Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9)
Episode: 2.6 Melora (November 1, 1993)
Rating: 2/5
Redshirt Status: 0/1/3.5
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Notable Guest Stars
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Daphne Ashbrook (Melora Pazlar) – She plays Grace Halloway, one of
the companions of the Doctor in Doctor Who: The Movie. She also played
Dawn Atwood in The O.C. which is quite a different role.
Peter Crombie (Fallit Kot) – Probably best known for his reoccurring
character of Joe Davola on Seinfeld.
Don Stark (Ashrock)– He is best known (to me) as Bob Pinciotti on That
70s Show.
Ron Taylor (Klingon Chef) – Taylor was a theater actor for the most
part, but was seen on various film productions such as Indiana Jones and
the Temple of Doom, Quantum Leap, Twin Peaks, ER, Profiler, and Ally
McBeal. He died in 2002.
Review:
I dislike this episode. If I wasn’t doing a rewatch I would have just skipped it. Its ablest, and just plan creepy on the part of Julian.
Melora is a science officer recently assigned to the station. She comes from a world that has a lighter gravity then most Federation worlds, and therefore needs help getting around using an exoskeleton, a cane and a wheelchair. Her quarters are programmed to adjust to a lighter gravity when she returns to them.
She arrives and is abrasive to everyone, automatically assuming that everyone is there to underestimate her due to her disability. Even things that seem normal (not going alone into the Gamma Quadrant) she takes as an afront to her, as people thinking she can’t hack it because she uses a wheelchair.
Melora is not exactly the most enticing character. What I find weird is that the original writer of this episode uses a wheelchair. He wrote this because he felt offended because of the Worf episode in TNG (rightfully so) where Worf attempts to kill himself due to being paralyzed. Yet somehow this falls far from the mark of what he claims he wants to portray.
Instead of just showing a person with a disability living her life, having regular adventures and fitting in, they make a show of those disabilities, and give Julian a way to “cure her”. Sure, she turns it down in the end, but I think it would have made its point much better, and less ablest, if they had just shown it as an everyday thing and not a problem.
Of course, there are mixed reactions to this episode. I have disabled friends who absolutely hate it like me, and disabled friends who absolutely love it. Your Milage may vary.
I feel this episode would have been massively improved by the removal of the “cure” to Melora’s disabilities. Also adding her as a reoccurring character would have lessened the awkwardness of this whole episode. Instead she’s a throwaway character in one single episode.
Interesting Notes:
- Story by Evan Carlos Somers
- Teleplay by Evan Carlos Somers, Steven Baum, Michael Piller and James Croker
- Directed by Winrich Kolbe
- A low gravity character was initially wanted for the science officer, but the effect was too expensive long term, so Jadzia was designed instead.
- The wheelchair was meant to be the same one as used on TNG, but the sets were too small, so another was fitted out to look more futuristic but be smaller.
- Somers, who is a wheelchair user himself, felt the rewrites changed some of the elements more into a stereotypical version of disabled people which he had tried to avoid. He had a long list of things he didn’t care for, honestly, but I’m not going to write it all here. Memory Alpha has a good deal of it referenced.
- I guess that they show a disabled person at all. TNG had such a “We are beyond such things” attitude, that you are almost to believe there are very little human issues left.
- The Klingon Resteraunt was a good addition
- Female friendships are always a good thing.
Cons:
- Why is Cirroc Lofton given Regular credit status if they don’t plan on actually using him? (Part 3)
- Disabled people are not fixer-uppers. Improving Accessibility is fine, but people are not just their disabilities, nor do they have to be fixed. I know this is the opposite of what the author was trying to say with the episode, but that is what comes across. Melora is disabled and Julian must fix her.
- While this is the first episode where he does it, there is a trend with Julian dating patients. This episode is probably the least creepy, but the pattern is creepy so as someone who has watched the series before, I am just creeped out.
Screencap via TrekCore.com