Winds of Time

"Explorers" Plot Summary:

Having read legends that ancient Bajorans achieved faster-than-light speed and visited Cardassia, Sisko decides to prove that it might have been possible. He builds a ship based on an ancient model and takes Jake with him on a voyage, during which Jake discusses his desire to be a writer and Ben shares some of his feelings about command and fatherhood. The Cardassians scoff at the trip, but when the Siskos successfully complete it after scaring everyone by appearing to be way off course, Dukat grudgingly reveals that the Cardassians have just discovered an ancient Bajoran crash site on their world.

Meanwhile, Bashir's chief competition in medical school arrives on the station, making him feel insecure and inadequate. He tries to talk to her but she ignores him, so he gets drunk with O'Brien...until he realizes that he approached the wrong woman. Then she admits she always admired him, and they become friendly.

Analysis:

This episode appealed to me a lot, although my nitpicky brain did not shut up for a moment. If you don't see Benjamin Sisko for the next 24 hours, it's because I've hired him to build me a house - shouldn't take him longer than a day, if he could single-handedly build a spaceworthy, historically accurate, comfortable ship out of Bajoran lumber. I'm not scientist enough to criticize the tachyon nonsense, the astrolabe nonsense, or the fact that when Dukat set off those fireworks , the ship should have stated moving as the light hit its sails...maybe that was Dukat's intention, to blast them back home. It's a good thing I like space opera.

I'm also curious as to when Bashir became so important that he's worthy of at least one major scene in every episode. I'm not complaining exactly, they've been good scenes recently, but this week's angst-fest was one of the least-connected subplots in the history of Trek. Julian's personal history as parallel with ancient Bajoran accomplishment? Yawn. We've heard enough recently about that failed exam post-ganglionic nerve fiber, and I was not impressed with the woman who beat him out turning around to grovel at his feet. I did love him and O'Brien singing the "Chariots of Fire" song, thus equating the ancient Bajorans on Cardassia to Jesus in England.

I liked Dukat, as always, especially at the end revealing the Bajoran crash site. I'm aggravated that no actual BAJORANS are going to get credit for making the trip and forcing the Cardassians to own up - why didn't Sisko ask KIRA if she'd like to go on that trip? Since Kira was so enthusiastic about the idea in the first place, and Sisko obviously has no problem with the entire command crew of the station flying off anyway, it would have been a nice gesture.

I'm having a very hard time explaining what I liked about this episode. Maybe the Sisko-Jake interaction, which seemed rather more sincere and realistic than it has of late (although I'm SO disappointed that they didn't have that father-son sex talk!) Maybe I just like that this episode was so different than the last several weeks'. Maybe I like "Chariots of the Gods" better than I thought. Maybe it was the anti-canonical history theme. Maybe the new beard just did it for me.