I can see your point on this, but the reason FBTS is one of my favorite episodes is its metafictional aspect. Everything else flows from the core conceit of Star Trek as an artificial world that people nevertheless care deeply about.
confusedmatthew's DS9 season seven review
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
- Start date
I can see your point on this, but the reason FBTS is one of my favorite episodes is its metafictional aspect. Everything else flows from the core conceit of Star Trek as an artificial world that people nevertheless care deeply about.
Oh, I love the metafictional aspect and the possibility that all of Trek could've been from the mind of Benny Russell. That's part of the part I love, while what I wrote on above was part of the part I hate.
Well, at least in my vocabulary, absence of religion is irreligion which includes for example agnosticism and so on.*sigh* He was spot on about Voyager, but now he can't even get basic philosophy right.
Dark is not the opposite of light, it is the absence of it. Cold is not the opposite of heat, it is the absence of it. Atheism is not the opposite of religion, it is the absence of it. Anti-theism is the opposite of theism.
Its tricky because all this stuff about definitions of theism gets messed up and confusing. There are atheists who fundamentally oppose religion and try to destroy it, I think those guys are jerks. I am an atheist who doesn't attack religion and I support its positive aspects such as AA and charity-work. I'm not the opposite of a theist, I just don't believe in a god.Well, at least in my vocabulary, absence of religion is irreligion which includes for example agnosticism and so on.*sigh* He was spot on about Voyager, but now he can't even get basic philosophy right.
Dark is not the opposite of light, it is the absence of it. Cold is not the opposite of heat, it is the absence of it. Atheism is not the opposite of religion, it is the absence of it. Anti-theism is the opposite of theism.
Anyway, that is just the first of my disagreements with the video, but that's okay because people are free to disagree with me. I'm just waiting until we get to the parts of season 7 where I think it was lacking, such as evil Dukat and the rushed ending of the war.
Poor Dukat; a completely complicated egotistical antagonist reduced to being nothing more than a Black Hat by the end of the series.
I strongly disagreed with his characterization of Ezri as a whiny emo kid. My personal opinion is that if you got cut open and had a ten pound slug pushed into your guts, you've got permission to whine.
CM is great and hilarious, and he often makes some good points--especially in his non-Star Trek reviews.
CM is great and hilarious, and he often makes some good points--especially in his non-Star Trek reviews.
actually confused matthew hates Jadzia but likes Ezri. All the hatred toward Ezri is from Stand in Stan
I must've missed that.
Part 4 is up, and he said that the remaining parts will be up atone per day.
I am waiting to hear his take on "Paper Moon." He hates Vic, but I would guess that even he has to admit that Paper Moon is an excellent show.
go to his site at www.confusedmatthew.com tp see the vid
I am waiting to hear his take on "Paper Moon." He hates Vic, but I would guess that even he has to admit that Paper Moon is an excellent show.
go to his site at www.confusedmatthew.com tp see the vid
When cm calls FBTS "one of the worst episodes ever made of Star Trek or anything else on television", I'm forced to wonder if anything he is saying is serious. That statement is completely batty.
FBTS is one of those episodes that I love and hate at the same time.
Yes, there is still prejudice and racism, and I have been on the receiving end of it, but at the same time the episode goes out of its way to point out that SISKO IS BLACK. Whereas before, he was just a Starfleet officer doing his job and a good parent to his son.
Kinda like what Richard Biggs dug so much about his role of Dr. Stephan Franklin. Not once in Babylon 5 is a big deal ever made about his ethnicity. There is no obligatory episode on the subject. He is a doctor and a person with all the flaws that come with being alive.
FBTS is well-written, well-acted and an interesting take on what could and could not be accepted in 1950s America. Yet it also seems to be a masturbatory fest pointing out how brave DS9 is for having a black actor in the lead role. Whereas, I feel much more is said and done by seeing Sisko do his job and raise his son.
Sisko also ponders his racial consciousness in Badda Bing Badda Bang when he objects to the sanitized, historically inaccurate setting of a Vegas club that, were it depicted accurately for the period, would have discriminated against African American patronage. He's bothered by the historical revision, even if it is for purposes of entertainment in a holosuite, because he appreciates how important it is that humanity never, ever forget the oppressive and exploitative aspects of Earth's history. It's intellectual indignation from someone who believes in preserving accurate historical depictions.
I don't think it was inappropriate to expressly highlight race in that episode, or to indulge in FBTS: one hour out of 7 seasons of the series that takes the character "down to Earth" to our recent past. FBTS was very significant for Trek in various ways, but particularly in it's explicit critique of ACTUAL, non-allegorical American racial dynamics and exploitation. Imagine how impossible this story would've been to produce in the 1960s.
But as you say, FBTS may have been self-laudatory on the part of the show itself, and you're so right when you point out that the statement was made every week by the very act of depicting a single father and virtually one of the ONLY African American leads in an American TV drama during much of the course of DS9's run. H/e, I think doing FBTS added something unique to the series and to Trek as a whole. CM is a smart guy, but sometimes his analysis suffers from some rather narrow-minded misconceptions. I have to disagree with him here. FBTS is one of the finest hours of Trek ever produced.
The Wraith stuff seemed a little too "fantasy" but we all know these are life forms, not supernatural except as socially constructed by the Bajorans. Could the battle for the Celestrial Temple been handle better and more clearly though? Yes. But CM even alleges that DS9 isn't Trek because it's not about exploration. Is he kidding?! It's certainly less about literal space exploration and first contact, per se, but DS9 fans---and pretty much all Trek fans in general---understand that the Human Condition is really what's being explored.
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You know, I'd imagine Holographic Led Zepplin would still have been better received than Vic Fontaine. On the other hand, I liked Vic--when he wasn't crooning. That criticism is directly on the mark.
Of course, no one liked the Dukat/Wynn/Pagh Wraiths arc, so CM isn't tilling new soil there. It's entertaining to watch him flip out about it though.
Of course, no one liked the Dukat/Wynn/Pagh Wraiths arc, so CM isn't tilling new soil there. It's entertaining to watch him flip out about it though.
He´s really going downhill in my opinion.
For one thing - cult of the Pah -wraiths existed laong before the crisis so it´s not such a stratch for them still to be there.
Second - faith of the Winn wasn´t actually so firm - "Prophets are nothing next to you, minister Jaro." (or something like that), anyone?
For one thing - cult of the Pah -wraiths existed laong before the crisis so it´s not such a stratch for them still to be there.
Second - faith of the Winn wasn´t actually so firm - "Prophets are nothing next to you, minister Jaro." (or something like that), anyone?
I totally agree here. I think a much stronger statement was made when race was NOT a big deal, than when it was made one.
I understand the point you're making, but I still found myself offended by two things. Non-humans wouldn't have been patrons of a 1950s Vegas club, either--that would've caused an uproar (and we KNOW it would, from a canon perspective, given the reaction at Roswell). I don't see any of the holograms looking twice at Nog when he comes in. And yet THAT isn't criticized as "historically inaccurate." So already you're in a fantasy scenario before you even bring human races into the picture.
Secondly, Vic is not a white human male. He is a sentient photonic life form. Taking out a problem stemming from Earth's past on him is illogical and vindictive. This is similar to what happened in a VOY episode where some of the ship's crew got awkward around holograms programmed to have Cardassian form (Kejal, for one), but it was expressly pointed out that they were not really Cardassian, though they did have some traits drawn from them--so taking out the wrongs of the Cardassian people on these holograms was looked at very poorly.
There were other things about that whole bit that angered me...but those two are the main "logical" points.
Well, I could at least tolerate it, though I think the execution could've been better, especially in WYLB. To me it wasn't that red-eye Dukat was such a complete abomination--Marc Alaimo's acting was instrumental in getting me to buy in to something I probably would not have from a lesser actor. It was much more an issue of the pacing and the way that plotline was woven into the rest, during the final arc.
No, Kai Winn wasn't "that evil".
As a vedek she was just willing to exploit a young sycophant and use her as a sacrificial lamb to assassinate her main rival for Kai. In other words, she was prepared from the outset, from her character's point of introduction in the series, to turn her back completely on her faith's teachings in the pursuit of power. CM leaves out the fact that she concludes the prophets had forsaken her because they'd never contacted her. It seems perfectly well fleshed-out and reasonable to me that the realization that Wraiths rather than Prophets had contacted her was the final straw that ultimately broke the camel's back, spurring her conversion. Considering her mindset, does CM think she gives a flying FRAK that she's not "really" Kai anymore once she coverts?! Only her a Dukat know that. What matters to her is that she's still the titular head of the religion---that she's still in POWER, which is all that ever really mattered to her. 
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^ Put another way, Winn's willing conversion and acceptance of the role of "anti-Kai" is completely consistent with her character's motivations and modus operandi. The difference between the nominally Prophet worshiping Winn and the Wraith following Winn is that she dropped the self-deluding pretense that motivated her, in the name of the Prophets, to try to assassinate her rivals to become Kai in the first place. That's assuming there was any altruism in her motive to kill Bareil, e.g., she felt the good of Bajor was best served with her conservative sect in power and that needed to be achieved by any means necessary, including killing off her primary rival. But bottom line, if she was willing to exploit her religion and the religious devotion of her follower (Bareil's would-be assassin) to use evil means toward a self-serving end (self-serving no matter how much she might have tried to convince herself through sheer meglamaniacal zealotry that Bajor's survival depended on her leadership), then it's not much of a stretch for her character to ultimately exploit her former religion against itself as a converted anti-Kai in Kai's clothing.
These are good points. As for the first, I'd point out that there's a distinction between persons descended from persons that could have really been in that historical setting as reproduced by the holosuite (humans) and persons that couldn't have been (extraterrestrials). The former have (or ought to have, by Sisko's reasoning) a vested interest in accurately depicting the history of their ancestors whereas the latter do not, despite the conceit of ignoring/accepting extraterrestrials as part of the holosuite's programming. (This doesn't mean, of course, that aliens couldn't get a human history lesson out of it too, were they to assume roles as humans of European descent or people of color, but I digress). I think Sisko had to have already parsed it this way in order to object logically to the whitewashing of this setting (no pun intended).
Speaking sincerely, if only you'd had a hand in scripting Badda Bing Badda Bang, this debate could've been written into the episode's dialogue b/t Sisko and Cassidy and made it a richer story. I can't really remember if Cassidy offered much counterargument to Sisko other than "don't take it so seriously; it's just for fun".
Anyway, had any human of color been placed in that setting with historical accuracy, or if the program were to depict the ancestors of said humans with accuracy, they would've, in most cases, only been allowed in the club as workers in a subservient position. Any genuinely programmed, contemporary reaction to the presence of aliens in the club is purely hypothetical (or extrapolated from Quark's experience at Roswell or whatever), and therefore, immaterial to Sisko's argument. The likely reaction to, and status of, people of color in that setting is not hypothetical, it's historically factual. This is why Sisko has a problem stomaching revisionism of crucial history for purposes of frivolous diversion.
On your second point, it never occurred to me that Sisko would take his objection out on an anthropomorphized "white male" hologram. Did he, per se? I'm foggy on the episode's details. If anything, shouldn't he blame Bashir? Didn't he write the program? And even then, Sisko would never accuse Bashir of bigotry, or even of not caring. At most, he might have brought his objections to Bashir's attention. Bashir may not have really been conscious of the implications of his program that Sisko bases his objection upon. At most, Bashir would be accused of historical negligence.
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Bashir didn't write the program; his friend Felix did.
But to me, yes...Sisko was taking his problems out on Vic. Didn't like the way a quasi-historical setting (which as I would argue became fantasy the very instant extraterrestrials were programmed to be ignored/regarded as human) was written? It seemed very immature to take it out on a hologram that like the EMH, was providing more and more evidence that he was in fact a unique, sentient, self-aware life form and that came with emotions including a sense of loss on being thrown out of his club and even the risk of his program being permanently corrupted and ending his existence.
And to elaborate on Cassidy's point...she DID have one, though she didn't exactly explain it very well. The point of the program was to be an entertainment venue rather than a history lesson. It was not there to be viewed as how things were, but how they should have been, and to me is in the same vein as writing AU fanfic. You know very well it's an AU when you get into it, and judge it on that merit, not by canon.
Vic himself was programmed to keep the customers happy, not to educate them. Nor was HE even particularly realistic--he was aware he was in a different time period and even seemed to follow the events of the Dominion War to some extent. By definition he was NOT entirely a 1950s lounge singer. That was only part of him.
Again, it's the same as how Kejal was based on a Cardassian template, but had entirely different experiences despite an assortment of traits she shared with her original template. Mistreating Kejal and leaving her to die based on that wouldn't have been right, and the Voyager crew sure worked to save the holograms as if they were flesh-and-blood life forms. Just the same...what Sisko was proposing was tantamount to turning his back on a living being at risk of death who had asked for his help.
So here we have Sisko getting angry over a perception of racism and yet he's OK with seeing Vic die because of his template, which was not a full summation of his identity!
Hypocritical much?!
But to me, yes...Sisko was taking his problems out on Vic. Didn't like the way a quasi-historical setting (which as I would argue became fantasy the very instant extraterrestrials were programmed to be ignored/regarded as human) was written? It seemed very immature to take it out on a hologram that like the EMH, was providing more and more evidence that he was in fact a unique, sentient, self-aware life form and that came with emotions including a sense of loss on being thrown out of his club and even the risk of his program being permanently corrupted and ending his existence.
And to elaborate on Cassidy's point...she DID have one, though she didn't exactly explain it very well. The point of the program was to be an entertainment venue rather than a history lesson. It was not there to be viewed as how things were, but how they should have been, and to me is in the same vein as writing AU fanfic. You know very well it's an AU when you get into it, and judge it on that merit, not by canon.
Vic himself was programmed to keep the customers happy, not to educate them. Nor was HE even particularly realistic--he was aware he was in a different time period and even seemed to follow the events of the Dominion War to some extent. By definition he was NOT entirely a 1950s lounge singer. That was only part of him.
Again, it's the same as how Kejal was based on a Cardassian template, but had entirely different experiences despite an assortment of traits she shared with her original template. Mistreating Kejal and leaving her to die based on that wouldn't have been right, and the Voyager crew sure worked to save the holograms as if they were flesh-and-blood life forms. Just the same...what Sisko was proposing was tantamount to turning his back on a living being at risk of death who had asked for his help.
So here we have Sisko getting angry over a perception of racism and yet he's OK with seeing Vic die because of his template, which was not a full summation of his identity!
Hypocritical much?!
Woot, first post! *Waits for applause.... hears crickets chirping.* Ahem. So...
Actually, I don't think Sisko was being hypocritical, really. Close-minded, yes. But that's all. Consider:
Also, something I think may have been overlooked just a bit in this discussion: Sisko DID come around. Kasidy's words got to him, to the point where (on his own, after the rest of the team had pretty much written off the idea of getting any help from him) he showed up to help. And once he did, he got into it; he seemed just as determined as any of the others to make the whole plan work. I think one of the best moments in the ep was when Vic sees Zimo, and Sisko turns to look. Upon seeing him, he says "Zimo!" and gets this "Aww, CRAP" look on his face. I liked that scene cause it showed that he had come around to care about what happened to Vic, even if at this point it's mainly cause his girlfriend and crew care about him. And by the end, he's clearly coming around in his opinion of Vic as a person, if that whole crazy singing duo scene was any indication.
As for the original topic (which I pretty much completely ignored; great way for me to make a first impression, eh?
), I actually could say a LOT about Mr. Matthew's review of DS9's 7th season (and his wacky views on Trek in general), but I'll save that for another post, since this one is too long as it is.
Actually, I don't think Sisko was being hypocritical, really. Close-minded, yes. But that's all. Consider:
Sisko doesn't really KNOW that Vic has that level of hologram-transcending awareness, because - due to his dislike of the program's premise - he hasn't been to Vic's at all (literally, not once that we were ever shown prior to "Badda-Bing Badda-Bang" that I can recall...?). He dismisses what he has heard from his friends as just being them getting caught up in the experience. Now, he wasn't RIGHT in said dismissal, but that's not the point I'm making.
I'm not sure... who asked for his help? Not Vic himself, since he doesn't really know the Captain. Kasidy and the others may have asked him to get involved, but that's not the same, since from Sisko's point of view, they are asking for his help in correcting a problem in a holodeck story. Nothing more. Again, he's not right in thinking that it's nothing more, but that's what he thinks at that moment.
Again, he's ok with seeing Vic "die" because he doesn't see the importance of his existence (yet). And as for his getting angry... I remember that when I first saw the ep, that struck me as weird. A little out of left field. But then it occured to me: perhaps this isn't just a 24th century Starfleet captain suddenly getting indignant about issues from Earth's past for no real reason. It's a 24th century Starfleet captain who had already been through a traumatic event involving an alternate life created by his connection with the Prophets, in which he experienced Earth's past racism firsthand, as if he had really been there. So it's understandable that he might be more on edge about the subject than he might otherwise be. Treating his reaction to Vic in Badda-Bing as (at least partially) a direct by-product of his experience in Far Beyond the Stars made the whole thing make a LOT more sense to me.
Also, something I think may have been overlooked just a bit in this discussion: Sisko DID come around. Kasidy's words got to him, to the point where (on his own, after the rest of the team had pretty much written off the idea of getting any help from him) he showed up to help. And once he did, he got into it; he seemed just as determined as any of the others to make the whole plan work. I think one of the best moments in the ep was when Vic sees Zimo, and Sisko turns to look. Upon seeing him, he says "Zimo!" and gets this "Aww, CRAP" look on his face. I liked that scene cause it showed that he had come around to care about what happened to Vic, even if at this point it's mainly cause his girlfriend and crew care about him. And by the end, he's clearly coming around in his opinion of Vic as a person, if that whole crazy singing duo scene was any indication.
As for the original topic (which I pretty much completely ignored; great way for me to make a first impression, eh?
), I actually could say a LOT about Mr. Matthew's review of DS9's 7th season (and his wacky views on Trek in general), but I'll save that for another post, since this one is too long as it is.
So Sisko has a serious problem using any holodeck program that depicts ANY American setting before the late 60s??
His attitude leads us to believe that pre-civil rights American based programs are all racist...
How ridiculous!
His attitude leads us to believe that pre-civil rights American based programs are all racist...
How ridiculous!
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