i watched 7th season's 'chimera' earlier this week. nice scene when laas it attacked by a klingon with a dagger, and he shapes his arm into a sword. "mine is bigger". a 'terminator' ripp-off? 'crocodile dundee'? everything is reused. looked a couple of star trek data bases with episode rankings up, macrocosm is everywhere better rated than rapture, rapture in fact counts as one of ds9's poorest episodes. i'm sure people with a liking of the paranormal love it, but i'm not one of them.
.....guh? Where are these databases? Macrocosm is crap, IMO (and I generally don't mind VOY on the whole). Mildly entertaining if I'm in a totally brainless mood. Rapture is easily one of my top 5 DS9 episodes. Both moving and meaningful. I see it as one of the key turning points of the whole series.
If I go to this website I will find lots of information about how evolution is false and how the bible is factually correct on the subject of creation. That doesn't mean that that's the case, it just means that if you're looking for something on the internet you'll a website to support your position. Rapture is actually one of the best regarded DS9, episodes, here's what it says on MA (and yes, I realise the irony in using a website to back up my claim after saying that websites are meaningless):
lets start with the probably best: http://ditl.org/ i'm curious about the evaluation of voyager's 'coda' in a couple of days, another paranormal story. well, it's gonna be crap of course, it's voyager. did it occur to anyone that the whole ds9 shapeshifter business is a blatant rip off of carpenter's "the thing"?
Memory Alpha is not just any website. How many Trek websites got name-checked in an official Trek novel? (I'm prepared to learn that actually a bunch of them have been, which I wouldn't know since I've only read a fraction of Trek novels... but so far I'm only aware of one.)
The ratings there are quite sketchy. 3 stars for False Profits, really? And why bring up Coda when it's got the same rating as Rapture?
I've never been to that website before. Here's a counter anyway, from the only website on the first page of a Google search for "Star Trek reviews" that isn't about Trek XI. And here's his review of Macrocosm. Seriously, how could you have skipped Jammer's Reviews when searching these "databases"? The guy is the king of Trek reviews. No, it's going to be crap because Coda is a stinking pile of crap. It's not paranormal, it's an alien-induced dream story that has all the subtlety of Glenn Beck. This douchebag covered it and this douchebag covered it. I don't read the books so I'm not sure what you mean, but did they namecheck the website or the Memory Alpha from TOS The Lights of Zetar?
When it's mentioned in the novels themselves it might be the latter, though I like to think it was a little nod as well which of course might be wrong... But it was definitely mentioned (together with Wikipedia and Memory Beta) in Acknowledgments by at least Andy Mangels & Michael Martin (I don't know if it has been by some other author, as well, but this I know because I've just recently gotten their ENT relaunch novels).
So, Macrocosm can't be a rip-off of Alien, at all? And yet Chimera is a blatant rip-off of Terminator and Crocodile Dundee? I don't think anyone is throwing stones at Voyager for being Voyager, its just Macrocosm was Janeway running around in a sweaty tank top fighting viruses that defy physics, and Coda was one huge steaming pile of crap made up of several good TNG episodes moshed together.
The problem with Macrocosm, as I see it, isn't that it's a rip-off of Aliens, it's that it's not a very good rip-off of Aliens!
I've never heard of that site either...what qualifies it as "the best"? The site design is a mess and a lot of the ratings for other episodes are highly questionable. Looking at the Spoiler-Free Opinion Summary, which gives a pretty solid view of audience opinion, Rapture has a rating of 8.8 based on 610 votes. Macrocosm, meanwhile, has a rating of 6.6 based on 645 votes. Even on tv.com (admittedly much less reputable), Rapture is significantly higher rated than Macrocosm based on ~100 viewer votes. So your claim that "everywhere" Macrocosm is more highly rated and that Rapture is one of DS9's worst received episodes is pretty much bunk.
I love Rapture. A spiritual episode that takes Sisko's relationship with the Prophets to another level, with him willing to die so that he can continue receiving his visions. The announcement of Locusts coming was very eerie at the time too. Jake also rocked in this one, being totally distraught at the thought of losing his father. Macrocosm and Coda are quite poor VOY episodes, but like I said there are much better ones. I do really like VOY, but season three has quite a poor run. Also agree with GodBen - the internet is so vast that anyone can find a website that sides with their argument.
To be fair to Daystrom Institute, it's been around for quite a long time, and was sort of a proto-Trek wiki, rounding up all sorts of fun facts about the Trekverse, and a number of the articles are good reading, and the Ship Size Chart is fun to play with. They even tried to make in-universe sense of some of the franchises' more daft ideas like travelling to the center of the galaxy in STV. That said, I seldom put much stock in their episode rating system. They just couldn't compare to guys like Jammer or ...um, geez, what was that guy before Jammer again? Even did TNG reviews back in the usenet days? Cripes, that's ages ago!
Week 15: (Ending 01.12.97) DS9 - The Darkness And The Light (Airdate 01.06.97) VOY - Fair Trade (Airdate 01.08.97) Both these episodes are nothing more than blatant B5 rip-offs. I mean, just look at the way they're directed. It's like DS9 took a bunch of the shadow lighting and framework you see in the later seasons of B5 to do its episode, and VOY just style-bit the grungy Brown Sector station stuff. Huh, what's that? What about the directors? Oh...! (Okay, no sense running that gag into the ground anymore.) It's quite the coincidence here to have the Trek debut of both Trevino and Vejar (let's just ignore that S1 episode of TNG, k'?) on the same week, who'd both been earning paychecks directing B5 episodes for a while by now. And fortunately for them, they get to sink their teeth into some meaty material. DS9 has Kira back to her uncompromising kick-ass ways and VOY does the unthinkable and gives Neelix yet another strong episode. Here's the real kicker though: VOY actually had the better episode, as we get to see consequences. Once Kira goes on her revenge quest, she breaks a whole bunch of rules and recklessly endangers O'Brien's child in the process. I can buy into the former as being in character but she seems to get away with it all, at least as portrayed on screen. Neelix, on the other hand, gets a good ol' Janeway Lecture for his troubles, but also a renewed sense of self-worth in the process - that, despite becoming even more useless than he was before (zing!), he is still a part of the VOY family and will be able to contribute in some way. So in short: good, fresh character development for Neelix, while Kira's character gets a re-graying for those who'd forgotten who she was in the early seasons - which, as a result, is simply retreading ground we've already been with her. I do believe VOY has a win this week. Weekly Winner VOY Next: VOY - Alter Ego
That has always really bothered me, especially the fact that there were no repercussions at all. Not even any indication that the O'Brien's were even upset with her.