Thoughts on: Star Trek DS9 Season Five

• Of course they're sending Sisko; gotta send the 'main character' or it'll go exactly according to plan... ("Apocalypse Rising")
• Of course Odo is depressed; he's had everything he was taken from him. Who wouldn't be?
• Miniature golden Death Stars... helpful.
• Love how Kira doesn't explain how she isn't the mother either!
• Dukat: 'You're insane! I love it.'
• Blood champagne... I wonder how that would go down with the Klingons? Would they then hold contests to see who can chug the most before burping/barfing?
• Of course, it would only be blood champagne if brewed in a certain region of Qo'noS, other wise it's just sparkling blood wine.
• So surely the best time to set the things off would be when there is another actual Klingon up there so he can see up close that Gowron is a Changeling?
• That move with the daggers in the corridor was so smooth!
• Welp. Thanks, internet, for once you actually managed to hide your spoilers! See how effective tagging your shit is. I'm talking bout you, Tumblr.
• (To my delight my cat-eared headphones continue to confuse our cat! Wonder what she'd think if she saw them with the lights on?)
• Shows what a good boss O'Brien is that his men feel comfortable enough to rib on him on the clock to his face! ("The Ship")
• Yeesh; strobe warning for this one.
• I almost feel sorry for the actress playing the pilot of the runabout; imagine spending several hours in makeup for just two scenes, neither of which you have more than two-three lines and the second is your death scene!
• "I say you're gonna make it." Yeah, he dead.
• Or they're trying to bury them - enough hits to the hillside and it'll come crashing down on top of the ship.
• You'd think a medkit in the future would have something they could synthesise blood from; or even coconut milk in a pinch apparently works. Heck, even something to stimulate blood production in the marrow...
• An absolutely exhausted Changeling. How long has it been pretending to be just another panel of the ship? If they have to revert to goo every 16 hours... I can't help but be somewhat impressed.
• Oh well, can't all be perfect! ("Looking For par'Mach in All the Wrong Places")
• Dax trying to pretend she wasn't blown away by Worf's declaration/advice...
• '...did this just become a fully consensual poly relationship..?'
• Courtship-by-proxy. Always an interesting plot! 
• So when is the controller-thingy gonna break, d'you think?
• Finally...
• Jake! Don't go asking for a deadly plague just because Dr. Bashir is info-dumping on you! That just means you'll get one! ("Nor the Battle to the Strong")
• (It can be difficult enough to watch stuff without it being all stop-starty for no apparent reason.)
• What is it with people trying to tell pregnant people how to be pregnant and stuff? O'Brien I can understand, it being his child and all but everyone else should just can it.
• Jake's learning up close that real conflict isn't like it is in the movies...
• I know this sounds really harsh but isn't there some way they can use the deceased to help those still alive, like harvesting their blood or something? It just seems like a waste to just bag, tag and stack them.
• Couldn't they just specify at the replicator how much salt or seasoning they want on their meal? "Steak - medium rare, lightly salted; with roast potatoes and peas."
• Aand now I'm suspicious of the native doctor; so curious about SF's planned maneuvers... I mean, yes she has the excuse of 'my husband is out there' but that doesn't really mean much...
• Kudos to the med team (and their training) that they were able to go straight from apparent sleep to awake and on the go within the space of one mid-distant explosion!
• 'My son's out there gaining life-changing trauma! Nothing is going to be ok!'
• "I'm not having it this morning." You ungrateful little shi- ("The Assignment")
• (Seriously, I'm watching a file on a media player on my laptop I should not be having to wait for it to buffer! 😡)
• Gotta love another episode of "Traumatise Miles O'Brien". At least Keiko gets some decent screen time in this one for a change. (Or at least, a being using the human known as Keiko!)
• Of course, plans like "Keiko"'s only work so long as no-one is using the tweaked programs at the time. It's just twisted luck it was found out before finish.
• Love that it was Rom who figured it out!
• 'I'm Quark's brother; I know the role." Oof. That one hurt.
• D'you think Klingons would like pineapple? Since it's the fruit that eats you too!
• I (kinda) remember this one! The 30th anniversary special. ("Trials and Tribble-ations")
• Oooooh the original riff. Tingles!
• Starfleet really lost the ball when they decided to do away with the knee-high boots and short skirts...
• Love that they even lowered the film quality a little somehow for added effect.
• "Don't mention this to anyone." I don't think anyone would believe him anyway!
• Ah yes, also known as the 'Fry Paradox'.
• The melding of TOS footage and new DS9 footage is seamless. I sincerely hope awards were given for this episode; t'was ahead of its time - I've seen newer shows that had a similar premised episode that did a worse job of integration.
• Surely being Irish O'Brien can just say he was partaking in his national pass-time?
• Since their whole 'thing' is time wouldn't the Temporal Investiagtions have some way of monitoring things; like wouldn't they have a machine that goes 'blip' and tells them if/when something has been changed?
• Just listen for the tribble that ticks...
• Oh but imagine how comfy it would be to just nap on a bed of fluffballs!
• (I think my laptop is throwing a hissy at being replaced for it's major function as a gaming device. That's the only reason I can think of for it being so laggy and stuttery suddenly! It's not like I don't use it at all anymore; I still use it for art and watching stuff.)
• (As its piece de resistance, it closed the media player as I was trying to switch back to it!)
• I think the appropriate phrase here is 'oh no, not again.'!
• "Much to discuss." So that's what the kids are calling it these days! ("Let He Who is Without Sin...")
• You could at least try to sound sincere hon...
• Compared to Klingon garb, the SF uniform is casual dress!
• Smooth! Klingon poetry must really be something...
• Worf's looking at his 'bathing suit' thinking 'where's the rest of it!?'
• Ugh I thought by the 24th century we'd have grown out of the puritan fundie bull.
• I understand that you are a sad old man who's so scared of how small and unimportant he actually is that he'll do anything to feel otherwise.
• Think about it for a second, Worf: if there was anything going on would she have been so happy to see you?
• Wait isn't that the blue guy from "Nor the Battle to the Strong"?
• But that's the point - they're just citizens. They're not meant to handle an invasion; that's SF's job.
• Well that's one way to open an episode... ("Things Past")
• A unique sort of mind swap that has their original bodies also suffer physical injury...
• Poor Odo - to see the corpse of the man your mind currently occupies wandering around staring accusingly at you... I had a feeling this would be an Odo-centric episode when they were talking about 'a legend is born' in the opening.
• Now that would be a mindfuck - you're almost out then suddenly *blink* you're all in the cell you just left!
• I think the focal zoom thing is one of my favourite effects. Really gets across the whole 'aw fuck' realisation.
• Benjamin Sisko just be glad you're living in a post-economy galaxy in which your son can move out at all! ("The Ascent")
• Calling it now: end of the episode "Dad can I move back in?"
• Odo would love Mills and Boone..!
• Well at least you can't say Nog doesn't take his promises seriously - he did say he'd look after Jake, after all. The Academy has done wonders for his confidence.
• Yeesh - the Rockies are hard enough on climbers with all the equipment, let alone a couple with not much and a great big comm system too!
• Nog does have a point though - even I can't live in a mess for too long, and I'm as mess-blind as the average male college student lol.
• A burn like that it's a wonder Odo is still cold.
• Oh yay awkward reunion time! ("Rapture")
• Yeah, he's still unconscious from the holosuite malfunction. Everything's going far too well for it to be real.
• That was...neat... Melting an entire wall of stone with just one phaser aimed at just one spot. I still think this is all a dream of some sort.
• If I turn out to be right about this being some sort of coma dream they'd better not end the episode with him going to the co-ords and finding that there's actually nothing there. That'd just be cruel.
• Guess I am wrong then but boy this episode's a doozy!
• Well, that's one way to avoid the 'welcome back from prison' awkward reception...
• I figured something explosive would happen, but I reckoned it would take them all out at once... ("The Darkness and The Light")
• Now that's just nasty. Yeesh. Now I want barbecue...
• Dukat... Step one in the abuser's arsenal: isolate the victim so you're the only one they have left. Though I will admit, murder is the most extreme method for this, and most likely to backfire.
• "Four to beam up." And so four were - leaving a preemie to drop three feet to the floor...lol.
•  Y'know, Odo, I think the human has some idea on how human bodies work... ("The Begotten")
• Come on, Odo, surely Mora would love to know he's a grandad!
• Now Worf thinks Odo's lost it!
• "Look, Dad, I'm a smear of honey!"
• "Daa- Doctor Mora, you're embarrassing me in front of my son!" Good old grumpy Odo.
• "I raised an excellent Changeling!" 'You ruined a perfectly good man, is what you did. Look at him he has anxiety!'
• Aww he's trying so hard. Wish all dads were as caring.
• "Congratulations it's the ugliest child I've ever had the misfortune to deliver. Humans, huh?"
• 'By being such a good dad you have earned redemption.'
• So not only do Bajorans have an insultingly easy birth process but they also instantly deflate... Any other women jealous? I am and I've never even been pregnant!
• "We're not killers. We just leave people to suffer slow, torturous deaths on barren planets." Um... ("For the Uniform")
• Bored of the whole Eddington thing already. Bored of the whole 'enemy with a superiority complex' trope as a whole, to be honest.
• "I know when to walk away." Says the man who's fight was done with two seasons ago.
• The other captain has a point.
• (Am also getting really bored of my media player acting like a YouTube video having to buffer every five seconds... Seriously what could my laptop possibly be doing that it thinks is more important than the thing I want it to do?! Just play the damn video!)
• I honestly would not have minded if they'd left the Eddington plotline 'hanging' unresolved. It just seems rather unnecessary at this point - leave the Maquis stuff to Voyager!
• Wait does this mean I'm gonna hate Voyager... hope not.
• 'This ship's about as functional as a Reliant Robin in a Mr. Bean episode.'
• (I'm starting to think it might be the file and not the player that's the problem; switched programs and it's still stuttery, UGH.)
• I love that they've acknowledged how noisy an active bridge would be. Most programs I've watched haven't had any background chatter going on, as if they thought it'd drown out the actors' lines (which are actively picked up on microphones unlike extras' chatter).
• Sorry, Eddington, but petty theft and mass murder are very different; Javert may be a petty cop for chasing a guy for trying to feed his family for two decades but Sisko is far, far more justified to pursue a terrorist for a couple years.
• The trouble with predicting the unpredictable... well, it's kinda obvious isn't it? Besides, Eddington seems the type to go for the obvious target purely because everyone else would expect him to be unpredictable and go for the not-so-obvious...
• 'Stop staring at me all horrified and bait the trap already!'
• Oh no, Eddington, did he do exactly what you did and are now condemning him for? The hypocrisy of the deluded...
• (I'm starting to think it would be easier to watch this on YouTube or online somehow... But then my browser already has 12 processes running already for some reason just for one tab so... Though it would probably fix the 'program closes itself when it isn't the focus' issue I'm suddenly having with my media player...)
• (I've already tried transferring all the files to my newer laptop and it wouldn't pass them all on so I can't even just do that. At this rate I'll never finish this season, and I'm getting too bored of looking at my numerous unfinished projects to add another to the heap.)
• RIP Derek Garth. Nice that they respect even the 'little people' who work on a show.
• There's a lot of important stuff re: intel even in a survey report, y'know. Don't dismiss it out of hand!("In Purgatory's Shadow")
• Garak: 'I'd be mad you caught me sneaking off if I wasn't so proud you devious little human!'
• Garak as a mature student at Starfleet Academy... I think that actually is a good idea; each can learn much from the other.
• Well he had me there lol.
• Oops... that's a lot of spacecraft...
• Awkwardly obvious elbow-length gloves for the Jem'Hadar's arm there... Ah well, it is the 90's, they get a pass. Unlike some, more modern, shows I won't name (cough cough Rings of Power cough cough...oops lol.)
• One ship can make all the difference. Even if it's a slimy Cardassian's.
• Wait what.
• Time for a prison break! Now where's that handy map tattoo when you need it...
• Oh no, Dukat betrayed them, what a surprise. -_- ("By Inferno's Light")
•  But they hid the shiv-crowbar at the head of the cot... how did it get to the foot..?
• Strange how, as soon as we find out that Bashir had been replaced by a changeling, suddenly the station's Bashir forgot his entire characterisation and became all serious and foreboding... He's lucky everyone is too distracted by the invasion and Cardassia's actions to notice.
• "It's a shoehorn."
• Not often the Romulans get a big damn heroes moment.
• Gotta admit, causing a supernova to wipe everything out without any real risk to your own is kinda genius.
• Miles, you've been hanging out with a Changeling your whole time on DS9! Or does Odo not count? Rude!
• Plot twist: not only did Dax not misplace one single opera; they actually added to the collection! Now that'd be something.
• Director of Holographic Imaging? That explains the resemblance to a certain other doctor..! ("Dr Bashir, I Presume")
• That makes two not-actually-human characters designed as, essentially, copies of their creator. The egos of scientists in Star Trek make me wonder how they get through doorways...
  
• Of course, they say they'll be for the important, dangerous jobs, but then they focus on replacing all the people who have Doctorates in art and literature...
• 'Ask: Leeta: Why the hell did a girl like that settle for a guy like him?'
• Aw, sheet I think I know which one this episode is now.
• The poor EMH is horrified! "Am I being replaced?!" 😢
  
• 'Please don't tell him I said this.' proceeds to praise the man.
• "What about us?" When hasn't it been about you.
• HINT HINT ROM.
• That's not your Bashir... oh no.
• The pain of having so much you want to say to someone but you just can't, either because of anxiety of the knowledge they'll never understand or really listen at all...
• 'Come on, son, let yer old man do the right thing for once!' As if that's an instant fix. I guess first suture's the hardest?
• If anything, two years transportation (essentially) is actually quite lenient.
• Oh the fickle affections of the intelligent man..!
• "I can play at your level!"... 'I changed my mind can you go back to cheating in my favour thanks.'
• Flustered Odo is adorable. ("A Simple Investigation")
• 'Whatever you do, don't sneeze.' It's gonna take months to get him out of the carpet!
• Didn't mean to say that bit about being beautiful out loud, did you Odo?
• LOL Kira, are you jealous?
• Dax is all like 'Get it, guy! Woo!' Love how much Dax loves love.
• And so the inevitable betrayal that goes fatally wrong...
• The worst part is the feeling of 'was all of it even real?'
• Odo then proceeds to spend the next two weeks as a rock, because rocks don't have feelings and therefore he can't feel sad and lonely and heartbroken...
• Oh no, two extra-skeevy Ferengi... trouble bigger than usual is not only afoot, but a whole aleg! ("Business as Usual")
• Babies - are they really worth the sleep loss?
• (Why does my laptop always throw a hissy when it's getting interesting?! I tried finding a new download but it was .mkv so I couldn't watch it anyway.)
• Can't wait to see how this all blows up in Quark's face (though hopefully not literally lol).
• Thing is, it's a self-fulfilling cycle - if you never put the baby down because they cry when you do, you eventually end up with a child so clingy they'll cry themselves sick if you put them down...
• Quark: 'I'm going to have to order some more brown pants...'
• Nothing like a little emotional abuse to run a successful business.
• Actually, I think many people would notice if one of those 'twinkling little lights went out.' There's an entire The Orville episode dedicated to a civilisation who noticed one of their little lights went out and it fundamentally changed their society.
• Everyone crowding around because human babies are so much cuter when they're asleep!
• Why are you so upset, Gaila? Weren't you boasting just the other day about selling to both sides for the profit?
• (I think after this episode I'll look for a way to stream the rest of this season because the stuttering is starting to get annoying enough that my cross-stitch isn't the only thing I want to stab multiple times...)
• (Also it keeps closing itself when I alt-tab out, which is doubly annoying because then I have to essentially fast-forward from the beginning of the episode to get to where I was.)
• (Have now downloaded VLC - finally lol - so now the previous-mentioned other version should work.)
• 'Kira, I'm dying!' ("Ties of Blood and Water")
• ....called it.
• (So glad it works - it's so much higher res too lol why did I wait so long to do this... oh yeah, coz I didn't think to lol)
• Watching one father die painfully would be bad enough for anyone...
• Ooh, Weyoun 2! Wonder exactly how many we go through... Hope I remember to keep count!
• Wait, fifth? Wow Weyoun must be a clumsy fellow indeed.
• I'm guessing it was Ghemor who (essentially) killed Kira's father. Why else would we have the flashbacks?
• Don't get too upset, Dukat. Don't forget, this Weyoun is still just a baby, really. Of course he's going to want to play the game with the flashing and the shouting!
• Their faces when Weyoun just chugs the kanar! Priceless. They're both just like O-O
• I see - she's this upset because she feels guilty for leaving her father to die alone wishing she were there.
• "Mommy, I has a sad!" ("Ferengi Love Songs")
• Oh no; Dax you may have meant well, but now his feet are antarctic ice!
• I think it's time the Grand Nagus came out of the closet...
• Yay Brunt's back! Must be Ferengi Coming Out Day.
• You'd think, for a place where it's raining 99% of the time they'd have invented umbrellas...
• Congratulations, Quark, on your new slug cosplay. Really suits you!
• Quark: 'Has the Nagus... Alzheimer's..?'
• (Gotta say, I'm certainly enjoying what is essentially a 'skip credits' button in VLC)
• 'I'm a Klingon; why wouldn't I want to go with Gen. Martok?' ("Soldiers of the Empire")
• Ha! Gottem! Sometimes Dax's strongheadedness is a good thing.
• I think Gen. Martok is more traumatised by his captivity than even he realises.
• "You think the blood looks bad on my uniform wait until the decks are dripping with it." Now that's a line that goes hard!
• 'Welp. Time for treason!'
• 'Hey Worf thanks for trying to kill me. I owe you one.'
• Key word: should ("Children of Time"),
• "Some time travel shit going on here." 'Hold on, I know a guy. Got a weird blue box...' (Star Trek is canon to the Whoniverse - while also a tv show in it? It's referred to in such a way by the newest companion, anyway... timey-wimey stuff indeed!)
• "Aww but Mom, this is our only scene!"
• Well that's going to make things really awkward with OG Odo...
• Baby's like 'What's that big fuzzy thing? Is it a teddy bear? Can I have it?'
• The cynical part of me is just waiting for them to discover that the colony is actually all Changelings out to destroy the Defiant and mindfuck the crew beforehand.
• Thing is, if Future!Dax could lie about the duplication, he could have lied about how Kira died too.
• Future!Dax fixed it for them.
• And the Implied Adventures of Morn continue! ("Blaze of Glory")
• I'm already bored of Eddington. Can we get the obvious betrayal over with and get on with things?
• Callous of me, but I'm kinda glad that's over with. Was nearing Murdoch Mysteries level of clinging-onto-a-villain-for-too-long!
• Well I guess we know why Quark's is so quiet this time! ("Empok Nor")
• Of course for Ferengi the racket would be particularly grating and loud. I know how that feels.
• There hasn't been any Dominion activity in that sector for months, so now we know who this week's (direct) villain is going to be.
• That gun is nearly as tall as Nog.
• Ah, the good old 'warrior out of time' episode. Guess we were due one, huh?
• It's always nice to get some interaction from those not of the main cast - yes, I know there's a whole animated series about them lol.
• Oh dear... What's got Garak so itchy? I'd be a little more worried about that biogenic goo as well as the vigilante Cardassians.
• Told ya!
• Poor Sisko; everyone is too stressed about the impeding war for regular life things like dinner with friends. ("In the Cards")
• As if things weren't bad enough... What BS is Winn gonna bring this time?
• Oh Jake you just had to say it didn't you..?
• Guilt trips lead to misery for everyone Jake.
• 'I would, but I'd have to explain the concept of walking to them first.'
• Nog has a point; you could always write a new baseball game program for the holosuite for him instead. He'd probably treasure that far more than he would the card anyway!
• Well that was weird. Dude obviously wanted the box for another of its contents; why not just let them have the card?
• Ah - a Frankensteinian necromancer. Interesting, though I'm pretty sure, if anything, it's exhaustion not boredom that means a cell can't continue...
• Aww Kukalaka is adorable! But couldn't Leeta have just replicated herself a teddy instead of stealing borrowing Bashir's?
• Even you know how selfish that request is, Winn.
• So what's all this going to mutate young Geiger into, d'ya think? Something gruesome, I bet!
• I mean, there is precedent for the sort of behaviour/actions Jake is suspecting Winn of.
• Though it is a bit paranoid to think like that after seeing, essentially, a guy just talking to his boss.
• That's exactly the sort of lie I'd expect a future-prize winning author to come up with. Bravo, Jake!
• Wow, Jake; you go through all that to cheer your dad up then you go and write an article that, however inadvertently, paints him in a negative light. Way to go! ("Call to Arms")
• Uh oh... if the Borg chose this moment to rear their mecha-heads again now that would explain Star Fleet being busy... Weren't they the BBEG of the movie that released round the time S5 was airing?
• The hardest choices are usually the best ones... Poor Bajor has been through enough the past century.
• Did Rom steal that from Casablanca or similar? It sounded very much like something a script writer of that era would have written.
• The waiting is the worst part - plenty of time to start imagining all sorts of horrible things happening to you and your friends. (During, you're too busy trying to not die to worry, I can imagine.)
• "Captain; I cannot determine which one is Will at this distance. Firing randomly at all viable targets."
• I'm just waiting for the Wilhelm Scream. Can't have a battle scene without the Wilhelm Scream!
• Now that is an impressive sight. Props to the CG department!

Yes, I am aware it took over a year to finish this one. Sleep schedule is difficult to keep straight for me. Hopefully I'll be in a place where I can do this easier some day soon.