We're getting close to the end of the first season...
- Kira gets a chance to shine in "Progress". There's a Bajoran moon set to be tapped of magma as a heat source, and she has to convince farmer Mullibok (TV veteran Brian Keith--Unca Bill!) to vamoose. He tells her about his time fighting the Cardassians, and now she's somehow become the enemy. She ends up bonding with the old guy, even joining him there. The end is rather abrupt--Kira decides he has to move on, so she burns down his hut and beams them up. There's also another stupid storyline with Nog--this time, he's trading "yamok sauce", and Jake tries to help out. They go through a series of trades, each worse than the last. The pathos of the main story keeps colliding with the wacky subplot.
- In "If Wishes Were Horses", it's normal life on the station--O'Brien is telling his daughter Molly (who can now speak) a bedtime story. Suddenly, she sees "Rumplestilkskin"--and he's there. Bashir dreams of Dax--and she attacks him in his bed. Back on the bridge, the real Dax shows up--oops! Quark's losing his shirt--everyone is winning "Dabo". Of course, some technobabble anomaly is to blame, and they fight it with more technobabble. In the end, they figure out the anomaly is all in their minds, but the apparitions are actually enigmatic aliens. There's an amusing scene with Quark and Odo at the start--he wants to get into "family entertainment" with the holo-suites--a commentary on amusement parks?
- Perhaps anticipating the need to jack up ratings with TNG cast members, Lwaxana Troi drops by the station in "The Forsaken". She's part of a Federation delegation there to see the wormhole, and Bashir is trying to handle them. Troi is impressed with Odo--which is never a good thing. Meanwhile, the delegation keeps getting underfoot, bugging the whole crew. O'Brien is fighting with the Cardassian computer, when an unknown probe comes thru the wormhole, and Dax and O'Brien try to figure it out. It starts knocking down systems, including the turbolift with Odo and Troi inside. O'Brien realizes the computer is changing--starting to "need" him. Odo finally breaks down to Troi and we get some backstory--he also reaches his regeneration period (when he turns into liquid). Troi ends up collecting him in her skirt (eewww!). Bashir plays the hero when an explosion puts the delegation in danger. O'Brien figures out the rogue code is like a puppy that wants attention, so he builds a "doghouse" to save the station. A lot of varied plotlines that don't work together very well.
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