Star Trek DS9 - Season 5 - Episode 18
Star Trek DS9 - 5x18 - Business as Usual
Originally Aired: 1997-4-7
Synopsis:
Quark wants to pay off his debts, but it may cost him his life. [DVD]
Filler Quotient:
2, filler, but an enjoyable episode nevertheless. You can skip this one, but you'd miss out on some fun.
- No significant exposition, events, or consequences, but a decent story nevertheless.
Problems
None
Factoids
- This is the first episode in which we get to meet the much mentioned but never before seen Gaila, Quark's cousin.
Remarkable Scenes
- Sisko threatening Quark.
- Bashir's diagnosis for Yoshi: "Perhaps he's become prematurely aware of life's existential isolation."
- The whole whispering scene between O'Brien and Sisko in ops.
- Rules of Acquisition; 67. The riskier the road the greater the profit.
- Morn Appearances; 1. Sitting near Quark while he checks for Odo. 2. Sleeping at Quark's bar while Quark complains about the lack of customers.
My Review
Hagath to me was the star of the show here. A brilliant character played by a talented actor. Besides that, the episode is fairly routine, even a little boring. Quark's financial situation certainly was not enough to hold my interest, frankly O'Brien's side plot was more interesting and amusing. Especially the scene near the end with Worf.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
Victor Maitland from Beverly Hills Cop! He plays such a good slimeball! :)
A decent idea, poorly executed. I must disagree with the view Hagath was a brilliant character played by a brilliant actor. He was a one-dimentional stereotypical villain, overplayed by a below average actor with no imagination.
Quark's turnaround came too late - he had already played apart in selling weapons to very dubious character. He should have been sent to prison for it for a very long time.
Trek writers tend to want it so clear that they're not supporting something even slightly controversial by getting a bit heavy-handed with the plot. That's what happened here. I thought this could have been a bit more intriguing without this guy showing up halfway through the episode and announcing that he's the villain of the week by saying, "I would like to indiscriminately kill 28 million people, please." Real people don't talk like that, not even bloodthirsty despots. I would have preferred if they'd moved a bit slower with this plot, having Quark getting drawn in more and more over his head until he realized what he was doing. It seems like they TRIED to do that, but they couldn't help but pass on the message that "People who sell weapons have no souls," so they cut it short pretty quickly.
This could have been more intelligently done. There was apparently some awareness among the writing staff, since they pointed out that people like Hagath had supplied weapons to the Bajoran resistance. The weapons carried by even Federation security personnel were obviously researched and developed by SOMEBODY-and sure, while they have stun settings, they also have kill settings, and we'll see our heroes using lethal settings on their weapons rather arbitrarily over the remainder of this show's run. Then there's people out there who are supposedly supplying weapons to the Maquis, whom we're supposed to view at least with some degree of sympathy since they were among the heroes on Voyager. We hear about plenty of members of Starfleet who help supply weapons TO the Maquis, so obviously not everyone in the whole Federation hates weapons suppliers.
Instead of a designated villain who just wants to kill everyone, you could write someone like an ACTUAL bloodthirsty despot. Bring in someone who's running an authoritarian regime that says he wants to snuff out the rebels-it should serve as an echo for the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. The arms merchants could offer him precision weapons that will allow him to eliminate the leaders and blow up rebel hide-outs, but instead, he wants large scale weapons to use to take out entire villages that harbor resistance members. At least make it seem realistic. It also helps leave just a bit of a gray area in which actual weapons developers can exist, even if the ones represented in the episode are unscrupulous.
I disagree a bit with the reviewer Bronn. I do think this episode did a decent job with the moral gray area that is weapons dealing. Even in the real world, weapons dealing is one of those things that we know goes on and that we overall consider to be evil, but which we tolerate because we also know it makes possible certain things we believe to be worthwhile. It allows causes we believe in to take hold.
The best scene in this episode is the one where Gaila confronts Quark about his hesitations. This scene reminded me of the movie “Lord of War” which focuses on this same issue. Gaila points out the same thing that Nicholas Cage’s character does in that movie: the universe is made up of people who are committed to the destruction of other people. You’ll never be able to stop it, and refusing to sell weapons doesn’t mean the genocide won’t occur, it just means someone else will profit from it instead. Quark, I think when talking to Jadzia, also offers up the age-old excuse of the weapons dealer: I’m giving people a means to defend themselves.
I do agree the Federation characters come across as a little too holier-than-thou in this one. Of course, this is before they found out that Section 31 was using biological warfare against the Founders with the hope of wiping them out.
The eccentric Hagath was definitely an enjoyable character.