Life Support

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Jake Sisko runs into Leanne, a female chum who's just broken up with their mutual acquaintance Orac and wants to date Jake instead. Who can blame her? I saw ORAC on 'Blake's 7' and he's just a plastic box. A high-handed, insufferable plastic box at that!

Kira's bed-buddy Bariel is killed by a radiation accident, but it's one of those NERVE-FORTIFYING radiations I've never heard so much about. The upshot of which is that Dr. Bashir resurrects him. FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!

The Zombie Bishop's boss, Kai Winn, immediately forces him back to work. Bashir begs Winn to release Bariel from the Bajoran/Cardassian peace talks and let him heal, but neither of them will listen to him. What does science know anyway?

Nog's culturally ingrained misogyny offends Leanne's friend Riska on the double date the boy troll bullied his way into. It comes out later that telling a woman to keep quiet and cut up your food IS Nog trying to meet them halfway: traditional Ferengi ladies chew it.

"Life Support" chews us up a plate of confusion. Dueling A and B stories! Wacky antics with Jake and Nog butt up painfully against the morbid tale of Bariel's deterioration. Although on an individual basis I feel they both work emotionally, they are not great tastes that taste great together.

Also, speaking of emotions, I personally disagree with Bashir's decision to let Bariel die rather than burden him with an emotionless positronic brain. It's a tricky subject to define morally: but, if you'll recall, there's a guy out there in the fleet with a positronic brain who loves his kitty cat! I'm just saying: in Star Trek, artificial brains can be modified to feel emotions. Dead ones can't.

And for the record, don't tell women to shut up and chew your food. Unless you want them to test the limits of medicine beyond death... YOURS.