Meridian

I'm not going to mince words here -- the A plot with Dax and the dimension-shifting alien was an insult to script-writing, common sense, and every single attempt at characterization over the course of the series. Literally nothing about it made sense, from the sudden life-changing decision-making, to any attempt to make the dimensional alien attractive enough to lead to such a decision, to the fact that none of the other primary characters seemed to see that the entire situation was completely ludicrous. Whoever wrote this episode should be ashamed. Whoever greenlit it should be ashamed. People who happened to be standing near the set when it was filmed should be ashamed. It was just hack writing and a hack episode.

I'll give it three stars because of the B-plot, and that's stretching credulity too. The B-plot wasn't bad, per se, but it was also lazily done. It had so much untapped potential for hilarity that the writer never attempted to explore. That one joke at the very end wasn't nearly enough to make the plot worth it, especially when a better writer could have turned the entire sequence into a really funny farce. The idea behind it could have been developed much better than what we got -- too many potential comic scenes were left a straightforward drama and exposition. Quite disappointing.

"With a brief stop to climb a tree!" Honestly? Eight lifetimes and still falling for a line like that, Jadzia! Well all the actors did what they could with a thin gruel, but " Please Sir, I don't want any more!"

This episode is really boring. The whole "extra dimensional" aspect of the story is beyond science fiction and into science stupidity. On top of that they layer an extremely cheesy love story. Wouldn't be so bad if the male lover's acting weren't so terribly unrealistic. Someone in the writing staff of ds9 has the idea romance and seduction occur when a man stares creepily at a woman in awkward silence. It's atrociously shallow and silly. There's a "filler" subplot involving an alien trying to get a holosuite program of Major Kira. It's stretched-out too long but it builds to a funny, if cheap, laugh. Overall this episode has been one of the weakest in the ds9 series until this point. Totally forgettable.

I firmly believe that it's okay for TV to have an off day, and this episode is mostly about the DS9 crew dealing with their Riker-level horniness for some aliens. It was (unintentionally) funny, no one was getting angsty about Cardassians, I liked it.

I got about 5 minutes into this one before deciding to skip it. I'm on my second run through DS9 and I have no memory whatsoever of this episode so I presume I came to the same conclusion first time around too.

Totally ludicrous premise about the dimension shifting planet and some cringe inducing lines right off the bat, not good.