This nonsensical episode is nothing but a pointless waste of fucking time. I can only surmise that the writers must have wanted to do a DS9 take on the “classic” holodeck malfunction type episode from TNG, but that (on top of that being a pretty dubious notion to begin with) they couldn’t be bothered even to come up with a scenario that made minimal sense. Honestly, critiquing this one is hardly even worth the time and effort that I’m going to put into it. Accordingly, this will probably be a short review.
To begin with: The writers again dangle the prospect of first contact with a civilization from the gamma quadrant in front of us…and then this dreck is what they deliver? The minute our people greet the Wadi at the docking airlock and it becomes clear that they’re wackily obsessed with games for some reason, my interest in the episode (like, even if I didn’t already know what was coming) starts to tank. How is this a plausible or interesting concept for what an entire race of people is like? (And also, if they are like this, why don’t our people already have some inkling of it? Did the Vulcans who had previously made first contact with them not brief anyone on the fact that they’re lunatics?) But anyway, then we waste a bunch of time watching them somehow consistently win at dabo (a game of pure chance, as far as we understand), until Quark cheats them and they get mad, and then they introduce their own game. (Were they always going to do this, or is it because Quark cheated them? If the former, why’d they piss around with dabo all night first? None of this is clear.) So their stupid “game” starts…and somehow, everything actually starts making even less sense (and being even less enjoyable to watch) than is has up to this point.
Would it be possible to make a good episode out of the idea that some of our characters are forced into the roles of pawns in some sort of game? You know…I’m going to answer that with a resounding “I’m not sure.” But IF it could be done, some things that such an episode would require include: 1. A plausible and compelling reason both why this is happening, and also why our people conclude that they have no choice but to play along. 2. A game where the rules, and the stakes, are at least reasonably clear. 3. Some semblance of a narrative purpose. 4. To not make the main characters appear foolish just for the hell of it. Alas, “Move Along Home” fails on each and every one of these criteria. The Wadi somehow abduct four officers and put them inside their bizarre “game” for no discernible reason (like, sorry, but “because Quark cheated them at dabo” doesn’t cut it here…if we’re even supposed to understand this as their reason). Once Quark and Odo intuit that the “game pieces” represent the missing officers, they sputter and protest a bit, but they still basically just play along; Odo doesn’t, for instance, throw the assholes into a holding cell, or have people seize and examine the game equipment to figure out how to get the officers back, or anything sensible like that. Meanwhile, the four characters inside the game just sort of guess/accept that they’re “playing for their lives.” It’s not really clear what leads them to this conclusion, and they mostly don’t react to it in particularly plausible ways (Kira has an instantaneous over-the-top rage fit at the very beginning, but after that, they all just kind of take it in stride). Also, the unfunny “punch line” ending of the episode reveals that it was never actually true (!). Quark is given a series of “safe vs. dangerous path” choices, and he rolls dice that seemingly determine…something…and meanwhile, the characters in the game are confronted with obstacles/challenges and have to figure out how to get past them. But the “rules”/nature of the game is never actually delineated for Quark, nor is it at all clear how his choices affect the “players” in the game, or what relative impact his choices and die rolls vs. the players’ actions have in determining outcomes. Despite all of this, though, at a certain point Quark declares that he’s “getting the hang” of the game, and we’re even asked to invest in a conflict between him and Odo where he insists that sending the players/pieces on the “more dangerous” path is the right decision, and Odo/the audience is supposed to accept that he knows what he’s doing because he’s good at games and gambling (!?). Then, too, there’s something really off about the passage of time in the episode. To begin with, Sisko quits Quark’s and goes to bed late, but still “at night,” and then the aliens unfurl their game…and then it’s the next morning and Jake notices that Sisko is missing, but the game only just seems to be starting. Did it take all night to set up? But even more than that: What’s happening in Quark’s, during the scenes when we’re watching the characters inside the game dealing with obstacles and stuff? Does Quark literally just decide “safe path,” roll the dice, and then sit there and wait for 15 minutes or whatever until the aliens declare an outcome?
Meanwhile, our people are having to do stupid shit like recite childish rhymes while playing alien hopscotch, complete with cutesy hand gestures (a scene that is just cringe-inducing). I never liked it on TNG when the writers would occasionally attempt humor by humiliating the characters in ways that just seemed mean-spirited, and somehow this plays even worse here than it usually did on TNG. I just…can’t really buy into the idea of them—Kira especially—putting up with this bullshit. Quark’s groveling scene is also too much; I’m not sure if we’re even meant to see his display as genuine or put-on, but either way, all it does is make me like the character less. And then…even before the “game” begins, what’s the deal with “Bashir can’t find his dress uniform”? For one, I don’t know why he can’t just replicate one—but more importantly, why is this bit in the episode? Just to make him look bad? But then, getting back to the “game”: One we move beyond the blatantly ridiculous portion and on to the part where the characters are fucking around in a crumbling cavern and dithering over whether or not to abandon an Dax, things don’t really get any better. The danger never feels real (and of course, it actually isn’t), nor does any of the “leave me behind” / “no, we’re dragging you with us” character interaction, nor is it even especially clear, visually, where they’re trying to get to. It’s all just a bunch of pointless, wheel-spinning nothing.
I mean, what the fuck? Is this episode supposed to be comedic? Nothing about it is funny. Is it supposed to be suspenseful? It isn’t, and even if it were, the “there was never any real danger” punch line ending would totally undercut that. Is there supposed to be some sort of character story playing out? If so, it definitely got lost somewhere along the line. And surely, the writers would not be asking us to perceive any kind of larger point/thematic relevance to any of these incoherent and ridiculous goings-on? So, in short…just, why?
Hey, you know what? It was nice to see Jake in this episode. I like Jake, and the whole father/son character dynamic between him and Sisko is a piece of the show as a whole that I really appreciate, and we haven’t really seen much of Jake since the pilot at this point. There, see? I found one vaguely positive thing to say about “Move Along Home.”
What a garbage episode.
“Move Along Home” brings us our second Gamma quadrant species, which is also the second Gamma quadrant species that’s obsessed with games. Hmm, that’s an interesting development. Maybe they’re going somewhere with this!
Naw, they aren’t. It’s just an alien of the week, and a notably unimaginatively-designed one at that.
“Look! It’s an alien!”
“How do you know?”
“He has long hair and forehead tattoos! No human would have those!”
And of course, their culture is also one-dimensional, and adds nothing to the mythology or context of Gamma Quadrant or the show.
To get more to the heart of the problems here, we’re asked to swallow that although these aliens have the ability to beam our crew onto their ship involuntarily into some kind of maze game, they somehow lack the wherewithal to realize the fairly obvious fact that this might be a bad idea. Their motive for doing so also seems highly dubious; what are they accomplishing by kidnapping the crew without explaining why or getting consent? Not since the Tosk-chasers have we seen such an egregious example of a group of single-minded dum-dums who think nothing of violating the autonomy of people from a culture they’re contacting for the first time. In this case, aren’t these guys supposed to be diplomats? Surely in most cultures, abducting the military staff of the first outpost you discover merely to toy with them for a while would be an act of war, but this doesn’t seem to cross their minds.
It’s also kind of like the writers forgot here about the technological premise of their series. What exactly stops people in general from just abducting citizens or Starfleet officers from the station with transporters? Apparently the answer is… nothing but goodwill. There’s no transporter scrambler at work, no system for detecting unexpected transporter beams, and nothing even as simple as an ongoing occasional scans of the bridge officers to see if they’re still aboard. Since presumably neither the station nor the alien vessel has their shields up here (surely Odo would notice if they raised shields, if that’s even possible to do when docked at the station), wouldn’t DS9 immediately be able to scan the alien vessel and detect the location of their crew, then just beam them back? Oddly, the Starfleet security officer from the last episode is has aged into quite the dotard since that time, so he doesn’t think there’s anything odd about four members of the senior crew including the station’s commander not showing up for their shifts on the same morning. For some reason, there’s also no supplementary crew standing in for the abducted officers, and since the Starfleet security officer seems to have sustained a head injury in the intervening time since the previous episode, it falls entirely on the security chief to solve this problem by himself! But instead of gathering anyone else to help, or, say, hailing the vessel to talk to whomever is in charge over there… or arresting the people who are leading the game… or storming their ship with a security detail… or, I don’t know, asking the players some basic questions about what’s actually going on (!)… he spends his efforts just grousing at Quark—and predictably, this doesn’t help at all!
So this requires quite a suspension of disbelief, and what do we get in return? A show that adds up to nothing in terms of character development or theme, and that is consistently dull (and in some places, embarrassing). The goofy scene with the crew singing “alamarine,” for example, makes me cringe. Once they end up in the game, I guess Brooks still feels more or less like himself as Sisko, but none of the other regulars are in very good form here. The scene where they discover Bashir yelling is especially lousy. It seems like a classic case of actors crippled by terrible writing. Quark’s pleading for their lives goes on too long, and the abducted crew’s wandering around the ravine with an injured Dax goes on *way* too long, especially since they are never really in danger (though I suppose I have to admit I find it mildly amusing to see Quark behaving incredibly melodramatically about something that we find out shortly has absolutely no significance whatsoever).
Let’s talk about the game itself for a moment. For one thing, it’s seriously lacking in imagination, and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of theme; it’s got all the cleverness of Chutes and Ladders, and would seem to target a similar audience. Nothing shown to happen in the game seems like it would be even slightly interesting to play. For another, the structure seems nonsensical. I can’t tell if it’s the abducted crew who are supposed to be the players or whether Quark is. Sometimes things just seem to happen to the crew based on Quark’s die roll or decision (whether or not to double the risk), and other times the crew has to figure something out to move forward (although it’s never anything very interesting or even very challenging). And as far as episode coherence goes, nothing any of them do ends up mattering at all. On the outside, Odo’s actions don’t make any difference, and Quark’s actions also end up being irrelevant. Nothing anyone does matters or shows anything in particular about who they are as characters. We don’t even get a technobabble solution—just a lame reveal that there was never really any danger to begin with. And when Sisko gets back and takes issue with these clownishly obtuse aliens, Odo successfully redirects his ire to target Quark, even though in no sense can what happened reasonably be said to be Quark’s fault!
Other points:
I had completely forgotten that the security officer from the previous episode made another appearance here. I don’t know if he’s in any future episodes, but if not, I think we know why he got a transfer after this.
Quark is an idiot for going along and betting money on a game that hasn’t even been explained to him.
The one decent bit of character work takes place in the first scene before the episode even gets started between Jake and Sisko. In my mind, that’s what pulls this episode from being a one star review to a very sightly less bad one star review.
And just to muse on the nature of the world, can’t Quark just count on statistics and the fact that the house always wins to keep him in the black? He’s always stressing out when his gamblers get a lot of wins. Even if he can’t use the inherent bias toward the house for some reason, he’s clearly a terrible cheat. Modern casinos just rig things so much you can’t possibly win consistently. They even *define* being really good at the game (like counting cards) *as* cheating. Quark appears to be a very poor capitalist… though I suppose we could give the benefit of the doubt and imagine that he can’t (without cheating according to station rules) rig the game in the way modern casinos do because of Federation law or something. Of course, then we might ask why any Ferengi would stick around to do business in a place where there were laws preventing them from exploiting people, since they could presumably avoid those at home.
It’s not a good episode.