Kor

So the other day I was watching another great season four episode, "The Sword of Kahless" when I thought to myself, "Why, who's that handsom devil?" in reference to this guy:

Then it dawned on me. That's Kor. THE KOR. As in... this guy:

And I don't just mean it's the same character--though it is--it's the same actor. John Colicos played Kor, the first major Klingon in all of Star Trek, way back in in the very first season of TOS in 1967. He was being a total jerk in "Errand of Mercy" when he led a bunch of Klingons as they took over peaceful and (apparently) primitive Organia. He said things like, "I don't trust men who smile too much," and was subsequently defeated by this guy: 

Actually that's not entirely true. Kirk and Kor are just about to have at it when the Organians reveal their true power and Kor, disappointed, says their fight, "would have been glorious." I agree. 

Kor makes a return in TAS, wearing a nifty pinkish-purple uniform but is voiced by James Doohan (who basically voiced every single alien they encountered because he was amazing like that) and we don't catch wind of Kor again until years later (actually in the DS9 episode "Blood Oath" wherein I got too distracted by Dax's storyline to pick-up on who he was) when he's apparently had his turtle head surgically installed so no one can tell his grandpa had the augment virus (ie- the flat head, thanks to some crap Data's grandpa pulled in Enterprise) and he looks totally awesome when he recruits Worf for a legendary quest to find the sword of Kahless. 

Worf is like... crazy pleased:

"OMG it's Kor and he's TALKING to me. Just play it cool. I can't even...
Did he just ask me to accompany him on a quest?!!! Squee! We'll be BFF FOREVER!" 

He's basically in full-on fanboy mode and ends up hanging out with Kor all night long drinking and singing songs about how awesome Kor is. (BTW- The same thing recently happened to me) Worf, Dax, and Kor head out on their epic quest of epicness, fight some jerks, eat some cave critters, and Worf soon realizes why there's an old human saying about not meeting your heroes.

Even though Kor might not be everything Worf had hoped, he's still an amazing character and the fact that he faced down Kirk on more than one occasion and lived to sing songs about it is basically the best thing ever. It was thirty years between Colicos' appearances as Kor--six months in blog-time--and I'm SO glad he came back to Star Trek. This show spans generations so when an old friend shows up, after such a long time, I can't help but be happy to see him.

DS9: Little Green Men

Ever wonder what really happened at Roswell in 1947? Well, according to DS9 it was a whole lot of Ferengi hijinks--which, by the way, is pretty much my favorite kind of hijinks. Here's some of what makes Little Green Men great:

-Nog, being a Ferengi, is selling most of his childhood bits and bobs to raise capital for his journey into his new life as a Starfleet cadet. Everyone's chipping in, Rom's all choked up and even Worf is interested in a little trinket:

Yep. That's Nog's old tooth sharpener. Priceless.

-Jake and Nog have a moment and it's pretty much the best thing ever. It's a perfect balance of funny and sweet.

-I love Rom's continuing evolution throughout the series but season four is where he really takes off and finds his own way. In this one, he totally calls Quark on the dangerous cargo he's smuggled aboard and negotiates a hefty cut of the profits. Nice job, Rom!

-As the Ferengis make their way to Earth, everything goes wrong (surprise!) and they crash into what is basically a 1950's B movie. 

Wait... is that Ed Wood? 

-There's a joke about the "Bell Riots" which happened in a previous episode (one I planned to write about but haven't yet) 

-Quark, in an effort to prove that he's a hostile alien spy who's been watching Earth for ages, cites everything he knows about Earth culture: "Root beer. Baseball. Darts!" 

-When they crash, their universal translators go offline which means no one can understand each other. This leads to lots of screwball antics. 

Silly Hew-mons

-Smoking. Lots and lots of smoking. And jokes about smoking. And jokes about pollution. And jokes about the A-bomb. Basically lots of commentary on all the stupid crap humans tend to get up to. 

Basically Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe wrote the hell out of this episode. It's PACKED with really, truly great jokes and references to past episodes of Trek and human history. Additionally, it's perfectly acted and directed. Little Green Men is one of the very best funny episodes of Star Trek and harkens back to the humorous episodes of TOS like The Trouble With Tribbles. It's pretty much perfect. 

DS9: Rejoined

One of the odd quirks of the Trill is that because of their peculiar longevity they tend to go around with a lot of emotional baggage from past relationships dragging behind them. In "Rejoined" we get to meet Dax's kind-of-ex-wife, Kahn, who travels around in the gut of this pretty lady:

Her name is Lenara and she's actually a super scientist. 

There's a lot of talk in this episode about how there's a big taboo in Trill culture about not getting back together with your symbiont's old flame (consequences include being excommunicated from Trill and letting the symbiont die with its current host) but because Jadzia is the Riker of this series and thus pretty much constantly ready to give up her entire way of life for a slice of some romantic action, she's all in with Lenara.

This episode doesn't annoy me quite as much as that one where Jadzia falls for that dude from Brigadoon but it still doesn't reach me like I think it's supposed to. Jadzia's teary-eyed pleas don't even strike a chord with Sisko who's forced to lecture her about her own principles.

There was a big deal made when this episode aired that it contained a (what at the time was both super trendy and controversial) lesbian kiss. People wrote into the show to complain. People called, apparently scandalized by two ladies smooching. Apparently they were unaware of Star Trek's long history of social wave-making and its questioning of the status quo. This episode is much like "Plato's Stepchildren" in that it contains a controversial kiss and also that it's not at all about the kiss. "Rejoined" isn't about homosexuality but about Trill culture. No one aboard DS9 is shocked or otherwise wigged out by the fact that Jadzia is having a relationship with a woman. In that way, more than anything else, this episode is extremely, quietly progressive. If not for the kiss, this one probably would've just flown under the radar as a less memorable episode than the ones it sits close to in the season (The Visitor, Little Green Men, The Sword of Kahless) My favorite of part of this episode is actually Jadzia performing magic tricks and completely baffling Quark. Now that's some good stuff:

DS9: The Visitor

Ok so I should've watched "The Visitor" yesterday but after "The Way Of The Warrior" I just couldn't do it. It was TOO MUCH. My emotions couldn't handle it. And here's why...

As much as I love "The Inner Light" and I have very personal memories tied to it, I sort of think "The Visitor" is better. It's intense. Like "The Inner Light" this one involves an alternate timeline that follows an entire lifetime of a main character but this one just really rips my heart out. Every. Single. Time.

Basically, Jake and Benjamin are growing apart a bit. Jake's becoming an adult and he's absorbed in his own life but he goes along with his dad to view a rare wormhole inversion. Things quickly go awry. In an effort to save the day, Benjamin ends up disappearing in a puff of vapor right before Jake's eyes.

Jake goes along with his life and tries his best to recover after the death of his father. Then, one night, Benjamin appears to him. Jake assumes it's a dream. But then it happens again. It continues to happen throughout Jake's lifetime. Benjamin appears for seconds or minutes, never experiencing the passage of time while Jake spends many long years trying to help him return to regular spacetime and this quest becomes an obsession.

So much of what I love about this episode is what I already love about DS9--the Jake/Benjamin relationship. Where TNG didn't really know what to do with Wesley, DS9 rarely missed and opportunity with Jake. (What can you do though? Wesley was the first child or practice kid.) Not only is Jake a great character but his relationship with Benjamin is believable and sweet. Commander Sisko is an exceptional father who truly cares about his son and he often shows his affection. In "The Visitor" Benjamin's attitude toward Jake, his compassion, his pride in his son, his doting, his sweet fatherlyness (I made that word up) never changes--no matter how much Jake might. Even when Jake is an old man, the way Benjamin watches him sleep is beautiful. The love shown in this episode is that between a parent and child. It's an everlasting, raw, precious kind of love.  And it's beautifully portrayed here.  "The Visitor" is wonderfully written, performed, and directed. I think it's a perfect episode of DS9 and Star Trek in general. Go watch it! Get your own heart ripped out. And then come back here when you're done crying.

DS9: The Way Of The Warrior

Today I watched the Season Four opener, "The Way Of The Warrior." This one is actually a two-parter and both parts are just filled to the brim with ridiculously epic craziness:

#1- Sisko shaved his head:

Hell yes. 

Basically this means that, according to my own seemingly random "hotness criteria," Sisko just became like 300% more attractive. 

#2- Worf shows up. Finally!

For real though: Hell Yes. 

#3- Lots of intrigue

When we start out in season four, the Dominion has basically declared full-on war with our quadrant of space and the Cardassians have suspiciously closed their borders. There's a very "trust no one" vibe going around. 

#4- Tons of Klingons

General Martok and loads of other Klingons show up at DS9 ready to do some super-secret, super-serious war mongering. It's up to our favorite Klingon to figure out what's the what. He's none to happy about it but that's ok because while we wait for him to figure everything out there are plenty of rowdy Klingons hilariously wreaking havoc on Quark's. 

#5- The "I need a new suit" scene

Basically the DS9 crew needs to get some secret info to the Cardassians but can't tell anyone about it outright. It's a good thing they just happen to know a tailor who's extra good at spying. 

#6- Kira and Dax Playing Pretend

Kira has always HATED holosuites but Dax finally talks her into to messing around in fake Camelot. I spent several tense moments in this one wishing Worf would say, "I am NOT a merry man."

#7- Dax and Worf Chilling Out Together

Of course, when I say "chilling out" what I mean is hacking wildly at each other with bat'leths while Dax teases Worf about how she'll take it easy on him. This is good stuff. 

#8- Crazy Time! 

This two-parter contains what's probably the most epic hand-to-hand battle in all the Star Trek TV series. The Klingon/Starfleet/Bajoran/Cardassian skirmish which takes place aboard the freaking space station is AMAZING! I mean it's basically Helm's Deep in there. 

I cannot wait for the rest of Season Four. 

DS9: Facets

In high school a friend and I tried to do past life regression on ourselves. This is not even the most ridiculous part of the story. That would be the fact that we attempted to do this with the aid of a cassette tape! (Google if you are unfamiliar with this ancient technology.) It didn't work out. We lay on my second-hand waterbed in my unventilated basement bedroom, closed our eyes, and dreamed up the most ridiculous, lavish, absurd past lives (I'm talking pyramids in ancient Egypt) then sat up, drank cokes and shared our "experiences" between X-Files commercial breaks.

This brings me round to the DS9 bottle episode, "Facets" in which Jadzia undergoes a special Trill ritual whereby she gets to meet and talk to all of Dax's past hosts. Oh and they all inhabit the bodies of her friends. Kira is a sassy old lady. O'Brien is a fidgety mathematician. Quark is someone's mom and Leeta is a super-bendy gymnast. It's fun and all seeing the people we know get to mess around as different characters but eventually you start to wonder where the story is. Finally Sisko is possessed by Jadzia's Hannibal Lector-ish past self and you think, "Oh here we go." But no, that only lasts about five minutes. Finally we get to Odo as Curzon. That's where the actual story is. And, while the last scene between Jadzia and Odo is VERY charming and sweet, I left this plotline feeling very much I like did upon leaving my own phoney-baloney-past-life-regression experience: a mixture of mild amusement and disappointment.

My favorite thing about this episode is actually the Nog runner. He spends the whole episode trying to pass the Starfleet entrance exam while Quark attempts to thwart his efforts. For Rom especially, it's a brilliant story. Things are starting to turn in a new direction for my favorite Ferengis and I love it!

Eyes On The Stars

A few days ago, my friend Lauren shared the following video with me. It's amazing. That's all I'm gonna say.