The Quickening

*** (3 stars out of 5)

The planet Zeist boasts a populace unique in the universe. Composed primarily of hover-boarding punk rockers, they are also sword-wielding immortals. Because there can be only one, they must fight to the death to earn ultimate power known as the Quickening... wait, that's Highlander II: The Quickening. Deep Space Nine The Quickening is much less silly. And much less entertaining.

Because A) We haven't had enough episodes about euthanasia and suicide this season and 2) We didn't have enough evidence that the Dominion are rat bastards, this is the result.

Having long ago defied the Dominion, the people of Teplan were cursed forever with the incurable disease called The Blight. Everyone is born with it, virtually everyone dies from it. They have long enough lives to breed, more or less, and pass along the misery as an object lesson to any other planet that wants to try getting uppity.

This is such an unhappy world that the most revered man is Trevean, a local poisoner. He kevorkians those whose lesions turn red, indicating the Quickening has come, to spare them an agonizing death.

Enter arrogant young Doctor Julian Bashir, from a culture that heals broken arms in seconds, convinced the plague can be eradicated within a week. Horrifically, Bashir didn't anticipate that the Blight runs wild in the presence of his healing purple rays. THIS plague isn't going anywhere, thank you very much, and you can put that in your Halloween pumpkin and smoke it. (I've been living in a condo without a porch for too long: pumpkins are for smoking, right?)

"The Quickening" is another bursting of the bubble that is Bashir's ego. But we WANT him to succeed. No one wants the Federation to end up like this. Any more than Western culture wants to see Africa die of AIDS. Or indeed ANYONE to die of ANYTHING. Unless they're assholes. Or zombies. Or zombie assholes.