The ultimate "Jake & Nog get into all sorts of wacky hijinks" episode.
Jake: I'm not crazy... I'm just a little obsessed.
Nog: A little?
Nog: A little?
The mood aboard DS9 has grown dark and despondent, and even a dinner party from Captain Sisko can't lift the mood. An impending visit from Kai Winn only deepens Sisko's funk. When Jake learns that a mint-condition 1951 Willie Mays rookie baseball card will be going up for sale at an auction, he hatches a plan to lift his father's spirits by giving it to him. Lacking money and business sense, he guilts Nog into helping buy it.
Of course, it's not that simple. Jake is outbid on the lot containing the card by the eccentric scientist Dr. Elias Giger, who needs another item in the lot to conduct his experiments on immortality. Not to be outdone, Jake bargains with Giger to buy the card off him with Nog's latinum, but Giger only wants a list of assorted items. Jake and Nog end up running around the station trying to acquire the items from the station's senior staff and end up trading favors such as adding jokes to Kira's speech and stealing back Bashir's teddy bear from his ex-girlfriend Leeta. It's hard work, but Jake insists that he can't let his father down when he needs him.
Meanwhile, Sisko meets with Winn and learns that she's scheduled to meet a Dominion delegation on the station to hear their offer for a non-aggression treaty. Sisko warns her that the Dominion is just trying to drive a wedge between Bajor and the Federation, but Winn counters that the Federation can't guarantee her planet's safety should a war break out. She asks for the Emissary's advice, and Sisko suggests that she Take a Third Option and stall for time, since a better solution might appear at some point. While Weyoun awaits Winn's answer, he starts to become aware of Dr. Giger's humming machines on the floor below his quarters.
Just when it seems that Jake and Nog have all the items they need, they return to Giger's quarters to find that he and his equipment have vanished. Jake suspects that Kai Winn has been after a Bajoran artifact that was also in the auction lot, and he accuses her of stealing it. Their confrontation nearly causes a diplomatic incident, and Jake avoids letting Sisko know why he did it so he won't spoil the surprise. Jake and Nog get confined to quarters as punishment, but just as they get into the turbolift, they're abducted and beamed into Weyoun's quarters.
Weyoun accuses the pair of spying on him with Dr. Giger. After all, they've been running all around the station delivering items, visiting Dr. Giger's mysterious machines, and even meeting with Winn immediately after her conversation with him. Jake first tries to explain that he was only after a baseball card, but when Weyoun rejects that, he spins a tale of how they're investigating a temporal paradox involving Willie Mays. After hearing this, Weyoun decides that Jake's first story was the truth and lets the pair go with the baseball card. Meanwhile. Dr. Giger's immortality machine immediately strikes the Vorta's interest.
Jake delivers the baseball card to an appreciative Sisko and makes amends with his father. Further, the pair's Chain of Deals has lifted the spirits of the entire senior staff, and even Giger is happy to show off his experiments to Weyoun. So everything ends for the best.
Until next week...
This episode contains examples of
- Accidental Truth: Nog definitely doesn't hide his latinum under his bed as Quark jokingly says.
- Actor Allusion: Of course Weyoun would be interested in a mad scientist's theories on cheating death.
- Affably Evil: While the Vorta usually come across as Faux Affably Evil, in this episode, Weyoun seems to be genuinely hurt when his obsequious pleasantries are met with insults. He also makes sure that Jake gets the baseball card he was after.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Dr. Giger offers an absurd explanation for how his immortality machine works. Jake and Nog quickly dismiss him as a nut, but so many improbable events have occurred throughout Star Trek: Faster-Than-Light Travel, Energy Beings, Reality Warpers, Telepathy and other Psychic Powers, Time Travel, interaction with at least one Alternate Universe, and many, many more. And these things aren't shown to be exceptional, either, but are known and accepted phenomena in Star Trek, although sometimes they are accepted without being fully understood. There isn't really any reason to think that a scientist couldn't have found a way to use a machine to eliminate cell death, even if the explanation for how it works is bizarre.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Kai Winn asks Sisko if the Federation would defend Bajor over Andor, Vulcan, or Earth. Sisko admits that he can't make that promise.
- Artistic License – Biology: Invoked with Giger's theories on why people get old and die — he believes it's because the cells get bored repeating the same tasks they were designed for to maintain the body over and over for decades, and eventually they lose interest, give up, and begin to deteriorate. He believed that by transmitting entertaining and uplifting messages to the cells and getting them to engage in "new mitochondrial tricks", their boredom could be alleviated and someone could live much longer, possibly even achieving immortality. After hearing his explanation, Nog and Jake quickly agree he's nuts.
- Artistic License – Economics: Once again, we get the assertion that the Federation has no money. When Nog presses Jake on how that works, Jake is flummoxed.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: Nog tells Jake that he's too fixed on the card, and that needs to get away and clear his head. They're instantly beamed onto Weyoun's ship.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Jake's second attempt to explain things to Weyoun is spinning a story of how Willie Mays suddenly came into existence via temporal paradox.
- Blatant Lies:
- When Nog lets slip that his latinum is stored underneath his bed, he immediately tries to deny it while glancing around nervously.
- Jake covers up his and Nog's foolish accusations against Kai Winn by claiming that they were drunk. Nog tries to tell the truth, but Sisko is too angry to want another word out of either of them.
- The ridiculous story Jake tells Weyoun when the latter refuses to believe the truth. So ridiculous, in fact, that Weyoun decides their original story made more sense, inverting So Crazy, It Must Be True.
- Breather Episode: Especially since it hits the fan in the very next episode.
- Chain of Deals: What Jake and Nog go through for the card. Technically it's less of a chain than a collection of deals, since none of their deals with the crew rely on their other deals.
- Chekhov's Gun: Morn can be seen walking out of the auction with a matador painting, which would reappear in "Who Mourns For Morn?"
- Continuity Nod:
- Giger's working with polaric particles.
- And to "Rapture," when Kai Winn reminds Sisko of how he blocked Bajor's entry into The Federation.
- Bashir wants Jake and Nog to get back "Kukulaka", his childhood teddy bear from ex-girlfriend Leeta. Bashir first mentions "Kukalaka" in "The Quickening".
- A Day in the Limelight: For Jake and Nog, of course.
- Determinator: Jake is going to get that card, no matter how much trouble Nog has to get in to do it!
- Didn't Think This Through: Jake and Nog directly accuse Kai Winn, Bajor's spiritual leader and a major political figure, of burglary and kidnapping. Surprising no one but the two of them, this immediately gets them in trouble.
- Dispense with the Pleasantries: Sisko tells Weyoun to can his Affably Evil act.Weyoun: Captain Sisko, I can't tell you how happy I am to see you again.
Sisko: I wish I could say the same.
Weyoun: How delightful. You feel comfortable enough around me to make jokes. I'm so pleased to see our relationship evolving beyond the stale adversarial stage.
Sisko: No, it's not, but before you twist that into a compliment, let me be blunt. I don't like the Dominion, I don't like what it stands for, and I don't like you. So let's dispense with the hollow pleasantries and stick to business.
Weyoun: I can't tell you how it pains me to hear you say that, Captain. You see, I really like Deep Space Nine and I like you. And after this meeting with Kai Winn, I think you and I will be seeing a lot more of each other. - Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the trouble they go through to get the baseball card, Jake and Nog finally manage to deliver it to Sisko, greatly improving the Captain's mood (and along the way, raising the spirits of almost everyone else on Deep Space Nine, even Giger and Weyoun).
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- Seeing Kai Winn meet with a Vedek who was at the auction, Jake believes that Winn, wanting a Bajoran mandala in the lot that Giger bought, had Giger kidnapped so she could steal it. As it turns out, Winn had nothing to do with it.
- Jake and Nog spend an entire day meeting with just about every senior staff member on Deep Space Nine, as well as Dr. Giger, who is running unusual experiments right beneath Weyoun's quarters, on top of them confronting Kai Winn mere moments after Weyoun leaves her company. Weyoun takes this as a sign of some sort of plot, abducting Giger, Jake, and Nog to get to the heart of it. Once he realises that it all really was a big, meaningless coincidence, he lets them all go, even giving Jake and Nog the baseball card and taking an interest in Giger's research.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even a self-obsessed manipulator like Winn finds Weyoun annoying. Especially when he tries claiming that they're not so different.
- Fascinating Eyebrow: Jake, while questioning Giger's theory that death is the result of cellular boredom.
- From Bad to Worse: As if Sisko's day didn't already suck, Kai Winn decides to visit.
- Gilligan Cut: When Jake and Nog confront Kai Winn, the scene immediately cuts to Captain Sisko chewing them out for accusing her of burglary and kidnapping.
- Good-Times Montage: The ending montage, in which we see how all of Jake and Nog's favors have lifted the spirits of the crew (except Leeta) overlaid with Sisko's monologue about how sometimes it's the simple things that make you smile.
- Handshake Refusal: Giger refuses Jake's handshake, apparently because of germaphobia, and they seal the deal with a nod instead.
- Hates Small Talk: At Sisko's dinner party, Worf was standing away from everyone else, silently staring at the wall and tuning them out.
- Immortality Seeker: Giger. Upon hearing about Giger's research, Weyoun takes an interest in it as well.
- Innocuously Important Episode:
- The proposed non-aggression pact between Bajor and the Dominion is first brought up here. Bajor signs it in the very next episode, because Sisko convinces the Bajorans that it's the only way they'll survive.
- Kai Winn mentions trying to get guidance from the Prophets using the Orbs, but never hearing from them. It would not be the last time the Prophets' indifference to Winn would be brought up...
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Giger defiantly claims that Weyoun won't get his secrets without a fight. He doesn't even finish the sentence before a Jem'Hadar intimidates him into handing over the case he's carrying.
- Irony: After Jake's noble speech about the Federation having outgrown the need for money, he and Nog get outbid by a human who's got latinum to burn.
- Lame Pun Reaction: While working on a speech for Kira, Jake makes a joke about water reclamation being treated as a dry subject. Nog isn't impressed.
- Lampshade Hanging: Nog points out right at the beginning that the whole situation only came up because humans abandoned the use of currency.
- Literal Metaphor: Giger asserts that death is the result of cells becoming "bored" by metabolizing and replicating over and over, causing you to "literally get bored to death."
- Little "No": When Jake tries the same line on Bashir that Nog used on O'Brien, Bashir replies with a short, flat "No." Turns out this is the first time he's had in weeks to make some headway in his own research. Nog takes over the conversation from there.
- Longevity Treatment: Parodied with Giger's device which requires you to spend eight hours a day in it, for the rest of your now-extended life.
- Mad Scientist: Giger believes that people die because their cells get bored of doing the same thing day in and day out, literally boring them to death. His invention intends to provide stimulating entertainment to the user's cells to entice them into immortality. He is convinced that a conspiracy called "The Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy" is plotting to sabotage and discredit him, despite the total lack of evidence of this conspiracy. Despite his obviously ludicrous theories, however, Giger is harmless, albeit paranoid and annoying.
- MacGuffin: The Willie Mays baseball card. Its only role in the episode is to be The Thing That Jake Wants.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: A supporting character version. You'd expect that negotiating with a foreign power like the Dominion would be handled by Bajor's First Minister, Shakaar, but he'd been written out of the show at this point, so instead it's handled by Kai Winn, who was specifically blocked from having any secular authority. However, Winn does have more experience negotiating treaties than Shakaar, and she's only there to provide her recommendation back to Shakaar.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Giger believes that his mentor's death in a shuttle accident may not have been accidental.
- Meaningless Meaningful Words: Jake paraphrases Picard's speech about why humans don't use money from First Contact, "we try to better ourselves and all of Humanity". Nog just gets confused and asks "What does that mean, exactly?"; Jake gets flustered and clearly doesn't understand it himself, simply saying "it means [humans] don't need money." This was apparently a bit of Self-Deprecation by Ron Moore, who wrote both lines.
- Not Me This Time: Remembering Winn's various nefarious schemes, Jake concludes that she had Dr. Giger kidnapped in order to steal a Bajoran mandala that was included in the lot he bought at Quark's auction. For once, Winn is totally innocent, and Jake and Nog land in some hot water for their accusations.
- Not So Above It All: Weyoun takes a genuine interest in Giger's kooky research, even giving his Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber a try for himself.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Weyoun says that he and Kai Winn are more similar than she thinks. She quickly denies it.
- Not so Dire: When Jake and Nog ask Giger what research he's doing, he begins his explanation with a question: "Do you want to die?" Jake and Nog both get nervous that it might be a threat, but it's just the start of Giger's immortality sales pitch.
- Not What It Looks Like: When Jake tries to explain the situation to Weyoun, Weyoun points out that Giger has been running equipment with highly charged polarized particles below Weyoun's quarters, that Jake and Nog have been visiting him, that they've also been having little meetings with the station's senior staff, and that they met with Kai Winn.
- Only Sane Man: Nog, for once.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- A rare moment of Kai Winn being in no mood to bitch at Sisko, instead genuinely wanting his advice regarding a non-aggression pact with the Dominion.
- After being told off on no uncertain terms by Sisko and Winn in quick succession, Weyoun lets his jovial demeanor drop for the rest of the episode. This continues, too: In the next episode he has noticeably less time for others' shenanigans than he usually does.
- Overly Prepared Gag: As Jake tries to figure out where Giger disappeared to, the dialogue ends up referencing The Wizard of Oz.Jake: Don't you see? The Vedek was bidding on that lot because there was an old Bajoran mandala in it. He must have been working for the Kai. When they lost, the Kai must have gotten angry. And we all know how dangerous she is when she's angry.
Nog: What are you saying? That in order to get the mandala she kidnapped Giger?
Jake: It all makes sense now.
Nog: Jake, I'm really starting to worry about you.
Jake: Come on.
Nog: Where're we going?
Jake: Let me introduce you to a new human expression. We're going to beard the lion in its den.
Nog: Lions, Gigers and bears.
Jake: Oh my. - The Paranoiac: Giger is constantly worried about the "soulless minions of orthodoxy."
- Parrot Expo-WHAT?:Nog: Maybe the soulless minions of orthodoxy have finally caught up with [Giger]!
Odo: The who?
Jake: We don't know who they are, but they were after Doctor Giger's Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber.
Odo: The what? - Pet the Dog: Knowing they plan to give the baseball card to Sisko as a gift, Weyoun allows Jake and Nog to take it once he's satisfied they weren't part of any plot against him.
- Realpolitik: Sisko admits that the Federation can't guarantee Bajor's safety in the event war with the Dominion breaks out so signing a non-aggression treaty with the Dominion is the best course of action.
- Series Continuity Error: "Body Parts" established the conversion rate between denominations of latinum. One bar is equal to twenty strips. During the auction, Quark raises the bid to one bar, twenty-five strips without going to two bars.
- Shout-Out: To The Wizard of Oz, with the line "Lions and Gigers and bears.... Oh, my."
- To The Crying of Lot 49: The Willie Mays card is Lot 48, while Lot 49 is a charming black velvet painting snapped up by Morn.
- And to How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: Nog steals Kukalaka from Leeta by sneaking her a substitute object while she sleeps, the same way the Grinch steals a candy cane. Nog even escapes up what appears to be a chimney.
- Sincerity Mode: When Sisko and Kai Winn discuss how Bajor should proceed with the Dominion poised to attack the Federation, the two talk without any of the usual hostility or passive-aggression that comes with dealing with the Kai: the situation is serious enough that the time for sniping at one another and self-centered political intrigue has passed.
- So Crazy, It Must Be True: Inverted; Weyoun doesn't believe that Jake and Nog's actions are an innocent attempt to secure a gift for Captain Sisko, so Jake spins a tale about the two of them working for Starfleet Intelligence to find Willie Mayes and stop him from changing history, which convinces Weyoun that the original, simpler story must be true, so he lets the boys go without incident.
- Stating the Simple Solution: After they fail to buy the card, Nog suggests that Jake buy his dad something else, like a new pair of shoes. Unfortunately, Jake has already become convinced that the card is the gift.
- Suddenly Shouting: Sisko disciplining Jake and Nog for what they said to Winn."You both are confined to quarters until further notice. Dismissed!!"
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- A society that does not use money doesn't work so well when it has to negotiate with societies that do. This causes problems for Jake as the auction requires latinum that he doesn't have. It also means that Jake grew up not understanding the value of money, as demonstrated when he wagers all of Nog's life savings on the baseball card.
- It doesn't matter if Winn is a bitch, she's still a high-ranking figure in Bajoran society. Jake and Nog accusing her of being a criminal gets them in trouble.
- Technobabble: Spoofed with Giger's talk of "cellular boredom," which starts out sounding official but quickly becomes absurd.
- Think of the Children!: Quark says this to encourage bidding in an auction where the proceeds go to Bajoran war orphans (minus a modest commission for himself, of course).
- Whammy Bid: As Giger starts outbidding the two, Jake bids four bars of latinum, which, remember, is nearly all of Nog's life savings. Giger bids ten bars to put an end to it.Jake: (panicking) What do we do?
Nog: Nothing. We're out of money. - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Jake invites this trope when he first proposes the plan to Nog.Jake: How hard can that be?
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Jake guilt-trips Nog into helping him. Nog sees through it immediately, but can't resist the power of Jake's ham.
- Sisko gives Jake and Nog a blistering one for accusing Kai Winn of burglary and kidnapping. Jake lying and saying that he and Nog were drunk at the time doesn't help at all.
