We have to speak about the perfect second from this week’s Decrease Decks

There’s so much to like this week’s episode of Decrease decks. The penultimate episode of the sequence set the stage for what may be one of many best conclusions of all time to a Star Trek present, filled with potential on each degree to ship a rousing retort to loads of what made the present so good over its 5 seasons. However even when the present in some way manages to really feel it to the ultimate frontier, I will at all times be thankful for what this week’s episode gave my little queer coronary heart.

“Fissure Quest” instantly hits you with a ship loaded with Mountain climbing geekery, whether or not it is truly within the narration of Decrease decks himself (the return of Boimler’s transporter double, William, who’s now a Part 31 agent commanding his personal ship on a reality-hopping mission to avoid wasting the multiverse!) or in wild cameos, he falls out of nowhere. William’s Multiverse Crew Mountain climbing the characters embody a veritable military of Ensigns Harry Kim (plus a Lieutenant, all voiced by TravelerGarrett Wang), a model of Curzon Dax from New deep areathe place the Dax symbiote had not but been handed to Jadzia as it could be within the First Age Mountain climbing chronology, and one other various within the type of Enterprise‘s T’Pol (Jolene Blalock making a uncommon return to performing and a good rarer return to Star Trek usually) who had his completely happy ending with Journey.

However the largest shock for me, at the least, was William’s docs: an Elim Garak from a actuality the place he joined Starfleet and put his tailor’s fingers to surgical work, and a medical hologram of Julian Bashir, presumably coming from a actuality the place the occasions of New deep area“Physician Bashir, I Presume” truly performed properly. That is already fairly scrumptious, particularly since Andrew Robinson and Alexander Siddig return to reprise their respective characters for the primary time on tv in many years. Nevertheless it’s additionally scrumptious to see the best way William presents them in his diary: they’re married. Lastly, despite the fact that these are various variations, there’s a piece of Star Trek Tv that has Garak and Bashir as husbands.

New deep area followers shipped the clear and simple suit and DS9’s advertising and marketing director: the chemistry of their relationship on the present was electrical from the second Julian and Garak met, with the attract of thriller in Garak’s previous and Bashir’s all-too-enthusiastic curiosity offering materials of alternative for followers to learn. a strange interpretation In. Though New deep area I by no means went there verbatim, despite the fact that it bordered on the then-perceived taboo of queer relationships in different areas, there was at all times one thing concerning the duo that sparked that romantic chemistry. It is a query that Robinson and Siddig have been keen to handle since New deep area concluded, discussing the connection at fan conventions and the way that they had typically each tried to push their performances as if there was potential for one thing between the 2, even when the textual content would not go in the end by no means that far. Robinson even wrote several Star Trek novels about Garak, addressing the character’s quirkiness, even when not explicitly with Bashir.

Decrease decks I may have left it there. “Fissure Quest” actually has sufficient happening that it may have pulled off a victory by calling Garak and Bashir husbands and transferring on with its myriad different issues, however as an alternative it provides the couple area to truly be a pair. They’ve time to work together and be tender in the direction of one another. Hell, they get arguably one of many sweetest emotional arcs of the episode, taking part in with its broader ideas on the idea of the multiverse to declaratively emphasize that no matter completely different realities they arrive from, and wherever they in the end quiet down as soon as their mission is full, their house is in one another. It’s also completely Garak and Bashir, in that this conclusion comes after the previous spent a lot of the episode arguing with the latter over whether or not or not they might dwell in his or Julian’s universe – as a result of, like Garak lovingly tells his husband within the climax, he at all times cherished to argue. with him.

It captures all the things I’ve seen in these characters since I’ve watched them. DS9 as a queer teenager, I actually am a part of Star Trek in some way, after years of questioning what may have been. For all of the curiosity in his personal previous Star Trek has skilled in its streaming renaissance – from the enchantment of aesthetic and structural nostalgia in sequence like Strange new worldshas Picardthe sequel of The following technologythe tales and characters of Decrease decks‘personal nerdy love of what Star Trek is each inside and outdoors of his textual content – the thought of ​​utilizing it to provide queer followers the couple that by no means existed (even when it is not “our” Garak and Bashir) for a quick second was one thing I did not anticipate, not to mention like Decrease decks stared on the tip of the phaser from his personal finish. There are loads of issues I am grateful the present did over its 5 seasons, however no matter the way it ends subsequent week, I will at all times be completely happy that it gave a bit ‘herself to one among New deep area‘s greatest relationships, and did he ship the bizarre justice he at all times deserved.

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