Er, what was his other choice? Lie and be killed? Say nothing and be killed?

Sure, the show does go out of its way to create a "familiar" war scenario sometimes — but you could level that complaint at all of Trek. No realistic space battle with the technology they have would look *anything* like the naval battles of TNG or the dogfights of DS9 — nor would any combat ships be designed in that…

"don't get between me and the bloodline!"
Hey that reminds me of that joke about the high school student going to prom so he went to the tux store and waited in a long tux line to rent a tux, then he went to the limo place and waited in a long limo line to rent a limo, then he went to the flower place and waited in a…

I always just figured the injury was such that it couldn't do much more than hold a simple shape (or ideally remain as liquid, but it had to hide)

"The Ship" is one of DS9's amazing "the pressures of combat" episodes which we get to enjoy now that the war is really ramping up. There are more to come, and they are awesome because of how up close and personal (and brutal) they get (as distinct from bigger stories like Homefront/Paradise). You're about to see…

Yeah, for sure — don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the episode was a wash or anything. I just really think putting the "surrender" line so early was a misstep — it felt like one throughout the whole episode, and that was compounded by the choice to end on a "can we trust him?" scene (even though Rick knows the answer…

Ok, for those who wonder what I mean…

I thought the "moot conversation" issue extended far beyond just Rick & Hershel's chat at the end. Almost immediately in the negotiations the governor says he's here for "one thing and one thing only: your surrender" — after which the entire episode-spanning conversation felt largely pointless.

@avclub-4ff9f9e050f345fd84d0e945bf8d6c37:disqus that same line is the line between optimism and naivete. Trek *needs* the former, but it's constantly in danger of straying into the latter. The message that humans can one day sort their shit out is all the more powerful when it's acknowledged just how bad that shit can…

@phodreaw:twitter  Well — almost. He would certainly never betray people the way Eddington did, for *any* ideal (SPOILER: we shall see this clearly in Honour Among Thieves)
But tweak the world a bit — say O'Brien and Keiko settled down on a border planet after Molly was born instead of continuing the Starfleet life —…

Maybe the Federation is designed to support laziness in some, since there will always be productive people too. There are already economists today who argue that we're moving towards a future where it just makes sense for lots of people to not have jobs, because too many people being too productive just becomes…

Agreed. In fact (though this is obviously fanwank) I like to think of the original telekinetic trick as nothing but a fakeout — a holo-projector in the cave or something.

Well, I think we have to assume that even non-Starfleet Federation citizens feel a strong sense of duty towards their role in society…

That's why Tribunal worked so well — to any casual outside observer, O'Brien would be a prime Maquis candidate, and thus the perfect target for a frame-up. But to those that know him, come on, it's the Chief! So they gave only cursory consideration to his guilt because they were duty bound to do so, then set about…

All I know is my gut says maybe.

Who the hell realizes that a profile has been assembled with fake pictures photoshopped from a catalogue, and assumes that it must belong to the catalogue model?

Probably best to tell you now, so you don't ruin any episodes for yourself by wondering when it's going to crop up: the show decided to drop the telekinetic ability idea for the Vorta. I don't think it's mentioned again at all.

My favourite part: Brendon's completely made up mannerisms for Lindenson (based only on having been told he has a "weird energy") later turn out to be a pretty reasonable impersonation.

Let the bears pay the Bear Tax. I pay the Homer Tax!

Totally. If anything, one of the slight flaws of the characterization is that Jeremy will occasionally think/say things that are *totally* Mark lines — and you can tell they included them just because they couldn't resist the phrasing once they'd thought of it