Looking for Par’Mach in All the Wrong Places #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 3) Worf helps Quark romance his Klingon ex-wife; Kira and O’Brien get very close

Rewatching ST:DS9

Outside the O’Briens’ quarters, Quark catches Bashir eavesdropping on raised voices. (It’s actually Miles and Kira fighting.)

Dax and Worf are happily bickering over opera when he is smitten by the sight of a “glorious” Klingon woman.

“She’s okay,” says Dax.

It’s Grilka, Quark’s ex-wife. Quark realizes she needs his financial advice, but is too proud to ask.

She’s really on the station so that she can reject Worf, which in TV land is enough to motivate him to play Cyrano de Bergerac, coaching Quark in how to romance a Klingon.

When the stakes (such as they are) rise, and Quark has to fight Grilka’s bodyguard, Dax rigs up a way for Worf to operate Quark’s body by remote control.

Yeah, it’s that kind of an episode.

The real crisis comes when Dax snaps and demands to know why Worf is so fixated on Grilka, when, were she in his shoes, “I would be looking for someone a little more entertaining, a little more fun, and maybe even a little more attainable.”

Worf still doesn’t take the hint — not until Dax attacks him with a bat’leh.

The B plot features O’Brien being creepily controlling of Kira, who (due to the actress’s real-world pregnancy and a plot contrivance womb-relocation incident a few episodes back) is carrying Kieko’s and his child. Dr. Bashir is rather creepily needling O’Brien about his growing intimacy with Kira. We are apparently meant to recognize their squabbling as an outward sign of their suppressed sexual tension, and a plot contrivance leads them on a runabout together, with the unsuspecting Keiko’s blessing, about to head off for an isolated vacation.

Yeah, it is, I say again, that kind of an episode.

Bashir, who just a few scenes ago was sniggering over the thought of O’Brien helping the very pregnant Kira out of the tub, suddenly gets squeamish when first Quark shows up, disheveled, battered, and happy, and then Worf and Dax show up, disheveled, battered and happy.

I put off rewatching this, and after I watched it I put off writing up my next review.

Filming this was probably a lot of fun for the actors, but overall it felt like I was watching a direct-to-video, edited-for-television sequel to a 1980s high school comedy.