TheGodBen Revisits Deep Space Nine

[DonIago]

Could be they had an open relationship.

[R. Star]

DonIago wrote:

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Could be they had an open relationship.

Dax I could see doing that. Worf I could see murdering anyone who looks at Jadzia... which he almost did to Bashir and Quark.

[DonIago]

He lightened up in his old age.

[Spock/Uhura Fan]

I thought Ferengi Love Songs wasn't that bad, but at the same time, I think the Ferengi stories are some of the weakest in general. Perhaps that's because they are made out for comedic purposes too much. A little less cheese and a bit less corn and many of these stories could have been a lot better. Children of Time was an alright episode to me. I think Jadzia and Worf probably stayed together, but they also did what they had to do to contribute to population growth. It's possible that when they couldn't have children of their own, someone in the group volunteered to help out by donating their genetic material so that Worf and Jadzia could have children they could raise together too. And of course, for Worf, a woman would have had to volunteer to be a surrogate. This happens with infertile and gay male couples today in societies with no population growth issues. Soldiers of the Empire was very nice. Nuff said.

[TheGodBen]

Blaze of Glory (***)

Remember back when Cardassia joined the Dominion and they wiped out the Maquis in a brutal slaughter that shamed the Federation due to its inaction? That was a great episode, wasn't it? It's a shame that they didn't include it on the DVDs because of the explicit sex scenes, that was a really bad call by Ira Behr in hindsight.

The Maquis always seemed like an afterthought on DS9, there was a lot of potential for great stories involving them but DS9 instead chose to focus on the Dominion and the Klingons, and the Maquis got relegated to one or two episodes per season. So it's fitting that their final episode is also a bit of an afterthought, coming several months after their destruction. And the episode's main focus isn't even the Maquis, but the animosity that exists between Sisko and Eddington, an animosity that largely happened off-screen. The irony is that Eddington gets a strong finish to his character-arc even though it barely even had a beginning or middle.

It's also a little strange that the entire plot for this episode is based on Sisko's desperation to prevent a war that I know he is going to start anyway. The stakes have never been so inconsequential. The episode still works as a character piece, and the ending is reasonably effective in reminding us that the Maquis were just people that deserved better than to be annihilated by the Jem'Hadar. But it does get a bit tiresome hearing Eddington repeatedly threaten to kill Sisko.

Meanwhile, Nog goes all racist and looks for opportunities to bully the Klingons. It's an okay comedic plot, but someone needed to tell Nog that using his authority as a security officer to single out a specific species for committing minor infractions isn't a good idea.

Also, Odo and Kira seem to have gotten past their awkwardness from the previous episode, so they probably wont be avoiding one another and having a big discussion in the coming weeks.

[DonIago]

Well, while we all know Sisko's going to take actions to cause the war to start, I think we can also agree that it would have been a very bad thing if the war had started now rather than when it did. Starfleet was probably desperately building up its forces for as long as possible prior to the outbreak of open hostilities. Who knows how much difference even a single day made at that point.

[TheGodBen]

Also, they didn't have a minefield in place at the wormhole yet. That, and the Prophets preventing Dominion ships traversing the wormhole, is the only thing that prevented the Dominion from destroying the AQ powers.


Empok Nor (***)

O'Brien, Nog, Garak, and four walking corpses go on a trip to a spooky abandoned space station. Who will survive? The answer may just surprise you (but almost certainly wont). This has to be the worst case of redshirting that DS9 has ever pulled, literally every one of the new characters dies and all three established characters survive. This is TOS The Apple territory right here, although I suppose this episode shows some social progress because the female redshirt was allowed to die this time.

The episode is okay, I guess, but the story is a bit of a mess. O'Brien and co need to go to Empok Nor to get vital parts to repair DS9, but when they get to Empok Nor they get attacked by some crazed Cardassians and forget all about the parts they need. Then Garak goes a little crazy because he got some Head and Shoulders on his hand. (Why would such a dangerous compound to Cardassians be left on a hand-rail on a Cardassian space station?) He kills the Cardassians and an innocent human, then he goes all psycho and tries to play mind games with O'Brien, refusing to kill Nog for some reason, and hanging the corpses of O'Brien's men on the promenade. Then O'Brien blows Garak up sufficiently good and they're magically back on DS9. Yeah, the episode goes a little crazy towards the end there and doesn't utilise Garak's strengths as a character.

As a torture O'Brien episode, it's okay. The station has a nice creepy atmosphere, there's some good cinematography and lighting at work. There's nothing that will really make you jump or keep you on the edge of your seat, but the episode is reasonably entertaining and interesting to look at.

Runabouts Lost: 7

[DonIago]

I actually began putting in something about the minefield but then retracted it...given how quickly Rom conceived of the minefield and it was subsequently implemented, I felt it was possible that even if the war had started earlier the minefield might still have been put in place in a timely manner.

[Skywalker]

I like how they establish Empok Nor as being different from Deep Space Nine...by tilting it at an angle. Because space is two-dimensional and everyone approaching it will always see it at that angle.

[R. Star]

I dunno, Empok Nor struck me more as a serial killer/horror movie spoof of an episode more than your traditional O'brien Must Suffer episode. O'brien really didn't suffer that much. The random goldshirts and Nog were the ones who got it really. It was a fun change of pace, if not particularly inspired.

As for the angle? Yeah that was funny... I wish they'd just randomly change the angle more often to reflect it. I'd love to see the Enterprise flying by upside down or something just once.

[DonIago]

Regardless of the reality of the situation, it does convey a different atmosphere when things you expect to see at a certain angle are shown at an unexpected one.

I love the part in "Genesis" where Picard and Data are watching the Enterprise drifting through space.

[MacLeod]

Zombie Redshirt wrote:

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I dunno, Empok Nor struck me more as a serial killer/horror movie spoof of an episode more than your traditional O'brien Must Suffer episode. O'brien really didn't suffer that much. The random goldshirts and Nog were the ones who got it really. It was a fun change of pace, if not particularly inspired.

As for the angle? Yeah that was funny... I wish they'd just randomly change the angle more often to reflect it. I'd love to see the Enterprise flying by upside down or something just once.

The Enterprise flew by upside down dozen's of times, it's just that our orientation to it was upside down as well.

[TheGodBen]

One thing I did like about Enterprise was that they were a bit more imaginative with the angles on the spaceship shots. I suppose the move to entirely using CG models freed up the VFX artists in that regard.


In the Cards (****½)

The galaxy finds itself hurtling towards a cliff: the greatest war civilization has ever known seems to be just weeks away, the crew is demoralised and crime is on the rise. Time for a screwball comedy about a baseball card and a magic chamber that entertains your cells. It shouldn't work, it doesn't seem like an episode like this belongs at this point in DS9's main arc, on the surface it is out of place. But that's the very reason why this episode works so well for me, this episode is more than just the sum of its parts, it's a gentle prologue to a much larger and more serious tale. These characters are about to experience two years or war, morally questionable decisions, and loss. This is their last hurrah before all that messiness, this is that final breath of air you take before diving down under the water. Yes, there's plenty of fluff to come in the next two seasons, but even still it is going to be a long time before these characters can relax.

Unlike so many DS9 comedies, In the Cards doesn't go for a high concept story, it's a simple tale about two friends working with a crazy person in order to obtain a baseball card. There's no time travel, there's no sex changes, the fate of civilisation as we know it isn't at stake, it's a fairly standard comic plot that relies on the characters and their interactions to make it work. It's not the funniest episode of Trek, but it's enjoyable and left with a smile on my face. I love these characters above all else on the show, and this episode uses its cast well. This is a community of people that have grown very fond of one another, it's good to be reminded of that before they get torn apart for an extended period.

[Ln X]

Zombie Redshirt wrote:

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As for the angle? Yeah that was funny... I wish they'd just randomly change the angle more often to reflect it. I'd love to see the Enterprise flying by upside down or something just once.

Watch some of GeneralGrin's videos!

[TheGodBen]

Call to Arms (*****)

I've been reluctant to give a 5 star score to the major arc episodes thus far, Improbable Cause is the only one to manage it and that one was really only the set-up and not an arc-heavy story. But Call to Arms is an incredible episode and I feel it deserves a full score. This is more than just a single episode, it's more than just a season finale, this is five years of plot threads and character arcs and relationships being thrust together then thrown apart in all sorts of interesting directions. The episode also gives the sense that the show has come full-circle in a lot of ways, with the show beginning with the station in disrepair after the Cardassian withdrawal, now the station is in disrepair following the Federation withdrawal. Sisko starts the show not wanting to be on the station at all, now he's forced to leave yet determined to return to "this place where I belong."

The episode is ambitious beyond anything Trek has done before. Not only does this episode plunge the Federation into an interstellar war that wont be wrapped up in an episode or two, it turns the entire series on its head by kicking most of the cast off the space station and leaving it in the hands of their enemies. Voyager did something similar the year before with Basics, but this time we know that there's not going to be a quick fix to this predicament and the episode actually has some emotion to all the various goodbyes. And for at least one of those goodbyes, Garak and Ziyal's, we know with hindsight that this is the last time they'll see each other.

I must reiterate that 5 stars doesn't mean the episode is perfect, I could criticise the episode for how the Dominion just sat back and allowed the Federation to evacuate the station for no discernible reason, or how the self-replicating mines break the law of conservation of energy. But in this case the episode does so much right, and is so filled with ambition, that the minor flaws don't detract from my enjoyment of the episode. This episode is, in my opinion, one of DS9's finest hours, and the best season finale in all of Star Trek.