Trapped in a Plot Hole

"Meridian" Plot Summary:

Dax falls in love with a man from a planet in the Delta Quadrant which is only in phase with the rest of the universe once every sixty years. She wants to stay with him, but her presence prevents the planet from being able to go out of phase and nearly kills the entire population until DS9 crewmembers rescue her.

Meanwhile, a sleazy stranger who lusts after Kira inspires Quark to try to create a hologram in her image (or perhaps more rightly in the Intendant's image). Kira and Odo figure out what he's up to, and wreak revenge.

Analysis:

This episode may be the most insipid romance ever played out in any Trek incarnation. It made "Melora" look like a witty, thoughtfully-plotted love story with a deep message. The comparisons to "Brigadoon" are obvious, except that "Brigadoon" was funny and smart.

Fortunately, "Meridian" had an opening scene which almost completely distracted me. Nothing in the Dax storyline came close to the first two minutes, when Kira told the sleazy stranger that Odo was her lover. The expression on Odo's face - following a discussion about eating and other messy humanoid things that Odo's never tried - was priceless!

Quark's lie about needing Kira's image so he could create a holosuite program so people could get the feel of being in Ops, rebutted by Odo's "Naked, I assume," left me laughing through the rest of the show. Forget the latinum, and imagine how much that program would go for at a Trek convention!

Sadly, the rest of the crew was stinking up the Gamma Quadrant. I'm not even going to bother to pick on Sisko's hokiness or Bashir's irksomeness. Nor will I whine about Dax's sniveling, and the goofy way her lover said, "JadzZEEEEia." What else could they do, when they had dialogue like, "Don't you want to look at the telemetry?" "I'd rather look at you!" Didn't Dax learn anything from Curzon concerning tired pickup lines about how far down the spots go?

All I can say is, thank heaven that planet is out of phase for 60 years and they can't possibly do a sequel. To give credit where credit is due: director Frakes did some lovely camera work, especially the tracking down the tree, and I can't fault him for resorting to an endless sequence of two-shots when there was no possible way to make the gooey-eyed cliched scenes interesting.