DS9: In The Cards

So apparently I should have also pre-written some posts for the inevitable after-camp-exhaustion I always experience when I return from Shakespeare week. This is the level of my wornoutedness: I actually realized today that I hadn't taken a shower since I was in Kentucky (on Sunday) so I finally got it together and ran some hot water over myself. Otherwise I've spent the last two days asleep. I did manage to squeeze in five episodes of DS9 yesterday including "In The Cards."

This one is basically a bottle-romp. Jake realizes that everyone is super depressed what with the impending war and hostile takeover of DS9. He's especially worried about his dad so when he notices a mint Willie Mays baseball card on auction at Quark's, he takes the reluctant Nog on a crazy-pants quest to obtain it for Papa Sisko.

I love this episode because it's a quiet, simple, mostly stress-free episode. It's low-key and provides a sort of calm before the inevitable storm of invasion, war, and occupation that would end up taking up lots and lots of episodes later on. The entire story takes place on DS9 and tracks Jake and Nog (who I love already) as they basically go around making everyone's day better. No one is dying (yet) or losing something important to them (yet) or questioning their own ethics in time of war (yet.) Everyone's just super freaked out and then less freaked out thanks to a couple of kids looking to help someone who has helped them. While this story doesn't have a ton of hard SciFi, it overflows with optimism and generosity of the human spirit and that's VERY Trek. Check it out.