So I’m partly posting this because I like DS9 and wouldn’t mind chatting about its episodes once in a while, so I’d love to hear people’s opinions in general about the episode.

My main reason though is to voice a complaint. In this episode, some self-obsessed genius terraformer guy comes to DS9 for his latest project. Sisko starts meeting this woman Fenna, who keeps disappearing. Despite this he falls for her. It turns out that this woman is a psychic projection created by Nidell, the unhappy wife of the terraformer. She can’t leave him because her species mates for life. At the end, the self-obsessed terraformer makes an uncharacteristic sacrifice, killing himself as part of his final crowning achievement, so that Fenna can be free from their unhappy marriage. At the end, Nidell cannot remember the “relationship” she had with Sisko, and she goes to talk to him. She asks what Fenna was like, and Sisko says “she was just like you.”

And to me, this was such a record scratching moment. Like, let’s set aside the fact that Sisko has had all of three conversations with either of them, so he barely knows either of them. Fenna dressed in bright colors with elaborate hairstyles, she talked about the excitement/anticipation of the promenade at night, she suggested impromptu picnics. As far as we can tell, she’s spontaneous, outgoing, curious, and wants to explore. Compare that to Nidell, who dresses in muted colors, with a more reserved hairstyle. She tells Sisko that she plans to return to her home planet for the rest of her life (and she seems quite young). All that suggests a less spontaneous and curious personality, the sort of person who is happy to live in their hometown their whole life. Which is fine, but it seems to me that these two people are nothing alike, except that they look the same.

I get that Fenna is supposed to be a manifestation of Nidell’s subconscious or something. So maybe she secretly wishes to be like Fenna. But that doesn’t make the line work for me. I’m not certain if we’re expected to agree with Sisko, or if we’re supposed to understand that Sisko is only saying this to be nice, since he still has feelings for Fenna and doesn’t want to hurt Nidell. Either way is weird.

Anyway, that’s my complaint. This episode doesn’t go down in the history books as an exciting one, but I sure did enjoy everyone’s exasperated reactions to the terraformer dude.

Would love to hear other people’s thoughts :)

  • the_sisko@startrek.websiteOP
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    1 year ago

    Yeah…Star Trek has never been particularly good at one-off romance episodes, and this is certainly one of those.

    Yeah, I don’t think that I enjoyed any shoehorned romance with Picard especially…

    The episode also has Dax asking O’Brien to boost the top speed of Seyetik’s ship to warp 9.5 to avoid a potential supernova, a prominent example of Star Trek supernovae being apparently able to travel faster than light. So there’s that.

    Lol now that you mention it, yes that is quite silly.

    I also remember a moment where O’Brien reports that he increased the speed to warp 9.6, and Dax asks “wasn’t the theoretical maximum warp 9.5” and he’s just like “it was.” Top tier O’Brien right there.

    • Value Subtracted@startrek.websiteM
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      1 year ago

      Lol now that you mention it, yes that is quite silly.

      You know, I kind of like that. It’s a little touch of the rules of the ST universe being just a little bit different, and it sheds light on how something like the Romulan supernova can be so devastating.

      Subspace, y’all.