Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Homecoming Rewatch

July 3, 2015 8:44 AM - Season 2, Episode 1

Quark gives Kira a Bajoran earring he claims was sent as a message from a Cardassian mining planet, which leads her to rescue a Bajoran prisoner of war; meanwhile, an extremist group begins to take control of Bajor.

Welcome to Season Two!

Trivia
* This episode is the first of a three-part story arc. It was the first such arc in Star Trek history. The next one wouldn't happen until Star Trek: Enterprise's three part arc that began with "Borderland," which aired almost eleven years later.
* The seventy-sixth Rules of Acquisition is mentioned: "Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies."
* Leslie Bevis makes her first appearance as Rionoj, the Boslic freighter captain, in this episode. She later appears in the season three episode "The Abandoned" and the season 4 finale "Broken Link", where her character is named.
* Tony Award-winning actor Frank Langella, who plays Minister Jaro Essa, was uncredited in this and the following two episodes that he appears in, at his request, because he did the show for his children who were fans of the series, not for exposure or money.
* Vedek Winn makes a reference to "the orbs" (plural). Kai Opaka had previously said that only the First orb was on Bajor, and that the Cardassians had all of the others.
* Lin Nalas' character was changed from a reluctant hero to a mistaken one by Ira Steven Behr, who wanted to base him on the 1962 John Ford movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which deals with the notion that a legend can be more important than the facts upon which it is based.

posted by zarq (10 comments total)

I apologize that this is being posted a couple of days late. Will be back on schedule with DS9 next week.

I literally spent an over hour this morning reviewing episodes of DS9, Voyager and Enterprise because I was convinced the trivia about there being no 3-part episode arcs for 11 years had to be wrong. Nope!
posted by zarq at 8:45 AM on July 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

I liked Jake's line at the end of his conversation with his dad about Jake's date: "I can see you're not ready to have this conversation yet. " The Siskos have some of my favorite family scenes in all of Trek.

I have mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of the trope "The general public must never know the awful truth about Revered Hero, because those peons couldn't handle it." I like that here we get Revered Hero's perspective on that concept, and that he's not at all comfortable with it.

Also, in this episode, there is actual, demonstrable evidence that Nalas's status as a hero actually did some good, even though he wasn't the hero Bajorans thought he was. I doubt that Sisko would be willing to take the leap of faith of giving Kira a runabout if it had been J. Random Bajoran's earring turning up in Cardassia. Without the legend of Nalas, many Bajorans could have remained in Cardassian captivity indefinitely.
posted by creepygirl at 9:51 AM on July 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

The difference in Odo's makeup between the last episode & this one was striking. His forehead isn't as smoothed, seems more Auberjonois-looking. I assume that they did some tinkering over the hiatus to shorten the time of make-up application/removal process, and to give Auberjonois more range of motion? One great thing about Odo being a shapeshifter, there are no continuity issues with experimenting on the prosthetics. It can just be a new trick he's learned. (Which reminds me, did DS9 ever do a body-swap episode? Or a Groundhog Day?)

Vedek Winn makes a reference to "the orbs" (plural). Kai Opaka had previously said that only the First orb was on Bajor, and that the Cardassians had all of the others.

While I can be kind of a stickler for breaking established continuity, I don't mind breaking pilot-established continuity, since most shows are just figuring out what they are at that point. The orbs seem too useful a plot device to use up in the pilot.
posted by oh yeah! at 10:16 AM on July 3, 2015

I literally spent an over hour this morning reviewing episodes of DS9, Voyager and Enterprise because I was convinced the trivia about there being no 3-part episode arcs for 11 years had to be wrong. Nope!

Weeeellllll, I think most fans would say that TNG's "Best of Both Worlds" I, II, and "Family" are an arc. In fact, Memory Alpha considers it one. But not an official arc, I guess.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 11:45 AM on July 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Which reminds me, did DS9 ever do a body-swap episode? Or a Groundhog Day?

They had a few episodes where people were possessed, like the 1st season one where an alien possessed Bashir or the one where Dax's previous hosts possess the crew. But never a proper bodyswap, far as I recall. I'm pretty sure they never did a Groundhog Day, either.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:25 PM on July 3, 2015

Aw, darn. Even Castle managed to do a Groundhog Day, and White Collar did a sort of body-swap, it's a shame for a genre show to pass up on the opportunity to take advantage those staple plots.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:57 PM on July 3, 2015

Several DS9 episodes hit the time loop reset button in other ways, including The Visitor, Far Beyond the Stars, Trials and Tribble-ations and Children of Time. They're all considered excellent episodes, but aren't traditional Groundhog Day-style the way that say, TNG's Cause and Effect was.
posted by zarq at 7:43 AM on July 6, 2015

The only problem I have with this episode it the Cardassian bathing in a lake. Like, they have FTL and teleporters, and have conquered Bajor, and yet they bathe in a lake!
posted by marienbad at 3:05 PM on October 18, 2015

Bathing in a lake can be pleasant!
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:01 PM on November 13, 2023

OK, so they can't transport all the prisoners at once because once the first two go, the Cardassians will know something's up. But why didn't they transport the remaining four once they get back to their shuttle? There was no stealth by that point.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:02 PM on November 13, 2023