Star Trek: DS9 Season 3 “Visionary” and “Distant Voices”

I’ve completed my re-watch of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Now it’s time to start Deep Space Nine! I am much less familiar with this show, though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen about 80-90% of the episodes. It’s been so long that I’m sure it will all feel brand new. My wife has never seen the show. She and I will go through, review every episode, and give commentary and a grade from A-F. There are SPOILERS for each episode below. Without further adieu, here’s:

“Visionary”

Synopsis

O’Brien gets some kind of radiation poisoning and experiences time shifts, including one in which his “real” (?) self is dead. He must fight the clock against his visions of the future to save both his own life and the space station itself. As he does so, the difficulties he’s facing become more clear. He discovers that what destroys the station is a cloaked Romulan Warbird, which was sent to destroy the wormhole to prevent any threat of the Dominion from actualizing. They warn off the Warbird and all, including O’Brien’s life, is saved.

Commentary

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine could be subtitled: “O’Brien gets it.” Do they ever mess with the poor Chief Engineer or what? I mean seriously! The guy just wants to fix things, okay? Anyway, this one had a good sense of mystery and surrealism to it. As a viewer, you know more of what’s happening, and so one challenge that’s faced is keeping interest. They do this by having O’Brien actually figure things out in a rather logical, step-by-step progression alongside other people on the station.

The use of comedy throughout the episode is also remarkably well-done. The end, where O’Brien shows he knows at least a little about what might happen at Quark’s in the gambling games and teases Quark about it, is excellent. I laughed out loud.

“Visionary” falls victim to being yet another iteration of O’Brien is subjected to awful things, but it is still quite good.

Grade: B+ “The ‘O’Brien has bad things happen to him’ trope continues, but this is a solid episode. Perhaps the trope is there for a reason.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B “Chief O’Brien has the worst luck.”

“Distant Voices”

Synopsis

Bashir is incapacitated by an attack after refusing to sell drugs to an alien associate of Quark’s. He wanders the station, aging throughout, as selected persons on the station appear increasingly agitated. Eventually, he figures out that characters are representing various aspects of his personality. He works to piece his personality back together and fight the alien’s weapon and incursions into his brain. Ultimately, after fighting with Garak about the futility of it all, he manages to defeat the alien personality and become conscious again. The alien has been arrested. Afterwards, Garak feigns hurt at not being trustworthy in Bashir’s subconscious, but reveals he believes this means Bashir has hope after all.

Commentary

First of all, is 30 really the end of vigor and life? If so, I’m pretty sad because I may have crossed that border sometime recently. Bashir didn’t make me feel very good about that. Oh well.

Anyway, I found this episode entertaining, but what the hell was happening throughout it? It’s another one of those DS9 weird episodes, but it is a bit more clumsily executed than others. Early on, I had already assumed Bashir’s vision wasn’t real;  it was too implausible. That took some of the suspense away from the episode in its entirety.

Also, Garak continues to be frustrating. I like the character, but we have yet to figure out hardly anything about him in actuality. I’d like to know more about him that’s real.

Grade: C+ “It wasn’t a bad episode. But what the heck did I just watch? Very strange.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “It was ridiculous but quite fun.”

Links

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

Star Trek: DS9– For more episode reviews, follow this site and also click this link to read more (scroll down as needed)! Drop me a comment to let me know what you thought!

SDG.

The Star Wars Movies, Ranked

Everyone’s doing it, but has everyone read more than 100 Star Wars books? I have! But that doesn’t make me the biggest Star Wars fan ever or anything, I just like to say it. I mean, I love Star Wars and may have named my son after Luke Skywalker, but still, I think wars over who is a bigger fan are silly. Also at least 40 of those books weren’t very good. Anyhow, here’s the real definitive ranking of the Star Wars movies*

Episode IV: A New Hope – It’s complete on its own, it’s gorgeous, it still stands up today, and I love it
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – *inserts obligatory “it’s so dark, oh my gosh blah blah” phrases*- seriously, the reason this ranks so highly isn’t because it’s dark–any slasher movie is *dark*–it’s because it is viscerally foreboding 
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi- For a long time, this was my favorite, until I realized that A New Hope was really much better. I just like finales
Rogue One- Yes, it was truly amazing pretty much all around. The action, the acting, the plot–all were superb.
Episode VIII: The Last Jedi- perhaps the most inward-looking Star Wars movie, but it felt a little bloated, didn’t have enough aliens, and I felt it was a bit silly at times. But Luke… was awesome and they really did quite well making this feel full of enough answers while still raising issues for the next movie(s)
Episode VII: The Force Awakens- I loved it all around, but it did feel maybe a tad too fan servicey and redundant from the Expanded Universe. That said, it was well done.
Episode I: The Phantom Menace- say what you want about it, there were a lot of scenes here I actually really enjoy; Darth Maul–and let’s just throw it out there, “Duel of the Fates” is possibly the greatest movie track ever made; the underwater scene was crazy, big, and fun; I enjoyed the podracing, so deal; etc., but yeah Jar Jar and Midichlorians ruined this
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – not well acted, and the whole Anakin to Vader is super rushed at the end, but at least it kind of wraps things up
Episode II: Attack of the Clones – It’s trash

*ranking not definitive

Presidential Biographies: Thomas Jefferson #3

My quest to read (at least) one biography per President continues with Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The biography I chose with my selection process (reading reviews online and utilizing and  this website- My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies), I settled on Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham.

Here, I’ll offer my thoughts on that biography, and proceed to the DEFINITIVE RANKING OF PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!!!

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power is the best biography I’ve read on a President so far. It successfully integrates scholarship and critique, demonstrating Jefferson’s successes without sugarcoating any aspect of his life or legacy.

Thomas Jefferson. Wow. The guy was a Renaissance man, dabbling in every field of knowledge he could find, constantly seeking to learn more, and writing on various topics. Meacham’s biography, as I said, is masterful. It is readable, scholarly, and honest. At no point did I detect Meacham attempting to gloss over the failings of our third President, but he also demonstrated beyond doubt that Jefferson was a fantastically important leader.

It’s difficult to decide where to really begin here, but I think I’ll start off with the importance of Jefferson’s diplomatic skill. During the Revolutionary War, he and John Adams had some disagreements over how to handle relations with France, for example. Though Adams’ approach may have been successful, Jefferson’s clearly was successful in different ways. He managed to gain support, trade, and more from France (though this, somewhat interestingly, did not prevent the United States from conflicts with France not many years later). Then, as Secretary of State, Jefferson continued to expand the influence of the fledgling country and make deals with foreign powers that would assist the United States in trade and securing borders. As President, he presided over what is perhaps the greatest land sale in United States history, securing the Louisiana Purchase.

Jefferson constantly sought to improve himself and made the White House a place of learning, bringing in books, fossils, and art to study. He helped define the role of President as one who should constantly be seeking to understand more, rather than just issuing commands. He also expanded the role of President, using executive powers in ways his predecessors had not, yet. Despite that, he carefully maintained separation of powers and advocated for taking into account the minority opinion as well as the majority. In other words, he sought compromise actively, rather than seeing it as settling for something, or, in the unfortunate mood of our time, as utter betrayal.

Another important aspect of Jefferson’s thought and legacy was his advocacy of religious tolerance. Of course, as a Deist (this fact itself giving the lie to those who claim all the Founders were some kind of modern evangelical Christian), he directly benefited from this, but Jefferson’s push for compromises and valuing others grounded his insistence on religious liberty.

Yet Jefferson had a great number of faults, as well. The man was an admitted womanizer, he lauded the value of prostitution (or perhaps power rape) in a letter. Despite his apparent statements in favor of abolition, he owned slaves and had children with one of his slaves (again, a possible example of power rape), but then turned around and claimed that people with different colored skin ought not intermingle–a decidedly racist perspective. After the Louisiana Purchase, he laid the groundwork for later atrocities like the Trail of Tears by encouraging the United States to settle the region and drive out Native groups. Truly awful.

Jefferson was an endlessly complex figure and President. His actions shaped the country for many years to come and set up threads of activity–for good or ill–for the next many decades. It is difficult to truly analyze such a complex man and President, but it is clear that, whatever else one may think, he was a vastly important one.

THE DEFINITIVE RANKING OF PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES*

My criteria for ranking the Presidents will be somewhat arbitrary. Random things I’ve thought of so far is whether they improved our infrastructure, how Presidential they acted/looked, whether they got us into any silly wars, and the like. As you can see, these criteria are somewhat… subjective. So you’ll probably end up disagreeing with me. I look forward to your comments!

1. George Washington (1st President- original ranking- #1): Washington basically defined the office of the President for all who followed him. It was left intentionally vague by the framers, so he had to work within those strictures while trying to expand on them. Not easy, but he seems to have done it rather ably, refusing to become a major partisan while still demanding certain powers of the Executive Branch. During his Presidency the national bank was created, the country’s credit recovered, massive trade booms occurred, the Mississippi was opened for exploration, and beneficial partnerships with other countries were being formed. On the other hand, during his Presidency and life generally, slavery was tolerated and even expanded, Native Americans were brutalized, and throughout it all Washington either participated directly or turned his face the other way. It is difficult to underestimate the impact of Washington on the office of the President. On the other hand, we ought not to lionize him or see him as perfection itself.

2. Thomas Jefferson (3rd President- original ranking- #2): Jefferson’s accomplishments as President, Secretary of State, and Revolutionary cannot be understated. He deftly handled relationships with such countries as France and Spain, while also helping to secure borders of the United States for decades to come. One of the biggest splashes of his Presidency was the Louisiana Purchase, which vastly increased the size of the country. However, Jefferson was also a blatant womanizer, a slave owner who pandered to abolitionist leanings while owning slaves, was clearly racist, and encouraged the destruction of Native groups living on the land that was “purchased” from Napoleon. Back on the positive side, he advocated for religious tolerance–even of other faiths–despite his Deistic leanings. His diplomatic skill is beyond dispute. He actively sought compromise and valued even minority opinions–lessons we need to re-learn now. The legacy he left would impact almost every aspect of the country going forward, for good or ill. It is difficult to fully analyze such a complex, contradictory man.

3. John Adams (2nd President- original ranking- #2): There’s something to be said for the fact that Adams basically held the line against all the forces threatening to either break the United States back apart or subsume it under an “alliance” that would turn it into a kind of vassal state. Adams did that, and he managed to keep the US out of another war in its infancy. The political treatises Adams wrote went on to define the constitutions of many states and help clarify the relationship between the state and federal government. Adams did, however, fail to hold his own political party together, whether through inaction or simply not being charismatic enough or willing enough to step into the leadership role he needed to take. Moreover, Adams was an absentee (at best) father and husband.

*Rankings not definitive

Links

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.

 

Star Trek: DS9 “Destiny” and “Prophet Motive”

I have a particle accelerator shooting out of my brain. Your argument is invalid.

I’ve completed my re-watch of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Now it’s time to start Deep Space Nine! I am much less familiar with this show, though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen about 80-90% of the episodes. It’s been so long that I’m sure it will all feel brand new. My wife has never seen the show. She and I will go through, review every episode, and give commentary and a grade from A-F. There are SPOILERS for each episode below. Without further adieu, here’s:

“Destiny”

Synopsis

A pair (later a triad) of Cardassian scientists arrive on board DS9 to try to set up a way to communicate through the Wormhole. Meanwhile, Vedek Yarka, a somewhat controversial religious leader on Bajor, argues that the Bajoran scriptures prophesy this very event as a calamity that will deeply impact Bajor. Starfleet and the Cardassians press on, however, despite some superficial similarities between this prophecy and current events. When things start to go wrong and it appears the Wormhole is in danger, support for Yarka’s interpretation surges. However, one of the Cardassian scientists finally outs the third, who is revealed to be a member of the Obsidian Order, the Cardassian intelligence group. She was trying to sabotage their efforts. With that out of the way, the plan proceeds and, unexpectedly, some filament science magic happens and the communications are able to be established. Sisko, Kira, Yarka, and others see this as the prophecy being fulfilled in an unexpected way they could not have predicted.

Commentary

I thought this episode was a breath of fresh air. We’ve had Star Trek deal with religion plenty of times before. It hasn’t always done so well. In this one, genuinely interesting questions of interpretation of prophecy are brought forward. Who gets to arbitrate such interpretation? How much should we look at current events to try to figure out what prophecies mean? Can a prophecy really be true? These are just some of the questions briefly touched on in this episode.

What made it so refreshing is that the writers didn’t force answers for these questions. The episode dynamically changed the answers and perspectives for these questions. Most interestingly, at the end, many of the characters take what happened as meaning the prophecy came to its fulfillment.

Okay, a bit more on this one. The plot is fairly bare-bones overall–the meat is spent on the analogues to the prophecy–but it does the job of carrying the episode when it needs to. There is just enough question of whether the prophecy might come true or not that as a viewer you keep wondering which direction it will go. The ending is perfect, showing that we very often read our own perspective onto those things which we read.

Grade: A “I found this a surprisingly good look at how religious groups may interpret their scriptures differently, and how events that are happening here-and-now can change that. It was remarkably balanced in its look at this question, while still delivering a great plot.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A “It was a good combination of new characters and development of a long-standing story thread, plus it was fun to get to know some more Cardassians.”

“Prophet Motive”

Synopsis

The Grand Nagus of the Ferengi shows up once again on DS9, but he’s spreading a message that is utterly baffling to Quark and the other Ferengi. He seems to have re-written the Rules of Acquisition into some kind of rules for being kind to others! What gives? As Quark struggles with the reality that the Nagus might really be losing it, they discover that the Nagus tried to meet up with the mysterious aliens in the Wormhole to exploit them for knowledge of the future–and more monetary gain. The aliens, however, sent him back with a message of compassion. Quark must rush with the help of others to save the Ferengi and the Nagus from certain financial destruction. They do so! Monetary gains all around!

Commentary

Okay, this one was a bit silly, but so fun. I particularly loved the scene in which Quark has convinced himself the Nagus is making these changes as some kind of grand scheme that he can’t possibly comprehend, only to give in to the realization that the Nagus has truly gone off his rocker. It’s funny and delightful.

This kind of lighthearted, silly episode is something that I think DS9 pulls off much better than TNG. TNG takes itself very seriously throughout–often too seriously–so the silly episodes have to be quite excellent to succeed. DS9 just is quite serious–wars and rumors of wars abound, serious topics are constantly explored, etc. Because of this, the silly episodes like this one feel like a kind of breather to give some recovery after serious episodes. I enjoyed this one quite a bit, and love every time the Grand Nagus shows up.

Grade: B “Radically implausible and silly, but insanely fun to watch nonetheless.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B “It was fun. It was also very silly.”

Links

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

Star Trek: DS9– For more episode reviews, follow this site and also click this link to read more (scroll down as needed)! Drop me a comment to let me know what you thought!

SDG.

Star Trek: DS9 Season 3 “Life Support” and “Heart of Stone”

In which Kira turns into a rock. No, seriously.

I’ve completed my re-watch of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Now it’s time to start Deep Space Nine! I am much less familiar with this show, though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen about 80-90% of the episodes. It’s been so long that I’m sure it will all feel brand new. My wife has never seen the show. She and I will go through, review every episode, and give commentary and a grade from A-F. There are SPOILERS for each episode below. Without further adieu, here’s:

“Life Support”

Synopsis

Vedek Bareil is injured on a transport coming to DS9 and Bashir must try to help forestall the potential brain injury that’s happening. Meanwhile, the Bajorans are in important peace talks with the Cardassians, spearheaded by Bareil’s efforts and grudgingly agreed to by Kai Winn. Bareil’s condition continues to deteriorate even as the peace talks enter pivotal phases. Bashir utilizes experimental techniques to keep Bareil alive, but strongly urges him to go into a kind of stasis so they can cure him later. Bareil refuses the recommended treatment and continues to push for more and more dangerous treatments. Ultimately, the peace talks seem to be successful, but Bareil dies, having already had enough treatments to be very little of the man he once was.

Commentary

Wow, this was a tough episode to watch. Somehow you keep hoping that Bareil may just pull through, but it all seems inevitable from the beginning. The ethical dimensions raised here are interesting, but some of the difficult questions they’re dealing with–whether to do treatments that may cause more harm than good, whether the patient is truly the last say so far as which treatments can or should be done, and more.

I genuinely thought Kai Winn must have had something to do with Bareil’s injury, and that the plot would go in the direction of having the peace talks undermined by that very thing, but the writers didn’t go there, and I have mixed feelings about it. It seems like a potential missed opportunity for increasing the nefarious nature of Winn, but it also seems like it would be possibly too much if they had gone that way.

It’s worth mentioning this is also a piece of good development for Kira, who is stuck between the wishes of Bareil and her own.

The secondary plot following Nog and Jake and their different cultures is a good development for them, too, adding another dimension to their relationship that wasn’t there before.

Grade: B “It felt a little like it could have been more, and the questions it raised could have gone father, but it was an interesting character piece with some good ethical quandaries.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “It was good further development of characters we already knew, plus some ethical dilemmas from Dr. Bashir.”

“Heart of Stone”

Synopsis

Kira and Odo crash land on a rocky moon after chasing a Maquis vessel. On the moon, Kira gets stuck in a rock which quickly reveals itself to be some kind of energy shifting organism. Meanwhile, Nog has come to Sisko to ask to get a recommendation for joining Starfleet.

As the two try to figure a way out of the mess, and the rock-energy-organism takes over Kira more and more, Odo begins to open up to Kira more than ever.

Commentary

Odo! Tell Kira already!

The genius of this episode is that it uses Odo brilliantly. Here, we don’t have him using tricks of his own shapeshifting to do something mundane like being a glass on a tray or something. No, he is purely using his powers of deduction to show that he remains as totally awesome as he did before.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty in this episode is the plausibility of having the other Changeling as the villain. It’s not so much that a shapeshifter like Odo couldn’t turn into Kira and look as it did, but the problem is rather that Odo at one points fires a phaser on fake Kira which would, presumably, have greatly harmed the Changeling. Yet there is little-to-no reaction from her. Oh well.

Grade: B+ “Odo being Odo as Odo does best.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B+ “I think it was an interesting look into Odo’s character and fun Nog development, but utterly implausible.”

Links

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

Star Trek: DS9– For more episode reviews, follow this site and also click this link to read more (scroll down as needed)! Drop me a comment to let me know what you thought!

SDG.