TheGodBen Revisits Deep Space Nine

[flemm]

I watched Time's Orphan once, and I don't believe I've ever rewatched it. I remember not liking it at all.

The end of season 6 is weird. Alongside a few classics, there is a stretch of episodes that I think is the worst the show ever produced, outside of maybe season one.

Depending on how one feels about His Way, and maybe Wrongs, I guess.

I suppose the direction-less feel to a lot of these episodes may be due to the uncertainty about the show moving forward to a seventh season. We ended up with quite a bit of what is basically filler at the end of season 6.

[Sykonee]

At least we will always have "bollocks".

[TheGodBen]

flemm wrote:

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I suppose the direction-less feel to a lot of these episodes may be due to the uncertainty about the show moving forward to a seventh season. We ended up with quite a bit of what is basically filler at the end of season 6.

It's possible that they had some plans for how to end the show, but when they got the green-light for season 7 they postponed them and had nothing to fill the gap, so we get a lot of poorly thought-out filler material. Combined with the fact that the opening arc drained a lot of their creative juices early in the season, and season 6 ends with a major slump.

Sykonee wrote:

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At least we will always have "bollocks".

Unless I decide to go through with the surgery... oh, wait, you're talking about O'Brien? Forget I said that.


The Sound of Her Voice (***½)

This is a pleasant and reasonably enjoyable episode that also happens to be fairly forgettable. The Defiant pick up a distress signal and go on a week-long detour to rescue a captain trapped on a hostile world. By talking with her, the crew find an outlet to express their bottled-up emotions, which helps them to come to terms with problems in their personal lives. This angle of the story is pretty good and pleasantly free of melodrama, it's just people talking and finally grappling the problems they had been ignoring for a long time. O'Brien's problem is particularly interesting because it's about the subtle psychological effects that the war is having on him and his ability to make and maintain friendships. He's not considering leaving Starfleet, and his solution isn't divine intervention from the Prophets, he's just talking. I appreciate that.

That's not to say that the episode is free of melodrama, this episode has some of the worst act-breaks I can remember.

LISA: Stay back. No, don't hurt me.
BASHIR: Captain, what's going on?
LISA: Please, stay back. No, don't! No! ...j/k, lol!

SISKO: How long does she have?
BASHIR: No more than two days.
SISKO: That's not good. We're still three days away.

Oh no! The cheap suspense is killing me!

Not that it matters in the end, it turns out that Lisa has been dead for three years and they've been communicating with her through a magic barrier. It's a pointless sci-fi twist in an episode about people's psychological problems, but it doesn't detract from the story in any real way, it's just sort of there. I suppose there's something haunting about a group of people getting necessary advice about life from a dead woman, but the episode doesn't even try to sell that angle, it's just some bizarre thing that happened. I'm more puzzled by the fact that Sisko didn't check Starfleet's records about the USS Olympia and realise the three-year discrepancy in Lisa's account, but I suppose Sisko might have been busy constructing the flat-pack furniture in his new office on the Defiant.

Meanwhile, Quark attempts to outsmart Odo as part of some scheme or some-such thing. Not a great plot, but it's okay. It's a decent reflection on their complicated relationship, but it doesn't add up to much.

Form of... two barrels: 33

[lurok]

Star Grinch wrote:

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You got me with the "fake" review, I'll confess!

Me too. Agree with all the last few reviews though can just about bear Profit... if think of it as not-very-good camp British farce (isn't that the one Sid directed?). The big issue I have with Red Squad is I really don't care if they live or die. Surely a major fail.

[Seven of Five]

flemm wrote:

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I watched Time's Orphan once, and I don't believe I've ever rewatched it. I remember not liking it at all.

The end of season 6 is weird. Alongside a few classics, there is a stretch of episodes that I think is the worst the show ever produced, outside of maybe season one.

Depending on how one feels about His Way, and maybe Wrongs, I guess.

I suppose the direction-less feel to a lot of these episodes may be due to the uncertainty about the show moving forward to a seventh season. We ended up with quite a bit of what is basically filler at the end of season 6.

I enjoyed all of those episodes somewhat - perhaps His Way and Time's Orphan are more at the average end of the scale, but I enjoyed Wrongs Darker and Valiant.

I liked Sound of Her Voice too, the unnecessary twist at the end aside. It was good to hear the crew talking about how they were feeling after some of the crazy shit that had gone down.

I have to agree that season six has really hit a rough patch though. There is the occasional gem, but you have to get through too much fluff to get to it. Aside from In The Pale Moonlight, it's just not as dramatic or exciting since the Occupation Arc.

[flemm]

TheGodBen wrote:

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It's possible that they had some plans for how to end the show, but when they got the green-light for season 7 they postponed them and had nothing to fill the gap, so we get a lot of poorly thought-out filler material. Combined with the fact that the opening arc drained a lot of their creative juices early in the season, and season 6 ends with a major slump.

That a lot of the ideas we eventually see in season 7 were already being kicked around in the prior season is attested by Statistical Probabilities especially, but, I think also, The Reckoning.

So... I think that makes sense. Getting the Romulans involved was the one trigger that was pulled, brilliantly, in season 6.

The Sound of Her Voice works ok, imo, as a kind of "calm before the storm" sort of episode, a little like In the Cards prior to Call to Arms, though that one is more comic, while this one has a contemplative/ominous vibe.

And the season finale does deliver, though perhaps not in spectacular fashion. My only real issue with it is that there has been too much of a lull already, in this season. So, we didn't really need a contemplative/quiet episode at this point.

[TheGodBen]

Tears of the Prophets (***)

After a half-season of mostly faffing about, the return of the show's major arc should probably have been cause for celebration, but Tears of the Prophets actually makes me even more upset about all the fluff recently. This episode just tries to do too much in 45 minutes and the result is a story that feels like a collection of random events. The most random of these events, and what this episode is most famous for, is the death of Jadzia Dax. I like Jadzia, but I have no problem with the decision to kill her off. I also have no problem with her dying a pointless, unheroic, death. Sometimes great stories can come from randomly killing off characters and witnessing how the other characters react. But I have to agree with a point that was made earlier in this thread: Jadzia's death was too random. Dying in a car crash is a tragedy. Drowning in a fast-flowing river is a tragedy. Getting stabbed during a mugging is a tragedy. Going to a temple where a demonically-possessed dictator appears and getting killed with a beam of magical fire is just weird. I feel reasonably confident in saying that nobody in all of history has ever died that way.

Meanwhile, Sisko and the admiralty that he's seemingly in charge of decide to plot out the invasion of Cardassia over a single weekend. That's the impression the episode leaves, at least. I'm fairly sure that D-Day took more planning than Churchill telling Roosevelt that he wanted to invade France Tuesday-week. At least in Favor the Bold the planning of Operation Return took a whole episode, and they were even forced to launch that attack before it was ready. In Tears of the Prophets, Sisko plans out the attack, convinces the Romulans to get involved, the allied fleets launch the invasion, successfully seize control of the Chin'toka system, the Defiant rushes home to DS9, and there's time enough to spare for Sisko to take the major decision to return to Earth. This is far too much material to cram into 45 minutes, and the result is a rushed episode. This should have been a two-parter at the very least, with the added advantage that it would have taken the slot of one of the pointless fluff episodes.

Still, it's not a bad episode. The formation of the alliance between the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans is good, although such a historic grouping deserved more than a sub-plot. The return of Damar and Weyoun hits all the right notes, and the scenes where Weyoun's mask slips completely off as the diplomatic Vorta expresses his outrage is delicious to watch. The battle footage is also really good, although I'm not a fan of the fact that they found a [tech] solution to the problem. This is DS9, not Voyager, on DS9 you're supposed to solve problems by firing endless supplies of torpedoes at things, not remodulating the deflector dish to yadda yadda.

Wormhole in Peril: 9

[Sykonee]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Meanwhile, Sisko and the admiralty that he's seemingly in charge of decide to plot out the invasion of Cardassia over a single weekend. That's the impression the episode leaves, at least. I'm fairly sure that D-Day took more planning than Churchill telling Roosevelt that he wanted to invade France Tuesday-week. At least in Favor the Bold the planning of Operation Return took a whole episode, and they were even forced to launch that attack before it was ready. In Tears of the Prophets, Sisko plans out the attack, convinces the Romulans to get involved, the allied fleets launch the invasion, successfully seize control of the Chin'toka system, the Defiant rushes home to DS9, and there's time enough to spare for Sisko to take the major decision to return to Earth. This is far too much material to cram into 45 minutes, and the result is a rushed episode. This should have been a two-parter at the very least, with the added advantage that it would have taken the slot of one of the pointless fluff episodes.

Even though the producers had to keep the show relatively episodic, you'd think by this point it wouldn't be too much to throw a scene or two detailing this build-up to the invasion in the episodes prior.

[Seven of Five]

Precisely. I know that DS9 was a bit of a pioneer in arc storytelling for Star Trek, but the writers had managed big events in far more satisfying ways previously. Were they experiencing fatigue after the Occupation Arc?

Perhaps it was it something as simple as the behind the scenes change they had when Robert Hewitt Wolfe left? Bradley Weddle and David Thompson went on to be excellent writers on the new BSG series, but it was DS9 where they cut their teeth. I think they had credits on Prodigal Daughter and Extreme Measures, which were both decidedly dodgy.

Whatever happened, season six ended in a muddle. There's a similar sort of muddle during season seven, where the writers spend either too much time shoving Ezri down our throats, or showing us frivolous escapades. All of which have varying degrees of quality.

I've said before that I do enjoy Sacrifice of Angels though even though Jadzia's death was crap. I understand the poignancy of a non-heroic, brutal death, but this one tipped far too heavily into hilariously camp.

[flemm]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Tears of the Prophets (***)

After a half-season of mostly faffing about, the return of the show's major arc should probably have been cause for celebration, but Tears of the Prophets actually makes me even more upset about all the fluff recently.

There's a lot "meta" writing in DS9 in later seasons, otherwise known as "writing about writing," or "navel-gazing," some might say. Far Beyond the Stars is the first place this becomes super obvious: the writers are writing about their own creative struggles.

Or, another way to look at it would be that the uncertainty about the show's future starts to poke through in a lot of places. Also, I've no doubt that it's partly the result of some of these writers writing for Trek for a long time, and starting to wonder why they are bothering, etc.

Anyway, Tears of the Prophets can also be seen that way. Part of the problem with "wrapping up" DS9 is the need to deal with both the war and the Emissary/Prophets angle alongside one another, so Sisko himself is torn between those conflicting duties.

At the end of the season, the connection between the characters and the Prophets (= writers) has been lost, and Sisko goes back to earth to ponder the whole thing in between seasons, as the writers themselves mull it over. Later, the beginning of season 7 picks up on this, with Sisko, as the Emissary, needing to re-establish the connection with the Prophets, and Benny, in the vision, needing to "finish the story."

I don't know that this makes Tears of the Prophets a better episode, but it does make it a bit more interesting, I think.

As for Jadzia's death, I agree with it being somewhat odd and underwhelming. Had I been a bigger fan of her character in the first place, I guess it might bother me quite a bit. On the bright side, she gets a fitting send-off at the beginning of season 7.

TheGodBen wrote:

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The battle footage is also really good, although I'm not a fan of the fact that they found a [tech] solution to the problem. This is DS9, not Voyager, on DS9 you're supposed to solve problems by firing endless supplies of torpedoes at things, not remodulating the deflector dish to yadda yadda.

It's an interesting tidbit that Kira takes command of the Defiant, rather than Worf, who we have usually seen commanding the Defiant in Sisko's absence.

Probably it's partly the writer's desire to reinforce Kira's command role again here at the end of the show, as it had really lost prominence in the middle seasons.

As a story/character moment, I like it a lot, though, as it harkens back to some of the season three and four material, where Kira and Sisko start to get along, and she says she believes that she was chosen to help the Emissary, or something like that (in Destiny, I think).

[TheGodBen]

Sykonee wrote:

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Even though the producers had to keep the show relatively episodic, you'd think by this point it wouldn't be too much to throw a scene or two detailing this build-up to the invasion in the episodes prior.

I'd like to think that this is the result of interference from on high, but I suspect it's just the result of the writers not thinking things through in advance. Other than the designated arc episodes, they seemed to approach each episode as its own story, just like they learned to do on TNG. This is definitely one area where Babylon 5 outshines DS9. The shows are pretty evenly matched in my opinion, but B5 always kept sight of the grand plan while DS9 kept losing track of it.

flemm wrote:

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It's an interesting tidbit that Kira takes command of the Defiant, rather than Worf, who we have usually seen commanding the Defiant in Sisko's absence.

Probably it's partly the writer's desire to reinforce Kira's command role again here at the end of the show, as it had really lost prominence in the middle seasons.

According to Ron Moore, it was a last minute change and they goofed it up:

Ronald Donald Moore wrote:

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Of course, the real reason was that we came up with this whole beat relatively late in the game. In fact, the scenes in question were on the stage and being rehearsed when we decided to play Sisko as feeling so incapacitated by what happened to the prophets that he needed to leave the Bridge. Kira hadn't had much to do in the show and we thought she'd do a good job of stepping into the breach. To be honest, the Worf question never came up in the extremely limited time frame everyone was working under.

But I think that ties in nicely with what you were saying about the writers losing track of the characters. They can't even remember who the XO of the Defiant is at this point, they must really have needed to sit back and refresh their batteries.

[flemm]

LoL, interesting. Well, it was a positive goof-up, anyway, I would say. Worf taking command at that point isn't really meaningful at all, while Kira doing so makes for a nice moment.

It seems to lead in, accidentally, I guess, to her being left in command of the station and her promotion in the next season.

Edit: Re-reading that quote, it seems like the "goof-up" is just forgetting that Worf would technically outrank Kira on the Defiant, but from the point of view of the story, Kira is the better choice by far.

[R. Star]

I never really liked the idea of Kira having a post on the Defiant. Just because the US and France are sharing a naval base doesn't mean a French captain is going to take command of a US ship.

[TheRoyalFamily]

When The Sisko says the non-Starfleet-officer is in charge, the non-Starfleet-officer is in charge.

[TheGodBen]

Season 6 Review



The trendline in this graph starkly expresses what I've been saying about season 6 for the last few weeks; it starts out great and goes downhill. Glancing through the old graphs from all the shows I've reviewed, this is the steepest decline of them all. The overall average for this season was 6.423, which is still a pretty strong score, but it's a considerable decline from season 5 and just fractionally ahead of season 4. If we break the season into two halves of 13 episodes, the first half has an average score of 7.231, which would have been the highest average I ever awarded a season. The second half has an average score of 5.615. That's not a bad score, but it's closer to season 1 than any of the seasons that came since. That's a crazy disparity between the two halves, especially for a show that has been consistent or improving for most of its run.



Like last season, I rated six episodes this season as absolute classic episodes, but this season has the highest number of below average scores since season 2. Six episodes were rated below average, three were average, while seventeen were above average.
Best episode: In the Pale Moonlight
Worst episode: Profit and Lace


The Writers

No new writers this season, but the departure of Robert Hewitt Wolfe has led to Ira Behr teaming up with Hans Beimler. Does that change anything?



Ron Moore maintains his lead with a score of 7.333, with René Echevarria a little behind with a score of 7. Behr and Beimler both get a score of 6.222 this season. Bradley Thompson and David Weddle are at the bottom of the table with a score of 5.2.



Last season, Ron Moore won a technical lead over Peter Allan Fields because they were tied with Moore having more credits overall. This season, Ron Moore officially moves ahead with an average score of 7.273, which gives him a lead of 0.023. Echevarria is next with a score of 6.812, which is well ahead of DS9's average score so far. Wolfe remains on 6.187. Beimler moves up to 5.944, while Behr moves up to 5.927. Thompson and Weddle move down to 5.571, slightly ahead of Michael Piller's 5.5.

With one season to go, Ron Moore needs to keep his game up to win the race, but Ron Moore doesn't seem like the sort of guy to screw things up in the final season, does he?


Statistics

Runabouts Lost: 8 (+1)
Form of... : 33 (+2)
Wormhole in Peril: 9 (+2)
Sykonee's Counter: 35 (+1)
Stupid French Things: 5 (+1)

Season 1 Average: 5.211
Season 2 Average: 6.231
Season 3 Average: 6.192
Season 4 Average: 6.4
Season 5 Average: 6.808
Season 6 Average: 6.423

Overall Average: 6.257

Voyager Average After 6 Seasons: 4.889
Enterprise Overall Average: 5.206
Babylon 5 Overall Average: 6.121


In Summation

As explained earlier, season 6 is a season of two halves. The first half of season 6 is my favourite run of episodes in all of Star Trek, it was ambitious and exciting with some fantastic arc developments and character stories. The occupation arc was a huge success and defined what's best about DS9. But the second half of the season was the weakest DS9 has been since the first half of season 2. The show lost its direction, and all the ambition shown in the first half of the season evaporated into a fog of meaningless fluff. It wasn't all bad, In the Pale Moonlight is easily one of Star Trek's best episodes, but the show lost track of where it was going and what it was trying to achieve, so much so that the season finale seems like it came out of nowhere.

I've been saying for the last few seasons that DS9's biggest problem is that it's stuck between being a serialised show and an episodic one, and season 6 strains this problem to the point of incredulity. To twist one of the show's own speeches: "People are dying out there, every day! Entire worlds are struggling for their freedom! And here I am playing dress-up in 1960's Vegas." That version of the speech doesn't quite have the same impact, does it? Some light-hearted episodes are welcome, they prevent DS9 from becoming as bleak as nuBSG would become. (I love nuBSG, but Star Trek should never be that depressing.) Sadly, there's just too much fluff this season, and some of it goes too far. It's hard to take the threat of war seriously while Quark is exposing his boobs as part of a crazy scheme.

Why the second half of this season struggled, we can only guess. Maybe the occupation arc burned out the writers and they floundered in their attempt to produce 26 episodes for the season. Maybe there was an edict from on high that the show needed to focus more on episodic stories and the writers struggled to get excited for that stuff. Maybe they were holding back most of their ideas for the final season. Whatever the real reason was, what could have been DS9's best season has fallen back into second place. With one more season to go, DS9 needs to change course once again and attempt to bring back the excitement that the occupation arc brought, because if it continues down this path then the show will be going out with a whimper, and not the bang it deserves.