Weekend Trek “When It Rains…”

There’s a minor subplot to this episode where Ezri tries to tell Bashir she’s smitten with him, but he keeps assuming she’s talking about Worf.  This is in the middle of a long stretch of episodes that all tell one long story to end the series and the war, so make of that what you will.

If anything, this episode’s theme seems to be that people are forced to work for people they’d rather not deal with.  The obvious ones are Worf and Kira.  Worf, of course, adores General Martok, and Martok has proven to be quite good at running the war.  So much so that Gowron is there to induct Martok into the Order of Kahless.  That sounds good!  Oh, but then Gowron decides that means Martok can step aside and he can personally lead the war effort from Martok’s office on Deep Space Nine, and his first mission is to strike deep in Dominion territory in a mission that anyone with half a brain (meaning Worf and Martok) can see this is a massive suicide mission, and while Gowron has perhaps been an effective chancellor, this is warrior’s work, and it looks like he is just thinking about the massive glory the victory will bring him.

Even though there’s a good chance it won’t actually get anyone any glory and just get a lot of Klingons killed.  Klingons don’t as a people mind dying in battle, but that doesn’t mean they will run into a meat grinder.  Here’s what is basically a politician taking on a military officer’s duties, and it looks like he’s not very good at it.  Worf has had a long history with Gowron, and it wasn’t until this very episode where it looked like it might actually be good.  That doesn’t look like it’s going to last very long.

Like how Dukat tried to read the Pah-Wraiths’ book and was struck blind.  Dude, your new gods suck.

That said, there was one thing that looked promising, that was Kira’s dispatch to help the Cardassian Resistance.  Yes, she is aware of the irony.  Sisko likewise thought sending her in her Bajoran uniform would be a problem, so she got put into Starfleet.  Odo is going too, as is Garek.  And in truth, while other Cardassians are tying to get a rise out of her, Damar actually listens to everything Kira has to say, even agreeing to attacking other Cardassians still working for the Dominion because they don’t have a lot of options and he can see the wisdom of it.

Damar is a curious character, isn’t he?  He started off as a background character, Dukat’s sidekick who didn’t seem to do much, and now he’s the head of a resistance group who actually wants his people’s freedom.  He’s a guy who was forever shunted off to the side, and he’s finally reached a point where he’s actually leading something, and he actually seems to know what he’s doing.  At the very least, he is willing to listen to an expert like Kira.

But then there’s the Odo subplot in that it turns out he has the Changeling disease.  How did he get it?  It took Bashir and O’Brien a long time to find out, but it looks like Section 31 did it.  And that means he’s not so much the latest victim as he might be Patient Zero.

Man, this is a lot of good stuff, but it does make it hard to do what I do for what is normally an episodic series.