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Plot – Talk about being able to get the audiences attention
immediately with a teaser that sees Kirk in a foul mood ordering the Enterprise
into Romulan territory apparently against Starfleet orders. Is this really the
fabled season three of TOS that is so bad because this is riveting stuff to
watch from the off. Given all of the implausible plots that have occurred over
the previous two seasons you might think that the crew may believe that this is
a clone or doppleganger that is giving this ridiculous order. The writing is
extremely tight from the off, throwing us off guard and straight into a very
dangerous situation.
How much fun is it seeing Kirk masquerading as a Romulan? I
love the fact that the only thing he has to do to pull this off is to have his
eyebrows slanted and put on one of their wooly outfits. When Troi suffers the
same fate in The Face of the Enemy she suffers far greater indignities. This
ticks all the boxes of a good spy story; secrets and lies, and of course
undercover work.
Character – Kirk is not above criticising Spock, dismissing
McCoy and giving a Romulan Commander who could blow them out of the sky a whole
load of mouth. What could possibly have happened to make the usually amiable
Captain Kirk so dismissive and aggressive? He’s willing to be the scapegoat
should anything go wrong with this deception. Kirk is risking his career and
his reputation in order to bring back the cloaking device.
It looks like this is going to be a Kirk heavy episode but
as soon as the sultry Romulan Commander appears we venture into Spock
development. It’s the rarest of things to see Spock indulging in any kind of
romantic interlude, but given the common heritage between species it is not
exactly surprising. Nimoy plays the scenes with his usual superb restraint,
which makes them so much more compelling and less saccharine than they
otherwise might have been. I love the observation that Spock is more than adept
enough to command his own Starship. It’s an extremely valid point and one that
the series never dealt with in any great depth. The erotic hand fondling
received a lot of complaints at the time by those hard-nosed Star Trek fans
that felt that Spock shouldn’t be indulging in this kind of romantic nonsense.
It’s salvaged by two very important points – it’s extremely sweet in its
execution and doesn’t betray Spock’s character in the slightest and the whole
thing is a huge ploy anyway and can be written off as such…
…until the glorious moment at the climax where Spock
realises that the Romulan Commander had a far profounder effect on him than he
ever would have realised. Is there hope for a relationship for Spock yet?
Performance – Shatner gives one of his most commanding
performances in this episode, one so good that you could not tell the apathy
that is about to enter his performance style in the third season as the scripts
get steadily worse.
Great Dialogue – ‘I hoped that you and I exchanged something
more permanent.’
Production – Star Trek has a penchant for bombastic music
but the score for The Enterprise Incident is just perfect, capturing the drama
of the face off between the Enterprise and the Romulans and constantly
reminding us of the diplomatic stakes latent in Kirk’s risky strategy. I’m far
more of a fan of this style of music, that punctuates dramatically rather than
the wallpaper orchestral bilge that polluted the latter TNG years. I don’t care
if it is intrusive as long as it is memorable and enjoyable.
It’s time to talk aesthetics because there is clearly a huge
difference between how the Romulans are presented here and how they would be
presented in the Berman era of Trek. I
think the look of the Romulan Commander is extremely fun, reminding me very
much of Catwoman and other catsuited villainesses of the time. Because Joanne
Linville gives such a commanding performance, she owns that costume and refuses
to lose any authority in it. However, the Romulans themselves with their
gladiatorial helmets and bizarre knitted costumes do look faintly ridiculous.
But at least they are impossible to forget, unlike the grey suited, stiff
necked Romulans of later years.
Best moment – I adore the moment where the Romulan Commander
informs the Enterprise that they will be processed and sent back to their
territory and Scotty in a moment of human braveness and integrity tells her
that they will resist and are willing to be blown out of the sky if necessary.
If there was ever a demonstration of human foolhardiness in the face of danger,
this is it.
It’s the moment where I realised that this entire episode
has been one massive ruse but the ‘death’ of Captain Kirk at Spock’s hands is a
terrific moment that must surely count in any of the best of TOS lists. Given
Shatner’s supposed egotistical presence on set, I bet DC Fontana really enjoyed
writing that scene. They were hardly going to write out the main character but
the moment is so well played by Deforest Kelly, even I was convinced by his
ruse.
Realising that her career is over for letting the cloaking device by taken from right under her nose, the Romulan Commander orders her ship to fire on the Enterprise with her on board. Loyal to the last, and it’s the last gambit she has to play. What an extraordinary character she is. How exciting to have a woman play the villainous lead and to be written for in such a complex way.
A reason to watch this episode again – With Captain Kirk
acting out of character from the off, this is a terrific piece of drama that
keeps you wrongfooted throughout. It’s the best Romulan episode by a country
mile as well, giving us rare insight into one of the most feared and elusive
species in the Alpha Quadrant. Everything clicks expertly into place in The
Enterprise Incident; the writing is constantly surprising and effective, the
direction is taut and visually memorable, the performances are faultless and
the music truly compliments the action. There are few TOS episodes that reach
this level of competence and aside from a few design decisions, I would have no
issue with showing this episode to a modern-day audience. It’s the twists and
turns, the performances and the suspense that all impress here and those things
are timeless. The Enterprise Incident is the second episode of the much-derided
series three of TOS (and with good reason) but it is genuinely one of the best
episodes of the shows entire run. The climax where they get the cloaking device
to work and evade the Romulans is to date my favourite scene from this series.
***** out of *****
Character - It’s extremely useful to have the scene depicting Burnham meeting Georgiou for the first time and, since the first two episodes can be taken as an extended pilot (or prologue), it provides the right context to give the mutiny that Burnham is currently committing some real context. Most Star Trek shows see a crew coming together in their first episode and so the relationships grow organically but Discovery bucked that trend and opened on existing relationships that we had to get up to speed with pretty quick sharpish. Whilst that was fine and dandy, asking us to invest in a betrayal when have only just started to understand these relationships was pretty hollow. With this scene we can see how aloof (well, Vulcan) Burnham was when she was first invited to join Georgiou’s crew and given the difference in her performance in the scenes in the current day you can really see how her life on the Shenzhou has changed her and tapped into her humanity. It’s probably the most vital scene in the opening episodes, if it’s Burnham’s journey we are charting. Sarek communicating across light years to consul Burnham is something quite unusual for Trek, it strikes me more as Star Wars (Luke/Obi Wan) but it does stress the closeness between the two characters. Burnham is no slouch when it comes to getting herself out of a tight spot, thinking her way out of an impossibly dangerous situation involving a forcefield and a room that is open to space. Georgiou was worried that one day Burnham’s Vulcan side might trump her humanity. She’s a contradiction of logic and emotion these days, a true hybrid of her mixed race. Her breakdown on the transporter pad following Georgiou’s death and abandonment shows that her humanity can burst like a dam. Voq and Burnham scrapping is very interesting, given later developments in the season. She pleads guilty of treason and mutiny, to starting the war but I still think she is someone it is easy to point the finger at than anything. Starfleet is angry and it needs someone to blame. Unfortunately, because of her questionable conduct around the beginning of this conflict, Burnham is arrested and charged with penal servitude. Who knows what is going to become of her? Let’s find out… Martin-Green is stunning during the trial scene, delivering a powerful speech that is just about as downbeat as I can imagine this show getting. Amazing how good the actors can be seen to be when the pace slackens and the camera stops moving.
Amazing how much more comfortable Yeoh seems during a simple intimate dialogue scene at the beginning of the episode in the way that she is so unpersuasive during her big hitter sequences like squaring up to Burnham with a phaser on the bridge (listen to how she says ‘you violated the chain of command’ like you or I would say ‘you forgot to get the milk’). Georgiou does her utmost to avoid war with the Klingons and strikes me as a believable advocate for peace. Unfortunately, her tagline (‘we come in peace’) taps into T’Kuvma’s paranoia about the Federation. Yeoh’s most impressive moment comes with a silent reaction to the destruction of the Europa. ‘Make it hurt, Saru’ she says of his plan to destroy the Klingon ship. All that diplomacy goes out the window when one of their own is killed.
The look that Saru and Burnham share when they first clap eyes on each other is priceless. His tactics are devious, which Georgiou approves of.
Great Dialogue - ‘T’Kuvma lured Starfleet to a massacre. It’s time I repaid him.’
Production - The Klingon fleet facing off against the Shenzhou is a fearsome visual. You genuinely get the sense that the shit is about to hit the fan for the Federation ship. It took DS9 six seasons to amass two great fleets to slug it out. If Discovery is to go for the action jugular, it’s nice to see them aiming this high. The Klingon ships belch great plumes of green fire which achieves great damage whereas the Federation ships look like kids spitting into the wind. Watch and gasp as the Europa is basically bitten into by T’Kuvma’s vessel and then explodes in spectacular fireworks. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.
Worst moment - Still too many bloody tilted angles. Do the camera guys know how to hold a camera straight? The last time I watched something this visually jarring was Battlefield Earth and for the same reasons, and we know how that turned out. I remember reading interviews with David Livingston saying that he wanted to bring a more dramatic visual style to Trek, include high and low and tilted angles, and how he snuck them in to episodes as much as he could without the execs getting in a paddy (Go watch DS9’s Crossover, he went to town in that one). But it seems that the tide has well and truly turned these days and whilst I understand the need to be visually arresting and unique, it shouldn’t come at the expense of the performances and storytelling because it is so distracting it pulls your attention away from the important things.
Despite trying to give T’Kuvma (say his name in a melodramatic growl like the Klingons do, it’s so much fun) some backstory (including flashbacks to when he was a child), the Klingon dialogue scenes are still hampered by the language barrier. In the same way that excessive technobabble used to switch me off in TNG and VOY, these inexplicably incomprehensible scenes had a similar effect. Maybe I have become a lazy television watcher and expect everything in English, or maybe these scenes plod on in dreary Klingonese and feel as though they are adding little to the overall story. TNG found a way to make the Klingons palatable and that was to stage their politics and their world as though they were the most theatrical of Shakespeare plays. Discovery seems intent in keeping them as alien as possible. A laudable goal, but pretty alienating as far as I’m concerned. It might be hard to believe but I don’t watch science fiction to listen to men in freaky masks babble an incoherent language, but I think that is exactly what the non-SF think. This material would confirm a non-fans fears. There’s a moment where it looks like Burnham’s head might be burst like a massive spot, Game of Thrones style (and the scream she lets out is agonising).
Result - Much more engaging, but essentially because this is an hour-long action sequence that never lets up the tension. You’re talking truly cinematic visuals that accompany Battle at Binary Stars (and I would expect so too, the reported budget per episode exceeds that of many movies); epic space battles, ships detonating in slow motion, sets being torn to pieces, insane sweeps and zooms through wreckage into battle, hand to hand combat…the action is relentless. Is this the Star Trek we have come to know and love? The one which indulges philosophy, morality and huge science fiction ideas? Not at all. But maybe we have to move with the times and this dizzyingly accomplished action proves to be extremely watchable on a ‘cor wow!’ level whilst my brain remained quite unengaged. It’s Trek based on adrenalin and not intelligence. I’ve certainly not seen anything thus far in Discovery that suggests it is better television than the more dialogue driven Trek of old, just that it is much more expensively produced. I like the fact that the Starfleet gets an arse kicking so early in the show and the attempts to shake hands with the Klingons ends in bloodshed. There’s a certain arrogance about Roddenberry’s vision for the show that deserves a bloody nose every now and again. DS9 was adept at dishing this out and it looks like Discovery is following suit. Burnham remains an interesting character and I’m really pleased that she is called to account for her actions and that her fate remains ambiguous, right up to the last scene. This kind of serialised Trek is well worth exploring, as long as there is one character or a crew to follow to make the journey worthwhile. With Georgiou for the chop, Burnham has become our protagonist and she’s a disgraced and imprisoned one. With no hint of the ship in the series title the biggest question is where do we go from here? As a piece of television, this is damn near flawless. The action is relentless; full of tension, drama and smart set pieces. As an episode of Star Trek, it is unpredictable and exciting, but still very vague as to its intentions as a series. Entering the third hour of a show you shouldn’t still be wondering what the hell it is about.
**** out of *****
Character - One of the central reasons to watch and enjoy Discovery is Sonequa Martin-Green’s terrific performance as Michael Burnham, a half human-half Vulcan character who goes on the (very Star Trek) journey of discovering herself throughout the first season of this show. In a series of shifting regular characters, Burnham is an anchor and Martin-Green’s wonderfully cold and yet humane turn really keeps the series afloat during the rockier moments of the season. I really liked how Burnham refused to think that the mysterious presence in the binary star was automatically hostile, preferring instead to see it as a something lost or perhaps asking for help. She’s completely wrong, but it’s a very human approach. Her fear that ultimately turns into laughter as she is flying through space is gorgeous, mirroring that of the audience. The fear of the unknown and the beauty that surrounds her. The Vulcan Hello charts Burnham’s downfall and cements her reputation as the (accidental) catalyst to the start of a war between the Klingons and the Federation. This gives her a dramatic presence in the series but I think it is worth pointing out, because everybody will be pointing the finger at her in the future, that the Klingons were going to attack anyway and anything she does here merely gives them an excuse to bring forward their plan. She’s more of a scapegoat than anything. I’m not sure I buy her reason for wanting to open fire on the Klingons. She says it’s saying hello in a way that they understand, which would make sense if they were on conflicting terms but it just feels like open provocation to me. It’s quite a leap to say that the Klingons will respect you if you say hi with a torpedo up your arse. It feels like creating false drama, a character acting in an illegal way to pump up the tension. And Discovery is never short of that. Certainly, for her to attack her captain and commit mutiny is a massive step to make on the basis of a psychological hunch.
I think it was Kate Mulgrew who once said that Star Trek comes with its own language and way and talking and acting and you can either adapt to that level of performance or you can’t. She was referring to the actress that she replaced in the role of Janeway, but she may as well have been talking about Michelle Yeoh who, despite being a very strong actress of some repute, looks extremely awkward and stiff in the Trek universe. There is a way of making technobabble sound effortlessly like Shakespeare, and Yeoh simply doesn’t have it. Even when she tries to display humour it comes across as forced an unconvincing (the gage about noting the date and time of an agreement between her officers). Interestingly, she would settle down a little in the second episode before being written out of the series for some time.
To fear everything is to learn nothing, Saru is an intriguing new character and the only other person on the Shenzhou to exhibit any kind of personality so grab onto him and his quirks as quickly as you can. I thought we were heading into TOS territory with three central characters heading the series with Georgiou, Burnham and Saru taking the main chunk of the action. That was never the case but they are focus in the first episode and written with a small degree of familiarity and humour. We know relatively little about his species beyond the fact that they can sense death, but his caution, put downs and unwillingness to put himself in danger shows promise. At one point Burnham says that Saru is the only one talking on the crew about the potential upcoming conflict with the Klingons but that is only because he is the only character that has been allowed to exhibit a personality. His ability to sense the coming of death adds a layer of tension. That might be an interesting angle to explore throughout the series.
Production - The title sequence and music both score a win for me, for once erring on the side of subtlety rather than melodrama. I’m used to Trek title sequences throwing a huge orchestra and vast interstellar vistas at me but Discovery instead pumps for a memorable but low-key theme tune that hits all the recognisably Trek notes and a progression of beautifully drawn images that represent the franchise in a vivid way. You might think it oversimplifies the franchise by reducing it to a number of sketched pictures but it suggests a back to basics approach that I wholeheartedly endorse.
One of the most beautifully produced shows I have ever watched, Discovery really marks out a new era of science fiction that is genuinely reaching cinematic goals. There is no part of this episode that isn’t epic in it’s visual scope, from vast planetary landscapes with huge moons in the background (I love the creepy betentacled creatures that scuttle and chitter in to view) to a dazzling binary star system lit up by the majesty of a nearby sun. The transport technology is awesome, Burnham and Georgiou looking as if they are literally turning to dust in the desert. If Trek celebrates the beauty of the unknown then I cannot think of many sequences where that is explored more viscerally than Burnham flying through the binary system and landing on the dangerous looking and yet strangely beautiful Klingon vessel. Discovery feels like it is exploring the unknown visually and geographically. Hand to hand combat in space with both combatants caught in the hand of gravity is incredibly ambitious.
Worst moment - I want to get out of the way one of my biggest bugbears with Discovery and that is the interminable scenes with the Klingons talking in their own language. Firstly, I fail to understand how the Klingons look so different from their TOS counterparts given that this is set 10 years before the beginning of the Original Series. I get that Discovery wants to have its own visual impact with the species, but in order for this to fit in they need to evolve (devolve?) into wimpish looking orange men with goatees within a decade and then mutate into the Klingons that we know and recognise from hundreds of Trek episodes set during the TNG/DS9/VOY era. That’s rather a dramatic transformation for a species. It was these extended dialogue scenes in Klingonese that kept me at a distance from Discovery and forced me to watch the first episode three times before I finally moved on to episode two. They go on for the length of a bible, feature actors already struggling under heavy prosthetics with the addition hindrance of a language that the audience (except hardened Trek fans) understand. It’s a massive disconnect between the show and the audience, especially the casual audience, which I assume the producers were hoping to attract. I can imagine a non-SF fan switching on Discovery, seeing it’s main villains screaming their heads of in unintelligible dialogue but trying to pull it off like Shakespeare and switching off almost immediately. For Trek fans (which I guess I have to label myself, because I have reviewed almost 500 episodes), I can see the creative decision to allow this species to exist in its own right and free from the Federation and it’s spoken language and customs (because our go to Klingon was always Worf, who was corrupted by humanity at every turn) but in practice these scenes (some truly impressive design aside) are inexplicably inarticulate and boring. It’s no way to open a show, frankly.
I wish they hadn't done that - I fail to understand why directors assume that science fiction has to be shot in such a discordant way, all tilted camera angles and over exposure, to overstress that this is not a regular drama. There were points during The Vulcan Hello when I wanted the camera to fix itself just so I could get a good look at the sets and concentrate on the performances but the pace, fast cuts, over lighting and sweeps and angles really served to distract. It suggests a lack of trust in the actors to constantly shoot them in such a jarring, attention seeking way that forces the attention on the direction over the performances.
A reason to watch the episode again - A show that offers a two-hour prologue rather than a pilot and is definitely serving up Trek for a post-JJ Abrams audience; Discovery offers a visually stunning but troubled opening episode. It asks its audience to take a lot for granted (the relationships between the three central characters are well established before the show begins), to be extremely patient (half the cast don’t feature nor the titular starship) and to suffer interminable scenes of Klingons spouting their own language. Countering that there are some truly dazzling special effects sequences, a sense of foreboding at a potential conflict with the Klingons, excitement at exploring the unknown and a pleasing feeling that this is a show that won’t set it’s stall immediately but build its foundations slowly through the first handful of episodes. TNG, DS9, VOY and Enterprise all laid out their intentions, their cast of characters and their settings quickly and created an identity in their pilot episodes but Discovery is going for a more slow burn, serialised approach. How things have changed. There’s an immediacy to the material, which is furiously paced and packed with visual interest but there were definitely points where I wished it would slow down and let me get close to the characters, which is my anchor into any series. By the end of The Vulcan Hello there is a mutiny that is sold as a huge moment for the characters but since we haven’t gotten to know them well enough it yet it feels like an unearned moment of drama, and rather hollow. It’s a deathly serious show at this point, lacking the colourful characters and humour that I have come to associate with Trek that makes all the technobabble and po-faced drama palatable. Burnham is an immediately interesting character but that is mostly down to Martin-Green’s nuanced performance, whereas I never believed in Georgiou for a second because Yeoh really struggles in this environment. Given conflict with the Klingons is a staple of Trek there is not a lot here that is particularly original, just how the material is presented. The Vulcan Hello works on a moment by moment basis, mostly because the budget allows for a beautifully realised universe, but you will have no clue what this show is going to be about once you reach the titles and I think that’s a tricky way to start a show.
*** out of *****
Plot – There are times when TNG exudes a glorious sense of
familiarity with the characters and you just smile at the warmth that is exuding
from the screen. The opening of The Host is one of those times. Crusher wants
to get her new Ambassadorial lover to her quarters and bonk his brains out but
Data, failing to spot all the right social cues, instead wishes to take away
her lover and do a two-hour study. Cue a sequence of lies to keep Data busy so
Crusher can sneak off and get her end away. It’s not exactly comedy gold, but
it did make me smile.
The Trill are an opportunity to do someone a little unusual
with an alien species, to not just throw some ridges on an actors head and have
that as a shortcut that the person on screen is an extra-terrestrial. It’s
taking a much more psychological approach, where storytelling possibilities are
enticing, where the Trill is a host carrier for a symbiont that passes from
person to person and carries their memories with them. I remember when I first
watched this as a child feeling excited by the possibilities of such a species
and that kind of psychological insight you could tap into, even then. That episodes
such as Facets, Rejoined, Equilibrium, Afterimage were all a result of this
bold concept that TNG put out there is all to their credit. The potential was
fully realised and I’m sure that there were still more stories to tell, post
DS9.
Character – Trust Picard to cut through Beverley’s kinky
fun. She’s being kissed and complimented and he cuts through all the fun with a
comms. She acts like a child that has been caught doing something naughty. I
love it when Dr Bev is allowed to behave like a human being instead of a
Starfleet medical drone. It’s in her downtime moments where Gates McFadden
really shines in the role and where I can’t imagine Dr Pulaski taking her
place. The second she starts admitting that she is blissfully happy in love it
is patently clear that she is about to receive terrible news that her lover has
suffered a terrible fate. That’s just the way episodic television goes.
Just look at Picard’s face when Odan states that Dr Crusher
is an extraordinary woman. Never before has he tried to change the subject so
quickly.
Imagine the difficulty for Troi to counsel Beverley who has
fallen in love with a man who comes from a species that can change host bodies
and he know inhabits the body of Troi’s former lover. Only on Star Trek.
Performance – Good grief. The gorgeous scene where Deanna
winds Dr Bev up as she is getting beauty treatments displays a lovely, natural
chemistry between the two characters. ‘Sometimes I wish you weren’t so damn
empathic…’
Great Dialogue – ‘You can’t be open to love if you can’t
risk pain’ might sound like a dreadful line but anybody who has been in love
and felt pain knows just how much truth there is in that statement.
Best moment – All the unspoken relationships amongst the
crew that give this story it’s substance. This might be a love story about Dr
Bev and Odan but the most powerful moments come from Picard and Troi when it
looks like Beverley and Riker have been snapped up. It’s one of the few times
where I feel it was a good idea that they never explored these relationships on
TNG because what is unspoken is much more powerful than what is said aloud. Even
better is the weirdness that now exists between Beverley and Riker now they
have done the deed.
Worst moment – The negotiations. They are merely an excuse
for Odan to be on the ship. Why we have to sit through all the preparations and
then the actual negotiations says something about episodic television of the
time. Nowadays we would get to the juicy stuff of the Trill plot much quicker
and explore the implications of the gender transition with much more detail and
(hopefully) satisfaction).
I wish they hadn’t done that – In The Host it is
acknowledged that transportation damages the host symbiont of any Trill.
Obviously, that is something that they worked on over time because it would
have been a major plot complication in many a DS9 episode. Either that or the
writers just chose to ignore the continuity that they set up here.
What’s odd is that Riker literally seems to become Odan the
second the symbiont is inside of him. Going forward that is the suggestion that
the host is the dominant personality and that all the previous hosts memories
swim beneath the surface. Here the episode seems to suggest Riker’s personality
is subsumed and the previous host is now in control of the body.
When Dr Bev talks about how she cannot move past the fact
that the host has moved from one gender to another it sounds as though she is
talking for the entirety of humanity, and that is one of the more unfortunate
decisions that TNG ever made. It would have been so much braver (for the time,
but complete normal these days), and more interesting had she chosen to pursue
the relationship whilst Odan is in a female host. Essentially it seems to be
saying that bisexuality or pansexuality does not exist in the future and that’s
not a statement any show should be seen to be making.
A reason to watch this episode again – First off, massive
kudos for TNG for trying to tell a fairly radical story, especially for the
time. It takes real nuts to tackle the subject of bisexuality in such a
creative fashion and for a while I was convinced that this was going to be an
absolute classic. Beverley’s relationship with Odan feels very real and the two
actors have terrific chemistry and I love how the show shifts into
uncomfortable territory when the symbiont shifts to Riker and the romance
continues. The Trill are an intriguing new species and one that DS9 would be
able to tackle in far more depth over seven seasons, but this is a fair attempt
to explore the idea of lifetimes shifting from one person to another in a
single episode. Where the episode dives and crashes is in the last scene where
Dr Bev fails to acknowledge that humanity can move on from very strict gender
ideals. Newsflash – we’re already making huge strides in that direction. How
much bolder would it have been for Beverley to extend the possibility of a romance
to female Odan and to suggest that sexuality is a far more malleable thing than
was the norm in the early nineties. Instead it seems to putting a halt on
stories that explore sexuality in the 24th century, which is
unthinkable, when there is so much that could have been explored there. When
Star Trek came around to exploring Trill romance again it did so in DS9’s
Rejoined where same sex passion is a perfectly normal, unquestioned delight. The
Host is trying very hard to be revolutionary. Instead it’s reductive and
exclusionist. And that’s a crying shame because everybody is so committed. Gates
McFadden has never been better.
*** out of *****
