138. One Little Ship

Summary

The Defiant and the Rubicon are sent to investigate a subspace compression phenomenon...Dax, Bashir and O'Brien take the Rubicon into the anomaly, shrinking as they proceed into it until they're about one centimeter tall. While they're inside, the Defiant is attacked by a Jem'Hadar warship and their tractor beam to the Rubicon is lost. The runabout manages to escape the anomaly but because they didn't exit from the same route as they entered they don't regain their normal size. The Defiant is overtaken by the Jem'Hadar, who demand that Sisko repair the damaged warp drive. Through some maneuvering of the First and the Second (who are having a racial conflict of their own, the First being a new Alpha-quadrant Jem'Hadar who consider themselves superior to the older Gamma-quadrant Jem'Hadar, like the Second) he gets Worf, Kira and Nog to help him. Dax flies the tiny Rubicon into the Defiant and when they learn of the takeover, they decide to try and help Sisko's plan to retake the ship. As the four bridge officers try to gain control of the ship from engineering (while Kira's the only one really working on the warp drive) without alerting the Jem'Hadar, the Rubicon flies to the bridge. Bashir and O'Brien beam into a circuit housing to reroute the command encryptions, giving Sisko control...but before he can take advantage of it the Jem'Hadar get wise and make ready to go to warp, but what they don't know is that Worf implanted a virus in the computer that will blow up the ship when it hits warp one as a precaution if they didn't regain control. In flies the Rubicon to take out some Jem'Hadar with its photon torpedoes, causing enough of a distraction that Sisko and the others regain control and take the Jem'Hadar boarding party prisoner. The Rubicon is restored to its normal size along with its crew...although Odo and Quark have a little fun with Miles and Julian by insinuating otherwise.

Analysis

Many people, myself included, had a good laugh over this premise when we heard about it...a tiny runabout saving the day?...so it's a pleasant surprise that the episode actually works. One reason is that it acknowledges openly the ridiculousness of its premise by having Kira laughing about it on the bridge, so we know they're all aware it's a little silly. That out of the way, the premise can be put to good use. The visuals in this episode are excellent. I particularly liked the Rubicon bumping its way out of an access panel and Dax carefully piloting it up to the bridge door panel and lightly touching the button to open the door. The sight of the pop-can-sized runabout photon torpedoeing Jem'Hadar is both amusing and effective. The sequences of Sisko, Worf, Kira and Nog attempting to out-maneuver the Jem'Hadar while they pretend to fix the warp drive are also effective. One gets a real sense of our well-known characters as competent officers able to think on their feet and cooperate without talking to each other. The script wisely avoids too many "small" jokes and those that are included are actually funny. The conspicuous absence of Odo is a deus ex absentia if ever I saw one...one would think a Jem'Hadar takeover wouldn't go so smoothly with a Founder on board, even if he is a renegade. The technobabble is actually kept to a minimum, which I found surprising, even if the engineering did seem a bit sketchy and conveniently simple...sure, they re-routed the command encryptions by reconnecting one tiny wire, whatever you say. This episode has nothing in it that would qualify as terrific or wonderful or classic, but it's a good episode anyway that succeeds in spite of its gimmicky premise.

Rating: 7.5

Memorable Quote:

Dax: Don't badger the Chief.
Bashir: Sorry...that was very small of me.

Worf's poem:

This is the story
Of a little ship
That took a little trip.

Classic Scene:

Teeny Miles and Julian crawling about inside massive isolinear chips is a sight right out of Alice in Wonderland. I also like the final scene in which an oh-so-serious Odo comments that both Miles and Julian appear a little shorter than the last time he saw them, sending the two men panicked to the infirmary while Odo and Quark chortle in the background.

Sexually Slanted Line 'O the Episode:

"Julian, give me a hand down here." --O'Brien...don't you have the hang of it yet, Miles?

The O/K Status Report

Nothing. Like I said, Odo is deus ex absentia in this episode. Special Alerts