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L.I. Underhill is a media critic and historian specializing in pop culture, with a focus on science fiction (especially Star Trek) and video games. Their projects include a critical history of Star Trek told through the narrative of a war in time, a “heretical” history of The Legend of Zelda series and a literary postmodern reading of Jim Davis' Garfield.

6 Comments

  1. K. Jones
    November 20, 2015 @ 8:25 am

    I don't mind that Quark will effectively straddle both sides of himself, and alternately be used for comedic purposes as well as those gray area Bogart moments. Certainly the latter is superior to the former, but it's not a case like with Q where one set of episodes actually is reductive toward the others, just because Quark has some nice built-in elements that just make for genuinely funny – but oftentimes kind of moving – stories. His brother and mother, his career as a host and entertainer. He absolutely radiates mischief and good humor about it, like a Romantic pirate figure. He'd betray you for money but never harm a hair on your head. I've been seeing that lately in another "Star" universe in the form of Jim Cummings' Hondo Ohnaka, and it's an archetype I quite enjoy.

    But now I've got to fess up that when I started to watch this last night for review I passed right out, so I'll get back to further analysis of the episode itself. I can remember off-hand the Kajada and Bashir bits, the cloaked mystery man stuff, all that, but it's the supporting roles from the main cast I can't really recall and it sounds like some great Dax stuff, and more solid Benjamin and Odo.

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  2. Froborr
    November 20, 2015 @ 9:23 am

    I'm not clear where you're getting polyamory from Bashir's behavior? He expresses attraction and interest in multiple people, but he's not actually in a relationship with anyone–and as we'll see later, when he is in a relationship with one person, he seems pretty content with monogamy for the duration.

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  3. Josh Marsfelder
    November 20, 2015 @ 2:12 pm

    It's mostly because of his attitude to Sisko in "A Man Alone" that does it for me right now. My reading it into his attitude towards Kira here is basically an extrapolation of that to kind of soft redeem his actions and an attempt to further my hyperqueer reading of DS9 I'm quite fond of.

    Certainly making a pass at anything that moves isn't polyamory (I should know), but being willing to commit to multiple people is. To me he at least seems game for that at this point.

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  4. elvwood
    November 21, 2015 @ 10:26 am

    Thanks for explaining about the reworking of Bashir-as-Vantika – that was a cratering moment for me in an otherwise fun episode. I really can't imagine how anyone would go about reworking a vocal performance to that extent in dubbing, and I think it was a bit crazy to try!

    I have nothing else to add, really, except to say that you continue to make a lot of sense in these posts. I'm glad I'm managing to keep up with the DS9 watching; hopefully I'll be able to keep going past the point where I gave up back in the 90s…

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  5. Josh Marsfelder
    November 22, 2015 @ 2:44 pm

    Please don't force yourself 🙂

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  6. Daru
    December 21, 2015 @ 12:08 am

    I quite liked this episode, especially the transhumanist elements. really enjoying your parallel analysis of both shows at the moment.

    The performances of Dax, Julian and Quark I remember especially enjoying here. Nice one, thanks Josh.

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