DS9: The Darkness and the Light

I did not like this episode.
Quite a lot of it was fine. The same stuff with the resitance and morality that they've been poking at from all sides.
And while a very pregnant woman running off on a revenge mission is deeply stupid it is a kind of stupid they set up clearly, and plausible in character, and going to make me hide and hope it works out okay because veryvery bad: baby is in danger!
It also uses the pregnancy to look at the issues again, the whole thing with balancing responsibilities.
So that part doesn't suck.


But when she catches up with the bad guy?
He's hunched over, his hand is scarred and crooked, and he has extensive facial scarring. His idiosyncratic speech patterns are probably meant to suggest some kind of mental illness. And... why?

Okay, so there's the thing about victims, innocence, she hurt him so now he wants to hurt her, all that. Also that thing they had with Spike and Angel when Spike was waiting for his hands to reattach, how they were all innocent once. There was some good stuff layered in there.

But why did they choose disability as a way to show it?
Why scars?
What is it with trying to make evil ugly?
It's just really fucked up.
And utterly illogical in this 'verse - they have a level of technology that can change an individual's *species* - give them any face they want! How, how, how could he plausibly end up with scars???
So it just takes something that should be balanced on the personal edge of political and makes it all about the crazy (which distracts from the main questions) and moral flaws showing up as physical failings and
yuck.


It's like I can see what they were trying to do just enough that it makes me want to explain to them instead of just throw it away, but... no.



In my experience nice people and nasty people look pretty much like people. You can't tell by looking. Why does fiction continue to suggest that you can?

DS9: 515 A Simple Investigation

Odo gets a girlfriend.
Okay, so I never like one episode romances. They can hit all the doomed love highlights, sure, but you can't hardly build a lasting relationship in forty minutes.
There's lots of interesting in it - the idea Odo would fall for the damsel in distress could be turned around and poked a few times, especially since she's a competent damsel. Or there's the thing where they designed her to be appealing so here she is appealing.
But... Odo does sex. Now I'm not knocking his shapeshifting abilities, but that's a hell of a lot of detail work right there. Not just to have all the relevant plumbing - to actually find it fun! I mean why would one bit of his shapeshifted anatomy be more fun than another?
... I'm having thoughts about the nose rubbing now ...
And, okay, the idea is for him to copy humans so much he becomes one, but... meh.

Aliens is aliener than that!

... not that they're going to do anything on TV that looks like what Shift was doing in the Outsiders comic that one time, but it would seem more likely, you know?

So anyways.




I ate the same stuff as yesterday and now - much to my surprise, of course - I feel kind of oogy exactly as I did yesterday.
*facepalm*

Also it is kind of blechy weather. And teh windows actually don't open on one side. I've managed to get one open, but that gives me like an inch of air before the way they're built stops them. It's not impressive.
I could probably get someone to do something about that.

... it hasn't been relevant recently on account of the whole thing where I kept my windows covered with large chunks of wood. But hey, must be getting better, has windows again!



Also has a plaster on the end of my left ring finger. It doesn't precisely get in the way of typing, just make me aware of exactly which letters that finger does. Awkward.



I go watch more TV.