Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV Series) Looking for Par'Mach in All the Wrong Places (1996) User Reviews

Love triangles on DS9

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 23 June 2010]

I think this is a 'love it or loathe it' episode and I must say I loved it. Unlike most Star Trek episodes there is no threat, instead it deals with the private lives of various members of the regular cast. In one story line it looks as if tensions are running high in the O'Brien household, not between Miles and his wife Keiko but between Miles and Major Kira, Keiko is happy for Miles to massage Kira's aching legs and even insists that he accompanies her when she says she is going to Bajor for a few days... after all she is carrying his child so it wouldn't be inappropriate. The only problem is that it is clear that Miles is having inappropriate feelings for the Major and is doing all he can to avoid her hoping they will go away. The second story involves another love triangle; when Quark's Klingon ex-wife Grilka turns up on the station he is determined to win her heart, the only problem is that Worf fell in love with her the moment he set eyes on her but as he is an outcast in Klingon society it is made clear that he has no chance with her. Quark's attempts to woo her lead to a challenge from her bodyguard, this would be certain death for Quark but using technology that effectively turns him into a puppet Worf fights the battle for him and he wins Grilka's affections... This leads to a great final scene where he is battered and bruised in sickbay... not from the fight but from what happened next and while the doctor is treating them Worf enters with a certain female crew member and it is clear that they had a similar night of passion.

After some fairly serious episodes it was nice to have a good fun episode, it was fun watching Miles squirm as his wife unknowingly pushed him towards the woman he feared he was developing feelings for. The other story was even better; Mary Kay Adams was great in her guest role as Grilka and it was fun watching Worf play Cyrano de Bergerac by tutoring Quark in how to win the heart of the woman he himself loved but could never have. Worf may not have won the heart of the woman he fell for but it was nice to see that by the end of the episode he is with the woman who is right for him.

Cyrano de Worferac

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 26 October 2018]

This is a lighter episode, full of humor and strange bedfellows. Remember that Quark was married for a brief time in order to help a Klingon woman get her property back. He managed to survive in combat because of intervention by Gowron. Now she is back and they hit it off again. Worf is head over heels when he sees her but his disgraced family makes it impossible for him to woo her. So he takes on the role of the advice giver and confidante to Quark. How this plays out is a lot of fun. The other plot is that Kira, carrying Miles and Keiko's child, has allowed Miles a great deal of rope when it comes to his relationship with Kira. Miles begins to have serious feelings for Kira and this is truly dangerous. Keiko is utterly clueless. Anyway, things are pretty tense. I really hope this baby is born soon.

Miles massaging Kira...Lucky B*&^%d!

[CzyboutFlix · 8/10 · 21 December 2021]

This was a fun episode. Romance was in the air. Dax jealous of Worf's attraction to a Klingon woman of a great House. Quark catching a beat down for his troubles.

Overall, a nice respite from the battles to come.

Happiness is a Worf Gorch

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 4 May 2015]

With a possible Treaty with the Klingons on the Horizon, Klingons are now coming back to The Station... Namely Grillka, who comes to visit her ex-husband Quark.

Unless you had seen "House of Quark", this episode will make not a whit of sense. But in fact, circumstances had already brought Quark to Qonos and to the former "House of Kozak", which would have been the "House of D'Ghor" had not Quark discovered, D'Ghor had brought down the House of Kozak- By using Filthy Money! And thanks to Quark, it is now the "House of Grillka".

But Worf gets one good look at Grillka and almost develops a Gorch (Or some other adolescent "growth"!). He thinks just because he's a Klingon, he can use Klingon Methods to attract her. Nope! Sorry, Worf.

His advances are doomed before he even tried them. Mainly we can say "Poor Worf"- Here is one really magnificent Klingon Woman, but she's not on the Station to have Worf dribble and drool and deliver a fresh Lingta.

There is one man on DS9 who can Bring Home the Lingta - Quark. But he doesn't know a groat's worth of Klingon Mating Rituals. So who do you think he has to ask? Of all the... We know Worf, although denied any romantic involvement with Grillka, he has no reason to do what he does next- He gives Quark every detail he needs to have a romantic, candle lit evening of listening to Klingon Opera over the Lingta Haunch.

While Worf is demeaning himself to help Quark get a date, who is stewing in the background other than Jadzia Dax? It's up to Worf to realize as magnificent as Grillka is, there is someone on the station even now, who is more suitable for him. It's a match made in Sto'Vo'Kor! Will Worf figure it out?

But during Quark's Advances, he is Challenged once again, a fight to the death using Battehl's- He can't simply get out if it the same way he did on the Klingon Homeworld- Sometimes, you can't just Ferengi your Way out of a Fight!

One thing I had forgot to mention, this episode has the first ever real musical sample of any Klingon Opera.

Quark ---- the Ferengi Casanova.

[thevacinstaller · 8/10 · 13 July 2021]

One of the major reasons that star trek has endured for over 50 years is the depth of how many genre's they can work into the franchise. This episode is a roaring success in making me laugh ---- I would estimate about 6 belly laughs with the Quark/Grillka subplot. Sure, the entire plot is ridiculous but I can suspend my disbelief and bathe in the hilarious absurdity of it.

I really enjoy how Quark/Grillka work together on screen ---- great chemistry.

This might be 'too much information' but as a guy getting on in years, I find pregnant women attractive ---- WAY more then when I was younger. I appreciate the Miles O'Brien subplot of the universe conspiring to make them a couple.

I am a fan of creative comedy episodes like this one and not the nostalgia reference machine that is Lower Decks. THIS is how you do comedy right in star trek.

Reviewer Hitchcoc spotted the premise straight away

[ruthmorrisson · 7/10 · 31 August 2021]

I've spent a lot of time binge watching and re-watching DS9 during the pandemic, to the point that I've now seen the entire series a couple of times. And know which ones to skip and which ones to rewatch. While not one of the better episodes, it's still enjoyable, if you know what it's really about. At this point, on the 3rd go-round, I skip over a lot of the episodes which focus on Quark (mostly because he's SOOO annoying), but I do rather like this one, which is *clearly* a reworking of the plot of _Cyrano de Bergerac_.

Worf finds himself having to help Quark re-woo Grilka (Quark's ex-wife), with the assistance of Jadzia Dax and her memories of Curzon Dax's interactions with Klingon culture -- even though Worf wants Grilka for himself. But of course, having been raised by humans, *and* being a Starfleet officer, Worf is considered a traitor to the Klingon Empire by Grilka's retainers (and probably by Grilka herself -- who is actually fond of Quark because he helped her become mistress of her household in her own right). Ironically, later Dax and Worf fall for each other, but this is early in Worf's time on the station. The Cyrano-esque plot is subtly emphasized by Worf telling Quark that that Grilka's compliment after a private dinner is that Grilka considers Quark a 'poetic" master.

Ignore the subplot with Major Kira staying with the O'Briens while being surrogate for Miles's and Keiko's baby -- it's just annoying....

Get out!

[snoozejonc · 8/10 · 19 November 2022]

Grilka returns to DS9 and attracts the attention of both Worf and Quark.

This is a pretty funny episode with some amusing character moments.

If you liked 'House of Quark' you should enjoy this story which reacquaints the Klingon character Grilka with DS9 for some courtship-related shenanigans, based on Rostand's 'Cyrano de Bergerac'. This episode has a stronger romantic theme involving numerous characters and it's all done in a rather lighthearted way.

The best scenes involve Quark, Worf and Jadzia, but there is a reasonably good b-plot involving Kira and the O'Briens that, thanks to the weird surrogacy arrangement, is full of nicely awkward moments.

All actors seem to be having fun with the material, particularly Terry Farrell. Rene Auberjonois has a particularly humorous scene with some great jealousy dialogue.

Romantic topics presented in different ways

[Thecuchix · 9/10 · 11 March 2024]

After "The Ship" episode, where we don't only see the troubles of being captain, but also the cost of a life of a person you know it closely, we have "Looking for Par'Mach in All the Wrong Places."

Basically this episode took two subplot who are similar if you analyze:

In one hand we have Worf dealing by the fact the person he is attracted don't look at him, and decide to give an hand to Quark instead of being jealous, if you trully are interesting in someone, you want to see it happy no matter who is, right?

By other hand, O'Brian and Kira deals with intimacy while Keiko don't care since she is open minded and see Kira as a reflect of herself, after all; Kira carry their offspring as we see some episode ago, Keiko want to see O'Brian treat Kira as her.

Some people complain about the characters acting dumb sometimes, but after all, who don't act dumb at an moment in your life?

This is the good thing of Star Trek series, one episode can be full of action sadness, and another episode can talk about day-to-day topics.

Who would have thought that Worf would envy Quark?!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 4 January 2015]

In the IMDb reviews, Hasjtracker calls this the worst show of the series while Tweekums LOVED it. As for me, I'm more agreeable to Hasjtracker's views but I don't think it's THAT bad!

When this episode begins, Quark's Klingon ex-wife (from "The House of Quark") comes to the station to visit. When Worf sees her, he's instantly smitten and thinks that Grilka is the most amazing female he's ever seen! And, surprisingly, for once Worf is jealous that Quark is so close to such a gorgeous lady! Unfortunately, because of Worf's discommendation , there is zero chance that he could ever possess Grilka. However, later, Worf doesn't envy Quark at all. In fact, he must help Quark to avoid being torn in half!

The other plot involves the O'Briens. Miles and Major Kira have been spending more and more time together--intimate sorts of time. And, the two start to realize that his giving the Major massages to ease her pregnancy paints is probably no longer a good idea--but Keiko keeps encouraging these two to spend time together. What's with that?

As I alluded to, I wasn't at all thrilled about this episode. While I didn't hate it, the plots were pretty stupid. It was VERY obvious that Quark was cheating when he fought the duel--so much so that you can only assume everyone is stupid in order to believe it. As for the other plot, there was NEVER any chemistry between Miles O'Brien and the Major--and all this seemed very contrived and dumb as well. It's clearly badly written but some episodes from season 1 managed to be worse!! Perhaps it's the worst of season 5.

One of the all time worst DS9 episodes

[gscharroo · 2/10 · 20 December 2022]

For my money this is the worst episode of DS9 I've seen. It starts off fine enough before eventually just going totally off the rails. The biggest issue I have is that it's just not at all in line with who these well established characters are. And it's not just one weird character development (why do they keep doing this to Dax?), it's FIVE of the top roles on DS9. While watching it halfway through I figure alright maybe this will get back on track but nope, it gets even worse. Quark and Worf especially were just so beyond the pale, as if Quark would suddenly be attracted to a Klingon or she attracted to him after we literally went though this once already. If it was a gag episode, it wasn't funny. If it was a serious episode, what? At least the previously really bad episodes had good sense to not involve most of the lead roles on the show in the cringe worthy plot & out of character actions.

Skip this, or good luck forgetting it ever existed.

Out of character

[radioflyer-92510 · 1/10 · 12 May 2021]

I'm not a big fan of DS9, but this was a strange episode. Worf acting like a smitten child fawning for the attention of a Klingon woman he just met? Where did his honor go when he helped Quark CHEAT to win his challenge??? And he was laughing out loud at the end?? This was just so out of character.

And these strange, forced romantic feelings between O'Brien and Kira? Sure, she's carrying his & Keiko's child, but she's living with them? He gives her massages?? His wife encourages this??? Not a very realistic future.

Ugh...he didn't play a big role, but I'll just say it here...Sisko's choppy overacting is cringe-worthy every time I see him, even as much as I want to like the character. Makes William Shatner look good. Probably the biggest part of why this series never caught on for me. Just seems like he is reading his lines and trying to act them out.