Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine
Episode
Particulars: S2EP13, “Armageddon Game”
Summary: Bashir
and O’Brien have been sent to a planet where two races, the T’lani and the
Kelleruns, have finally made peace after a long period of war. They’ve asked
for Starfleet’s help to dispose of their biological weapon, the Harvesters, and
now, with O’Brien and Bashir’s help, they’ve managed it. Just as everybody’s
getting ready to celebrate, however, armed Kelleruns enter the ship and kill everybody
on board. Well, almost everybody; Bashir and O’Brien manage to escape, although
there are two problems. One, O’Brien was splashed with the last bit of
Harvester goo and is now infected, and two, DS9 has been informed that they
were killed in a freak security accident. Their only hope is to get a
dilapidated communications panel up and running, but that’s going to take a
little time. Well, at least they can take that time to get to know each other
better…
Standalone
Thoughts: This is a decent episode, albeit one that I’m semi-indifferent
to. There are good interactions between Bashir and O’Brien and all the
characters get a moment to shine, but something about it doesn’t fully click
for me. Maybe it’s the fact that most of the episode is fairly static, with two
people just sitting and talking. It’s not that I find that boring—I enjoyed Twelve Angry Men, among other movies
that mostly consist of people sitting and talking—but I don’t really feel any
stakes here. In theory, O’Brien and Bashir are hiding for their lives, and O’Brien’s
rapidly deteriorating. In practice, they have plenty of food, water, and other supplies,
they can talk as loudly as they want, and O’Brien’s illness feels more like a
concussion or the flu than something as deadly as the opening made the
Harvesters sound. Plus, most of their conversations revolve around romantic
relationships instead of how to get out of this situation. It’s like the script
for a chick flick was given to an action movie.
I also feel like the opening gives us way too much setup
and not enough payoff. When you open your episode with people disposing of a
dangerous weapon/virus/whatever, you’ve all but guaranteed that something is
going to go wrong. As a result, the audience is waiting for the moment where
things go pear-shaped, but the longer you take to get there, the more impatient
they get, and I think that happens here. And then when things actually do go wrong, it’s nowhere near as bad as
the setup (and the title) made you expect. Terrorists don’t steal the last
remaining tube of Harvesters, the tube doesn’t unexpectedly break, there’s just
a brief firefight and now Bashir and O’Brien have to be in hiding. Not to
mention that while the third act twist is somewhat different than you’d expect,
the thought that the episode could go in that direction had briefly occurred to
me early on, so if you’ve got the right sort of mind, it might not come as a
total surprise to you.
For all that, though, I don’t hate the episode. There’s
genuine camaraderie between Bashir and O’Brien; the scene where Bashir tries to
share the credit while O’Brien keeps saying it’s mostly Bashir’s doing is
heartwarming. They seem to be on friendlier terms than when we last saw them
interacting in “Rivals”, but it’s not like O’Brien went from massively
disliking Bashir to suddenly being his best friend, so I’ll just put it down to
implied offscreen character development. I’d almost certainly say that the
writers finally have a direction for Bashir (a little socially awkward but eager
to help, willing to listen, and can be counted on when the chips are down), and
Siddig is playing it very well. Then again, I kind of have a bias in this area,
so take that aspect of things with a grain of salt.
How it Relates to
the Whole: I think we can safely say that the Bashir/O’Brien friendship has
pretty much been established by now, and will be a constant going forward.
Besides that, there’s a possibility that Bashir’s ex-girlfriend may make an
appearance at some point, which would be interesting. As for major elements, I
don’t think there’s anything; in fact, I don’t think there’s any follow-up from
the ending of this episode, even though there probably should be. But we’ll
have to wait and see to confirm that.
Other: *The
title of the episode is a little too overblown for what actually happens in the
episode, in my opinion. There’s no game here, and they never even get close to Armageddon.
Something about being forced together in close quarters, mourning, or
relationships would probably have been better.
*I’m of two minds about the fact that it takes so long
for Bashir and O’Brien to realize he’s been infected by the Harvester. On the
one hand, they were in the middle of an unexpected gun battle, adrenaline was
running high, and the focus was on escaping. Assuming the drop that landed on O’Brien
didn’t sting or burn on impact, I can see him not noticing immediately. On the
other hand, based on how bad his arm looks when they finally discover it, I
feel like he probably should have started showing symptoms a little sooner, at
the very least. This one’s probably more a matter of opinion, though.
*The scenes where various characters on DS9 mourn Bashir
and O’Brien are very well done. Everybody sounds genuinely upset, and the
reactions seem appropriate to the characters (even Quark manages to mix humor
with gravity). As with Kira’s departure in “The Circle”, this wouldn’t have
been out of place if they’d been giving the characters a permanent sendoff. Who
would have thought “character departures” would be one of DS9’s strengths?
*After talking about the attractiveness of T’lani woman,
Bashir says that he expected the celebrations to be an “adventure”, while all O’Brien
would get out of it is “a hot meal”. Adventure equals sex to you, Bashir? Really? I mean, I guess you’re just following
the grand tradition of Captain Kirk, but I’d think some of the things you’ve
already experienced on the station would be more adventurous than a roll in the
hay. Either that, or you’re way kinkier
than I would have expected.
*I’m not sure how I feel about the gag that closes the
episode. It’s meant to be funny, and I can see ways to make it work, but it
needed a little more development than we actually got.
Best
Line/Exchange: Nothing really jumped out at me this time. It took some
poking around before I finally chose this;
(Bashir and O’Brien
are talking about women and marriage)
Bashir: I don’t
know…somehow, marriage just doesn’t seem fair.
O’Brien: Fair?
Bashir: Fair.
To them. I mean, look at us, our lives are constantly in danger. There’s enough
to worry about without worrying about the wife and kids at home worrying about
us!
(O’Brien seems
perturbed by that)
Bashir: I’m sorry,
Chief. I just feel that way. A lot of career officers feel that way.
It’s an interesting glimpse into Bashir’s mindset,
actually. It justifies his playboy nature, suggests he’s still a little
immature when it comes to romance (something about his phrasing strikes me as
being more upset at the thought of worrying about his wife than how she feels
about the situation), but also shows that he’s put some thought into this and
does, at least somewhat, have his significant other’s best interest at heart. Plus,
I can absolutely believe that this is a mindset that military people have, so
it rings true in that sense. And of course, from a fangirl perspective, he’s
opening himself up and revealing some vulnerability, which is something I love
to see my crushes do. Hey, if I’m going to do this, I might as well be honest
about my reasons, right?
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