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.

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.

The plot from this is lifted from the play/movie "Brigadoon"...though without all the singing, Van Johnson, Gene Kelly and the rest. When the story begins, the Defiant spots a planet that just appears! They are invited to land and learn from these nice folks that their planet appears and they live their lives every 60 years. Then, it disappears after a bit and becomes invisible and the folks go to sleep for another 60 years! It's actually a pretty ridiculous idea but try not to think about it.

During their visit with the nice folks, a VERY frisky guy from the magical planet seems VERY bent on getting his groove on with Jadzia Dax. Slowly, Jadzia also starts having feelings towards the guy. In fact, she's so taken by him that she agrees to move to the planet to stay with the guy. Ultimately, this doesn't work, as the writers weren't about to write her off the show...yet.

Overall this is a reasonably pleasant episode though it's hardly original. Worth seeing but forgettable.

"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 is a mixed episode, containing two stories, one good, & the other pretty boring.

Not too surprisingly the boring part involves Dax, who has a romance with a humanoid from a colony on a planet that only appears for a few days before disappearing again for 60 years.

The other story is back on the space station where an alien has the hots for Major Kira, but as he cannot get her teams up with Quark to arrange something. Pity this wasn't fleshed out more and the tedious Dax plot was squeezed instead of the other way around. Terry Farrell may have been attractive but she was a lousy actress, as is her character.