Explorers

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Bashir meets Leeta.

Sisko grows a goatee.

(Leeta!)

Bashir tries to work up the nerve to speak to the woman who got the top grade in his class: Dr. Elizabeth Lense; leader of the intergalactic peacekeepers called the Lensmen.

(Leeta!!)

Sisko and Jake build and sail a tiny solar-powered spaceship from 800-year-old Bajoran blueprints.

(Also, Leeta!!!)

Jake works up the nerve to tell his father that he's been accepted to study at the Pennington School in New Zealand, proving that in the future that country makes writers as well as criminals. Hey-yo!

Ben's story about leaving home for the first time was poignant to me when I first saw this. In the summer of 1995, I was about to leave my home for the first time, too.

The conversation between Julian and Elizabeth is something of a comparison between starship-based TNG and station-based DS9. Writer Ira Behr was pushing for more long-term humanity and less lifeless one-shots of self-importance. Whether it always worked is a matter for debate, but this episode is an exemplar: father-son bonding and drunk male bonding with Bashir and O'Brien on a sing-a-long.

Enjoy a pleasant and peaceful moment while it lasts: even the Cardies are only shooting off fireworks today.

"Explorers" is charming and fun and I never got over the opening scene with the first appearance of Chase Masterson's breathy bombshell Leeta. A nuanced, well-rounded, full-figured performance! Are we to assume that she did, indeed, have a cough? Are we to further assume that Dr. Bashir did, indeed, examine her chest? (Lucky Bashir.)
Next time on Star Trek: Deep Space Leeta-- Homina Homina Homina.