Short of Middling

I'd heard "Meridian", a 1994 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was unpopular both with fans and with people who worked on the show. Watching it last night, I could see why, but it has its moments.

It has, like many episodes of '90s Trek, an A and B plot. The A plot is based on the Gene Kelly musical Brigadoon about a Scottish village that magically appears once every century, its inhabitants not experiencing the intervening period of time. Kelly plays a modern guy who falls in love with a girl in the village played by Cyd Charisse.

In "Meridian", the crew of Deep Space 9, cruising about in the Defiant, their little warship, witness an entire planet suddenly appear out of nowhere. The inhabitants turn out to be a standard group of Star Trek humanoids in vaguely Renaissance alien costumes. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) falls in love with a local guy played by Brett Cullen. First he's going to go off with her to Deep Space 9, then she's going to stay with him on the planet. It doesn't work out, of course. There's no weight to the tragedy because neither the actors nor the characters have even an ounce of chemistry. There is an effective scene of Dax bidding farewell to her old friend Sisko (Avery Brooks), though it's undercut by the lack of effectively established motive on Dax's end.

The B plot involves Quark (Armin Shimmerman) trying to get a holographic scan of Kira (Nana Visitor) so he can make a pornographic simulation featuring her for a client who's been lusting after her. This disgusting endeavour is played for laughs and both Quark and the client get their comeuppance in a satisfying way, though I gather many fans feel Quark ought to have received severer punishment.

The client is played by legendary genre actor Jeffrey Combs, best known for the '80s adaptation of Lovecraft's Re-Animator. It was the first of many characters Combs played on Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. Combs appears at a minute and ten seconds into this clip from the beginning of "Meridian".