Sunday, January 27, 2013

Change of Heart

*** (3 stars out of 5)
Dax and Worf are assigned to extract a Cardassian double agent called Lasaran.

Worf's idea of a honeymoon is a slog across Vulcan's Forge, or shivering their way across the mountains of Andor. Dax wants to have room service on the self-indulgent planet Casperia Prime, the "vacation capital of the Hoverian Cluster". Worf agrees easily. Dax is surprised he's so agreeable.

She's even more surprised by how dull the Enterprise must have been if they thought WORF was the funny one. (Ha, ha, DS9. Dull is not a stone you want to throw today, what with your glass house.)

Lasaran is defecting with information about the Founders, and he needs to be lifted out of the jungles of Soukara. Which are full of transporter scramblers. Time for some old-fashioned walking! (And he'll probably want to be literally lifted on the way back, he seems like a load.)

Meanwhile, O'Brien is a man who loves a challenge. Kayaking down the same holo-river for seven years. Playing darts against a guy with enhanced co-ordination. And today: beating QUARK at tongo. Well, forcing the enhanced guy to beat Quark at tongo. The Ferengi distracts Bashir with the sob story that Dax was probably their only chance at happiness and they let WORF win her heart. This technique works: turns out the doctor still fancies her.

Not as much as Worf, of course. Fancies Dax, I mean. Not Bashir and Worf. Save it for the slash fiction, ladies.

As a boy, Worf wanted to run naked with the wolves of the Ural Mountains when his father took him camping. But when his wife is shot by a Jem'Hadar anti-coagulant beam, the sexy talk stops and the real misery sets in. Will Worf save a selfish Cardassian jerk and thus potentially end the war, or will he save his wife? There is no contest. Worf didn't really want an upwardly mobile career anyway, did he? Or (let's not kid ourselves) an END TO THE WAR. He's a KLINGON, if you'll recall.

"Change of Heart"offers some stunning effects as Dax dodges asteroids. And the 'Dax' effects of spotted skin and shoulders romping under a fur blanket with her man can set to stun as well. As Sisko and all husbands know, there IS no choice here. Save the wife, save the world.

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