Exasperated Calculator: Star Trek & Economics

Sisko makes a deal with the devil in order to keep the Federation alive. Sisko holding someone against a wall saying “I’m making a new agreement” is one of the most chilling moments Star Trek has managed from the main cast. The triumph of the episode is that every step along the way to that…

Tom has a case of the body switches. The only new thing this brings to an old trope is the fact that the alien doing the body switching isn’t very competent at it – he gets caught pretty quickly, all things considered. But other than that it’s pretty straightforward. It would’ve been a lot more…

Bashir has to prove his loyalty to the Federation I never once questioned Bashir’s loyalty, and as a result this episode did very little for me. The reveal that ‘it was the Holodeck all along’ did very little for me – very little in the episode really required that up until the final act. And…

Kira digs into her mother’s past with Dukat. Oh goody, *another* time travel back to the dark days of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. It really hasn’t worked well so far, and I’m not sure why they chose to tell this story. Perhaps they were already regretting the new Dukat they created, and were using…

The fighting breaks out of the Holodeck. Not as good as part one, mainly due to the silly (the holo-emitters conveniently allowing the ‘Nazi’ thing to keep going), and the over-earnest (the Hirogen leader’s desire to remake his culture). But still a lot of fun, and with a lot of good action moments. And while…

The crew are held captive on the Holodeck by the Hirogen. This is the single best use the Holodeck has ever been put to. I’ve complained in the past about the many stupid holodeck malfunction episodes, and the otherwise distracting and pointless use of the holodeck when it’s working perfectly. Here they finally managed to…

Worf and Dax go on a mission together. A long buildup to an interesting scene, but we’d have been far better served with less build up, and a bit more time establishing the dilemma. The ‘Worf and Dax have a bumpy, but fundamentally good, relationship’ stuff is way too long. Once we get there it’s…

Seven recovers a memory of an assault. Yikes, what an uncomfortable hour of television. It’s not bad, by any means, it’s just really difficult to watch. It’s especially awkward given the recent (in Australia) stories in the news from Melbourne. The question of recovered memories is a very very difficult one. The show doesn’t stray…

O’Brien goes undercover with the Orion syndicate. This episode rests on a knife point. On the one hand, it’s ridiculous that O’Brien would be chosen for this mission – he doesn’t really have the skills or background, there must be a hundred more qualified people than him, and even within the DS9 crew Bashir would…

Voyager runs into two old friends at once – the Hirogen and Species 8472. You know that thing I said a couple of episodes ago, about how the Hirogen wouldn’t support any interesting stories? Wrong, as it turns out. While the Hirogen themselves are still disappointingly one note, the conflict between Seven and Janeway is…