Star Trek DS9 - Season 5 - Episode 25
Star Trek DS9 - 5x25 - In the Cards
Originally Aired: 1997-6-9
Synopsis:
Jake tries to cheer up his father, who is overly stressed by the Dominion threat. [DVD]
Filler Quotient:
0, not filler, do not skip this episode.
- Weyoun's offer of peace to Bajor is a major plot event which sets up events in the next episode and beyond.
Problems
- When Nog reads the list of the crazy old scientist's demands, it says 2 liters of anaerobic metabolite. When they present this request to Bashir, he says it's 5.
Factoids
None
Remarkable Scenes
- Sisko's "party."
- Jake being outbid at the auction.
- Sisko being nasty with Weyoun.
- Jake and Nog meeting with Dr. Giger.
- Bashir lamenting about Leeta having his teddy bear.
- Nog sneaking into Leeta's quarters and taking the teddy bear as she slept.
- Weyoun and the Jem'Hadar investigating what is going on in the quarters below them... where Dr. Giger lives.
- Nog listening to Worf's Klingon opera extremely loud.
- Nog: "Maybe the soulless minions of orthodoxy finally caught up with him." Odo: "The who?" Jake: "We don't know who they are, but they were after Dr. Giger's cellular regeneration and entertainment chamber." Odo: "His what?"
- Kai Winn rejecting Weyoun's pleasantries, just like Sisko.
- Nog and Jake beamed to the Dominion ship.
- Weyoun confronting Nog and Jake.
- Jake's time travel story.
- Weyoun and Dr. Giger hitting it off on the immortality topic.
- Sisko: "Even in the darkest moments, you can always find something that will make you smile."
- Morn Appearances; 1. Quarks bar behind Jake and Nog. 2. At the auction. 3. After the auction, walking out with a painting.
My Review
This episode is an unexpected bout of brilliance with regards to the writing. Jake and Nog's quest to acquire a baseball card to cheer up Sisko has the unintended effect of cheering up everyone on the station. I love the part when Sisko makes his log and the camera pans by all the major characters Nog and Jake have helped in their quest to get the baseball card. I don't quite know how else to put it, but this is one of those quirky kind of episodes that works really well. The writers managed to make a humor episode that wasn't silly, even when they included Weyoun and the Jem'Hadar directly into the humorous plot! I'm impressed, I must say.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
What a wonderful episode! I loved every bit of it, both the comedy and the serious. Personally, I found the moment between Jake and Sisko at the end more moving and sweet than anything in "The Visitor"
I liked this one quite a bit. Jeffrey Combs was great as every character he played. It was years after I watched Enterprise during its run that I realized he had played so many roles. Its such a shame Enterprise only managed four seasons...it would have been great had they made him a regular on that bridge.
My only gripe with this episode: I can't imagine many things being easier to replicate than a glossy piece of cardboard.
@JR
As any serious collector of baseball cards could tell you, a copy - no matter who accurately rendered - can never replace the real thing. Even if the two objects are physically indistinguishable, the original has a history and an emotional value which the copy simply does not possess.
I have to agree with the general positivity toward this episode. It was a gem. I love when Star Trek mixes the serious with the mundane in such a tongue in cheek way.
Great, light episode in the midst of a buildup to the all-out Dominion War arc.