2x06 Melora

[5.8/10] Half of me wants to give Deep Space Nine credit. It centers a story around a disabled character. The show’s producers hired a disabled writer to pen the story, or at least the first draft of it. It engages sincerely with the issues people with disabilities face in spaces not designed with their needs in mind and their treatment from others. The show’s heart is in the right place here, which goes a long way.

The other half of me finds this whole thing embarrassingly didactic and quaint. Melora herself is more caricature than character, possessing little-to-no inner life beyond her disability. The whole story adds in an unnecessary romance with Bashir. And while admirable in its aims, ultimately does more to undermine than affirm Melora’s existence.

Evan Somers, who wrote the initial draft of this one, viewed it as a response to “Ethics” from The Next Generation. In that episode, Worf is paralyzed in an accident and wants to commit suicide unless he can be cured. Through that lens, you can see the commendable goal behind “Malora”. The eponymous character is given the chance to move through the world like all the rest of her colleagues, and instead chooses the life she has, because she values it too much to give it up for anything. It’s a powerful idea in principle.

There’s even a solid sci-fi twist to the whole thing. Melora is an Elaysian, who hails from a low-gravity planet, such that being in Earth-like gravity renders her muscles too weak to sustain much movement. It’s a clever way to address physical disabilities through an abstract lens. (Gee, do you think Seth MacFarlane and company had seen this episode when they created the Xelayans for The Orville? The names even sound the same.)

But it also complicates, and arguably undermines the metaphor. Melora is at home in low gravity, despite having left her home planet with something to prove. The episode’s signature scene is a bumpy but beautiful rendezvous between her and Dr. Bashir in an anti-grav chamber that doubles as her quarters. So when Julian offers her a “cure”, she’s not just giving up the difficulties she experiences when making her way through Earth-gravity spaces, but also giving up part of her heritage, and other abilities and comforts that she would lose. It puts a thumb on the scale, and while you can conceivably extend the analogy, further disentangles Melora’s dilemma from those of individuals with disabilities in the real world.

Candidly, when Dr. Bashir told Melora that he’d found a treatment for her, I expected her to say something along the lines of, “That’s nice, Julian, but I’m comfortable with who I am,” and maybe even object to Dr. Bashir trying to change her in some way. I may have been biased by The Simpsons’ “Eeny Teeny Maya Moe”, which grapples with a similar romance and lands in a very different place.

It’s not wrong, exactly, to have Melora imagine the possibilities or embrace Julian’s treatments. I’m sure there’s truth in the experience of excitement at the prospect of an alternative to having to overcome obstacles and brush off special treatment all the time. And Melora, of course, ultimately chooses not to undergo the treatments when she considers what she would be giving up in the process.
But for an episode supposedly founded on affirming the value of disabled people’s experiences, the script’s surprisingly muddled about Melora’s reaction to all of this and why, exactly, she chooses to maintain the status quo.

It doesn’t help that the episode wastes a ton of time on a subplot that, while eventually feeding back into the main plot, largely feels like a waste of time. I’m not immune to the comic charms of Quark squirming while fearing that an old “business associate” he sold out is back to kill him. But most of it’s either wheel-spinning, or setup for a contrived scenario in which Melora can save the day thanks to (a.) Dr. Bashir’s treatments apparently making her immune to phaser fire (?!?!?!), (b.) Dax being able to turn off the gravity in a runabout, something we haven’t seen before and rarely, if ever, comes up again, and (c.) Melora somehow being able to Superman punch their attacker before he can shoot anybody or otherwise defend himself.

There’s a million ways to dramatize the idea that people with disabilities have much to contribute to the world and live rich, worthwhile lives. Concocting a strange scenario in which an analogue of them shrugs off disruptor fire and flies through the air to knock some villain out isn’t one of them. So little of Melora’s story here is about her inner life, how she feels about herself or what these alternatives mean to her. Instead, it’s almost entirely about her external abilities, choosing one set of physical advantages over another.

Nevermind the fact that more of this is dressed up in a lukewarm romance between her and Julian. Julian’s too drippy as a romantic lead, and Melora’s too superficial of a character to really sustain the connection. Guest star Daphne Ashbrook does solid work in a badly written role, particularly selling some of the emotional moments in the story. But rooting these big decisions in a ten-minute amiable concordance where one partner tries to change the other without really asking first, albeit in an earnest attempt to help, isn’t the stuff that great romances are made of.

I’m almost always going to give Star Trek points for trying. It’s not my place to say whether any of DS9’s attempts at representation here veer into the offensive, but I appreciate the effort. Presenting a story about someone with disabilities, at least partially told by someone with disabilities, where the protagonist's wants and emotions, however superficially drawn, are put forward sincerely and very much in the spotlight, is a good thing. Reframing the type of choice Worf made in “Ethics” through the perspective of a writer with disabilities is even more commendable.

But the results aren’t up to snuff, as entertainment, as drama, or as metaphor. Good intentions and well-meaning stabs at representation are helpful, but not enough on their own. Hopefully, one day Star Trek will give this another try, and come up with an episode worthy of more than half-liking.