‘BODY PARTS’ (DS9)
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This is a ‘Star Trek: DS9’ episode directed by Avery Brooks. It focuses mainly on Quark’s character, but it also features a subplot where Major Kira ends up having…Chief O’Brien and Keiko’s new baby.
More on that later! Anyway, Quark discovers to his sheer horror that he’s about to die from a rare disease within a week. He tells his brother, Max Grodénchik as Rom, this when they are at his bar. 😐
Quark has to raise money to pay for his debts before he dies. He also auctions off his remains, selling them to a high bidder at 500 bars of gold-pressed latinum. He believes his bidder is Grand Nagus Zek.
You shouldn’t have auctioned off your remains that quickly, Quark. Anyway, a few hours later, he finds out from Dr. Bashir that his medical exam on Ferenginar was an error and he isn’t going to die.
Phew! What a relief! Unfortunately the buyer who bought his remains when he was first presumed to die turns up on DS9. That buyer happens to be…Jeremy Combs as Brunt, Quark’s old adversary. 😮
Yeah, Brunt from the Ferengi Commerce Authority (FCA) is the one who wanted to purchase Quark’s remains when he died. And he still wants that here. So essentially, Brunt wants Quark to kill himself.
Quark is shocked as he keeps telling Brunt that he isn’t going to die, but Brunt doesn’t care. In my opinion, Brunt is a really backward-thinking Ferengi who abides by what’s in the Rules of Acquisition.
Brut also clearly despires Quark for who he is, considering the events that happened in ‘Family Business’ and ‘Bar Association’. Brunt would prefer Quark dead than be embarrassed by him again. 😦
So, Quark has to face either killing himself, or breaking the contract he made with Brunt. If he does break the contract, Quark’s business licence will be over as well as his association with other Ferengi.
Quark, at first, decides to honour his contract by hiding Andrew Robinson as Garak, an ex-spy to kill him. Rom tries to persuade his brother not to go through with this, but Quark is determined to do it.
Garak demonstrates possible ways to murder Quark, including killing him while he’s eating in his bar. But Quark isn’t happy with the suggestions Garak makes and is so afraid to go through these deaths.
Eventually however, Quark has a dream at night where he meets Gint, the first Grand Nagus of the Ferengi and the author of the sacred Rules of Acquisition. Gint also looks like Rom. That’s very weird!
Anyway, in the dream, Gint tells Quark that the Rules of Acquisition are really only ‘suggestions’ on how Ferengi should conduct their lives. He advises him to break the contract. This Quark soon does.
The next morning, Quark tells Brunt his decision and soon Brunt revokes Quark’s Ferengi business license and seizes all of his assets. I must say, Quark is quite brave to go through a decision like that.
After Quark loses mostly everything in his bar, he becomes astonished when his close customers come by and help him out by using his bar as a ‘storage facility’. Basically, they set his bar up again. 🙂
Soon, Quark is shortly back in business! He has to do with ‘not good’ drinking glasses and beverages and he’s cut off from Ferengi society, apart from Rom, but it’s very good Quark isn’t without friends.
Elsewhere in the episode, Rosalind Chao as Keiko O’Brien gets injured during a runabout incident. As a result, in order to save her unborn child, Keiko’s fetus gets transplanted into Major Kira’s. Um, yes!
Major Kira is going to have O’Brien and Keiko’s baby. There was a behind-the-scenes reason for this. Apparently, Nana Visitor, who plays Kira, was pregnant at the time. So they had to fit it into the series.
Thus why it was established Keiko was going to have another baby because of Nana Visitor’s pregnancy. It works rather well I think, especially when it’s okay to do that in a sci-fi TV series as this.
At first, O’Brien and Keiko are uncomfortable with Kira carrying their baby. But they come to terms with it and they soon ask Kira to move in with them in order to be closer to their child, which is nice.
‘Body Parts’ is an enjoyable episode in the ‘DS9’ series. The Ferengi episodes are pretty bearable to watch to say the least. I appreciate Quark’s journey in this and it’s interesting to see Kira pregnant. 🙂
‘Body Parts’ (DS9) rating – 7/10
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