Move Along Home

Avery Brooks didn't apparently like this episode according to IMDb and after seeing the show, I can certainly understand why. It's simply a bad episode...one that is inexplicably stupid.

The Wadi are a race of folks who just came from the Gamma Quadrant. Oddly, instead of initiating normal diplomatic or first contact behaviors, these weirdos are solely interested in going to Quark's place and gambling. At first, Quark thinks they are a bunch of easy marks but soon they turn out to be gambling savants. So far, so good. However, when they show Quark one of their games, the command staff disappear and find themselves in some sort of live action game much like a platformer game.

None of the show makes any sense...none. And, after kidnapping the crew and scaring the crap out of them, the Wadi just leave and the episode ends. Huh?! Poorly written...and in a way that might just make you cringe.

UPDATE: By the way, it isn't just me who hated this episode. At the 50th anniversary Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, this was voted as one of the 10 worst of all episodes from every Trek franchise! That is some ignoble designation!

First contact has been made with aliens called the Wadi in the Gamma Quadrant and they are on the way through the wormhole and to the space station. Where do these aliens want to go but Quark's for some gambling. That's what these folks are all about games of all kinds.

But Quark cheats a little as he considers these people rubes. But when they catch him at it, the aliens have him play a game of their own. Sisko, Kira, Dax, and Dr.Bashir find themselves as pawns in a game of the aliens faced with all different kinds of perils. How they do depends on how well Armin Shimerman spins the alien dice.

The story is a bit silly, but the cast regulars and guests do sell it.

"Move Along Home," is often dismissed as one of the series' more eccentric episodes, but I find its charm undeniable. Yes, it's quite silly, with an unusual premise: the crew, especially Sisko, Kira, Dax, and Bashir, are unwillingly pulled into a bizarre game by the Wadi, an alien species fascinated with chance and challenge. However, the episode's fun lies in its surreal, almost whimsical atmosphere. Watching the crew try to solve strange riddles and puzzles adds a playful, unpredictable vibe uncommon in Star Trek. It doesn't advance any major story arcs, but it gives the actors a chance to show new sides of their characters, caught in an absurd, almost dreamlike scenario. Sure, it lacks depth, but "Move Along Home" is pure enjoyment-an amusing change of pace that proves even a serious sci-fi series can afford to take a lighthearted detour.

DS9 makes first contact with a species from the gamma quadrant.

This is an odd episode that has a reasonably good premise, but when the final reveal comes it feels a rather pointless experience to me.

There are some positives, such as some of the character exchanges between Sisko and Jake, Sisko, Dax and Kira and Odo and Quark. You get a good sense of characters loyalty to each other from the situations they are seemingly put in.

Many visuals are a good standard, particularly the cave scenes that feel quite exciting and well made. Plus the general design of the game both internally and how it physically appears within Quark's.

The Wadi are not the most inspired of alien designs, particularly supposedly coming from the far reaches of the gamma quadrant. As a first impression of what DS9 would be serving up using the wormhole concept, it is quite poor.

There are a number of annoying moments such as the crew trying to stop the game with the 'we are not amused' attitude and making futile attempts to talk to characters who do not acknowledge them. The allarmaraine nursery rhyme sequence is (briefly) almost as painful as watching Captain Kirk and Spock's humiliation at the hands of Parmen. Dr Bashir (also briefly) is again poorly characterised.

When the final reveal comes it is exactly what you thought it might (but hoped it wouldn't) be.

Years ago in the British series called "The Prisoner," Patrick McGoohan was thrust into a world where there were obstacles around every corner, in a kind of "Through the Looking Glass" motif. He never knew who is friends or enemies were or where he was heading. Here, a new alien race shows up and demand that they find "games." Of course, Quark runs a gambling establishment and a kind of holographic house of ill repute. He embraces them and sets off a series of events that are incredibly bizarre. That said, it serves absolutely no purpose other than to force the main characters participate in a fantastic game. Anyway, it struck me as something a writer came up with with for no other reason to play out a scenario.