Deep Space Nine--"The Muse"

I have good news and bad news. The good news is this is the last onscreen appearance of Lwaxana Troi in Trek, so there will be no further duds featuring her. The bad news is I still have to review this dud. As if I have not suffered enough in life, the rest of the episode’s plot is also bad. Just my luck.

Lwaxana comes to DS9 seeking Odo’s help. She is now married to an alien played by Michael Ansara in one of his last roles before retiring, too, if I am not mistaken. She is pregnant with his child, a boy. The problem is in her husband’s culture, children are raised solely by the parent who shares the child’s gender. She wats to be a part of the child’s life. Odo is reluctant to help.

Nevertheless, the two continue their awkward bond from the first time they met. Maybe that resonates with other fans, but I ever bought into it. Their relationship reaches absolute absurdity when they play hide and seek--yes, really-and Odo agrees to a quickie marriage to take advantage of a legal loophole that will allow Lwaxana to keep her son. We are heading into goofy sitcom territory here. It gets doubly worse when he has to convince everyone he is truly in love to prevent any challenges to the wedding.

I suppose Odo’s actions presupposed to be a shining moment of how much he has the capacity to care or maybe he is paying Lwaxana back for allowing him to rest in her lap in his liquid state when they first met. Whichever, it just does not feel right.

In the other story, Jake is aided in writing a novel by Onaya, an alien who inspires young artists to do their best work, but kills them young in the process. She mentions a number of earth poets and writers she has performed this ‘service’ for. I did not like the concept because it takes the mystique out of the unfulfilled creative potential of artists who died young. The sting of tragedy I removed when it is revealed their great works were due to an alien parasite. Meh.

“The Muse” is 0 for 2 in my book. It is definitely a cellar dwellar when it comes to DS9 episodes.

Rating: * (out of 5)