Dr. Bashir, I Presume?

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Two of my favourite 24th Century doctors in one room? Can you say crossover, cats and kittens?

Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, director of holographic imaging and programming at the Jupiter Research Station, is a towering intellect and a towering jerk. He designed the Emergency Medical Hologram in use across the Federation, and now he's chosen Dr. Bashir as the template for the Long-Term Medical Hologram or LMH.

"You'll be able to irritate hundreds of people you've never even met," O'Brien suggests.

Sisko wonders aloud whether this kook is talking about replacing all doctors.

"No of course not. Why is everyone so worried about holograms taking over the universe?"

Zimmerman responds to Bashir's uncomfortable request to leave his parents out of the interview process by contacting them immediately. Also he asks Leeta out. Leeta is so excited when Lewis offers her a job on Jupiter that she falls out of her towel. As God intended.

Richard Bashir has managed to keep a perfectly wonderful wife, but otherwise seems to have failed at everything he's ever tried. His chief success is very illegal, and very secret:

He had his son genetically engineered.

Unmodified Jules was falling behind intellectually at age 6, so his parents paid to amp up his brain and tweak his reflexes and such. Amsha Bashir tells her son it was done out of love, not shame. And no, he's not just a human Furby.

Admiral Bennett, (who loves his new holocommunicator and will use it forever and not, a week from now, get bored with it and throw it in the back of his closet like everyone else) has the task of informing Bashir's dad of his two year prison sentence. By taking all the blame, Richard saves his son's career.

Bennett reminds everyone that the stiffness of these penalties are supposed to stop people making more super-zealot Khan Singhs like they did two hundred years ago. (Bennett accidentally revealed himself to be an unmodified, imperfect human: Khan was born FOUR hundred years ago.)

I'm sure he was making some kind of point, but I was more interested in Leeta and her traitorous towel. Also more interested in Leeta is kind hearted, cowardly, beautiful-on-the-inside Rom: which is why he wins her heart from Zimmerman.

Love, ambition, secrets, lies, hard choices, and taking responsibility. All that and a sense of humor, too? Heck yeah, I love this.  (And it doesn't hurt my mood any that I saw the trailer for the upcoming Trek movie today!)

So what's the verdict on "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?"? Well, the major fallout is that whenever O'Brien makes Bashir stand way back or close one eye or hobbles the doctor with broken knees, it's not cheating at darts. It's promoting FAIRNESS.

Darkling

** (2 stars out of 5)

Fully recovered from her Neelix-ectomy, Kes finds the Mikhal Travellers... (heavy breathing) "INTRIGUING". Especially her irritatingly handsome Zahir. The Doctor thinks this bad boy is bad news.  Of course, if Kes likes the bad boys, has the Doctor got a suggestion for her!

'Kes, do you like Original Series episodes about gladiators? Uh, I mean, stalkers?'

He's 'improving' his personality by merging elements he admires from historical programs. I must say these holo-programs seem to take wild liberties with likenesses: maybe no pictures of Gandhi survived the centuries, but why not T'Pau? She wasn't Asian-Vulcamerican!

Anyway, that's the least of the Doctor's problems: he's picked up character traits of sleazy creepy creepiness. Perhaps his mental stew needed less Byron. (Seriously? Byron? Why not Hemingway while you're at it? Just really load in the crazy! Also, load a holo-shotgun...)

Apparently, the Doctor was creeping in the bushes while Kes was... doing a little travelling on her Mikhal Traveller. Heebies and jeebies, anyone?

Handsome Zahir plans to ride Kes off into the sunset (so to speak). Before leaving, he warns Tuvok not to take Voyager near the Tarkans, powerful enough to shipjack them and strand them on a moon. Like Tuvok would ever let THAT happen! Oh, right, the Kazon.

That night, Secret Nutjob Doctor badly injures Zahir by throwing him into a ravine and burns an innkeeper. (I only sided with him on the Zahir part.)

The Hyde version of the EMH chemically paralyses Torres, smells women in the turbolift, dissects historical figures, and kidnaps Kes for later. He believes that evil has more lasting value than goodness. (Which is why so many kids are named Adolf lately.) Kes argues that empathy and cooperation get a lot more done. Like building transporters that split people into good and evil, or scalpel-wielding holograms with no safety features whatsoever.

The tormented EMH hurls both of them off a cliff- and Ensign Kim beams them up safely and in violation of the law of inertia. Transporters can do that now.

"Darkling" is dumb. There, I said it. Or rather, the performances are very good, and some scares are still there but I just don't see the sense in it:
EMH: I have an afternoon to kill. Why don't I unscrew my head and pop in multiple personalities?
Kes: Wait a minute, Doctor, won't that cause some kind of, I don't know, disorder?
EMH: Hush, foolish girl. Bring me my cape and cowl, for I am BATMAN!
Kes: But Doctor, last year you nearly destroyed yourself just by adding one hobby too many. Is this really what the Diagnostic Routine sacrificed himself for?
EMH: (slobbering through werewolf teeth) I KEEL YOU! Durpy durpy durp...

By Inferno's Light

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Dukat's little tantrum at his daughter last episode makes a little more sense (but is still appalling) in light of the fact that he's been negotiating a treaty between the Dominion and Cardassia for months. Last week Cardassia JOINED the Dominion.

Well, to coin a phrase, shit.

On sunny Internment Asteroid 371 all the Cardie prisoners are released: oh, not so fast, Mr. Garak. The new ruler of Cardassia is not your pal. But while denying things to his enemies, Dukat pledges to give his eldest son a birthday present: 5 days from now there will be no Klingon or Maquis left alive within Cardassian borders. (And all Mekor wanted was a riding hound!)

The Bashir Changeling modified that beam intended to shut the wormhole: instead it made the wormhole stronger and angrier.

Jem'Hadar prison may be an endless parade of beatings, maimings and murder, but at least it's co-ed! Bashir keeps claustrophobic Garak from going mad inside the wall working on the transmitter. It seems he was buried alive on Tzenketh once. (Oh, also, his father locked him in closets throughout his youth.) Meanwhile Worf Balboa boxes for his life.

Gowron and his troops limp back from Cardassia, re-instating the Khitomer Accords and thus ending their unprovoked war with the Federation out of BRAVERY and UNITY rather than sheepishness and desperation. Right?

Dukat generously suggests Sisko talk the Federation into joining the Dominion, too. Because he's about to try to retake Deep Space Nine. It may have been built with the blood and bones of Bajoran slaves, but, what the hell. What Dukat wants, Dukat gets, at least with a Jem'Hadar army around.

Quark's financial prospects under Dominion occupation look dim. Neither the Founders nor their troops eat, drink, or use holo-brothels. Ziyal looks on the bright side: "For all we know, the Vorta could be gluttonous, alcoholic, sex maniacs."

"My people have a saying: Never turn your back on a Breen." Oh, Romulan Girl! Racist AND Right. Breens might not have blood (weird) but they're great at shooting people in the back.

"By Inferno's Light" is brilliant. I still flip for the sequence where Defiant plucks the changelings' runabout full of corpses and bombs out of its sundive. They got a whole star for that moment alone! Then there's Dukat, Garak, Worf, and Martok, plus a good and evil Bashir? Way to be, DS9! Nice one.

Unity

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Chakotay survives his umpteenth shuttle crash, but poor luckless Ensign Kaplan not so much. The First Officer is attacked by a disorganized gang of mangled ruffians, and rescued by a loose group of amputee peaceniks.

Riley Frazier, a Starfleet scientist in relaxed command of a disparate group of racially diverse former abductees, falls for the concussed Chakotay. Possibly because of the concussion, he returns her affections before discovering that she's not just a blatant Janeway analog, she's also a former Borg.

Having recently had their hundred thousand metal-clad posteriors collectively handed to them by some bigger, badder baddie, some of the ex-Borgs have adjusted remarkably well. Riley hangs around with a one-eyed Romulan doctor named Orum and they get along within their own Get-Along Gang, but mostly gangs of racial hereditary enemies don't play well with others.

Voyager's doctor discovers that dead Borg in derelict cubes are extremely resilient and that the machine-parts are happy to keep going and going and going long after the flesh battery has approached zombie status.

Frazier's little co-operative loves the healing properties and rapport made possible by Borg tech. They urge Janeway to help them re-connect on a planetary scale for the greater good blah blah blah. Due to having a brain in her head, Captain Janeway thinks this is a bad idea. For one, thousands of people would be forced to participate in this group mind involuntarily. For two, the Borg-ness would inevitably wake up cranky.

So Riley and company seize control of Chakotay's mind to switch the link on for them anyway.

Will the Co-operative new "Unity" find their mental powers corrupting them absolutely? Well, since we already saw them failing morally at step one, I assume the answer is 'Duh'.

In Purgatory's Shadow

 **** (4 stars out of 5)

Garak and Worf sneak into the Gamma Quadrant in response to a call from Garak's not-so-dead mentor. They soon find all the Jem'Hadar they could ask for and a free trip to death camp 371!

Conveniently, everyone of interest to them is there... in the same cell.

One-eyed Klingon General Martok has been interred there for 2 years. It's actually the first time Worf has met Martok for reals, and they quickly become BFFs. Enabran Tain has been held captive since the Unpleasantness in the Omarion Nebula. Oh... and SURPRISE: Julian Bashir. Since before the grim grey uniforms came into use, for over a month, Deep Space Nine's chief surgeon has been a changeling! Long enough to treat baby O'Briens, baby changelings, and do delicate brain surgery on Sisko, anyway.

Garak tells Bashir that sentiment is the greatest weakness of all, but he comes by such terrible ideas honestly: Tain was his father. Though they may only have had one pleasant day together, when Garak repeatedly injured himself learning to ride a hound. (Scrappy Doo is a figure of terror on Cardassia.)

Tain's heart is giving out. The crusty, hamburger-loving, spymaster gushes with pride as he dies: "I should have killed your mother before you were born. You have always been a weakness I can't afford."

Speaking of appalling fathers, Dukat does his best but cannot convince his daughter Ziyal to return home with him. She likes that terrible tailor Garak too much. So Dukat abandons her. Not for the first time. And what's WITH Ziyal? Somehow, half-Bajoran Cardassians have accelerated growth in their early teens accompanied by radical changes in their skulls and faces? (I am, of course, mocking the THIRD actress to play the role of Ziyal in as many years.)

Dax's widow Khan (no relation) invents a method to close the wormhole permanently. But for some reason it fails and "Bashir" looks like the cat that's eaten the riding hound.

The Dominion invades the Alpha Quadrant. "God help us all," intones Sisko. And might I add: YOU ASKED FOR IT! If you'd respected their territory, maybe they would have done the same. Probably not, but you could at least pretend you had the high ground.

"In Purgatory's Shadow" earns those stars. The Bashir Changeling reveal is a great blind-side. The death of Tain is powerful. Over two years building to the Dominion War and it is upon us at last. Hold on to your butts.

Blood Fever

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Last time, on True Blood, Jason has become a were-panther. Will Sooki be able to... what?
Oh, right, Star Trek.

It's a callback to the Original Series once again as what we learned about Vulcans during 'Amok Time' has come back to haunt our newest newbie Vulcan pal Vorik.

72 years at best from his happy spawning grounds, on a ship with no lady Vulcans, Vorik's making the best of his first pon farr by fighting off the plak tow symptoms on his own, in his quarters, in the dark. (Too much meditation, contrary to the rumor, does not give a Vulcan hairy palms.)

Acting on ignorance and instinct, the young Vulcan engineer forces a telepathic betrothal bond on B'Elanna. And in the process forces the symptoms of pon farr on her as well.

"For such an intellectually enlightened race, Vulcans have a remarkably Victorian attitude about sex," opines the EMH. The doctor continues to respect confidentiality, but devises a possible solution and a possible partner in a "recreational/medical" hologram gal called T'Pera. Or, if you prefer, prostitute by prescription? The term might not apply, after all, they don't use money in the 24th Century. Also, it doesn't take. Vorik's choice is already made and Tuvok's uncomfortable non-advice is non-helpful.

Torres, meanwhile, sparks a confrontation with the xenophobic alien Sakari while trying to mine their gallacite without her top. By which I mean, horny as a targ. Which is to say, throwing herself at Tom Paris. Paris, to his credit, isn't so caddish as to take advantage of the chemically unbalanced woman... at least the first ten times she asks. When it becomes clear her life is on the line, Tom relents and is quite prepared to suffer the slings and arrows (possibly literal arrows, certainly literal slings and band-aids) of sex with the lady Klingon.

However, Randy... I mean, Vorik, is still up for a little frig or fight. And under the "rules" of improvised koon-ut-kalifee, Torres can name herself as her own defender if she doesn't want any of his Oingo-Boingo. And this is one Rumble in the Jungle whose outcome is never in doubt. (Torres is a biter.)

All's well that ends well, and Tom and B'Elanna illuminated a little truth about themselves in the deep, dark caves.

But what horror does Chakotay find among the bushes? A halfling of sorts. Part faerie, part human...
Sorry, that's True Blood again. "Blood Fever" is some other thing. Sexy, funny, and frightening, sometimes all at once, this is a great piece of television.

For The Uniform

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Maquis leader Michael Eddington spanks the mighty Defiant with a computer virus and an outdated raider. This dingus worked every day with Sisko for a year and a half and nobody even knew he had a personality until he turned traitor.

Now Eddington uses biogenic weapons on Velos Prime- specifically poisoning the atmosphere against Cardassians but not humans. He made the weapons out of Selenium and Rodian Nitrates (a healthy part of Greedo's Balanced Breakfast). He's running circles around Sisko and the Captain's head is about to pop off.

Starfleet gave Alien Nation's Tenctonese cop Captain Sanders the "Catch Eddington" mission and it sticks in Sisko's craw.  So he goes out anyway, with the Defiant still half-functional. The ship nearly hits Deep Space Nine while trying to launch from it.

Downgraded from fancy new holocommunicator to communicating with a Nog, a tin can and some string. In fact, Nog has Sigourney's job from 'Galaxy Quest': repeating everything.

Eddington compares Sisko to obsessive Inspector Javert from Les Miserables. Casting himself as Val Jean, nest-ce pas? For such an Anglo looking guy, he's even more vocal about his love of romantic French history than Picard.

Sisko decides if Eddington wants to play the hero, then that makes him the villain. Twirling his mustache and Dr. Doom cape, Sisko salts the atmosphere of a Maquis world with Cardassian-safe Human poison. Threatening to take his poison sprayer out on the road, Sisko forces Eddington to surrender himself.

Cardassians and Maquis swap worlds, possibly forced to put their nonsensical fight on hold briefly, and NOBODY wants that. Sisko admits that even though it worked, he didn't clear his poison plan with Starfleet ahead of time. Imagine that: Starfleet probably wouldn't have given thumbs up to planet-wide bioweapons deployment. You learn something new every day.

"For The Uniform" introduced the holocommunicator and I really liked that idea. Holodecks that can manifest whole cities but they're still chatting on Skype? I understand why the FX guy might not want to make a switch decreasing the amount of FX viewscreen conversations, but there's a certain dramatic improvement in scenes where the actors are actually face-to-face. I wish they'd used it more often, but this was pretty much it.