ODO: I don't have time for romantic interludes. Frankly, in my humble opinion, most of you humanoids spend far too much time on your respective mating rituals.
SISKO: It does help the procreation of one's species.
ODO: Procreation does not require changing how you smell, or writing bad poetry, or sacrificing various plants to serve as tokens of affection. In any event, it's all irrelevant to me.
SISKO: I'm sorry to hear that.
Thank goodness they addressed this. Romance does not equal sex, and sex does not equal babies.
Odo's examples seem a little Earth-specific. I wonder why he wouldn't use Cardassian or Bajoran romantic gestures instead.
(Odo checks the coast is clear before stepping off the turbolift, but still gets caught.)
This joke was done better in "Half a Life."
ODO: You told Quark you were going into a holosuite with me?
LWAXANA: Of course. He's preparing a special picnic basket for us.
ODO: Good lord.
"Menage a Troi" established Lwaxana's fondness for picnic baskets. I'd love to have seen Quark's response to the request.
"Good lord"? Really? Odo doesn't seem one for religious expressions like this. And even if he was so inclined, "by the Prophets" would seem more fitting, given the setting.
ODO: I don't eat. This is not a real mouth, it is an approximation of one. I do not have an esophagus or a stomach or a digestive system. I am not like you. Every sixteen hours, I turn into a liquid.
And we know that he only tried to eat once. He didn't get anything out of it, and the aftermath was quite messy. Even so, he knows how to keep someone company while
they eat by now.
KIRA [OC]: By the way, Cardassian turbolifts run exposed multi-phase alternating currents through their positioning mechanisms, so don't try to shape-shift your way out.
Cardassian turbolift tubes seem like OSHA nightmares. Thank goodness a quantum filament never hit the station trapping Captain Picard and some kids inside one.
SISKO: All of us have had these assignments, Doctor.
BASHIR: Have you, sir?
SISKO: As a matter of fact, Curzon Dax used to take perverse pleasure in assigning me to take care of VIP guests.
I suddenly wonder how Curzon would handle the instances in TOS that were ruined by the insufferably stupid ambassadors that Kirk kept having to deal with.
Station log, supplemental. Odo and Ambassador Troi remain trapped in turbolift four. As of yet, we have been unable to ascertain what it is that's causing the station's computer to malfunction.
(Note - previously it was turbolift seven. )
I wonder if Chakoteya read the Nitpicker's Guides.
SISKO: Do you happen to know the schedule of his regenerative cycle?
KIRA: My god, I have no idea, but if he doesn't get back to his pail in time--
Quark knows Odo's regeneration cycle, this would seem like a prime opportunity to let him show off. It would let him be smug and amused at Odo's situation, we know that Quark doesn't like Lwaxana any more than Odo does.
ANARA: Computer, access musical files in the Bajor master data banks and create a concert programme of Bajoran serenas.
A serena is a type of French poem or song where a lover anticipates the arrival of night. This is so culturally specific that I'm not sure that you can apply it to other species.
SISKO: How did you beat that thing in the computer, Chief?
O'BRIEN: I didn't.
DAX: He adopted it.
SISKO: Adopted it?
O'BRIEN: I was able to get our friend out of the main command pathways and into a subprogramme.
SISKO: You're suggesting we leave it in there?
O'BRIEN: I don't see why not. It's happy. It's not bothering us any more. It seems the humane thing to do.
DAX: It's just another new lifeform visiting the station.
O'BRIEN: I'll take care of it, make sure it gets enough attention and all.
SISKO: Keep it off the furniture.
O'BRIEN: Yes, sir.
Pup will make a few appearances in the novels, most notably in Valhalla. A Memory Alpha editor wonders if Sisko destroyed it when he made the computer self-destruct in "A Call to Arms" before the Dominion occupied the station.
The Fiver
Sisko: Old man, where is Chief O'Brien?
Dax: He's in his quarters, crying. The computer malfunctioned and then told him something mean.
Sisko: What? You're not saying the "This program has performed an illegal operation" line reduced him to tears?
Dax: You keep forgetting this is a Cardassian computer, Benjamin. It told him, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
Most people would focus on the Monty Python joke, but I am not "most people." What I found funny was the illegal operation joke, it reminds me of
a story from the old Computer Stupidies site. A little old lady runs across the illegal operation error screen, then hears police sirens in the distance. She thinks she's going to be arrested, so she hides the computer then calls tech support to turn herself in.
Bashir: You ordered me to take care of the ambassadors just to inflict needless, brutal torment on me, did you? DID you?
Sisko: Yes. Bwahahahaha! And there's more where that came from!
Bashir: Um... why don't you inflict that torment on, say, Chief O'Brien instead? He always impersonates you and says that Kirk and Picard were way better Captains.
Sisko: He does? That's it, he's going down. I'll give him seven years of needless, sick torment... Cardassian tribunal, Cardassian jail, temporal anomalies...
Bashir: Don't give him any promotions either.
So that's where the O'Brien Must Suffer episodes came from. The last line doesn't work, though. He was promoted from Chief Petty Officer to Senior Chief Petty Officer sometime in the fourth season.
Constable's Log: Lwaxana invades our space, and we fall back. Lwaxana annoys entire space stations, and we fall back. Not again!
This is a good example of how hyperbole is needed to make a dated reference funny.
O'Brien: Hello? Computer? Who is in there? Do you wish to talk to me about something?
Computer: No. Now go away before I taunt you a second time.
Double-dipping Monty Python jokes rarely succeeds, and it doesn't here.
Sisko: Well, okay, but only if you'll clean it and take it out for a walk!
Entity: RUFF!
Sisko: Mmm, chili...
I know Enterprise well enough to recognize a Porthos joke.
Sisko: So, Odo, how did you survive all those hours in the turbolift with Lwaxana?
Odo: Someone once told me Lwaxana was a predator, that stalked us all our lives. But I'd rather believe Lwaxana is a companion, who goes with us on a journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment when she's not around, because she will be back!
I'm on the fence about this joke.
Memory Alpha
* First appearance of Odo in his natural state.
Nitpicker's Guide
* First appearance of Kira's one-piece catsuit uniform.
* After Lwaxana retrieves her brooch Odo hauls the Dopterian off without taking the rest of the stolen items. Oops.
* One of the ambassadors complains about the gargoyles, which we've never seen. Phil jokes that they're only in the honeymoon suite.
* He also noted the "good Lord" thing.
* I must've remembered the "Quark knows Odo's cycle" thing from the book as well.
* In this episode Odo's cycle is fixed at sixteen hours, it was longer before.
* Phil brings up the fact that the Federation was willing to give the Uxbridges a fusion powered replicator in "The Survivors", so why haven't they refitted the station? My counter-argument is that giving away standalone tech is quite different from spending the resources to retrofit the station. Remember that it would entail a dedicated starship, a fleet of workbees, etc.
* Didn't the Cardassians take everything of value? Wouldn't the computer count as being something of value?
* Phil wonders if the conflicting references to the turbolift as 4 and 7 is a hidden 47. Nah, that was just editing incompetance.
* Okay, the station transporters are down. Why not use the runabout transporters?
* Odo is so exhausted that his face and hands start to sweat. But his clothes don't even though they're a part of him as well. Oops.