26. Melora

Summary

Ensign Melora Pazlar, a native of the low-gravity planet Alaysia who requires motor support in the station's gravity, comes aboard the station for a charting mission to the Gamma Quadrant. She and Bashir strike up a friendship after he calls her on her tendency to be somewhat adversarial, a defense against being perceived as handicapped. She and Dax are scheduled to depart on the charting mission, but Dax finds Melora incapacitated on the floor after she damaged her servo-controls trying to retrieve a piece of equipment. Bashir fixes her up and mentions the possibility of neurotransmitter therapy to enable her to move without motor support. She invites him into experience the low-grav environment of her quarters and one thing leads to another. Meanwhile, a criminal associate of Quark's, Fallit Kot, appears on the station after having served eight years in a Romulan prison camp because Quark sold him out. He informs Quark calmly that he plans to kill him. When Dax and Melora return, Julian has exciting news...that the neurotherapy could actually work. They begin treatments and Melora starts to have a taste of independent mobility, but she must sacrifice her low-grav field if it's to succeed. She and Dax set off on another charting mission and discuss the ups and down of long-distance romances. Kot, in the meantime, makes his attempt on Quark's life but is dissuaded by the promise of 199 bars of latinum that's arriving with a businessman who's buying some merchandise from Quark. They meet the man and Kot steal the merchandise and kills the businessman. Escaping to a runabout, they run into Dax and Melora, who've just returned, and take them hostage. Kot shoots Melora but she survives and deactivates the runabout's artificial gravity, then uses her low-grav skill to disable Kot. When she returns she tells Julian she's decided not to go ahead with the treatments, because though they would make her independent, she wouldn't feel like herself.

Analysis

Ehhh. More romance-of-the-week. Julian's turn at the plate this time. Not much to recommend it except for a few tolerable scenes. Melora isn't much of a character, more like a collection of cliches and caricatures of the disabled who shifts her attitudes as unpredictably as El Nino, and Bashir is in his smarmiest I'm-ok-you're-ok mode, blithely going around telling everyone what's best for them and making lame wisecracks. I always hoped it was this episode that prompted the writers to reform his character into the vast improvement it's become. The plot is rather nonexistent, the hostage situation with Kot is the worst kind of contrived coincidence-plotting and a hackneyed movie-of-the-week affirmation of the capability of the "differently-abled." I'll say that the whole concept of the tribulations of being a low-gravity native existing in a high-gravity environment is intriguing, but it deserves better treatment than this lame romance. Dull, dull, dull. Three things I like: the Klingon restaurant scene (I just love that Klingon chef), the low-grav love scene is actually sort of cool, and this ep also has one of of my personal favorite Odo/Quark scenes...see Classic Scene below.

Rating: 3.0

Memorable Quote:

Odo: Oh, it's you.
Quark: Don't be so happy to see me!
Odo: All right, I won't.

Classic Scene:

I dunno why but I do love that Odo/Quark scene from which the above quote is taken. The *look* Odo gives Quark after he says that Kot wants to kill him...a sort of withering wistful smile...is priceless. The low-grav necking is neat too.

Sexually Slanted Line 'O the Episode:

"Just give a gentle push." --Melora to Julian

The O/K Status Report

El zippo.

Special Alerts

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