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Star Trek DS9 - Season 3 - Episode 08

Star Trek DS9 - 3x08 - Meridian

Originally Aired: 1994-11-14

Synopsis:
Dax falls in love with a man who will soon disappear with his planet into another dimension for 60 years. [DVD]

My Rating - 2

Fan Rating Average - 3.94

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 32 19 17 11 9 5 6 7 9 15 12

Filler Quotient: 3, bad filler, totally skippable.
- The exposition about Odo's love for Kira is done better in later episodes. It's not necessary to sit through this lame episode just to understand the larger arc.

Problems
None

Factoids
- According to Jadzia, the Trill spots go "all the way down."
- Sisko mentions that they managed to get the probe "deeper into the sun's corona." This implies they were using the recently developed metaphasic shielding technology from TNG: Suspicions to shield the probe.

Remarkable Scenes
- Kira sarcastically proclaiming her love for Odo to get rid of Tiron.
- Quark making a deal with Tiron to get a holographic image of Kira!
- Quark trying to take a holo image of Kira.
- Quark: "Isn't there some petty thief you can harass?" Odo: "Just you."
- Kira sabotaging Quark's holo program.
- Kira with Quark's head in the holo program. Hilarious!
- Jadzia unable to shift with her new friends.
- Morn Appearances; 1. Not technically an appearance, but Kira says she got a message that Morn wanted to see her in Quark's.

My Review
This episode is a little ill-conceived. It's nice that they're taking the Defiant into the Gamma quadrant instead of using it as their personal taxi, and it's nice that they're meeting new, non-Dominion people with it in the spirit of Star Trek, but this love story between Dax and Deral is just tiresome. I also found it hard to believe Dax would throw away her career just because she fell in love with alien guy of the week. Finally, it's obvious throughout the whole episode that something will happen to force Jadzia away from her new companion, so nothing comes as a surprise. Frankly, the silly B plot onboard the station is far more interesting to watch. Though the ending is a redeeming quality. Despite the predictability, they do a good job making you feel sorry for Jadzia at the end, which is kind of nice.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Matt on 2008-03-19 at 7:14pm:
    This episode is a tribute to the musical "Brigadoon". Which might help to explain the way Dax acts. Much of the main plot points are similar. Also, like the original play, it kinda sucks.
  • From JRPoole on 2009-01-13 at 9:33pm:
    The A plot love story is one of the most embarrassingly bad moments in all of Trek, and that's saying something. The dialogue is lame,and Jadzia's decision is ridiculous and way out of character, as is Sisko's reaction, though Avery Brooks acts it well.

    The B plot is uproariously funny, if a bit cheap. It's the only thing this episode has going for it, so I gave it a 1 just for that.
  • From djb on 2009-05-01 at 2:31am:
    I agree, Dax's behavior in this episode is way out of character. After 7 lifetimes, anyone is going to be smart enough not to confuse infatuation with love. All Jadzia and her new boyfriend have is infatuation; they know practically nothing about each other, what to speak of them being different species. And she's ready to leave everything and everyone she knows behind on a whim? Silly.

    I like it when different plots in a single episode somehow tie together or are related; unfortunately plot A and plot B had nothing to do with each other, even though plot b was indeed rather humorous.
  • From rpeh on 2010-07-29 at 5:38am:
    This episode is so crammed with technobabble it's almost leaking at the seams. Intersecting dimensions, singularities in the quantum matrix.... give me strength! It didn't help that I kept thinking of Deral as the bible-thumping Vice-Presidential candidate from the West Wing.

    The B-plot is funny, though, and the end scene just priceless!

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