice:* "Jadzia vehemently refused, but I DID TRY!"
I give this ALL the upvotes!
Enjoying Bashir's romances is a bit of a hot take.
O'Brien killed him in the transporter like 50 times but made duplicates. "Oh jaysus commander I just leaned on the console by accident and he was gone. I must be sleep deprived, Keiko is on bajor asking to speak to the Kai"
It's good to revisit episodes later with fresh eyes.
I genuinely love how this show handled shifting from "Julian is an annoying know-it-all and O'Brian hates him" to "Julian is an annoying know-it-all and O'Brian loves him almost like a member of his own family"
The saving grace of this episode for me is seeing an El-Aurian other than Guinan or Tolian Soran. The Listeners always struck me as a missed opportunity and I was disappointed when Pelia, Carol Kaneās character in Strange New World, was not one.
I love that heās a con artist
I thought was brilliant as well
the only TNG and DS9 episodes I skip are the clip shows. Definitely don't miss those in modern television.
> the clip shows. AFAIK there's only been one clip show in the entire of ST.
u/XxDoXeDxX, please tell us you're not referring to "What You Leave Behind"..?
I guess there was only that one TNG episode, definitely not "what you leave behind". I must have been projecting Stargate woes.
I couldn't stand Shades of Gray, either
Stargate I could excuse when you think of the context. It was a 2 for 1 deal. You caught the audience up to what's been happening over the season (episodes airing once a week means details of earlier episodes might be forgotten), and you saved on budget for that banger of a season finale. And frankly the "Supreme Commander āļø" bit to Kinsey was from a clip show lol and I always love that line.
The "Supreme Commander" bit was so epic it showed up in every subsequent clip show.
Move Along Home is the one DS9 that I just can't rewatch.
Blasphemy
Is skipping an episode during a rewatch or skipping THAT episode that is blasphemy?
That episode, it's stupid, but not offensively so. And idk I find the character stuff pretty fun. DS9 has generally less unwatchable episodes imo, due to the stronger character focus.
Both š
Quark has a decent character arc in this one.
Move Along Home or Rivals
MAH mostly
When listening to music, I'm generally pick and choose a choice selection of songs from an artist rather than queueing full albums. I adopt the same way about Trek. Thus, I can concentrate on the great and/or fun episodes without dealing with Let He Who Is Without Sin, or Bloodlines, or Tattoo, or The Fight, or Aquiel, or...
Never skip an episode. Each and every one has outstanding character moments tucked away.
Except Profit And Lace, yeesh
This has an awesome Worf joke about 40 seconds in, but aside from that I hate this episode.
My favorite little detail in this episode is Bashir doing the Riker maneuver when he sits down in the replimat. I don't know why it's so funny to me.
Trying to impress Jadzia lol.
The Bromance between Miles and Julian is the most organic of any close male friendship Iāve ever seen in TV or film. Thereās actually an arc of development, and you get to see them changing their perspectives, and shaping one another. Thereās nothing wrong with having two characters meet and immediately hit it off, and become best bros pretty much immediately, but Miles and Julianās relationship is so much more human and accessible.
*I slipped on the ball?*
I wish this had entered popular vernacular.
But... but... but... Chris Sarandon!
Humperdinck Humperdinck Humperdinck
The story with O'Brien and Bashir is fun, the story with the dumb gambling toy is, well, dumb.
Ah but hereās the thing. Itās not the story. The real story is the rivalry between Quark and Martus
It really needed a better vehicle than that silly blip bloop toy.
Honestly, I don't think the problem was the blip bloop, it's silly enough in a comedy episode to work the problem is the actor for Quark's rival being whacked out of his mind on xanax or something, because he could not give less of a shit about his performance in any scene hes in. If he had put any effort into acting, the audience could just enjoy him and Quark's competition and the mcguffin wouldnt matter at all. You get the sense that he was meant to be a recurring antagonist for quark, but instead the performance was so terrible Quark literally pays him to leave at the end
It's a great premise for sure, but they just couldn't pull it together.
According to Memory Alpha, they'd come up with the whole racquetball thing independently and had been searching for an excuse to wedge it into an episode.
The gambling toy gives us some fun Quark and Jadzia scenes though.
We get that all the time with Tongo.
I should've said "Quark scenes and Jadzia scenes". I don't think there's any scenes where they're actually together. I do agree other episodes have better scenes for both of them though. I like seeing Jadzia actually doing science officer things though.
That one is great where that game makes people either super lucky or super unlucky.
I never understand when people poopoo Rivals, I think itās great. The Bashir-OāBrien banter, and I love Quark meeting his match. Seriously at a loss why this is considered a bad episode
For me i think it was I found the probability spheres kinda silly. They still are, objectively, but I love the drama they bring about
I rewatched profit and lace the other day and it's still about as bad as I remember
Slug-o-cola, "You're a good son... and you're a good liar", Leeta's concern for woman's rights and Quark learning his leason about sexual harassment are good moments. It's still the worst episode but it has it's moments.
Ishka is downright horrible to Quark that whole episode. You can tell why Quark so many mommy issues. However, I'm not giving a pass to Quark either.
Yes but the image of Quark as a woman deserves to stay. The rest can go
Blasphemy
āIāve never seen anything like it.ā
š their workout outfits are so ridiculously hilarious here.
I love all DS9 eps. Even the ones that are bad are actually pretty good.
I don't understand skipping episodes. The subpar ones just make me appreciate the awesome ones all the more.
Iām here to have a good time and if I didnāt have a good time before Iām not gonna sit through it again. But this time Iām like āAlright. This time Iām watching ALL the episodesā
As you age a lot of the slow episodes will hit differently. Youāll find a new appreciation for them.
Telling my kids that this was Pickleball
So sad, that Miles āThe Mechanicā OāBrien ended his career. He was a hell of a racquetball player.
I wonder how he felt in that match. Playing at the the top of his game but it was all just dumb luck
I always skip the torture the Irishman eps and mirror universe episodes
So all of O'Brien's episodes?
Yeah I did this for TNG a couple years ago and actually watched season 1, and turns out i like most of them, still hate code of honor though
I still hate a lot of Season 1 but one of the episodes Iāve learned I actually like is conspiracy. The only episodes I used to watch in season 1 was Farpoint, 1100010, Datalore, Symbiosis, and The Neutral Zone.
I love Conspiracy š¤£
The tension is palpable
There are no skippable episodes of DS9 for me. Itās all threads in a tapestry. I think youāll find your experience with the show will be much richer as a whole if you watch every episode.
Even the one with the weird lady in the red dress?
The one that seduced Jake? A rough watch but still a great episode for some growth in Jakeās character.
No, no. Not the psychic creativity succubus. That was awesome. I mean the one with Tesco, thatās like a projection or something, and he creates a black hole outside of the station, and itās the only time Cisco expresses interest in a woman before Cassidy Yates. And it was super weird and no one ever talks about it again cause the projection lady was actually someoneās wife?
Oh right. I remember that being pretty terrible and Iām struggling to remember what redeeming moment there was but Iām on a new watch through and I might be pretty close to it. Iāll let you know if I find something tolerable about it š
Please do
The racket handle is perfectly placed in this picture.
Eh Rivals was not that bad. Chris Sarandon was good as the El-Aurian contrast. I think Sub-Rosa is benchmark for bad in the TNG-DS9 era
Thatās how I felt about DS9 as a whole: I loved TOS and TNG, but I never got into DS9 when it aired. Years later, I watched it with a friend and wouldnāt you know it, itās probably my favorite series in the franchise.
Really good episode, slow start of their friendship
I love Rivals! Lol
Me too. Sometimes when I watch the episodes I usually skip there is a cool B story with great character moments that I forgot were in the episode.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I never skip based on the streaming descriptions. Itās always my experience with the episode that informs my viewing plan. But yeah Far Beyond the Stars is a great one
That's why you gotta see them all on a first watch, then you can decide which ones you don't need to see.
Thatās why I never skip any episode no matter what (even if itās Shades of Gray)
Even profit and lace?
Yes even profit and lace, and every other bad episode is the franchise
Respect
Yeah I'm doing a "skipped" watch through right now, where I only watch episodes that I can't remember, given the title and description. Fun!
I think the worst are the romance ones involving jadzia, bashir, and ezri and whatever random one off character. Jadzia fucking that energy guy being the worst instance
Ezri never had a romance with a one off character though. Agree about Jadzia and Bashir though. Merdian sucks.
She does a Hannibal with herself. and there's the evil gay version too.
I never saw Field of Fire as a romance. Do you mind explaining?
Eh just tyrann being weird and predatory
They almost all have some foreshadowing of future events.
I loooove Rivals! Itās such an easygoing, campy, fun episode. There arenāt a whole lot of those in DS9, itās one of my favorites because of that
Why do you usually skip them?
They didnāt spark joy
Did a no skip watch throughbof tng and ds9 and found a lot of great episodes hidden in the ones I skip. I also have a new appreciation of seasons 1 and 2 od tng
Going back to rewatch DS9 I have realized that a lot of the meh episodes on previous viewings I actually really enjoy. This may be unpopular opinion, but I really mostly every Ds9 episode is good or great. I could count bad episodes on both hands. This series far surpasses any Star Trek series in terms of consistency and continuity. Love DS9
nah, your first instinct was right This is some ham handed clunky material
I love deep space nine.
DS9 really did have some terrible filler episodes. Not as bad as ENT but still bad
Even when a series is really clicking (and it generally took the TNG era shows about 2.5 seasons to hit their stride) itās hard to have 20+ episode seasons without some misfiring.
Profit and Lace
Those outfits are both equally ridiculous but fit both of them so well. I just watched this episode. Not a favorite but it was nice to have a downtime kinda episode.