Kickers of Elves

You guys, Martok HATES Kor. When Kor shows up at Worf's drunk in the middle of the night and asks him to do a favor so he can die with dignity, what is a bro supposed to do? Progressive Left vs the old liberals: Worf is Peter Daou.  This 90s show is all about post Trump politics, right?  How many people or characters can we compare the cast of this DS9 episode to?  What are the sexual mores of Kli...

What happens in this episode? [See title of episode] The final installment  of the Ferengi Pickers Cycle.  Kira’s boyfriend also gets an interesting story!  Does DS9 actually do faith ok in this episode?  “Back massages,” huh?  Do the Ferengi’s crony capitalism superpowers have any place in the Federation? Is Sisko being a jerk captain here?  The individuality of clones.  Do we have trouble waitin...

One Flew Back to the Cuckoo's Nest. Do Re OH NO. Julian brings a patient out of a catatonic state and what's the first thing he does after?   Julian. Your ethics, man.  Has he learned anything over the seasons?  How toxic is the masculinity?  Are we supposed to be rooting for him or not?  How does Miles feel about Julian’s situation?  Consent.  Do they have it?  Did Julian seek it hard enough?  Wa...

A haughty Vulcan challenges the emotional Sisko to a game of baseball and we got us a shenanigans episode, y'all!  But what's this about an ethnoship?  Take me out, please.  Secrets of Rom.  A premise well deployed.  Wait, not the Bad News Bears, but… was this based on an old tv show?  An… ethnoship?   Oh boy we’re gonna talk about racism.  USS Vidal Sassoon.  Is it a weird message if the superior...

Does Ezri Dax even want to be on Deep Space Nine?  Well of course she does, but the show needs an episode to integrate a counselor into station life.  Garak and Worf especially have some issues to deal with.  Is season 7 back on track? James wants more punch from the scripts.  Are James and Hugh overly demanding?  Bashir: That Staring Guy.  For a brief scene it turns into a John Hugh’s movie.  How...

We learn a little something about Ben Sisko's origin. OH, and it's time to spend more time with that "Ezri Dax" that showed up at the end of last episode. Research:  Website coming soon. Ezri: No stumbling out the gate on this one. Would we have still preferred some stunt casting?  What was the thinking behind another Nicole De Boer’s casting?  What does Quark actually contribute?  Never apologize...

Season Seven commences! Sisko is off the station again and everyone is trying to deal with the catastrophes of season Six.  What will the final season of Deep Space Nine entail? The new status quo.  Odo … is fine.   Killing who?   Film-what?  The Go-bots of streaming services.   Religion again.  How topical!   STEMBOLTS.   Worf’s grief.  What’s a Klingon to do?   Not be Liam Neeson, that’s for sur...

Our White Albums for Season 6! It's that time again, where we each cut a full 26 90's season of television into a concise modern 8 to 12 episode series. Turns out we line up pretty well.  What did we keep and what got cut?  What happened to Dax in this season?  Did we keep any Ferengi episodes?  No Half Measures on serialization.  [Ok, and a few minor knocks on Discovery]. Hypothetical: If you cou...

Season Six is over!  Does it die with a bang, or a whimper?  The Dominion War reaches a crucial moment.  This is not how we want to say goodbye to our space friends.   Are the pieces rushed into place? And does this episode wrap things up satisfactorially?  How many of the pieces here are nothing we want to watch?  [Just a small bit of argumentation] Did the creators overestimate how invested we w...

Sisko and the crew become best friends with a voice on the radio. A return to A plot/B plot structures. And some adventures in the beta quadrant. We pretty much liked this episode.  The 500th episode of Star Trek across all its series. Who’s that voice?  Kasidy Yates, we missed you (but maybe Sisko didn’t?). Star Trek finally highlights the bad parts of socialist countries - with Odo’s over relian...

Molly falls down a space-well and comes out ten years older - and pretty damaged. Must O’Brien suffer, or must we? Are the writers taking other meetings at this point in 1998?  Is time travel boring?  How many of these portals are there just lying around?  Is this a typical Star Trek episode or does the family angle make it something else?  Does it being a rework of a TNG idea mean anything?  The...

Ferengi women get to wear clothes and Quark gets a sex change. This episode, for all its faults… they only get worse with age. All the great actors that get dragged into this… Starting off, the episode is bad enough, and the end ain't any better. How easy is it to compartmentalize and quarantine these bad episodes away from the good ones?  Comparing ISB to Moffat.   How do the showrunners stand by...

Jake and Nog, behind enemy lines with a buncha teens! Cadet Kelly Clarkson? What starts off looking like a NohJay Ferengi Nagus episode takes a wrong turn and detour into a muddled mess. Remember Star Trek The Motion Picture? Oh no, we usually keep that talk of certain horrible things to the Hashish and Superiority pod. Is it the writing or the acting that's the worst culprit in this episode? How...

See, we still do voicemails! It's been tumultuous in the back half of season 6.  We hear voicemails from Greg, Warren, Adam, and read some emails.   Can we get our minds right? Let us know what you think: 917 408 3898   And find additional content at the Kickers of Elves patreon. patreon.com/kickersofelves

Reckoning with a Bajor episode that goes full Ghostbusters. We get on a Kim Kattrell tangent. Hugh Crawford does the math.  But wait, it’ll pay off later in the podcast. Instead of our regular polar opinionsA decidely mixed bag of an episode. Odo reduced to “the good boyfriend.” Is the Nurse Ratched cadence infectious to other actors? Hey, remember those Pah Wraiths? Without Mad Men would we have...

There's a new self aware Hologram in the world of Star Trek. Deep Space Nine gets its resident nostalgia laced crooner and self help guru.  Vic Fontaine, ladies and gentlemen. First off. What we liked about this. Then… all the rest. A self aware hologram?  What makes him so special and different from Moriarty?  Who is the brain genius auteur responsible for this?  Remember swing?  Is this a boomer...

What is there to say? Is it the best Star Trek ever? Again? Sisko looks straight into the camera and details some dark deeds. Does this do anything to the dream of the Federation? Is it too good to make any of those complaints? What IS the Federation based on? We try to lay that down at the beginning.  Are there systems the Fedration offers that make people better?  Was there some Grinch-ian trans...

Internal affairs (or perhaps another organization) arrives and Star Trek will never be the same. Spoilers! The last 8 minutes of this DS9 ep reveal… SECTION 31 We spend some time up front elaborating on our issues with the Federation’s clandestine org. We had the Maquis, but now another threat to the Federation principles. “Judge Dredd is a part of Star Trek now”   Alexander Siddig’s ceiling.  Doc...

Kira's mom did WHAT? A big secret revealed and Kira goes into the past to verify it for herself. Things that make you go hmm. What’s the deal with this episode?    Kira and Dukat got some things to work out. We may or may not appreciate the drive to tell this story. We have some disagreements about the implementation. Time travel shenanigans. What kind of time travel rules are we using here, and i...

Worf and Jadzia hit a rough spot in their marriage.  But first, is this B plot even a plot? What is a satisfying resolution? Opinions are surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) divided. Terry Ferrell’s own behind the scenes life comes into play as we near the end of the season. But Worf and Jadzia’s chemistry? It’s pretty great.  Anti coagulant disruptors: Where do they come up with these kind of ideas?...

O'Brien goes undercover! Noir it up. Knives out! Does a Donnie Brasco plot negate any worth of a mob episode? James and Wade disagree mightily about the ways one can resolve a third act.   When mixing genres is it necessary to transcend the classic tropes or is it ok to just do a noir well by it’s own rules?  When it comes to acting, it’s all a matter of taste, apparently. Who was the original Bil...

Come along on a fantastic voyage with us! Miles, Julian, and Jadzia are shrunk down while the rest of the Defiant crew is overrun by Jem Hadar. Oh no. Uh oh it’s a tiny ship episode. Think you know we’re going to feel about this episode? The answer just may surprise you! Is this just what the doct- producer wanted after Far Beyond the Stars? Who wrote Rascals? … Oh. “This guy gets it” What “coulda...

Who is the dreamer, Benjamin Sisko or Benny Russell? Is this the best Star Trek episode ever made? The best Deep Space Nine?  On our most recent rewatch this episode feels more powerful than ever. Instead of being a captain on a space station Ben Sisko finds himself wondering if he's actually a 1950s pulp scifi author. What famous scifi writers are the characters in this episode analogs to? Just h...

Morn is dead. A Shenanigans Episode Reckoning commences!  Wade is fresh off watching the DS9 documentary, “What We Left Behind,” and will brook no condemnation of a good Quark episode. Star Trek: The Chex Mix of TV. Is this episode above or below the Mendoza Line?  How has streaming changed how we expect to be catered to with out televsion? Is there a thinner range of stories and tone that we will...

Dukat waltzing Sisko around campfire, with  little bit of Misery. Is this a great or merely good episode? Did the writers screw up by accidentally making Dukat too likable?  Do people need a correction. Wait, people like nazis? Is Marc Alaimo just that good? Has Sisko been dialed down? “Some things are complicated and some things you make complicated” Are these Defiant scenes sleepy?  Wade disagre...