Star Trek: Deep Space Nine/Recap/S02/E06 Melora

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A new character from a species that lives in low gravity arrives on the station, and immediately begins treating everyone like crap in her attempt to prove that she doesn't need help (despite blatantly and obviously needing immense amounts of help). The episode is largely about Julian trying to develop a technique that could let her walk and move normally in what most humanoids consider standard gravity, and her ultimately rejecting it because it would keep her from returning to her homeworld for any longer than short visits.

If it sounds boring, it pretty much is.

Tropes

  • Author Tract: This episode was written by a wheelchair-bound person with an axe to grind, and it shows. It's not only titled after his Creator's Pet, but he was apparently rather butthurt the entire time he was writing it because the concept of said character (originally meant to fill Jadzia's post on the station) was rejected from being a main cast character for being too expensive and difficult to shoot around.
  • Positive Discrimination: Melora behaves with blatant insubordination towards Sisko, and the worst she gets for it is not being given her original demand of being allowed to go to the Gamma Quadrant by herself (she instead still gets to go but has to have Dax along). Which is rather hilarious considering that her insubordination was part of her Wangsting that she didn't want special treatment.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Creator's Pet Mary Sue Melora. Angry and insulting, she's still immediately adored by Julian and the other castmembers despite how shamefully she treats them. She was basically the writer's excuse to vent his frustration about not being allowed to make her a main cast member and everything else that bugged him about the series. (Apparently, the near-Spartan-like Cardassians did not design their station to be handicapped-accessible, how dare the set designers!)