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I'm not sure what impression you got from TNG about the Maquis... to me they always seemed like a bunch of angry colonists that didn't want to leave their land or live under Cardassian rule.
Now this is the impression I had of the Maquis. These romantic freedom fighters going out with a blaze.
I was somewhat disappointed with the end result though. I thought that Riker didn't get enough personal drama, and for me, this was Riker's tale. While I appreciate the bonding between Sisko and Dukat, and yet another revelation of how wicked the Obsidian Order is... I just wanted more Riker drama.
Riker and Kira being more passionate around each other. Insights into terrorism. But in the end it was just an expanded cameo. I didn't feel Riker's death wish. I didn't feel that he just wanted to be a hero. I was told this by Kira. And this is where the episode failed me.
Sucks to be Riker though. First your life gets stolen by your clone and then you get thrown into prison.
Aside from Riker being just an expanded cameo, the episode was pretty damn good. Especially the political rivalry between Dukat and Obsidian Order.
Is there any other type of Eurovision? I mean, is it actually possible to watch all of the Eurovision without consuming copious amount of alcohol? There is a reason why Ireland has won the competition more times than any other country, it's because we're the only people in Europe with strong enough livers to sit through the whole show.
House of Quark
It was an awesome episode. I just could not believe that was Gowron, because usually episodes involving him are all so epic and serious. But here, klingons were just so ridiculous.
The concept of this episode is enough to make your eyes roll, a combination of a Klingon episode with a Ferengi comedy episode, but the end result is great. It's one of the best Ferengi episodes on the show and one of the best Klingon episodes. Not that there will be many Klingon episodes in the future.
Actually, he wrote the teleplay for The Search, Part 1, that's because he was the guy given responsibility for creating the Defiant. He wanted to call it Valiant after a ship from TOS, but TPTB wouldn't let him because Voyager would be starting up soon and they thought it would be too confusing for the audience to have two ships that begin with a V. (Yes, I know that you probably know that, I was explaining it for Billy Frankenstein's benefit.)
Eh. It was an okay episode, but I have trouble getting excited for this one. I also find it weird that the Defiant was stationed on DS9 in case the Dominion decided to come through the wormhole, but Sisko decided to use it to ferry one person back home when a runabout would have sufficed before. It makes the Defiant less cool when it's involved in standard fare like this.
I love a good conspiracy with psychological elements.
I don't know, I think that Sisko and Garak work brilliantly together, but that's because I know what is to come.
I absolutely love one of Garak's lines in this episode: "It was just something I overheard while I was hemming someone's trousers." I would sex that man so much.
Would Garak kill Bashir? Would he kill Bashir if they happened to be in opposite sides in some situation and Bashir would be all "I can't let you do that"? He said he liked the legate. And he obviously likes Bashir. But how much? Does Garak love Bashir? After all they've been through, could he kill Bashir in cold-blood?
There's an episode coming up soon where you'll see how far Garak is willing to go with one of the main cast. Like many scenes involving Garak, it's a highlight of the series.
I must say that there's a huge change in quality between season 2 and 3. It's like the jump between TNG season 2 and 3, but with the difference that the first two seasons of DS9 weren't bad. They were actually quite good in some parts. Just suffered from a certain aimlessness.
But season 3 is making the first two seasons matter. It's building on the right parts in the right way. Like The Search II with Odo.
If I had seen The Search II, before I would have start writing my season overview, my analysis of Odo would have been quite different.
And all these small scenes like O'Brien trying to make life interesting for his wife, Sisko meeting with the girlfriend of his son, no Nog, Odo's new room, Sisko holding the baby, Sisko making food - it just builds and doesn't (seemingly) go to waste.
That's why when people ask how they should watch DS9 I always say to start at the beginning even though it's not very good, it's much more rewarding that way. And if you ever rewatch the series in the future you'll come to appreciate the earlier seasons more, especially season 2. Some shows are rewarding to rewatch because of mysteries and whatnot, but DS9 is rewarding because of the characters.
I'm now going to pretend that this is the result of the magic touch of Ronald D. Moore. Only he alone could bring such goodness with his presence.
It's great if this is the direction for the character from the beginning, but it sucks when it happens like several seasons into the character and from no where.
As alone, these ideas make for good sci-fi. Like O'Brien in Whispers. But if they happen with characters that have fed you a different thing for 3 or 6 years. Not good.
I enjoy Civil Defence for the most part, I particularly like the Garak/Dukat bickering, but I do have a problem with Dukat's motivation in the episode. After the great work they did in late season 2 to make him into a more ambiguous character, to put him back into a villainous role was a bad move. Luckily it's a one off as you already know from watching Defiant.
Meridian's a-story is without a doubt my least favourite thing in the first half of the show. Meridian's b-story is without a doubt one of my favourite comedy pieces from the first half of the show. I both love and hate this episode, but I mostly hate it.
Speaking of Admiral Shran. I guess what they say about reincarnation is true then.
Normally I would leave it for TheGodBen to show my utmost lack of qualifications in making valid opinions, but he is nowhere to be found. I hope he didn't die or something. It would be a pity, he had such a nice goatee.
I agree (irony), it's a great episode and it's fun to see Jonathan Frakes on DS9, but throwing Tom Riker into the mix was a bit weird. But the Dukat/Sisko stuff was fantastic.
Also, there's a major hint about an upcoming development in this episode, you can probably guess what it is.
Like most Dax episodes, I find Equilibrium mildly interesting but nothing more.
Defiant is squarely in the "meh" category for me as well. It's mostly about Tom Riker and is only compelling in the slightest from a character point of view if you are familiar with the TNG episode that produced him (and his quest to find his own identity). The Defiant has hardly been established on the show at this point, so it's a bit premature to have it hijacked. We don't really feel the threat that it poses because we haven't seen it in action enough (only once as I recall, going down pretty quickly to the Jem'Hadar in The Search).
The scenes between Sisko and Dukat are the strong point of this episode, and it does some reasonably effective foreshadowing.
Eh. It was an okay episode, but I have trouble getting excited for this one. I also find it weird that the Defiant was stationed on DS9 in case the Dominion decided to come through the wormhole, but Sisko decided to use it to ferry one person back home when a runabout would have sufficed before. It makes the Defiant less cool when it's involved in standard fare like this.
I thought the reason the Defiant was used was because it had some medical facilities? Ok not a huge amount but more than a runabout. Sisko wasn't going to take chances with Dax.
But if that episode had taken place in season 2 they would have used a runabout, so in this episode the Defiant is taking on the role of a glorified runabout. The Defiant is supposed to be unlike any Federation starship we've seen before, so using it to ferry a sick person home on its second outing undercuts to whole point of the ship.
But if that episode had taken place in season 2 they would have used a runabout, so in this episode the Defiant is taking on the role of a glorified runabout. The Defiant is supposed to be unlike any Federation starship we've seen before, so using it to ferry a sick person home on its second outing undercuts to whole point of the ship.
I don't think the Defiant's use in Equilibrium is a big issue in itself, but rather a symptom of a larger issue, which is that the Defiant, in all its awesomeness, is introduced in a rather underwhelming manner. An intriguing beginning in The Search Part 1 is undercut in Part 2 and then the ship isn't used in a meaningful manner until it is hijacked by Riker, which isn't exactly inspiring as a second outing.
It's not until later that the Defiant gets to be showcased as it deserves. For me this is somewhat symptomatic of season 3 overall, the pieces are starting to come together for the show to move toward a more epic canvas but the writers haven't figured out how to make it happen yet and still rely too heavily on gimmickry and hackneyed plot devices such as the reset button and the one-episode romance.
Nowhere is this more evident than in The Search Part 2, which manages to feel like it uses a reset button while in reality it reveals what is probably the most important piece of universe building in the whole series, a development that will largely define the show for the rest of its run and never "disappear." The writers undercut themselves in that episode to the point that it is almost amusing to watch it unfold. It's a beautiful example of the show's split personality at this stage: it wants to do big, galaxy-shattering events but cannot yet free itself from the usual Trek clichés. A certain two-parter later in the season represents another major step forward, however.
I assume that you're talking about Past Tense, because if you go by the episode list that's the only other two-parter this season. And by moving away from Trek clichés I assume you're referring to the fact that they travelled back in time, screwed things up and then fixed the timeline, that had never been done on Trek before.
I agree with almost everything you say, and it's one of the reasons why season 2 is possibly better than season 3, season 2 had more events that mattered in the long run, such as the creation of the Maquis and Winn becoming Kai. Season 3 didn't have that so much, and even the events of The Die is Cast weren't given significance until The Way of the Warrior when it was revealed that the Obsidian Order had been wiped out and that allowed the civilian government to take control of Cardassia.
I assume that you're talking about Past Tense, because if you go by the episode list that's the only other two-parter this season. And by moving away from Trek clichés I assume you're referring to the fact that they travelled back in time, screwed things up and then fixed the timeline, that had never been done on Trek before.
As far as the impact of the The Die is Cast is concerned, we can feel it already in The Adversary. Granted, that's only one episode prior to The Way of the Warrior, but also only 5 episodes after The Die is Cast, so I don't see that as a real problem. While DS9 was on the air I gather there was always a faction of fans/critics who wanted the Dominion to be the focus of most episodes almost from the moment they were introduced, but my own view tends to be the opposite: the gradual development of the Dominion storyline over the middle seasons works brilliantly and makes first contact with the Dominion probably the most convincing first contact with any alien society in Trek in the sense that the two civilisations take some time to feel each other out and develop strategies for dealing with one another.
I also like the fact that the alpha quadrant powers stage the first major strike, which confirms the Founders' innate distrust of solids and justifies, at least to a certain degree, their later aggressivity.
Not to mention that, had the Dominion War been hot from the beginning, it mostly likely would have been much shorter and less nuanced. So, it doesn't bother me that the Dominion storyline develops incrementally. On the contrary, it's a welcome change from the Trek standard for this sort of thing, and a much more compelling way to handle the discovery of a new galactic power than immediate open conflict.
My issue with season three is more that certain storytelling quirks damage what should have been much better material.
Some examples:
The Search. Seriously. With a new, AWESOME starship (that has a cloaking device!!) and an incredible payoff for the story (Odo's people are THE FOUNDERS?!?!?!), this should have been a much better two-parter. (Maybe it needed to be a three-parter.) Having a bunch of outlandish things happen, then unhappen, just makes the viewer feel cheated and masks the very important things that are in fact happening in this episode (and will not unhappen).
Defiant. Major Kira working with the Maquis in some fashion is a natural fit and probably the biggest missed opportunity for that character in the whole series. Instead the only follow-up we get to season two's excellent two-parter is an amalgam of a mediocre guest appearance, a stillborn one-episode romance and a bad showcase for the new starship. Even with Riker involved, this could have been a much better story had it built on Kira's empathy for the Maquis and desire to support them against the Cardassians.
Heart of Stone. Some great character stuff for Odo that in fact has long-lasting implications for him, Kira and the FC, but again the use of a poorly-conceived gimmick makes the episode feel like it's using a reset button and thereby detracts from the important character developments. Later on, in episodes like Crossfire, the writers are confident enough to let the character stuff thrive on its own.
I enjoy Civil Defence for the most part, I particularly like the Garak/Dukat bickering, but I do have a problem with Dukat's motivation in the episode. After the great work they did in late season 2 to make him into a more ambiguous character, to put him back into a villainous role was a bad move. Luckily it's a one off as you already know from watching Defiant.
Well, how fortunate that the show will never do that again.
Seriously though... Civil Defense is not that bad. Dukat was always at least semi-villainous, but in this episode, he wasn't just he Big Bad Guy, he was also funny. It's one of the few episodes that use Dukat like that. He had funny moments in The Maquis, which were completely due to the performance and delivery of certain lines - the best example is the scene in which Dukat finds out from Sisko that the Central Command did not care about his rescue, and that they were in fact selling the weapons and tried to lay the blame on him, when he goes from childish confidence in his importance, to looking genuinely and deeply hurt, not because the CC is selling weapons to the colonists in the DMZ, but because they didn't tell him! His narcissism, ambition and desire to make people like him was portrayed by Alaimo in a humorous way that made him seem a bit silly as well as vulnerable and, if you'll excuse the word, human.
Later on we'll see those traits portrayed in a lot darker and chillier way, so it's interesting to see this humor from the early seasons that later disappeared.
There are plenty of moments like these in Civil Defense - I made several hilarious avatars from Dukat's priceless expressions from the the scene with Garak and Kira, and the vulnerable narcissist is shortly glimpsed in the scene where he lays the terms to Kira - just watch how his expression changes when he says "Would you allow 2000 people aboard this station to die simply because you don't like... us?"
Defiant. Major Kira working with the Maquis in some fashion is a natural fit and probably the biggest missed opportunity for that character in the whole series. Instead the only follow-up we get to season two's excellent two-parter is an amalgam of a mediocre guest appearance, a stillborn one-episode romance and a bad showcase for the new starship. Even with Riker involved, this could have been a much better story had it built on Kira's empathy for the Maquis and desire to support them against the Cardassians.
I agree that "Defiant" was a little disappointing considering all its the ingredients - Tom Riker and Kira, the Maquis, Dukat and Sisko, the Obsidian Order, the Defiant - but I don't agree with your opinion on Kira and the Maquis. I agree she would have some sympathy for them (as seen in "The Maquis"), but I don't think she would have worked with them, and I don't even think she had that much in common with them as you imply. For starters, Kira took her responsibility as a second in command on the crucial Bajoran space station too seriously to get involved with helping a terrorist group. Even back in "Past Prologue", we saw that she understood that the time of fighting Cardassians was over and that the present and future of Bajor was to live in peace, and in the next couple of seasons we saw her adjusting to her new role; and by season 3, she didn't show any mistrust and resentment towards Starfleet, and respected Sisko, and certainly wouldn't have undermined him.
Second, I thought that DS9 always treated the Maquis with a mix of sympathy and irony, and made the difference between them and the Bajoran resistance very clear. Which brings me to Jimmy Bob's earlier point - the Maquis did start as a group of disgruntled farmers who had lost their land, but it seemed that very soon it got flooded with ex-Starfleet officers and a bunch of other people from the Federation who were not from the DMZ, but who either were outcasts in Starfleet, had a problem with the Federation mainstream values and methods, or just fell for the romanticism of the whole idea and wanted to be rebel outcast heroes (in addition to people who just wanted to fight Cardassians for whatever reasons, and people who just wanted to get a chance to kill and fulfill their violent impulses, like Lon Suder). Kira in this episode mocks Riker at one point, basically saying that he is a lame wannabe terrorist who is in over his head, still thinking like a Starfleet officer (very similar to what Dukat told his Maquis captors when he was mocking them "The Maquis"). The Maquis seemed to have become a fashionable guerilla movement, kind of like the Greek uprising against Ottoman Turks was fashionable in the 19th century when Lord Byron went to fight in it (unlike the uprisings in other countries under Ottoman rule, which didn't matter to the Western European public since their names were not 'Greece'). They come off a bit like a bunch of kids who wear Che Guevara T-shirts and one day decide to start an anarchist movement, but proceed to blow buildings and people up, which makes them dangerous kids. It's not like Bajorans, who fought because they were living under a brutal occupation and in really awful conditions, and no wannabe heroes from Federation and other worlds were joining their ranks (it would have been extremely difficult to do that even if they wanted to). Kira and Riker might have bonded a little, but it was ultimately obvious how different they were: Riker defected to the Maquis because he wanted to be a hero and to assert his identity. (I wonder if we're ever going to see another Maquis leader with a hero complex on this show... ) Kira didn't fight because she wanted to be a heroine, she fought to free Bajor, she fought because she had little choice. She didn't fight because it was romantic, in fact, she makes it clear numerous times in the show that it wasn't romantic, it was damn ugly.
As she said in "Return to Grace": "I've already been where you're going. I've lived the life you're choosing - fighting, hit and run, always outgunned, living on hate and adrenaline... It's not much of a life. And it eats away at you, so that every day a little bit of you dies."
I love the way that DS9 didn't sanitize the resistance, and pointed out the reality, that they were killing Cardassian civilians, and that they were blowing up Bajorans as well when they needed to - because that was what it took, and the only way to fight their oppressors Cardassians was to become as ruthless as they were.
Kira eventually becomes a resistance fighter again only when it was really necessary and when the stakes were truly huge.
I agree that "Defiant" was a little disappointing considering all its the ingredients - Tom Riker and Kira, the Maquis, Dukat and Sisko, the Obsidian Order, the Defiant - but I don't agree with your opinion on Kira and the Maquis. I agree she would have some sympathy for them (as seen in "The Maquis"), but I don't think she would have worked with them, and I don't even think she had that much in common with them as you imply.
You make some good points regarding Kira's perspective at this stage, but mostly I think they are arguments against Kira abandoning her post and becoming a full-fledged Maquis member, which I agree would not have been plausible or desirable. However, I think there were a lot of possibilities here that could have provided some of the edgier material for Kira that is somewhat lacking in the middle seasons.
Example: The Bajoran government discovers that radical elements of former Bajoran resistance cells are working with the Maquis and send Kira to investigate. Moral quandries ensue. The idea would be to pit Kira's empathy for the Maquis and distaste for Cardassian tactics against her duty to the Bajoran government. Something of that nature. Differences in philosophy and the rather romantic nature of the Maquis compared to the Bajoran resistance could have been used to good effect.
Certainly Kira would never betray Sisko, but I think there was plenty of room for some more substantive disagreement on issue of the Maquis. I think I may have mentioned this recently in another thread, so at the risk of repeating myself: the general increase in trust between Kira and Sisko is good, but I think some tension and differences of opinion could have continued to arise throughout the middle seasons.
I didn't see what's so bad about this episode. I quite liked it myself. Then again, I am a fan of Lwaxana Troi. And I also liked Meridian and Storyteller. And I feel The Fight is still one of Voyager's best episodes ever. So. Go ahead. Judge me.
Is Avery Brooks going to direct every other episode in season 3? He must have loved doing his scenes with Terry Farrell. In fact, Terry Farrell was my favorite thing about this episode.
She beat up Bareil for example. Poor Bareil, he and I are not actually that different. I completely felt for the guy when he did that creepy breathing + put hand on Jadzia's lap. I did that too once. Painful memories.
Okay, aside from the mildly amusing (or not so amusing, depending on your tolerance level) antics, it did some nice scenes for both Odo and O'Brien.
They managed to create this slight feeling of melancholy in the end, with Lwaxana realizing Odo's feelings for Kira and Keiko leaving O'Brien for almost a year.
Really? That long. She was like in every other episode in season 2. Why so few appearances now?
Bashir and Kira work quite well together. I'm wondering if this episode was actually just a try out for different relationships.
I didn't see what's so bad about this episode. I quite liked it myself. Then again, I am a fan of Lwaxana Troi. And I also liked Meridian and Storyteller. And I feel The Fight is still one of Voyager's best episodes ever. So. Go ahead. Judge me.
You are a horrible, horrible person. Your personality is just awful and you have terrible taste in everything.
A bit too harsh?
Seriously, I don't know how to feel about Fascination. I remembered disliking it when it was on TV, but when I watched it on DVD I enjoyed it for its manic energy, but when I watched it again it left me feeling 'meh'. I don't hate it like many do, I'm not sure how I feel about it at all.
Poor Bareil, he and I are not actually that different. I completely felt for the guy when he did that creepy breathing + put hand on Jadzia's lap. I did that too once. Painful memories.
Yeah, that was really awkward, but you were drunk at the time, so I forgive you.
They managed to create this slight feeling of melancholy in the end, with Lwaxana realizing Odo's feelings for Kira and Keiko leaving O'Brien for almost a year.
Really? That long. She was like in every other episode in season 2. Why so few appearances now?
Well, the in-universe explanation is that the station is no longer considered safe for families due to the threat of a Dominion fleet coming through the wormhole without warning. (At this point in the show they didn't have the ability to transmit sensor data through the wormhole.) In the real world, it's possibly due to the fact that a lot of fans didn't like Keiko and complained about her being bitchy. Personally, I don't mind her too much, I never even noticed it until I saw people moaning about her on the intertubes.
Bashir and Kira work quite well together. I'm wondering if this episode was actually just a try out for different relationships.
Siddig and Nana should work well together considering they were in a relationship at that time. They even had a kid together later on. Pairing them up was probably an in-joke about their situation.
I wish the writers had approached Fascination as a straight-forward character episode with the Bajoran festival of renewal as the backdrop. I like the ambiance on the promenade, and there are some decent moments for the people who are acting in character: Keiko, O'Brien, Odo, Lwaxana and Sisko (as I recall). Unfortunately, the writers chose to build this episode around the gimmick of Lwaxana's illness, which I don't think works at all.
For it to work, it would have to have produced humor, which it really doesn't as far as I can tell. I don't find this episode funny, and since that's mostly what it has to offer, it strikes me as mostly a failure. Granted, I did chuckle once or twice when I rewatched it recently: Sisko's reaction when Dax throws herself at him is quite funny, but otherwise, barely any of the antics produce actual humor.
Bashir's suggestion at the end that the various "fascinations" or crushes or whatever produced by Lwaxana's projections are probably an expression of some sort of pre-existing attraction on a subconscious level adds nothing, since it is hardly a revelation that these attractive men and women might be attracted to one another on some level. Duh. Overall one of my least favorite episodes that doesn't involve mass Ferengi or Risa.
Terry Farrell and Nana Visitor are both stupendously gorgeous, and look especially good in this episode, so it does have that going for it, but the critic in me cannot rate it any higher for that reason alone, alas
Nah. Nothing will ever come of any of it. And it was always so completely random that it would be crazy to expect anything to come out of any of it. Which is the main reason why this episode sucks so much. It's like really bad, really silly fanfiction (only without the slash pairings). A preposterous space-disease-of-the-week plot that serves only for some silly comedy where all the characters act completely out of character and make out with the least likely people. It seems that they were looking for the most unexpected pairings that had never been even hinted at before - and never will after this episode and its total reset button. If this had been the first DS9 episode I saw, I would have gotten a completely wrong idea about the show and I would have thought it was crap. It is a complete opposite of everything the show otherwise is, and of everything that made it great: continuity, psychological realism, character development, setting up and following upon storylines.
Siddig and Nana should work well together considering they were in a relationship at that time. They even had a kid together later on. Pairing them up was probably an in-joke about their situation.
Actually, they weren't. They only got together in 1996, during season 4, shortly before making "Our Man Bashir". When "Fascination" was made, they were just really good friends (Visitor said in an interview that for a long time she had no idea that Siddig felt that way about her). It was just a totally random pairing.
I would sex that man so much.
.
