Star Trek: DS9 Season 4 “Hard Time” and “Shattered Mirror”

Poignant scene.

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:

“Hard Time”

Synopsis

The episode opens with O’Brien being taken out of what seems like some kind of unconscious state. It turns out he was convicted of espionage on a rather unfriendly planet and the sentence was a kind of mental imprisonment which only lasted a short while in “real” time, but gave O’Brien the experiences of two decades of imprisonment. Back on DS9, O’Brien must deal with the torments of the mental imprisonment–experiences he felt were real. He finds himself sleeping on the floor for comfort, startling both Keiko and Molly. After one especially scary moment, in which his PTSD has become acute, he rushes to a weapons locker to end it all. Bashir, who has been treating O’Brien throughout, manages to stop him just in time and talk him down. O’Brien admits he killed his cellmate over a few pieces of bread in his mental imprisonment. He thinks he is a monster. Bashir disagrees, saying he would not regret it if he were a monster, and finds a treatment that begins to work.

Commentary

I can’t say enough about how excellent this episode is. Seriously. First of all, it’s about as bleak as you can possibly get, and I love me some bleak episodes of Star Trek. But seriously–a society that sentences you to this kind of mental imprisonment and breaks you intentionally over the course of a few days? Wow. That is… wow.

O’Brien and Bashir truly shine throughout this episode. As a viewer, you can’t help but feel a deep sense of foreboding–something is deeply wrong with O’Brien, and we know what it is, but how will it manifest. Will he get better? And in the end, though Bashir is able to find a way to treat O’Brien, he’ll never be better. He has been permanently changed and scarred by what was inflicted upon him. It has been done. This episode gives us something that doesn’t always happen in Star Trek–long lasting, life-impacted effects on a character we have known for a long time.

Grade: A+ “A truly human piece of television which forces viewers to think on things like mass incarceration while also bonding deeply with Bashir and O’Brien in ways they hadn’t before. Truly, a magnificent episode.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A *sad face* “You know it’s good, because if it weren’t a Star Trek episode, it would be Oscar bait.”

“Shattered Mirror”

Synopsis

The Mirror Universe Jennifer Sisko kidnaps Jake Sisko in order to lure Benjamin Sisko, and it works. Once there, Mirror O’Brien convinces Benjamin Sisko to help repair the Defiant. They go to fight against the Cardassian-Bajor Alliance and chaos ensues, leading to several mirror-deaths, including the death of Jennifer Sisko (again!) and mirror Nog. Jake is left to mourn his mother… kind of.

Commentary

Okay, so here we have an episode where almost nothing matters in the “real world.” The problem with the Mirror Universe, across the board, is that as a viewer you have close to certainty that the “real” characters will all survive, and that it doesn’t particularly matter to you what happens in the Mirror Universe because it’s just a kind of parallel universe. There are a lot of books from Star Trek about the Mirror Universe, so maybe reading those would get you invested, but on the show, it seems like an excuse for the writers to do whatever they want to the characters. That in itself is a cool concept, but it makes it so I as a viewer have even lest investment: they aren’t the real thing, so of course Kira could be allied with Cardassia and be happy about it. But that doesn’t jive with what we know about Kira whatsoever.

So I guess what I’m saying is the Mirror Universe’s strength is also its downfall–it allows for characters to act very differently from expectations, but it also means you aren’t invested in it. Where the writers made you get somewhat invested in this episode is by having the loss to Jake and Benjamin Sisko occur, again. It’s maybe a cheap shot, but it does at least get some interest because that’s a real world impact.  A tough sell, in my opinion, but not necessarily done poorly.

Grade: B- “Convoluted and a bit silly, but it is interesting to see how the writers play with characters when they can effectively do whatever they want. Also, poor Jake.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B- “It’s not very memorable, but I feel done with the Mirror Universe. It is played out.”

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: Deep Space Nine Season 4 “The Visitor” and “Hippocratic Oath”

Dad? I mean… son?

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:

“The Visitor”

Synopsis

An older Jake Sisko receives a visit from a fan of his writing in the middle of the night. She’s curious about his writings and why he didn’t write more. Jake agrees to tell his story. It turns out that on DS9, there was an accident that transported Captain Sisko into some kind of time-locked dimension, keeping him connected to Jake but also making it impossible for him to escape. The younger Jake became obsessed with trying to rescue his father, ultimately losing his wife and his writing career in pursuit of finding a way to get his father back. Jake has seemingly figured out what’s happening with his father–he himself is acting as a kind of tether keeping Captain Sisko bouncing around in the time thingy. To fix it, Jake has taken a lethal dose of a drug, freeing his father, but only after informing him that he’s going to be transported back to the moment of the incident and needs to avoid the accident that began the whole thing. Captain Sisko, back to the “present,” rescues himself and his son from the tragic accident, freeing them both to pursue a life that they missed in an alternate realm of possibility.

Commentary

Here we have the kind of emotional storytelling that made TNG so spectacular at its best. There is tragedy here on a grand scale–we feel immense loss throughout the episode, and even at the end, when everything turns out well, we still feel the tragedy of the whole of the “other Jake’s” life. Because really, “other Jake” is truly dead, as Star Trek works its multiverse. It is haunting and beautiful. Yes, you know as the viewer all along there will be resolution, but that doesn’t take the power away from the narrative.

Grade: A “Hauntingly beautiful.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “It was quite good acting with a compelling story, but the thunderstorm visitor felt a little contrived.”

“Hippocratic Oath”

Synopsis

On DS9, Worf tries to impose his own way of rule of law on Odo, which leads to Odo losing a valuable lead in an investigation. The bulk of the plot, though, is O’Brien and Bashir stranded on a planet with a bunch of Jem’Hadar. One of the Jem’Hadar appears to be immune to the drug the Changelings use to enslave them, and Bashir tries to work on a cure. His efforts ultimately lead him to discovering that the man is immune not due to some built up immunity or anything he can do; rather, it was something genetically unique to him. Bashir can’t save the others, and O’Brien attempts to bust them both out of the planet, much to Bashir’s chagrin as he worked on trying to find a cure. They escape, but Bashir is displeased with O’Brien’s attempts to escape, feeling his own commitment to helping others was more important.

Commentary

Bashir and O’Brien will need some patching up after this one. I thought it was a great character piece for the four primary movers- Bashir, O’Brien, Worf, and Odo. It showed how different Odo and Worf are regarding their mindset when it comes to security. It also helped establish Bashir as more than simple comic relief. The main plot is brutal, too- the whole time I thought there’d be some breakthrough and we’d start seeing Jem’Hadar getting cured, but once again they baffle attempts to change them. It’s a kind of nature vs. nurture playing out all over again, and it is a fascinating way to deal with a whole people group.

This episode is one that is part of what I think may be a larger problem with DS9, though–there are a lot of big idea episodes with far-reaching implications that don’t seem to keep having an impact beyond the episode itself. Time will tell if anything from this episode will reverberate beyond its 45-minute confines.

Grade: A- “A strong central plot coupled with great character development makes for a great episode.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “I thought it was really interesting and now I want to know more about how the Jem Hadar are impacted by their mind control drug.”

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 “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.

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.

Star Trek: DS9 Season 3 “Past Tense” Parts I + II

Get ready for our future. This is it.

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:

“Past Tense: Parts I + II”*

*I’ve decided to start combining the scores for 2 part episodes because it is difficult to parse them apart from each other.

Synopsis

Sisko, Dax, and Dr. Bashir are caught in a transporter accident that sends them to the past, San Francisco in 2024. Dax is separated from Sisko and Bashir and the latter are taken into custody and placed into a “sanctuary district,” a kind of slum for non-criminals who have no work and nowhere to go. Dax, meanwhile, meets Chris Brynner, a successful businessman with a kind heart who quickly agrees to help her find her friends. In the sanctuary district, Sisko realizes that they are there just before the “Bell Riots,” a kind of uprising in the sanctuary districts that helped awaken the world to the suffering of the poor.

Commentary

Why does anyone take a transporter anymore? Every time someone mentions fears of transporters, all those surrounding that person say “but they’re so safe, there are almost no accidents, etc.” Yet almost every time this happens, an accident happens. Sorry, if a transporter can just dematerialize me on a whim or send me back in time, I’m not sure I trust that thing to be teleporting me all around the face of the universe.  Also, can we talk about how the transporter literally just destroys you and creates a copy of you somewhere else? It’s not you showing up on the other end; it’s a perfect copy. But the old you was dematerialized–they don’t send that matter to the other end, they just make new matter in the same form pop up. Count me out!

Anyway, now that I’ve cleared that out of my system, let’s talk about the actual episodes. This was a great two-parter. It felt, honestly, like a rather well done B-movie made as a dystopia. It had the cheesy factor with some kind of silly jokes, it had the funky 90s-future outfits, and it had the color palate of a movie like Equilibrium or Gattaca (if you haven’t seen these–run and do so). I can’t help but now have fond memories of the kind of quaint, single-block set that they used for these episodes.

Here’s another thing though: this is disturbingly scary in its seeming accuracy to what some people are pushing for. Shutting up people in certain parts of the city seems reminiscent of the use of sanctuary cities, but with a devious twist that doesn’t seem all that outside of the realm of where we may be going. I mean, the whole two-parter seemed strikingly possible, even to the date (I believe it was 2019 or something). Depressingly close to home.

The real difficulties here are minor, the main one being some pretty big holes left open throughout the double feature’s plot. I found myself not minding so much, because the resolution of it all was so cool. Well done.

Grade: A- “It’s a sort of cheesy near-future dystopia but oh my goodness is it disturbingly accurate feeling right now.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “It was quite a good story, though there were certainly a few holes in it.”

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: Deep Space Nine Season 2 “The Crossover” and “The Collaborator”

Bajorans have issues, yo.

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:

“The Crossover”

Synopsis

Kira and Bashir experience a strange glitch in the Wormhole and end up in an alternate reality with copies of everyone on Deep Space Nine. In this alternate reality, however, the Cardassians, Klingons, and Bajorans have formed a kind of alliance and conquered humanity. Sisko gets special treatment as a kind of rogue trader. Bashir is thrown to slavery, with Odo as the overlord. He manages to convince the O’Brien copy that there may be more to life than drudgery even as Garak threatens to kill Bashir if Kira doesn’t take her copy’s place. O’Brien and Bashir are captured in an attempt to escape but Bashir’s words about a world in which humans aren’t all slaves inspires Sisko to take up the fight. He aids Bashir and Kira in getting back to their own reality and copy Sisko and O’Brien stay to continue the fight.

Commentary

Now we’ve had two episodes in a row that don’t do anything to move the plot forward. I’d like to reflect on some perspective here. In “The Next Generation,” it barely mattered if an episode happened wherein nothing that happened impacted the broader world because that’s often the premise of the show. It’s just a spaceship flying around running into things and occasionally dealing with much wider-scale problems. But DS9 has set itself up, for better or worse, as a show built on strong continuing narratives. Because of this, it’s really frustrating to get episodes where there’s not any continuation of the broader narratives, and this episode suffers from those expectations.

Anyway, the episode is also problematic in that it has established characters acting completely abnormally. That goes along with the premise, but instead of creating an aura of weirdness, there is a sense of impossibility. Bajorans… working with Cardassians? And Klingons partnering with others for conquest? Sisko as a marauder? Yeah, these things are weird, but they also go against basically everything that has been established about these races and people groups.

All of that said, the episode was kind of fun in a campy, cheesy way. It’s silly, it’s impossible, and it takes itself all too seriously. But it somehow still manages to kind of have a sense of fun. Not a good episode, but not a terrible one, either.

Grade: C- “Another episode where actually nothing that happened mattered.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B- “I don’t know. It was just weird.”

“The Collaborator”

Synopsis

Bajor is gearing up to select a new Kai. Bareil seems like the logical choice, as he was hand-picked by Kai Opaka. However, when an exiled Bajoran informant returns, Vedek Winn, Bareil’s opponent and an able conspirator, grants him permission to return to Bajor. She begins to use the exile as evidence of a collaborator elsewhere on Bajor, namely, Bareil. Kira is given the chance to prove Bareil is innocent, and attempts to do so with the help of Odo, and a dash of Quark’s hacking skill, seems to implicate Bareil even more. However, when Kira confonts Bareil, he argues the collaboration was necessary to save Bajoran lives. Kira can’t accept this, but continues her investigation and discovers that Kai Opaka herself was the collaborator, not Bareil. Opaka sacrificed the life of her son to save 1200 other lives. Bareil sacrificed his career to preserve Opaka’s prestige. Vedek Winn is made Kai.

Commentary

Here’s an episode full of twists and turns. It’s clear almost from the outset that Bareil is hiding something, though I didn’t expect he’d be covering up for Opaka. That was a big reveal, and one that asked questions about what is important in life–and death. Did Opaka do the right thing? Should such a decision that she made be paraded out in front of all of Bajor for analysis? Was Bareil’s sacrifice valiant or foolish because it allowed Winn to become Kai?

None of those questions have easy answers, but they do promise for more intrigue on Bajor, which is an exciting prospect.

Another great aspect of this episode is it doesn’t try to hard. There’s no overly dramatic shots or scenes. The plot is dramatic enough, and it relies on its own drama rather than tricks of camera or overdone lines to draw viewers in.

Grade: A “It had enough twists that it was exciting all the way through, but not so many that it became unbelievable.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B+ “I always enjoy a good, sleuthy detective story.”

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 2 “The Maquis, Part II” and “The Wire”

Hope you’ve got that uniform insured, bud.

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:

“The Maquis, Part II”

Synopsis

Hudson accuses Sisko with siding with the Cardassians over his longtime friend and all of humanity, but ultimately frees him and his officers. Admiral Nechayev remains fairly oblivious to the realities beyond her office (as she was in a few situations in TNG) and, when Sisko asks her for help, simply orders him to deal with the “nuisance” that is the Maquis. Quark reveals more about his selling of weapons and that he believes the Maquis will be making an attack on a Cardassian base soon. The Cardassians have clearly set Dukat up as a scapegoat for their illegal smuggling of weapons into the colonies. After rescuing Dukat, Sisko goes to intercept the Maquis attack. He leads a couple runabouts, who succeed in routing the Maquis, but, much to the rage of Dukat, allows Hudson to escape unharmed. Sisko believes the situation may continue to escalate, but couldn’t bring himself to kill his friend.

Commentary

The Maquis are here to stay. Though Sisko managed to thwart the immediate danger, it seems clear from this episode that the conflict may only escalate. That’s something that is kind of refreshing for a Star Trek episode, because so often everything is tied up neatly with a bow and handed off. Very rarely do conflicts continue, especially when those conflicts involve Starfleet. This episode shows that DS9, again, is going to be grittier than the previous iterations of Star Trek.

I particularly enjoyed the ending. For a moment, I thought Sisko might indeed destroy his friend’s ship, but it makes sense for him as a character not to have done so–after all, among other things, they share loss together. But Sisko lets Hudson go in the full knowledge that he is likely prolonging the conflict. That’s the kind of thing that challenges the standard Star Trek scenarios where the leader basically always does what is right, in the end. Here we don’t know if what Sisko did was the right choice, nor will we… though maybe later if the Maquis show up again we can get a bigger picture.

The main problem with this episode is that people frequently act in sort of strange ways. In the summary I already noted how the Admiral once again misjudges the situation. But there is more: like why do the Maquis just let Sisko go when he could be a valuable asset? Or why do the Cardassians move so swiftly to throw Dukat under the bus… only to, apparently, easily accept him back later? Some of these threads just don’t make sense.

I particularly enjoyed that they didn’t 100% close off all the plot threads here. It is clear the Maquis can continue to be a political plotline going forward. It was a well-done conclusion to the two-parter.

Grade: A- “A good conclusion that leaves open the possibility for future conflict.

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B+ “It was pretty good, but it wasn’t outstanding in any way.”

“The Wire”

Synopsis

Garak is having headaches and Bashir wants to help him, but the Cardassian doesn’t want help. This is a really convoluted mess of lies and half-truths so it may be more prudent to just read the summary on Wikipedia.

Commentary

Garak is a lying sack of crap. That’s what I learned in this episode. I have always thought there is something weird about him, and maybe even nefarious (the latter coming out more in “Profit and Loss”), but didn’t really decide he’s a massive liarface until this one. It kind of took away some of my liking for the character. But maybe that’s a good thing, because it challenges ignorant acceptance of everything Garak says. We knew he was a loyal Cardassian in some way, possibly even a spy, but this episode reveals even more how strange his past is.

I was left after this episode with confusion on my brain. I just don’t really know what is true or what really happened with Garak’s past any more than I did at the beginning. I’m sure that was intentional, but it was also kind of annoying. It gives all the reveals throughout the episode a kind of “who cares” aftertaste, because we don’t know what was true or what was a lie. Overall, it makes the whole thing feel unsatisfying.

All my complaining aside, I did enjoy watching the episode, mostly because the actor who plays Garak dons the role so well.

Grade: C+ “What the what? I don’t really know what to think, but I did still enjoy it.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “I’m torn because, on the one hand, there was really great acting; on the other hand, actually nothing happened except Garak having a weird device.”

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 2 “Armageddon Game” and “Whispers”

Well.. this is awkward.

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:

“Armageddon Game”

Synopsis

O’Brien and Bashir are sent to aid T’Lani III in the destruction of a dangerous bioweapon that has helped to spur on endless warfare between two factions. After they manage to destroy the last of it, an attack apparently makes them disappear. To the crew of DS9, it looks as though they’ve died. However, Keiko O’Brien suggests that because Chief Miles O’Brien was drinking coffee later than he ever would, the recording has been doctored. Sisko and Dax go to T’Lani III to investigate. Meanwhile, O’Brien has been getting sick, apparently from a bioweapon, and Bashir continues to try to treat him as O’Brien helps Bashir repair a communicator. As Sisko and Dax investigate, they discover that the runabout O’Brien and Bashir used has been tampered with, opening the possibility that they are alive. The T’Lani find O’Brien and Bashir, and it turns out they’ve decided to kill them to erase any possibility of the bioweapon ever being constructed again. Sisko and Dax manage to grab the imperiled crew members and distract the T’Lani, escaping back to DS9 with their lives.

Commentary

I thought this was a great character-building episode. One thing this episode highlights about DS9 as over and against TNG is that it is clear the relationships between characters are more complex. Yes, TNG is my favorite and probably always will be, but here in DS9 we have a relationship between two major characters that is not 100% amiable at all times. The relationship between O’Brien and Bashir is not caustic and awful, but it has tensions and is more depth to it than a lot of relationships on Star Trek in general have. It feels more real because of it.

The plot is pretty intriguing too, though a bit of suspension of disbelief is required for thinking the T’Lani would basically just start a war with Starfleet to preserve their peace after they’d just been assisted by Starfleet to get that peace achieved in the first place.

Overall, this was a great episode, and it built the heck outta O’Brien and Bashir as characters.

Grade: A- “O’Brien and Bashir are the best combination.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “Anytime Bashir and O’Brien face up, it’s gonna be great.”

“Whispers”

Synopsis

Something’s not right. O’Brien is in a runabout fleeing from Deep Space Nine, narrating the strange things that have happened. Basically everyone aboard DS9, including his wife, has become very strange, acting as though something is wrong with him when in reality all of them are going nuts. He narrates the lengthy series of events that leads to his escape from DS9. Ultimately, he ends up walking in on a meeting between Sisko and some others, only to see another one of himself across the way. He tries to fire on the imposters, but is instead killed by a bodyguard. As he lays dying, he tells the now-revealed-as-real O’Brien to tell Keiko he loves her.

Commentary

I kept getting shades of the classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (an excellent film, btw) throughout this episode, only to have the whole thing overthrown at the end. It was an unexpected twist that, while a bit tough to swallow, made sense as an ending and was satisfying. I enjoyed this one a great deal, especially because I enjoy a good mystery combined with my science fiction.

The abruptness of the ending is quite jarring, however. It’s clear from the beginning something isn’t right. And of course you simply go along with the expectation that O’Brien is the reliable narrator when in fact it is he who is compromised. But it felt like there weren’t really enough hints throughout to fully sell the ending, that the narrator was the imposter. That’s maybe the only real problem with this episode. I still enjoyed it a great deal.

Grade: B+ “The ending is a bit of a stretch, but this is a pretty mystifying–in a good way–episode.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B “I like the premise, but I have a hard time believing they wouldn’t be better at keeping him locked up if they really thought they’d been infiltrated by a murderous spy group.”

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 2 “Cardassians” and “Melora”

The Klingon Restaurant is Everything that is Awesome

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:

“Cardassians”

Synopsis

A Cardassian boy, Rugal, shows up on DS9, apparently with Bajoran “parents.” He lashes out at Garak, the Cardassian tailor on board the station, leading to controversy over his situation. Gul Dukat insists on intervening and says he desires to bring all the Cardassian war orphans back home. When Bashir mentions Dukat’s ideas to Garak, he not-so-subtly hints that there is more than meets the eye with Dukat’s concerns because Dukat himself was involved with and opposed to evacuating Bajor. Dukat and Bashir go to Bajor where they find information that ultimately reveals Dukat intentionally left Rugal behind to poison the well of one of his political adversaries. When Dukat arrives on station to help arbitrate the hearing over custody of Rugal, he is confronted with this information. He storms off, his plan in ruins, and Rugal is sent “home” with his Cardassian father.

Commentary

It is difficult for me to figure out how to feel about this one. It’s also impossible to refrain from a comparison of the Cardassian treatment of the Bajorans to various modern day analogues. I did enjoy this episode. It asked many valuable questions, and what I thought for a while was a gaping plot hole (why the heck did the Cardassians leave any of their children behind to begin with) actually became the impetus for a major plot twist. I have to admit that was really well done.

I also like the character of Garak and his interplay with Bashir, which largely seems to be: Bashir looks kind of like an idiot. There’s a lot going on in this episode, and much of it involves Bashir annoying Sisko with little reason to back up his claims other than that some tailor told him to investigate further. No matter, he does so, and his curious nature is ultimately rewarded in the showdown with Gul Dukat, another great Cardassian character. Basically, the writers of both TNG and DS9 have done a phenomenal job writing the Cardassians so far. They’re much more threatening-feeling than most other enemies. There’s a sense not just of intrigue but also foreboding that accompanies them. I don’t know how to describe it, but they’re good.

I didn’t even get to mention the O’Briens impact on the situation, and O’Brien dealing with his own dislike of the Cardassians to try to convince Rugal that they aren’t all bad after all.

Anyway, the ending of this was tough, too. How will Rugal adapt to Cardassia, among those he has effectively been raised to hate? Will his own perspective help bring change, or will they simply beat into him the evils of Bajor? I doubt we’ll ever know, and the ambivalence of it is tough to swallow.

Grade: B+ “A rather ambivalent look at a number of tough questions that, ultimately, leaves them unanswered.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B+ “It was a pretty good mix of the race relations between Cardassia and Bajor with some good mystery thrown in.”

“Melora”

Synopsis

Ensign Melora Pazlar is coming to DS9 and because she is Elaysian, she is used to lower gravity than DS9 has. Bashir has been getting everything prepared, and is surprised by her abrasive attitude when they first meet. She insists upon doing everything herself, but slowly begins to trust Bashir. After an accident that Bashir helps her to recover from, she gives him the experience of “flying” around her low-gravity quarters. They exchange a kiss. Bashir comes up with an idea to help her muscles adapt to the gravity of the station, but to complete the treatment, Melora will have to give up her low-gravity fields so her motor cortex doesn’t get messed up. Meanwhile, an old accomplice of Quark’s, Kot, has shown up on station, threatening to kill Quark. He is persuaded away from this course of action by a bribe, but as Quark acquires the money, Kot intervenes, insisting on even more. He takes Melora, Dax, and Quark hostage and steals a runabout. On the runabout, after being shot, Melora manages to turn off the gravity in the ship and disable Kot. She decides to discontinue the treatment because she feels it would change who she really is.

Commentary

The biggest problem in this episode is when Dax is talking to Melora and brings up the story of the Little Mermaid as a kind of analogy for Melora’s own situation. It’s like the thrust of the whole episode up to this point has been “Let’s fix the angry disabled person” (itself a major problem) and then it turns into “but wait, disabled people might be better off how they are!” Now, apart from the many complexities in such questions which are largely ignored by the episode, I found this a stunningly inept way of looking at the question of disabilities in the future. Melora is portrayed as rather savagely defensive instead of as a person who is adapting to difficult circumstances, the people around her basically all seem to be trying to “fix” her, and the one person who doesn’t favor that basically tells a horror story about how everything could go wrong with the choice she made.

All of that said, it is clear the intent of the episode was to try to deal with some of these very difficult questions. It just was inept in its execution. What makes this more surprising is that one of the writers, Evan Carlos Somers, apparently is a paraplegic himself who uses a wheelchair. According to the Deep Space Nine Companion, he had to deal with many of the problems shown on screen-elevators not designed to be accessible, etc. I just wish that the episode had highlighted more of the difficulties without making Melora seem so embittered by them. Yes, she does come out of her shell some, but there is little explanation for why she is so upset to begin with.

Also, can we ask how realistic the whole scenario is anyway? Basically any hard sci-fi I’ve read deals with the question of differing gravities, and I think that Melora would have to be better adapted to higher gravities than she is. Simply based on muscle mass and the fact she is able to fling herself about in low or no gravity suggests some better muscles and use thereof than this episode actually discusses. Oh well.

The sub-plot of the blast from Quark’s past was pretty interesting, and I think it could have carried an episode on its own, but maybe that’s because I’m coming to enjoy Quark more and more.

Finally, I give this episode mad props for the excellence that was the Klingon restaurant. That was basically the best non-story moment of any episode so far. Both scenes in the restaurant were pure gold, especially when the owner came around singing and playing his dainty Klingon incident. Superb.

Grade: C- “A questionably-executed attempt to deal with disabilities in the future.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B- “The ‘Little Mermaid in Space’ didn’t do a very good job addressing disability. Melora was interesting character, though.”

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: Deep Space Nine Season 1 “The Forsaken” and “Dramatis Personae”

Well this is weird, all around.

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:

“The Forsaken”

Synopsis

A delegation of ambassadors shows up on DS9, one of whom is the great Lwaxana Troi. Bashir is assigned to show the ambassadors around while Chief O’Brien struggles to teach the stations computer how to work. Troi starts to pursue a relationship with Odo. When an alien object shows up, suddenly the computer goes haywire. Troi and Odo are trapped together, and the other ambassadors are trapped due to an explosion with Dr. Bashir. Troi allows Odo to go liquid form in her dress to protect him, and Bashir manages–just–to save the other ambassadors. High fives all around.

Commentary

Lwaxana Troi drives me crazy, but she has become a progressively better character, despite her obnoxious qualities, as Star Trek goes on. Here again we see a new dimension of her character–a touching one–in which she reveals to Odo her own weaknesses regarding her looks to allow Odo to feel more comfortable with his own need to go liquid form (that’s what I’m calling it–deal with it).

Yeah, the side plot with the “puppy dog alien computer virus” was weird, but it served its purpose–to create drama for the other characters. Bashir’s delightful idiocy also got some expansion as he was smart when under pressure–something he hasn’t yet had the opportunity to demonstrate. He got all the perks of showing the ambassadors he could have dreamed of. Go Bashir!

So yeah, there are some big problems in this episode, not least of which is the weird virus that just wants some love, but those can largely be forgiven because Odo/Lwaxana worked so well together. It’s a true character piece that gives a lot more dimension to both of them.

Grade: A- “Like a puppy, it’s got some problems to work out, but it has a lot of heart.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: A- “It revealed depths of Lwaxana’s character that were previously hidden.”

“Dramatis Personae”

Synopsis

When an alien object is returned to the station, the crew starts to go crazy. It turns out that the alien object has managed to force most people on the station to start acting out roles in an ancient alien drama, recapitulating its warlike, betrayal-laden plot. Odo and Bashir manage to remove the alien influence from the crew, and everything is saved with only minimal losses.

Commentary

Okay, this is a really strange episode. It’s like some attempt to integrate Shakespeare into DS9 but in a way that isn’t as spectacularly epic (or fail) as many of the episodes with the same idea in TNG. It’s just weird. The impending paranoia that surrounds everyone in the crew made me as a viewer uneasy, but I never felt it was truly a threat to anyone, largely because they didn’t introduce any side character who might actually be in danger (yes, I know, it is hard not to meta-). But, that said, it was fun seeing all the characters being so out-of-character, and Sisko made a really, really cool clock that I would love to have. I don’t have much more to say about this one, to be honest. Strange.

Grade: B- “I want that clock.”

Wife’s Grade and Comment: B- “It was a cool story, but didn’t seem to make much sense as a Star Trek episode.”

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.