Timothy Lynch's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Episode Reviews

Season 3 - "Explorers"

Review Date: 5/6/95

WARNING:  The article below contains spoilers for DS9's 
"Explorers" -- so explore no further unless you're not worried about 
being spoiled.

In brief:  A few silly moments and effectively zero plot, but basically a 
quiet, pleasant character piece.

======
Brief summary:  Sisko builds an ancient-style Bajoran solar sailing 
ship to prove that ancient Bajorans were capable of such feats, while 
Bashir prepares for the arrival of a former medical school rival.
======

After the two-part episode just concluded, a friend of mine asked, "so, 
does this mean DS9's used up its supply of plot for the year?"  While 
I'm not sure I'd have phrased it quite that way, "Explorers" at least 
would seem to suggest a "yes" in response -- for it was very long on 
character and short on plot.  This isn't necessarily a problem -- 
individual episodes that are primarily character pieces can work very 
well.  It's not something I think I'd suggest for the long term, but it 
serves nicely as an interlude of sorts.

Being a successful interlude, though, depends on the characters being 
done well -- and fortunately, most of "Explorers" managed to do just 
that.  With only a few exceptions, everyone seemed not only to react 
to everything in character, but to offer us a number of insights along 
the way in some cases or simply to cause large doses of giggles.  :-)

The latter case belonged to Dr. Bashir's half of the story, so I'll tackle 
it first.  I was initially worried that Bashir's meeting with the doctor 
who beat him out for the valedictory spot in his class was going to fall 
flat.  Certainly the teaser did nothing to comfort me in that worry, 
throwing things back to the skirt-chasing Bashir we saw alluded to 
two years ago and of whom I was never really convinced.  (Then, of 
course, there's the fact that Leeta, his would-be paramour, struck me 
as nothing more than an attempt to fulfill Trek's Cleavage Quota for 
the sweeps month, which I found something less than appealing.)

However, the "Bashir worries about Dr. Lense's arrival" concept 
ended up working well, what with Odo getting to play with Bashir's 
mind a bit when Lense arrives, Dax's caginess early on (including 
Bashir's less-than-subtle "GO AWAY" message in the teaser), and 
especially Bashir's reaction to being ignored.  Quite honestly, seeing 
Bashir and O'Brien completely sloshed and singing "Jerusalem" in 
O'Brien's quarters had to qualify as one of Trek's best moments of 
character comedy ever.  I had to go back and watch that scene again 
later just to enjoy it again.  O'Brien's "I really *do*! ... not hate you" 
is a particularly classic moment, but the entire scene does a lot to 
outline how far this relationship has come, and is just hilarious to 
boot.

(As for the end of that storyline, with Bashir finding out it was 
mistaken identity ... it was a little anticlimactic, but okay.)

On, then, to the main story -- Sisko and Jake sailing amongst the 
stars.  Again, in terms of plot we had few twists and no surprises -- 
hands up, anyone who thought Jake *wouldn't* end up coming, or 
that they *wouldn't* end up at Cardassia in the end -- but it gave us a 
breather that let us focus on the Sisko family and how things have 
changed since they first arrived at the station, which is fine.

One of the first things I noticed was a subtle distinction between Sisko 
and, for instance, Picard as regards the ship.  Picard might well have 
come back from Bajor just as excited about the old ship records as 
Sisko, and might have been as interested in building the ship as Sisko 
was as well.  However, Picard would probably have been doing it for 
the thrill of archaeological discovery, as opposed to Sisko, who did it 
primarily out of a desire to help Bajor.  I'm not sure the distinction 
was crucial for the show as a whole, but I found it an interesting 
distinction nonetheless.

One element of the show I particularly did *not* like, however, was 
the use to which Dukat was put.  Gul Dukat can be a very interesting 
character when given the chance, and even when he's not allowed to 
be quite as multifaceted as he should, he still manages to be 
deliciously slimy.  Here he was neither -- it felt as though Marc 
Alaimo was called up on semi-short notice and asked "here, read these 
lines for us".  So much has happened lately that should affect Dukat 
(the peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia, the Maquis, and the 
recent devastating defeat of the Obsidian Order) that to use him this 
way is quite simply a waste of material.

However, pretty much everything else we saw in this section of the 
story felt right.  Sisko's passion for building this ship made the 
character far more alive than usual (and makes me wonder how much 
his jaunt into the mirror-universe might have changed him), as did his 
interest in including Jake on the journey.  As for Jake ... his dilemma 
could easily have been made trite, but in my opinion felt extremely 
realistic for a kid his age.  And Jake trying to set his father up on a 
date so that Sisko won't be alone speaks for itself -- it says "grin".  :-)  
[Actually, the moment where Jake almost gets Sisko to believe he's 
joined the Maquis is also pretty damned funny ... but I digress.]

All in all, there's not that much left to say about "Explorers".  It 
wasn't hugely deep, but it was pleasant -- and for want of a better 
word, most of it felt "true".  That's enough for me, at least from time 
to time.

So, some short takes:

-- Nitpick time.  First, we have the ending -- *fireworks*?  Sorry, but 
I didn't like it twelve years ago in "Return of the Jedi" and I like it 
even less here.  Second, it appears that communication time is serving 
as a plot convenience again -- we've seen before that communication 
between DS9 and Cardassia can be instantaneous ("Tribunal" last 
year), so it not working for Sisko and Jake this time smells a little 
funny.

-- I had to start laughing when Bashir talked about confronting Dr. 
Lense "flat-out", given that those words described how I expected 
Bashir to wind up in a few seconds' time...

-- Trivia note:  when I watched the Bashir/O'Brien scene again after 
the show, Lisa turned to me during the "Jerusalem" song and asked 
"did someone say 'mattress' to Mr. Sisko?"  If you know why, feel 
smug.  :-)  If you don't, try to find out -- if I get enough requests, I'll 
answer it in next week's review.  

-- The reference Jake makes to showing a story to Keiko makes me 
wonder if the show hasn't been lounging around for a while.  Given 
that Keiko's on Bajor full-time right now, I wonder how long ago 
Jake showed her the story.

-- Cheers to the CGI for the solar sails.  The entire ship felt very 
spidery and "flimsy" to me, which is what most designs I've seen for 
such concepts tend to look like.  Nicely done.

-- While I'm at it, thumbs up to Sisko's beard.  It definitely looks 
good on him.

That's about it.  So, to wrap up:

Writing:  Nothing earth-shattering in terms of the story, but mostly 
	good character work.
Directing:  Sometimes the camera angles went overboard on the sailing 
	motif, but not usually.  Fine, on the whole.
Acting:  Solid, particularly during the "drunk" scene and for many of 
	the Brooks/Lofton scenes.

OVERALL:  Seems like a 7 to me.  Not bad.

NEXT WEEK:

Quark's mother.  

Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tlynch@alumni.caltech.edu
"Why not [confront her] right now?"
"Because you can barely *stand up* right now."
"Good point ... good point." [thud]
			-- Bashir and O'Brien
--
Copyright 1995, Timothy W. Lynch.  All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
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