DS9 Versus: A viewing experient

[Sykonee]

I really liked "Jetrel", it was one of my favorite VOY episodes... not that this is saying much but it was a really good episode. However, I must disagree with you on the performances - I thought Sloyan was great, as always, but I was not impressed by Phillips. I see that quite a few people seem to appreciate his acting, but I found it to be very 'meh' and to me the biggest weakness of the episode was that all of Neelix's serious and emotional scenes fell flat and did not really move me, which they should have by all accounts. That's the biggest difference between this episode and "Duet".

True, it may not have been an amazing outing, but Phillips did something for Neelix that hadn't been managed for all of VOY's run thus far: he made Neelix sympathetic.

 

[Kinggodzillak]

Saw Jetrel recently, and while it was one of the better episodes of the season it felt like Voyager trying their own version of Duet and not pulling it off quite so successfully.

Something I had completely forgotten about was Jetrel's plan; he thinks he can sift through the dust of Rynax, find the molecules that made up the bodies of individual Talaxians vapourised by the Metreon Cascade and stick them back together again.

I'll just repeat that; a scientist thinks he can bring long-dead people back to life by stitching their molecules back together using the transporter. Since Jetrel is quite clearly mad and what he wants to do is a crime against nature itself...Janeway has no problem whatsoever with any of it and gleefully sets about trying to raise a horde of undead Talaxians. Um, whuh?

 

[apenpaap]

Saw Jetrel recently, and while it was one of the better episodes of the season it felt like Voyager trying their own version of Duet and not pulling it off quite so successfully.

Something I had completely forgotten about was Jetrel's plan; he thinks he can sift through the dust of Rynax, find the molecules that made up the bodies of individual Talaxians vapourised by the Metreon Cascade and stick them back together again.

I'll just repeat that; a scientist thinks he can bring long-dead people back to life by stitching their molecules back together using the transporter. Since Jetrel is quite clearly mad and what he wants to do is a crime against nature itself...Janeway has no problem whatsoever with any of it and gleefully sets about trying to raise a horde of undead Talaxians. Um, whuh?

Yeah, it was quite a stupid plan, which is the only thing I didn't like about the episode. I wouldn't say it's a crime against nature though. People nowadays are sometimes revived after theyve been clinically dead for hours. It's only a matter of degree that's the difference (several years instead of hours and pulverized bodies instead of just being dead). I'd say if it's possible to revive these people, then why not?

 

[Sykonee]

Since Jetrel is quite clearly mad and what he wants to do is a crime against nature itself...Janeway has no problem whatsoever with any of it and gleefully sets about trying to raise a horde of undead Talaxians. Um, whuh?

I didn't really get that impression. It seemed more like she was humoring both Jetrel and Neelix -or that scientific mind of hers just went "Well, if this is what it's going to take to prove to them it won't work..." Which is understandable, given the impossible hope first Jetrel and then even Neelix started to have that it would work.

Week 31: (Ending 05.28.95)
DS9 - Shakaar (Airdate 05.22.95)
VOY - Learning Curve (Airdate 05.22.95)
B5 - Confessions And Lamentations (Airdate 05.24.95)

Does this also technically count as B5's Season Finale too? The show goes into re-runs until October from here, and if we're counting Learning Curve as one despite there being more episodes done in production order, then perhaps we should.

Oh, but who cares about Learning Curve? "Tonight on VOY, Tuvok learns a valuable lesson about something while the ship comes under attack from cheese." Gads, what an awful premise. Only good that came of this episode was seeing Kes all hot and sweaty. Eh? I didn't mention yet that, of the three shows, Kes currently holds the honor of Hottest Sci-Fi Babe? How remiss of me.

Bizarrely enough, I actually find Learning Curve... better than Shakaar. I don't know what it is, but DS9 just seemed painfully dull this week. Yeah, some nice guest actor moments, but the Bajoran politics stuff has clearly passed its sell-by date, which is amazing considering this was DS9's bread-n-butter just a couple years ago. However, compared to all the things that have involved Cardassia and The Dominion since, Bajoran Political stories just aren't as interesting anymore. It feels like a retread of better stories.

Oh, why am I even talking about these two anyway. B5 with a knockout blow here. It might be overly cynical to wipe out an entire species, but you can't deny the emotional gut-punch this episode provides.

Weekly Winner
B5

Next:
DS9 - Facets

 

[Bones2]

I've never seen Babylon 5 and know nothing about it, and even I think it wins this week.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I thought Shakaar was OK - I preferred it to some of the previous Bajoran episodes like The Collaborator and it did make me quite happy to see John Doman from The Wire playing the Bajoran military commander.

But it's never going to beat Confessions and Lamentations; that episode is something else and I'd say that apart from maybe the big event episodes like The Coming of Shadows and The Long Twilight Struggle, it's the best episode of Season 2. Faith manages.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Does this also technically count as B5's Season Finale too?

No it most certainly does not! That's The Fall of Night. I don't understand this going into reruns business - apparently here in the UK Channel 4 just aired each season of B5 without interruptions, so we were actually sometimes ahead of America.

 

[Sykonee]

Does this also technically count as B5's Season Finale too?

No it most certainly does not! That's The Fall of Night. I don't understand this going into reruns business - apparently here in the UK Channel 4 just aired each season of B5 without interruptions, so we were actually sometimes ahead of America.

Over here, TV schedules typically feature new episodes of shows during the Fall and Spring, with a bit during the winter (February Sweeps). I'm not sure where that started, but, as far as I know, TV execs figure the summer is a dead time, as that's when everyone's outside and going on vacation, so they seldom bother airing new episodes then. S1 of B5 seemed to be an exception.

 

[Kegg]

I thought "Shakaar" was pretty solid but the weak point is the title character. Shakaar always struck me as a trifle bland, a Vedek Bareil Mark II: Another kind, sensitive and effortlessly dull Bajoran guy Kira first respects then falls in love with. Neither made all that big an impression, to be honest.

"Confessions and Lamentations", though? Yeah. That bleak ending is a rather deliberate punch in the gut of the 'we're definitely not Star Trek!' variety. (Though perhaps Enterprise's "Dear Doctor" suggests they're closer than we might think...)

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I thought "Shakaar" was pretty solid but the weak point is the title character. Shakaar always struck me as a trifle bland, a Vedek Bareil Mark II: Another kind, sensitive and effortlessly dull Bajoran guy Kira first respects then falls in love with. Neither made all that big an impression, to be honest.

I thought Bareil was more interesting than him but my main problem with Shakaar was how the writers subsequently used him to create a romance with Kira that was really all about Odo rather than Kira. Not that I hated all aspects of Crossfire, but I don't think Kira was well served by that plotline.

"Confessions and Lamentations", though? Yeah. That bleak ending is a rather deliberate punch in the gut of the 'we're definitely not Star Trek!' variety. (Though perhaps Enterprise's "Dear Doctor" suggests they're closer than we might think...)

Yeah, Dear Doctor made me think of Confessions and Lamentations, but with C&L I got sense of the horror of the situation and the stakes involved, whereas DD seemed to gloss over that rather. And when it comes down to it, based on these episodes I'd rather have Franklin treating me, despite all his problems, than Phlox!

 

[DevilEyes]

I thought "Shakaar" was pretty solid but the weak point is the title character. Shakaar always struck me as a trifle bland, a Vedek Bareil Mark II: Another kind, sensitive and effortlessly dull Bajoran guy Kira first respects then falls in love with. Neither made all that big an impression, to be honest.

I thought Bareil was more interesting than him but my main problem with Shakaar was how the writers subsequently used him to create a romance with Kira that was really all about Odo rather than Kira. Not that I hated all aspects of Crossfire, but I don't think Kira was well served by that plotline.

Exactly my thoughts.

Her relationship with Bareil was about her and we saw it from her point of view and knew what it meant to her - but that was before the storyline about Odo's unrequited love really started (apart from a little hint in "The Collaborator"). By the time the writers came up with the Kira/Shakaar pairing, it was obvious that its purpose was to make Odo jealous, and the relationship seemed like the safest, dullest, most generic possible pairing they could come up with, which mostly happened off-screen and we rarely even saw it from Kira's POV or learned what she felt about him... all we learned is that she liked when he gave her a massage.

 

[Sykonee]

and we rarely even saw it from Kira's POV or learned what she felt about him... all we learned is that she liked when he gave her a massage.

Hey! Never underestimate a man who can give a good massage.

Week 32: (Ending 06.18.95)
DS9 - Facets (Airdate 06.12.95)

And DS9 finally gets a knockout blow! Oh, wait, there's no one even here.

Alright episode. As usual, Echevarria does a great character story, and the 'twist' of Curzon-Odo certainly was unexpected. Kind of funny that it took nearly the whole season to do another Jadzia-centric show, what with the last one being Equilibrium and all. What do you mean there was another? No there wasn't. No, there wasn't.

Weekly Winner
DS9

Next:
DS9 - The Adversary

 

[Bones2]

The Adversary is brilliant, and it'll have no one to beat. Very sad.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Facets? For my money, this is the first really good Dax episode (though Equilibrium and Dax were decent). Gotta love Curzon-Odo and Sisko as Joran.

 

[TheGodBen]

Hey! Never underestimate a man who can give a good massage.

Oh yeah, they're wonderful.

Wait, no! I mean women!

Gotta love Curzon-Odo and Sisko as Joran.

I really want to see the original take of Brooks as Joran, the one they re-filmed because they decided in post-production that it was too creepy to air.

 

[apenpaap]

Gotta love Curzon-Odo and Sisko as Joran.

I really want to see the original take of Brooks as Joran, the one they re-filmed because they decided in post-production that it was too creepy to air.

Yeah. Considering how creepy the one that made it was, it should be really scary.

 

[Sykonee]

Week 32: (Ending 06.25.95)
DS9 - The Adversary (Airdate 06.19.95)

Yeah, see this is how you do a Season Finale. Evil Changeling is much more interesting than Evil Cheese. DS9 even did paranoia better than VOY did with Cathexis. Plus everyone got a chance to shine (well, except for Dax, who was once again 'conveniently' removed from the plot -sure does seem to happen a lot), and Eddington has his best episode yet. Okay, so it's technically only his third, but he and Odo make for an interesting team. Wish they did more of that.

Weekly Winner
DS9

Next:
Season 3 ReCap

 

[Sykonee]

Season 3 Tally
Once again, here's how this works:

-For each week that a new episode of one of the three shows aired, one mark is awarded.
-If only one show aired a new episode, then they win that week by default, and are given a mark in the Solo column
-If the two Trek shows (DS9 and VOY) were the only shows airing new episodes for a week, whoever won that week will gain a mark in the Trek vs Trek column
-If B5 aired an episode against only one of the Trek shows (either DS9 or VOY), whoever won that week will get a mark in the Trek vs B5 column
-If all three shows aired a new episode in a given week, then whoever won the week will be given a mark in the Triple Threat column.

As such, here are the results:

Solo
DS9 - 10
VOY - 3
B5 - 3

Trek vs Trek
DS9 - 0
VOY - 1

Trek vs B5
DS9 - 2
VOY - 0
B5 - 4

Triple Threat
DS9 - 4
VOY - 3
B5 - 3

This... is not an easy tally to make a conclusion from. I'm actually quite stunned that DS9 had so many solo weeks, although it was to both the show's benefit and detriment -DS9 had a wildly inconsistent season.

VOY held its own pretty good. In fact, had DS9 not have had the excellent Improbable Cause/The Die Is Cast tandem in the Triple Threat column, VOY might have even beat out DS9 in terms of Trek-to-Trek competition -it certainly got the lone head-to-head victory.

Meanwhile, B5 did quite well against Trek head-to-head, and it definitely would have taken the Triple Threat column if IC/TDiC wasn't around.

That's the big question mark here, isn't it tho'? DS9 undoubtedly had some of the biggest high-water marks of any of the shows, and had more of them (if only just one or two more) but its mediocre-to-lows were quite mediocre-to-low as well. Meanwhile, B5 and VOY, although not hitting DS9's highs as often, still managed to maintain a level of above-average consistency throughout their seasons -it makes you wonder how well DS9 would have done if it hadn't had so many solo weeks.

I think DS9's biggest problem for S3 was that it never could quite figure out where it was going. The Dominion brought in some great new dimensions to the show, but they only sporadically did anything with it; Sisko as a character continued to flounder until the latter half of the season; Kira floundered around even more, with the Bajoran stories growing tired; the Cardassians seemed to show a lot of potential early on, but also sort of floundered mid-season. It was mostly only Odo that got the best out of S3, as he seemed to continuously grow as a character from beginning to end, though Garak got some good stuff in too.

In contrast, B5 and even VOY were far more on the ball in what they were doing storywise. B5, obviously so since the show became much more serialized this season (though not hugely so). Meanwhile, VOY, for the most part, kept up with its premise of a ship lost on the other side of the galaxy. Sure, they sometimes instead got lost in the holodeck or came under attack of Evil Cheese, but these were more often than not just blips (kind of the same way Sheriden getting possessed by an alien in Knives was a blip).

Between B5 and VOY then? Well, VOY was definitely the more polished of the two, but B5 had more ambitious stories. VOY had some excellent character stories, but nothing quite as emotional as the growing Londo/G'Kar dynamic. And, when push comes to shove, B5 was unafraid to buck the trend. It may not have always been pretty, but it certainly made an impression. B5 takes this season.

Season Winner
B5

Next:
VOY - The 37s

 

[DevilEyes]

If I were to have such an experiment, I cannot see any VOY season winning against a DS9 season. Even a weak DS9 season still had moments of greatness I never saw in VOY (it did have some great episodes... but DS9's best beats VOY's best), and DS9 season 3 was not one of its strongest, but wasn't its weakest either. I even prefer DS9 season 1 to VOY season 1, if not by much.

 

[apenpaap]

VOY Season 1, 2 and 4 were pretty good, and they would win against early DS9 seasons if it was me rating.
B5 couldn't even beat VOY season 7 though.