Day 78: DS9, Little Green Men

Show: Star Trek; Deep Space Nine

Episode Particulars: S4EP7, “Little Green Men”

 Summary: Nog is finally on his way to Starfleet Academy, and Quark has agreed to take him there in his new ship, Quark’s Treasure, which he got as thanks from a cousin. As you might guess when it comes to Quark, he has ulterior motives; namely, smuggling a cargo of Kemocite to sell once he drops Nog off. Unfortunately, the ship has a flaw, and in order to avert disaster, Rom, who came along to see his son off, has to mix the Kemocite with the material from the warp core. It fixes the problem…but it also causes them to warp through time and wind up in 1947 Roswell, to the displeasure of the American military. While they deploy Faith Garland (Megan Gallagher) and her boyfriend Carlson (Conor O’Farrell) to try to figure out the intents of these “Martians”, Quark realizes that this is a golden business opportunity for him, changing the timeline be damned. Given that America was heading into the Cold War at the time, though, Quark’s ideas might wind up getting him into trouble.

Standalone Thoughts: This episode follows the classic Star Trek trope of “characters travel back in time, wacky shenanigans ensue”, which may not be to everyone’s tastes but definitely works for me. This is a particularly amusing version of the form, in part because it’s willing to be a little more creative. Instead of the usual “the characters do their best to blend in” routine, Quark, Rom, and Nog can’t blend in because of their appearance, and indeed have already been identified as aliens. The story then takes it a step further by having the universal translator fail, which allows for more humor (and unlike in “Sanctuary”, the joke doesn’t go on long enough to wear thin). And then to top it off, the story plays with history by implying that Quark and company were what actually happened at Roswell back in 1947. That sort of thing has always been fun for me, so it all combines into a fun episode, albeit one you absolutely cannot take seriously.

About the only thing I don’t like about this episode is Nog’s characterization, or rather, one part of his characterization. For some reason, there’s a semi-recurring theme of Nog and his sexual interests, and it makes me a little uncomfortable. Nog’s clearly an adult by Ferengi standards, and is probably of legal age in human terms (and I’m pretty sure Aron Eisenberg was a full-fledged adult at this point), but since he was a teenager when we first met him, it’s hard to see him any other way. So seeing him trick Faith into giving him Oomox or finding out that he has a sexy holosuite program is a little jarring. That being said, this may just be my problem, and since it’s such a small part of the episode, it’s not worth making a huge deal over. Especially when the rest of the episode is so much fun.

How it Relates to the Whole: Being a Ferengi episode, this doesn’t have much bearing on the rest of the show, except to finally get Nog off to Starfleet Academy. It does, however, include a brief callback to the events of “Past Tense”, but it’s over in a few seconds and is mostly played for laughs, so while I don’t like the reminder, I can at least tolerate it.

Other: *Dax continues to baffle me by purchasing that sexy holosuite program for Bashir that’s clearly sexual in nature. Something just seems off about this, though I can’t tell if it’s a problem with Dax herself or something related to the fact that they’re co-workers.

*I’m of two minds about the bit where it turns out that Nog stole Kira’s springball racquet and is now trying to sell it. On the one hand, it’s fitting for Nog to do that as a Ferengi, but on the other, he’s clearly trying to adhere more to Starfleet ideals, so you’d think he’d try to be a better person and give the racquet back. Then again, he also plans to take ten percent of Quark’s profits to keep quiet about his smuggling, so maybe it was meant to signify that he’s growing up, but still has a ways to go.

*Once again, DS9 does a good job at character sendoffs. Nog saying goodbye to the station (and by extension, his childhood) is well-handled and sweet. Not bad for a comedy episode.

*Several times in the episode, Faith says things that deliberately evoke things from classic Star Trek, including a variation of “to seek out new life and new civilizations”. It’s a nice tongue-in-cheek reference, but I always kind of expected it to turn out that she was related to Kirk, or Spock’s mom, or someone else from the original series. Then again, that’s what I would have done, so maybe I’m just projecting.

Best Line/Exchange: There’s a lot of fun bits in this episode, but I guess I’ll go with the one that I remember getting the biggest laugh when I first watched it;

(Nog is playing on the soldiers paranoia to try to escape)

Nog (pointing to a map of the United States): The first landing parties will arrive here.

Wainwright (James G. MacDonald): Where?

Nog: Here, right by this blue blob.

Wainwright (squinting): You mean your people are going to invade…Cleveland?

Not only is it amusing because (I believe) Cleveland wouldn’t be somewhere you’d expect aliens to invade, but it’s a great combination of Nog’s ignorance and human paranoia clashing to create a humorous misunderstanding. While that’s a trope that doesn’t always work (I hate when misunderstandings show up in romantic comedies), it’s used to good effect here. And if the goal was to get a laugh, then I’d say they succeeded.