Move Along Home

The year was 1993. While my parents and I were living at my grandmother's, Star Trek: The Next Generation  was in its sixth season. During that time, Rick Berman launched a spin-off which would overlap with the series' continuity, giving birth to what would end up proving to be Star Trek's finest series: Deep Space 9. Already, Emissary introduced complex characters, story arcs, and inter-character adversarial relations (although sfdebris already covered Emissary, I might take a look at it later). By its end, while fans would consider it the "black sheep" of the franchise (although it is far superior to the first two seasons of Enterprise), DS9 would prove to be the strongest series in terms of character, plot, writing, and acting.

That being said, Season 1 is most certainly the weakest of the series. I've noticed this with quite a few shows, and to be fair, it is pretty excusable. After all, a show is just starting out, trying to establish characters, settings, direction, etc. However, unlike TNG, VOY, or ENT, DS9 had a significant amount of strong episodes in its first season. These include the pilot, Duet (one of my favorites), Captive Pursuit, Progress, and In The Hands of the Prophets. The "bad" episodes were mostly the result of the writing staff attempting to draw in the TNG audience, resulting in the Duras sisters and Q making guest appearances. While this worked well to establish the continuity (the Enterprise-D made two trips to DS9 during its last two seasons), these episodes...somewhat failed to deliver. For the most part Season 1 of DS9 fell prey to the Alien-of-the-Week Syndrome that mostly plagued TNG, damaged Voyager, and paralyzed Enterprise. With that, let's get to Move Along Home.

The episode opens with Ben putting on his dress uniform. Jake comes in and begins talking about his friendship with Nog, especially how they're starting to watch the Bajoran girls come to the station. Ben and Jake begin "the talk" (which my father and I never had, because I mostly taught myself thanks to TV and the internet). I don't know, Ben seems to be taking the first hint that Jake might grow up to be a stalker a little too leniently. Anyway, they're interrupted by the com-system. As it turns out, DS9 is receiving the first official delegation from the Gamma Quadrant. No, it's not a platoon of Jem'Hadar. They won't come in until next year, when the show manages to emerge from the shadow of TNG.

Ben heads down to the airlock with Kira, Jadzia, and Bashir. Bashir is fretting that he forgot to pack his dress uniform. Odd, considering they've been on the station for a few months at least and he hasn't even replicated a new uniform. The Aliens-of-the-Week arrive. They're called the Wadi, but as they love games, I'm just going to call them gamers. Gaming is my way of life, and hopefully I will be able to find work within the gaming community after I graduate. So many worlds to create, campaigns to build, Allied ships to sink, stone to collect...

The Wadi. They have +5 to diplomacy, +6 to intelligence,
and -5 to fashion and makeup.

Where was I? Oh yes. The gamers head off in search of Quark's, as it's the only place on the station for games. You kind of would think things like DnD and World of Darkness would survive well into the 24th Century. Ben feels a sense of shame, as this is again the first diplomatic meeting from the Gamma Quadrant and it's nothing like how it should go in the book. You know what you do when you face a planet of gamers, Ben? You challenge them to a game! When in Rome, do as the Romans do (a phrase which no alien has yet to understand)! But, he decides he's had enough sulking and heads to bed so he can have "the talk" with Jake in the morning.

Meanwhile, Quark is getting worried because the gamers are winning at dabo (which is essentially Ferengi roulette). News flash, Quark: there is no game that a group of students who spend Friday nights fighting orcs and collecting gold cannot master. He tries to do what a Ferengi always does: cheat. Of course, it's noticed and the gamers threaten Quark. The cheating bastard! They restrain him, but he is able to talk his way out of being thrown out the nearest airlock. They challenge him to a new game. The name of it doesn't really matter. I'm just going to call it a family friendly version of Cube.

You awaken in a dungeon! Confronting you is...
a dragon!

Ben wakes up in what is not a giant Rubik's cube of death and does the exact opposite of the Voyager crew when confronted with something bizarre: he exercises all possibilities like calling Ops before opening his tricorder. He tries the doors and sees the gamemaster who cryptically says "move along home!" Ben hurries down the hallway to find early show Bashir screaming (it's what early show Bashir is best at). They also find Kira and Jadzia in the hallway, realizing this is not normal at all. They decide to split up and see what they can discover. Alright, guys: first rule of gaming is you never split up the party!

In the morning, Jake heads down to see Odo. It seems that Ben disappeared. Odo tells Jake he'll find his dad, after which the glorified guest star of DS9 heads off to watch girls come aboard the station. Ben, when you're done RPing, you better have a chat with your son about how stalking is wrong. Anyway, Odo begins to investigate as any detective would. He goes up to Ops, where Lieutenant Primmin is not the least bit concerned that four members of the senior staff failed to show up for duty. Wow, what incompetence. We all know what happens to incompetent members of Sisko's crew: they get shipped off to Siberia the USS Voyager!

No, Commissar! I wasn't saying unflattering things
about Comrade Sisko!

Remember how I compared this episode to Cube earlier? Well, fun fact: the math girl in the first movie ended up playing Ezri in Season 7. Here's another tidbit: they had only one cube set for the entire shoot. All scenes in cubes with a specific color had to be filmed altogether, as it was incredibly time-consuming to remove the gel sheets from the walls of the cube. The first film was one of the most terrifying things I saw. I know the sequels were released after 2000, but I hope the Nostalgia Critic reviews them. What ruined those two was revealing the outside world to the people inside the Cube, and showing how the thing worked. What made it terrifying was that it was so unknown.

Why am I talking about Cube? Because anyone of the trap scenes was better than the scene I need to discuss now. It is one of the scenes that may qualify as the worst moment in Star Trek, and probably when the actors had doubts on whether they made the right choice to be on DS9.

Was that painful? I hope it was. Take solace in the fact that DS9 got much better after this.

Odo goes down to the bar to check on Quark, who is...winning? I think? Anyway, Odo reveals that four senior officers are missing, and then Quark eyes the four pieces on the game board. Thus, they realize that this is more than a game.

I want to go back to the Blue Room! I don't like the
red ones.

Meanwhile, Sisko and the others head into the room that is filled with sound-activated spikes, oh wait, sorry, a room full of partying gamers. The room begins filled with some kind of gas and the gamers are just laughing about. Bashir takes a wild guess and discovers that the drinks the gamers have are actually the antidote. After this, Odo heads aboard the Wadi ship to try to find the crewmembers. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the last we'll ever see of Lieutenant Primmin before he was shipped off to die on the USS Voyager.

Odo finds a bizarre chamber, but it's a subspace...flux...portal...thing...and it just sends him back to Quark's. He arrives just in time to see Quark roll a natural one on his die. Back in the Rubik's Cube of Death, they activate the light room and Bashir is whisked away somewhere. Back in his bar, Quark realizes the stakes here. He decides to take the shorter path (which will double the peril, but double his winnings and get them "home" in one turn). He gets Odo to blow on his dice (which you should never do in game). Unfortunately, our Lord and Savior, Gary Gygax, is not with him tonight and he rolls another natural one. Meaning...someone's going to die!

No! I'll never be a pain in Makeup again!

What follows is a bit of Quark kneeling before the gamemaster, saying he'll never cheat again. I'll admit, this is a nice bit of characterization, showing that Quark does have something resembling a conscious within that four-lobed brain of his. Sadly, this nice little moment cannot save an episode this stupid. The gamemaster programs the game to select a player to be killed. Back in the Cube, Ben, Kira, and Jadzia here Bashir...somewhere. They run towards him but find a massive cave instead. What kind of game is this, with caves built into Rubik's Cubes of Death?

Anyway, they all fall down into a cavern and the four materialize in Quark's. Quark assumes he's won, but this actually means he lost. Damn, don't you hate it when you failed the quest? The girl dies, you don't get as much experience or gold. I hate it when that happens...

I'll tell YOU how much gold I'll be getting for this adventure!

So, the gamers pack up and leave. Because of Quark being on his knees, saying that he cheated, Odo reveals to Ben who started this all. Ben ends the episode with a look that he's about to bitchslap the hell out of Quark, before throwing him into the nearest airlock. But, as is with all aliens-of-the-week episodes, the gamers head off on their ship and are neeeeeeeeever seen or heard from again. I have a theory that they might work as strategists in the Dominion military, but that is a matter for the writers of fanfics, like me.

This episode is a classic example of how boring and stupid early DS9 was. But, I can't really blame them. Despite its flaws, TNG was still the better watched show and it was difficult to bring in audience members. The episodes with the Duras sisters and Q were a bit more painful to sit through, as anyone could have filled their roles in the respective episodes (though, the Duras episode did have the first appearance of Garak...). Still, I can forgive the writers and producers who greenlit this piece. After all, by the end of next season, we would have an explosive intro to what would be Star Trek's finest story arc: the Dominion conflict.

Score for this episode: 3/10