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Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Meridian

"What are you going to do with Kira in a holosuite? ...No. Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

DS9 does Brigadoon only with less singing, more technobable, and one of the least convincing romances in TV history.

If you want a really good one episode romance featuring Dax then watch 'Rejoined'. That's a great episode. Do not watch 'Meridian'. It is not, in any way, a great episode. I'd even go so far as to say that it is probably the worst episode of season three. Yes, even worse than that one where everyone got super horny because Troi's mom had a headache. Even those involved in its creation have gone on the record to denounce it. Ira Steven Behr even went so far as to say "I am a moron" for coming up with the idea of doing a Brigadoon episode in the first place.

While having a nose around the Gamma Quadrant, because fuck the Dominion, they're not the boss of us, the Defiant stumbles on Meridian, a planet that shifts between this universe and another every sixty years. This being a Star Trek show, the crew naturally beam down to have a chinwag with the locals. There Jadzia meets Deral and falls head over heels in love with him. I can only assume that this was because something about this planet was messing with her brain chemistry, because I cannot for the life of me understand why the hell Jadzia Dax of all people would fall for someone who has less personality than a self-sealing stem bolt.

Despite being played by a fresh faced Brett Cullen, one of the best character actors around, Deral is... I want to say boring, but even that feels like too exciting a word to describe this guy. A bucket on a stick with a smiley face drawn on it would've been more compelling and probably have better chemistry with Terry Farrell. You just never once buy that Jadzia would ever be attracted to this walking Marks and Spencer's sock catalogue let alone want to throw away her life and career just to stay with him on his equally boring ass planet.

Back at the station, Kira is being harassed by an alien named Tiron (Jeffrey Combs, making his Star Trek debut) who will not take no for an answer. She even pretends that Odo is her boyfriend to get rid of him, which I find shockingly out of character. This is Kira Nerys we're talking about here. She's not the type of person to invent a fake boyfriend (oddly forgetting she has a real one) just to get rid of a creep like Tiron. She'd normally just put their heads through the bulkhead. It's not like this guy is an ambassador she has to play nice around. He's just some business associate of Quark's.

Things then take an icky turn when Tiron hires Quark to make him a holographic sex slave version of Kira. Which is utterly disgusting, but also not at all surprising because that is exactly what people would do if they had this technology now. To achieve this he hacks into the station computer and steals her personnel file. And gets caught by Odo. But instead of slapping the cuffs on him for committing a serious felony, not to mention seriously violating Kira's privacy, he gets let off with nothing more serious than a practical joke. For people who constantly talk about wanting to throw Quark in jail, Odo and Kira sure do seem to go out of their way to not throw Quark in jail.


Notes and Quotes

--Combs, who is one of Star Trek's most prolific guest starts, originally auditioned to play Will Riker, but lost out to Jonathan Frakes, who also directed this episode.

--The Huntington Library Botanical Gardens in Pasadena, California was used for the exteriors of Meridian.

--The Defiant's bridge has undergone some minor changes since we last saw it in 'The Search'.

--The yellowish markings on Meridians' faces has to be the laziest alien makeup in the franchise's history.

Kira: "Odo, I know you don't need to eat, but did you ever try it anyway?"
Odo: "Once. Not long after I was first able to assume the humanoid form."
Kira: "And...?"
Odo: "... And since I don't have taste buds it was very unsatisfying. Not to mention messy."
Kira: "Messy?!"
Odo: "I'd rather not talk about it."

Dax: "I wish we'd had time to beam down to the surface and take a closer look."
O'Brien: "Yeah, but I'd hate to have run into a Jem'Hadar patrol while we were down there picking flowers."

One and a half out of four Gene Kelly musicals.
--
Mark Greig is all aglow and alive. What a day this has been. What a rare mood he's in. Why, it's almost like being in love More Mark Greig

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, this was one of the weakest DS9 episodes. The romance was just never credible. And it grates on me too some of this stuff Quark gets away with...Invasive Procedures in Season 4 is even more unbelievable.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Let me only give you my heartfelt thanks for taking this one off my hands. :-)

    I can only co-sign all you wrote.

    ReplyDelete

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