Season 7 - So many things gone wrong.
- Thread starter GotNoRice
- Start date
It's the contrast in the report-backs from our three pagh-wraith-possessed characters that sells me on it.
KEIKO: It was more like having something coiled around inside my head. I could see and hear through it, but any time I tried to do anything, it was like being stuck in sand and squeezed.
O'BRIEN: Could you sense any of its thoughts?
KEIKO: Just feelings sometimes. Kind of a cold rage.
JAKE: When the Pah-wraith was inside me, I could feel its hatred and I knew that no matter what, it couldn't be allowed to win. Even if it meant I had to die.
DUKAT: I have touched by the hand of a god. I'm a changed man. Oh, I admit that when I first allowed myself to become a vessel for the Pah wraith, it was purely out of self-serving reasons... But I had no idea the effect it would have on me. It was only inside of me for a very short time, but it opened my heart... Nerys, I wish I had the words to describe what it was like to have the Pah wraith within me. I could feel its love, for me and for the Bajoran people.
The reports of two generally honest people and one who lies easily and often if it would help him. It's perfectly possible that the Pah who possessed Dukat sensed that he would help them willingly so there was no need for strangling his mind like Keiko of the hatred that both Keiko and Jake described. Or, he might have felt their hatred just the same, and he thought the way to get revenge on the Bajorans for not accepting his leadership etc. was to trick as many of them as possible into a cult, having sex with one of them, and then killing them all.
Agreed that Ezri was over-focused on and too annoying (but so often were Jadzia and her relationship with Worf) while Vic was hit-and-miss and Dukat didn't make much sense. But I loved Odo and Kira and their relationship and it made sense to not pay too much focus on the war, do other kinds of episodes too.
I am a fan of Worf and Jadiza, I missed her and them as a couple. Worf had the worst luck! Their wedding episode is a favorite of mine also their "honeymoon mission, I call it." I didn't really go for Ezra too much. But I didn't really go for having a counselor of a star ship on Next Generation either. Did the station really need her? I don't know, maybe Garak did at first. I was never fond of how they ended the show. I wanted Garak to be the one to take out Dukat. I I liked their banter. I wonder what would a better end have been to the show?
At least there's some justification for that. In the middle of a traumatic shooting war, Starfleet could've decided there was little need for a science officer, and a lot more need for a counselor.
I never cared for DS9's mirror universe episodes but other than that I can't agree with anything from the OP.
Ezri was a breath of fresh air. I could explain why Ezri is an awesome character but it would be too wordy, even for me.
Vic's growing presence on the show was a "What the hell" thing but in a good way. DS9 was pulling all the stops by this point and the insanity just makes the show better at that point. Also I like Vic.
Odo/Kira was something that had to happen, even if everyone kind of knew it couldn't work out, all the sweeter for that ("and they may not want it to end/but it will, it's just a question of when" -Billy Joel).
Dukat and the Pah Wraith thing is just Dukat's final demolishment of his soul. He had had chances for redemption but they'd failed and from here on in he could only be a wrecking ball, a Satan that has no purpose left but corrupting the corruptable to enact whatever vengeance he can upon a world that doesn't stand that much higher than the morass he is in, morally.
Ezri was a breath of fresh air. I could explain why Ezri is an awesome character but it would be too wordy, even for me.
Vic's growing presence on the show was a "What the hell" thing but in a good way. DS9 was pulling all the stops by this point and the insanity just makes the show better at that point. Also I like Vic.
Odo/Kira was something that had to happen, even if everyone kind of knew it couldn't work out, all the sweeter for that ("and they may not want it to end/but it will, it's just a question of when" -Billy Joel).
Dukat and the Pah Wraith thing is just Dukat's final demolishment of his soul. He had had chances for redemption but they'd failed and from here on in he could only be a wrecking ball, a Satan that has no purpose left but corrupting the corruptable to enact whatever vengeance he can upon a world that doesn't stand that much higher than the morass he is in, morally.
I'm not sure I follow. The explanation for what, exactly? For Ezry being there? For Nog not being on duty?
What kind of cruise? Most of Starfleet was assigned to war duties, which (I could be wrong) probably wouldn't help Nog recover.
If he wasn't in the holosuite, they couldn't have had scenes with the regular characters, like Jake, coming in and interacting with him.
The "Take Me Out To The Holosuite" episode was imbecilic through and through. What were they trying to prove? That Sisko had the maturity of a five-year-old and the DS9 staff was a bunch of ill-mannered bad losers? Because, in that case, mission accomplished! What a stupid idea and an insult to sportsmanship everywhere! The Vulcans won the game OVERWHELMINGLY, they didn't cheat! The normal thing to do would have been conceding defeat with grace.
Imagine if a real team behaved that way in the real world, IE pretending that they won when they got a humiliating defeat! They'd be a laughingstock!
Being a loser is not glorious but being a bad loser is a hundred times worse!
Imagine if a real team behaved that way in the real world, IE pretending that they won when they got a humiliating defeat! They'd be a laughingstock!
Being a loser is not glorious but being a bad loser is a hundred times worse!
Discofan, I disagree completely. The Niners should not have gotten a single run. It's like the NY Yankees challenging an after-work team. As was pointed out in the episode, every Vulcan is three times the strength of humans and more agile besides; the only Niner who should have been able to touch them was Worf. Besides that, the Logicians practiced together for some time before they even came to DS9. Many of the Niners were completely new to the game with only two weeks to learn everything they needed to know. The Niners getting one point is a moral victory.
Solok became angry and poked Odo and got himself thrown out of the game. It's no surprise that Sisko did the same thing; being emotional is what humans do. But for a Vulcan to do that shows that Vulcans are not the creatures of pure logic Solok has been letting on all these years. They can be just as emotionally handicapped as humans, Bajorans, Ferengi, Trills, Klingons. Solok was not only wrong to challenge them to a one-sided game but wrong all the times in the past when he put on airs about how superior Vulcans are because they'd never allow themselves to lose their tempers in the slightest.
Solok became angry and poked Odo and got himself thrown out of the game. It's no surprise that Sisko did the same thing; being emotional is what humans do. But for a Vulcan to do that shows that Vulcans are not the creatures of pure logic Solok has been letting on all these years. They can be just as emotionally handicapped as humans, Bajorans, Ferengi, Trills, Klingons. Solok was not only wrong to challenge them to a one-sided game but wrong all the times in the past when he put on airs about how superior Vulcans are because they'd never allow themselves to lose their tempers in the slightest.
Take Me Out The Holosuite, Prodigal Daughter, and The Emperor's New Cloak are dirt stains on an otherwise spotless final season, that is far better written on the whole in my view than the previous season. Kira's new hairdo rocks and Ezri is lightyears superior to Jadzia in atleast 5 different ways. Damar and Weyoun were a great pair and they stole the show. The Breen had a cool look and sound- they were the opposite of the overused bumpy headed humanoids. I like how DS9 ended with bittersweet goodbyes and hope. It's a great final season.
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I think that when most people evaluate Ezri in this episode, it is on the basis of her inaction. Indeed, you seem to suggest that the only thing separating Nog from direct intervention is Ezri's recommendation, and that he should be in intensive therapy. However, Ezri deciding that the holosuite respite is little more than leave, separating Nog from the operations and the station and the war in general. It's possible that we, as the audience, are too invested in believing that Nog is beyond fucked up. Ezri saying that Nog is seeking out his own treatment might sound like an amateur judgement, but it might also be sound judgement. (The cruise was just an example about how people normally might deal with stress.)
Traumatic stuff happens out in space, so it makes sense to have mental health practitioners. Real armies and navies do.
Kor
Nog on a cruise doesn't imply that he would have been on a Starfleet vessle. Starfleet probably makes a small percentage of the tonnage of starships at that point. People historically get pulled of the front lines for RNR, especially if they're showing signs of battle fatigue. This wasn't a situation like Siege of Stalingrad where there was no where to go. OTOH, having Nog self-treat with the assistance of the Vic Fontaine program at least has Nog near to Ezri, who has some insight into his case history.
None of this is relevant to sportsmanship. If you play a game and get whipped because the other team is ten times stronger then it's your own fault for playing the game. Nobody put a gun to Sisko's head to play that game, he went there willingly and so did his team. Then they gloated when they got their asses kicked!!! That's pathetic! The smart thing would have been to refuse to play on the grounds that they weren't good enough. The world chess champion sometimes plays simultaneous games against weaker players. He takes a risk because when one of these players WINS the game then it diminishes his aura as an unbeatable champion and the player will then make a big deal out if his victory. BUT it's someone who WON! If someone who lost pretended to have won, he would be (deservingly) treated like crap by everyone! That's why nobody ever does something so stupid!
I can't disagree with this honest appraisal, outside of Odo and Kira. This has been going, for Odo, since "Heart of Stone." You have to remeber--Who's the Boss, Cheers, Friends--they all had these unrequited love stories and to see one where they actually stay together...it was a relief.
"Crossfire," "Heart of Stone," "Behind the Lines," Rene did some terrific acting.
But, leave Dax dead (bring back Jadzia as a Pah-Wraith!). Have Worf search for what happens to the symbient (sp?), but never bring her onto the show. Dukat should just want power. He teamed up with the Dominion, he tries to use the Pah-Wraiths and they take his form, but kill him. They transform into a Bajoran and the story is the same. Don't make a fifty-year-old man have a psychotic break. Science Fiction, indeed. Just promote Aron Eisenberg to full-time cast member. He's the emotional point of the season, anyway.
End the war early--about halfway through the season. Make peace with Germany after WWII. That makes the Wraiths take front-and-center, at the end of the series. Ben is in peace, putting his life together when it becomes clear that he must confront them, or Bajor loses the Temple and the Prophets. Lose the Sara storyline. I'd be interested in the Romulans learning about In the Pale Moonlight. There's much they could do, but that's not the show we have. I appreciate what was done. I love the show, warts and all.
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