UNCUT - Homefront (DS9 S4E11) | Star Trek Journey 391
Comments (94)
I think the scarcity problem would be more acute where everyone dependent on replicators and there is no power. Food storage would be very limited because it is not normally necessary, so there is no ready food, except for paces like Sisko's Restaurant which serves natural food.
What is odd about Nog becoming an honorary Sisko?
The blackout you were referring to was in 1996 I was 13
The second largest blackout in history was the 2003 northeast blackout, which affected much of the eastern US and Canada, including New York City, Toronto, and most of Ohio, among other places. You may be a little too young to remember, but as a fellow resident of your county, I can confirm that we did experience it. And if I recall correctly, crime statistics across the affected area showed a slight dip/reduction in crime compared to normal overall, even over the larger cities or parts of cities that were blacked out overnight. It certaintly wasn't "chaos reigns", at any rate. People were pretty chilled out. While it has sometimes been true that people will take advantage of disasters, in recent history, after decades of steadily decreasing crime rates anyway, people often come together, or at least leave each other alone, especially when everyone is affected equally, especially when it doesn't last too long, and when most people are well fed and have other people and property to protect/lose. It seems to be more often when societies are already falling apart and people are anxious on a primitive level due to widespread food insecurity or extant violence that things get worse quickly. But that's not actually where most of us are, because if it was, we wouldn't be dedicating all this time and attention to some Star Trek rewatch. So, I'd encourage hesitating before turning otherwise natural fears and anxieties, and exaggerated pessimistic ideas from fiction, into assumed facts about what would happen, when we have actual historical evidence to suggest that humans often aren't actually as bad as we sometimes worry we are. Sometimes we are, sure, but often we're not. Our fears are typically skewed, because "better safe than sorry" is more important to survival, weighted towards worst case costs rather than good predictions of what will actually happen.
Why was Josh surprised of an alien being President of the UFP? Like we've already seen one featured in their favorite Star Trek film: The Undiscovered Country heheheheheh.
That they also commented on the President not being gloriously maned Red Foreman. How long a term of office do they think the UFP President has? It has been 70 plus years in universe since ST 6.
The president wasn't the leader of Earth. He's the leader of all planets in the Federation, Earth is just the capitol. Paris is the capitol city of the entire Federation
The English spelling of Aaron is a translation from the Biblical Hebrew, which can also be transliterated as Aharon. I’m guessing the actor or his parents dropped the second A to make the spelling phonetic and/or more distinctive, just as people have done with other Hebrew-derived names like Rachael/Rachel, Sarah/Sara, and Leah/Leia. Also, many Hebrew names get transliterated into a different language and then come into American culture through constant immigration, which is how we get variants like Jacob/Yakob, Rebecca/Rebekah, Joseph/Josef/Yosef/Yousef, etc. Not knowing anything about his origin other than Aron Eisenberg’s adopted parents were Jewish, I can’t tell if Aron would have been a family spelling brought over from the old country.
You'll have the Gulls fooled in no time Dukat.jpg
This gave me flashbacks to those covid era vaccine mandates and those who went and lived in a tree to not take them. Civil disobedience is anything but civil usually. I can understand Sisko's dad not wanting to be treated that way, let us not forget "Liberty is the soul's right to breathe, and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight." Funny how often history rhymes. Great episode though, I really miss 90's television in the modern slop age. Oh and it is 9 meals from anarchy always. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWgF1H0jvgA
You guys AND The Lore are making a HUGE mistake. I'm surprised no-one has corrected you. That dude isn't the President of EARTH. He is the President of the FEDERATION. The Federation's official governing seat IS on Earth. So in the case of Earth, the Federation President is also Earth's de facto world leader as well. Why is Earth the headquarters of Starfleet and why is the Federation Council also headquartered on Earth? At this point in history, I believe the Federation has 152 member species but the four founding members were Earth, Vulcan, Andor (in TOS, later renamed Andoria probably because of Star Wars), and Tellar. The latter three worlds had a longer history of star travel, but were mildly antagonistic towards one another at best. Earth made friends with all three and eventually got them to accept each other. Humans, the young, naive, optimistic upstarts got the older, grumpier races to reevaluate their outlooks. The Federation and Starfleet are Earth-based because that is where it all began. Someone (I can't remember who) said at some time in the past (or the future, I get those mixed up sometimes 😉) "Without Earth there would BE no Federation."
Alex talking about fascism is WOKE.
Dax was just punking odo that’s very in her character
I’ve had two patron takes read by Alex both with brutal misspellings but at least this time it spurred an interesting discussion on SAG naming rules. That said I did think you were really gonna like this one because it really is like a TA custom order of everything you ask for.
Dork Comment: Wolf was raised on Gault, a farming colony.
Removing your protein powder from your carry-on: I wonder if they're just preventing a dust explosion fuel source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_explosion
President was not leader of the Earth. He was leader of the whole Federation! :D So not just only Earth. President is totally fine. He was just not very fond for doing those things. I would not too! President of Federation office is just located on Earth, Paris. But it is president of the Federation.
I want to offer another perspective on the "Dax messing with Odo" scenes. I like to think that they demonstrated how much Odo is liked and trusted amongst the DS9 crew. After all, you only really prank people you like. Knowing that what you do is gonna get on their nerves and you do it anyway. There is a certain level of familiarity there. Odo reciprocated in kind, making Dax "repair the damage". I don't think he was really THAT upset. I rather think he enjoyed "forcing" her to fix things.
The whole thing with Obrien and Bashir playing the Battle of Britain in the holosuite is one of my favorite bits in the show. I love flight sims and the idea of a full holodeck recreation of one is like a dream come true.
I love how this episode brings everyone point of view out. I'm of the opposite opinion that Josh had. I 100% side with Ben Sisko over his father. This is what Star Trek, and especially DS9 does so well where there isn't a right or wrong answer for topics. It looks at both sides of a problem and the viewer can make their own decisions.
Spot on.
The main takeaway here is that when Alex joins SAG, he'll have to become Aalex
To explain the uniforms, Sisko (and Starfleet personnel) are wearing the service dress uniform, what you can call the "office uniform". The modern day equivalent is that being on Earth is like being in Washington DC and military people tend to be in their "suit" uniform. Being out on ships & far-flung installations, Starfleet personnel wear the utility/camo uniforms. As a military guy, I really enjoyed that the uniform switches were done because it makes sense and seems real.
In the Bloodtest Scene, i love that Grandpa is behind Bars and has his Hands on the Bars, talking about freedom. Such a good Idea of Framing. (Minute 35 in the Episode)
Everyone has Doppelgangers, so in my headcannon it is just a Doppelganger who looks just like her.
Welcome to 1996, gentlemen: the year that Star Trek celebrated its 30th anniversary, and became an iconic legend.
The Dax thing at the beginning is just a quick little character blurb. Dax is pulling pranks on Odo, haha, now let's move on to the plot.
Jadzia can be a little shit.
They used the transporters on the Lakota, which was the Starfleet ship that brought Odo to Earth. The name "Lakota" comes from American Indian people from the Sioux nation.
The ending ..It wasn’t done in an odd way…we saw the president authorize the emergency order. I did find it a small universe problem again where they talk about how the Lakota can take over and rally and organize all Starfleet personnel on earth etc etc. umm it’s just one older ship…have we forgotten how insanely huge space dock is and how there must be at least a dozen or more starships around. I never realized that was the Lea Brahms actress! Very cool
So since you've seen both parts, between the stardate from the bombing and one we see on a monitor in Paradise Lost, this 2 parter takes place over roughly 2 months, just to give you a sense of the time involved. Regarding Dax pranking Odo, I never got the sense it was to remind us he was a changeling. I saw one take that it was a bit of foreshadowing for the themes of order and chaos in this episode, and I can buy that. Also it's a nice character moment for Dax showing she's a bit of a troll. I used to do something similar to my mom's dog. She would always stockpile treats around the house and get very defensive and growl at anyone who got near them, so when she built up a stash on the stairs I'd pretend I was going to grab them to tease her(also I chose that spot because she couldn't get her head through the railing to bite my fingers). So if I could give advice to Odo, it would be to act like absolutely nothing had happened the next time Dax does this. Her amusement is coming from the fact he gets so annoyed about it. If he doesn't give her a reaction, she'll get bored. What I appreciate about Bashir and O'Brien's friendship is the fact that we don't just see them working together, we see them hanging out and grabbing a beer after work. It's little writing decisions like that which make the DS9 cast feel so much more fleshed out and human(even though over half the main characters aren't human). Love the character of Joseph Sisko. I think earlier episodes had alluded to him having died, but it wasn't concrete. I think The Visitor or maybe the first episode with Kassidy was the first to confirm he was still alive. Regarding my take, I actually do think a changeling could do what he suggested. Wouldn't even need to draw attention from killing someone. Just go to a blood bank. Hell you can probably replicate blood. It doesn't seem like a stretch for a changeling to hold something, even a liquid inside themselves. If they can mimic someone down to tens of thousands of individual hairs, that would be child's play. More to the point though, Odo has mentioned that he tried eating before, merely implying that it was a "messy" experience. That doesn't mean at the time though. It probably just meant separating himself from a bunch of chewed up food that had just sort of merged into him. I'm sure a changeling can eat if it helps them keep their cover. As for grandpa Sisko's argument, I understand where's he's coming from, and I agree with what he's saying, but I can also see the position that he and the president are being naive to the threat. I and many others would be fine with getting a covid vacc....I mean blood test, but it's a whole other story when you're mandating it. I think that's part of why this episode is so brilliant. It's not 100% clear what the right course of action is. It makes you ask those hard questions about how to balance security and liberty, order and chaos.
The blood test being required for all starfleet and their families is a bit much though and it’s used to allow Sisko to do the bit about well i have to have my own family do it if im ordering everyone else to do it. But it’s really not crazy to imagine different security protocols for some members of starfleet depending on their current job,rank and posting vs universal for everyone. Especially as a first step to just do it for starship personal or security or whatever
My last name is Haroun which in English is Aaroun ... so the A in Aaroun was originally an H in Arabic. it also helps pronounce it ... If you read the bible in Arabic All the Harouns are Aarouns in the english version. As for TSA/Security the feeling of safety is sometimes more important than the actual effectiveness of the safety measure. Allot of idiots gets dissuaded by the idea of security than the actual security.
Dominion can cloak , but they choose not to... Their goal is to intimidate their people into submission. Dominion don't need no stinking cloak. The changelings can sneak aboard any ship. Although in the camping episode when they take the Vorta Lady (the other prisoner) back to the station...she teleports to what could be a cloaked ship. It would make things easier. It's never confirmed but its possible.
I don't mind at all when they re-cast actors, I mean if they didn't we wouldn't have had Brock Peters as the dad!! He nailed it as you mentioned, can't imagine anyone else playing him
It is an ambitious episode. It is always difficult to tell a large-canvass story with such limited means and only 40 minutes to go. So it can feel somewhat implausible in certain moments. But they seem to pull it off here. I can't say I agree with old grandpa Joe too much... I am sure he wasn't shy in the past, to mosey around between the tables of his restaurant, telling everybody what a big-wig in Starfleet his son is. So testing the relatives of the fleet's key personnel is not exactly a major assault on the human rights. And from an infiltration point of view, his son is certainly someone the Founders would try to probe. But Joseph Sisko is totally right, that changelings could probably cheat the test. We have seen Odo making coffee through his arm, albeit a fake one.
But then, the slope is slippery. Compelling someone into a blood draw might sound innocuous to you, but to me, who has a phobia of blood and needles, it's dramatically different. If threats justify that kind of screening, you'd never be able to build up to paradise. But I'm not ignorant to the threat either. It's a constant balance between security and liberty.
Funny given the dark subject matter that this episode tackles, but I just felt very happy and positive from this reaction overall, and the discussion. The wonderous emotions that good TV can bring out! About Alex's point of humans being one step away from chaos, there's a lot of truth to that. The safer we feel, the more open we are to civility. The greater the pressure of terror is, the harder it is to bear the weight of our humanity. So easy and tempting to slip back into animalistic instinct. Even centuries in the future I don't think that priming would be gone in us, however as Josh alludes to, the weight of fear would increase more gradually because humans who've only known paradise wouldn't have the ingredients to know fear. Reminds me of Bonobos or Pandas today, so loveable and peaceful, and have no concern whatsoever of any predators because they've never had reason to. I knew you had a bomb in that protein powder Alex...
The "Dax moving furniture" was "Data growing a beard". Or Riker being bad at making scrambled eggs.
Exactly, if anything it established more about Dax than Odo, namely that she's a bit of a troll
For those keeping score, the President's line where he mentions that "with the exception of the Borg incident, there hasn't been a state of emergency declared on Earth in a century," probably refers to the Whale probe in Star Trek IV.
This is not the first tense up on earth in 100 years, they mention the Borg cube from TNG season 3 multiple times in this episode. I bet a bunch of earth wide sirens were blaring with a lot humans losing their shit during that. Cube literally at their door steps about to assimilate the planet. Brock Peters does a great job here, a lot of people forget he was not just Admiral Cartwright in Star Trek 6, but also in Star Trek 4, he's on earth with Sarek when the whale probe attacks.
Yes but the Borg incident wouldn’t have required the violation of people’s rights for testing
I'm glad you guys are enjoying season 4 as much as you are. Tons of good things still to come.
Such a fantastic season (and show!) so far.
From hijinks to terrorism! What fun!
Did you spot that Grampa refuses to eat in the first restaurant scene? It's great piece of setup for eagle eyed viewers, so that later when we have the blood test scene the audience is more inclined to think Granpa is a Changeling because we were already suspicious.
Dude, I spit my coffee out when you said they took my bomb 💣 🤣 💀
I don't think the episode was trying to say any sort of infringing on rights is bad per se, just that there is a cost and it's clearly causing lots of distrust, which the founders want.
I figured you guys would like this episode. I wonder how you would have felt if this was the season finale of season 3 following Adversary as originally intended? This was going to be the cliffhanger of the season but Paramount gave them a heads up that they wanted the premiere to be feature length and introduce a new cast member so they held onto this script.
I was waiting for this one so hard. You nailed it: DS9 fleshes out every primary and secondary member of its giant cast so damn well that you can take any handful of them and make a great episode. Give me a whole season of Grandpa Joe's Creole Cuisine. I'm down.
I KNEW when this posted I HAD to watch it asap!
“Huge, HUGE, things happening! Huge milestones in Trek history ….. but then small little things with our characters” - Pretty much sums up the entire show. “Imagine this being your first episode of DS9. What the fuck is this?” - Yep. This was the problem when it aired. You couldn’t just drop in like TNG or Voyager, so it always had a smaller but more dedicated fan base.
I often used to say that paramount seriously underestimated the demand for DS9. What I mean is TNG was a massive mainstream success. But if we’re talking about fans willing to shell out real money for product like DVD’s and later blu-rays, The most die hard fans, I truly believe DS9 more than holds its own, and wished they had at least tried a 3-4 episode sampler HD blu-ray release to actually gauge demand like they did before committing to the TNG HD remaster. I like to think that the huge jump in paying Patreon subscribers when this channel started DS9 reactions was at least strong evidence arguing my point, if maybe not 100% airtight proof. 🤷♂️
You guys should just watch both parts. I hate cliffhangers I’ve always hated cliffhangers since I was a little kid watching Batman. same bat time same bat channel!
It’s cute and funny that Dax is a practical joker and a pain in the ass! 😂
The inconsistency of phasers and changelings bothers me. In Heart of Stone, the female changeling (Salome Jens), was hit by direct phaser fire at maximum setting, and she brushed it off.
Head canon is she's a simply more skilled changeling and knows how to adjust to it at molecular level. Remember that every test/defense they've come up with based on Odo so far has been shown to be ineffective against other changelings. They're just better at it than Odo.
And now that I'm listening to the wrap-up... I don't think the opener with Dax and Odo was about reminding us Odo is a changeling, I think it was about reminding us that Odo loves order, and maintaining the right sort of control. Dax enjoys throwing a wrench in Odo's sense of order, maybe because she thinks he needs a little chaos in his life. And what does Odo get at the end of this episode? The Federation President agreeing to allow Starfleet to impose a bit of Odo's sort of order.
Makes sense to me. Living for centuries, you'd want to take every opportunity to inject a bit of fun into ordinary moments. What's more fun than pranking your friends into partial insanity?
While listening to you guys talk about the possible reactions of the people on earth to the blackout, I was reminded of this quote: "It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Are Humans really any different than Cardassians or... Romulans? If push comes to shove, if something disastrous happens to the Federation, if we are frightened enough, or desperate enough, how would we react? Would we stay true to our ideals or... would we just... stay here, right back where we started?" Dr Bashir, Past Tense 😉
I reference this quote in the discussion
We do see the Changling 'non-consent' merging happen in a previous episode - the season 3 finale, The Adversary. When Odo and the other Changeling grapple with each other they attack one another by forcibly merging their hands into each other. So what Odo did in this episode was a less aggressive version of that. If I had to guess, Changling biology naturally wants to merge with others, so its a reflex response that is difficult to resist. Ordinarily Changelings would never think to harm one another, so this is 'new' to them as well.
I believe the changeling in the Adversary does some sort of thing where he forceably links with Odo. Maybe Odo learned it from him.
OMG the guys are now interested in the chessboard! I wonder how Improbable/Die would hit on a series rewatch. I think Odo was trying to force link with the other changeling?
I'm surprised Sisko's orders about blood testing civilians on earth was even LEGAL
Probably a grey area not legally defined and would need sorted out
VERY curious to see their reaction to this one and the next. Woooooooooooooo
Regarding your "Our Man Bashir" comments at the start, and how it was a talky episode, since you mentioned you hadn't watched James Bond films -- I do think they can be a little talky. Probably not as talky as that episode though. What was missing was Bond's ability to investigate and figure things out without dialogue. IE, if you watch Dr. No, the very first Bond film (I just watched it the other week), you'll see a number of scenes with no dialogue at all where he analyzes an area and you can tell what conclusions he comes to.
I think it's hard to do a Bond homage when you can't afford to do any big action set pieces.
Actually the Federation is governed by a council of representatives of the member planets. The President even mentions that he was on this council. I think they „Invented“ the President just for US audiences. Or should I say not „they“ but Nicholas Meyer. I don‘t think the President was a thing before Star Trek VI.
The bald guy in ST4 is the Federation President. I take it as each planet being a house member,.
Does anyone realize that Broc Peters played admiral Cartwright in Star Trek 4 too?
And even before that, they saw him playing Sire Solon in Battlestar Galactica.
DS9 really satisfied the itch TNG left that made me want to see more of the characters living their lives off-duty so I can imagine myself living in the 24th Century. Love Data & Geordi, but when I think of their friendship I think of them working in engineering. With Julian & O'Brien I think of them playing games.
I think this is the first time I noticed that the piilars in the restaurant look like prison bars during Grandpa Joe‘s speech.
Always liked that detail. It's very evocative. Wonder if it was planned or something the director or D.P. took advantage of.
Hearing Alex's suggestion for what the Founders could be doing, I recommend the Twilight Zone episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."
Excellent episode and agree with Alex - big story, small character set pieces. Also extra points to Quark for reminding us that if you cut him in half, it would say "Ferengi" though the middle.
I think they went into Odos' nature a little more in the beginning of this episode because we haven't had that much changeling focused content this season and they were thinking of informing the viewers that jumped on board when Michael Dorn moved to DS9.
It's pretty wild to wrap your head around from today's point of view, but yeah, they just travel around with public or ship transporters. Star Fleet HQ and Academy are in San Francisco, grandpa Siskos' restaurant and the Sisko family home are in New Orleans and the Federation HQ is in Paris.
Was waiting for this episode. Its one of the greats!
Let's fucking go!!!
Rene was IN Star Trek VI as the assassin trying to take out Red Forman!
TA watched the theatrical version. They didn't see Rene playing Colonel West in the Directors Edition. I'm sure they would love to visit the movie again though to see it.
Ira and Robert do seem to have worked Josh and Alex, so I am fascinated to see how the gents react to the rug pull that is part two. I do think if they had continued discussing this episode for like another half-hour, they would have figured it out. They were close.
Phasers can’t melt steel beams!! Jokes aside, this two parter does give “War on Terror” vibes with the commentary on the security state. But best part of this episode is absolutely Grandpa Sisko.
It's shocking how well they predicted post-9/11 paranoia and the battle between freedom and security that would play out less than a decade later.
So Alex noticed it too. I thought it was a tribute to 9-11. Then I realized this was long before that happened.
Past Tense redeemed! Moves up to an E+
Nah, moves it down in comparison to an example doing it so well
Rick Berman was a Susan Gibney fan. He brought her in to audition for Captain Janeway and for [REDACTED].
Hmm now I’m curious.. I probably heard it before but I don’t remember.
I think we ALL were waiting for this one!