Fascination

This one's a little hard to watch at first, but if you yield to the premise, as I finally did after fifteen minutes of being irritated, you might find it enjoyable. Otherwise, it's a pretty far departure from the show's norm. The story is about a big festival day with a lot of lovers reuniting. But for some funny reason, love runs amuck, and many unusual crushes and flirtations appear. I chose to watch this episode for Majel Barrett, who proves she is still one of the best TV actresses from 1960's, if you like that exaggerated style. Majel's character (Counselor Troi's vampy mother) has a romantic fixation on Oto. Many other characters get fixations, too, and things get topsy-turvy as love goes out in all directions. Love, love, love—too much love, and none of it quite right. There are a lot of fun twists in this Midsummer's Night Star Trek, and some viewers will like it while others will hate it. I will say this, Nana Visitor never looked prettier.

This was really remindful of a Restoration comedy. It has all kinds of interconnected romantic attractions that cause distress to one of the partners. I won't comment much on this. Yes, it is filler. When a series goes on so long and a much more intense episode is coming up, it's not unusual for there to be a lighter motif. Lwaxana is one of my least favorite characters. The whole Betazoid thing is hard to take. But there are some funny moments and some that are a bit touching. It's hard for me to get all out of joint over a few minutes of lightheartedness. Especially, if things get back on track soon.

Lwaxana Troi comes to DS9 for a Bajoran festival and kicks off some farcical shenanigans.

DS9 is generally a dark show and it needs infrequent lighter episodes to give its audience relief. This one has a good premise with the 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' tribute, but for me the comedy mostly fails, due to a lack of timing and an over reliance on individuals behaving out of character.

The humour is generally quite farcical and although certain situations should be quite funny, I find it difficult to let go of the actors usual portrayals to accept their characterisations here. In fact it is difficult to take certain individuals (like Bareil) seriously again in his other episodes. I think the writers are guilty of going over the top with the amount of characters behaving the way they do. I do not think it needed Bashir, Kira and Quark to be infected, when there were so many already.

The best scenes for me involved the O'Briens, as their dialogue exchanges were quite recognisable in interactions between couples. I've had a few like that myself!

All actors do their best with the material and it is a memorable story, but unfortunately one I would rather forget.

I appreciate that comedy is very much in the eye of the beholder and others may enjoy it.

It's a Lwaxana Troi episode, which means its a skip. But on top of that, you get a moping Jake, O'Brien's bratty wife and Kira's creepy milquetoast boyfriend.

O'Brien's wife bitches and moans like a spoiled brat, Jake mopes, and Troi is... well... her usual unbearable self. Probably the worst episode in the series.

Everyone goes crazy and starts lusting after each other. Jake is in love with Kira, her lame boyfriend lusts after Dax, and Dax can't keep her hands off of Sisko. Meanwhile Miles and Keiko argue and complain (as usual). It's all very awkward and weird and total filler. The mystery is obvious and easily solved.

Sisko calling Dax "old man" while she gropes him is kind of funny I guess. Otherwise you miss nothing by missing this one.

Unlike today a star trek season had 26 episodes about the life on DS9 in the course of a entire year. Some might call it a filler episode, but then again you can call half of DS9 a filler episode. It's great to see all aspects of life on the station. This episode is fun and quirky, everything goes wrong :p Lwaxana being in the episode says enough.