TheGodBen Revisits Deep Space Nine

[Admiral Shran]

By the way Admiral Shran I like what you've done to Kira's mouth. Thumbs up for ruining such a nice-looking face!

Overall, I think you're underrating this episode quite a bit.

Ah, the return of the lower than expected scores. I missed those during the B5 review.

I picked the nits out of Voyager and now I'm doing the same to DS9 so that nobody can accuse me for being a Trekist.

Weren't you already accused of that in the VOY review?

Overall, Necessary Evil is probably my favorite of Season Two, though it comes up against some tough competition at the end of the season.

The one thing I absolutely love about it is its characterization of Dukat - a man who while clearly not a good person is completely and easily able to use his charm to get people to look past his crimes. As for whether he believes his own lie, I believe he does. I think that's later shown clearly in the episode Waltz (which is one of my all-time favorites of the series). Dukat is a man who knows what he does is wrong but desperately wants people to ignore that and like him anyway.

 

[Thestral]

...as were seeing Odo's first interactions with Dukat, Kira, and Odo.

Clearly I need to rewatch this episode.

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ Wow, I can't believe I missed that while reading the review. I hope TheGodBen meant Dukat, Kira and Quark.

 

[flemm]

I'm not going to bring up events from my past that I'm ashamed about unless I'm prompted into doing so, I don't see why Kira should be expected to do differently.

Well, that's definitely the focus of the episode, moreso than the killing. Or, possibly, Odo deceiving himself. But the crux of the final scene is that Kira could have been honest with Odo once they became friends, but she wasn't.

And some great episodes contain annoyances that lose them points. That's always the way my scores have worked.

Score it however you like. Just saying: it's too low

 

[defiantfan]

The Homecoming (****)

Li Nalis may be a bit of a goody two-shoes, but Richard Baymer plays the reluctant hero well, which is weird as I can now never forget him playing Benjamin Horne on Twin Peaks,

I missed a few of the reviews and now I am backtracking. I thought Li Nalis was played by Treat Williams.

 

[TheGodBen]

Weren't you already accused of that in the VOY review?

Yeah, but in future arguments I get to point to the fact that I nitpicked a DS9 fan favourite, that will give me cred with the Voyager fans.

...as were seeing Odo's first interactions with Dukat, Kira, and Odo.

Clearly I need to rewatch this episode.

Oops, I must have been thinking of The Adversary.

I thought Li Nalis was played by Treat Williams.

Nope, Richard Beymer.


Second Sight (½)

What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more.

Wait, didn't I already do this joke earlier in the week?

You know, when I complained about Bashir falling in love with a woman he had known for two days back in Melora, I could at least kinda justify it (if I wanted to, which I didn't) by saying that he read her file and thought he knew her, kinda like how Geordi thought he knew Leah Brahms after he had sex with her hologram (that part wasn't shown onscreen, but I can assure you that it happened). But here Sisko falls in love with a woman of an unknown species after talking with her for 10 minutes. He didn't even get to do the vertical mambo (the 0.01G version of the horizontal mambo) with her. Also, when a beautiful woman walks up to me for a brief conversation and disappears when I turn my back on her for a second, I don't wake up the next morning feeling chipper, I wake up with a hangover because I blame my horrifying personality for scaring away another one, thus fuelling my burgeoning alcoholism. The Sisko presented in this episode is not a human being as I understand them.

So, this woman Sisko is bizarrely in love with runs away and he tries to track her down, but all he has to go by is a glass slipper... or am I confusing this story with something else? Anyway, Sisko finds the woman living with her evil step-husband, but she's not really her. Also, her step-husband isn't evil, he's just Dr Bashir turned up to 11 and without his charm or humanity. It turns out that the woman Sisko loves is some sort of magical out-of-body experience thing that's killing the evil step-husband's wife and so the step-husband makes the selfishly selfless act of killing himself by turning into a star. Follow any of that? Who cares?

It's basically a TNG episode, and as much as it tries to pass itself off as a Sisko episode I learned barely anything about him. I want to see more about Sisko, he hasn't had an episode focus on him since Emissary, and I think that this episode focused on him because they had no idea what else to do with the character. They could have focused some more on his role as Emissary, they could have done something with Jake, they could have given him an actual relationship like they would later do with Kassidy Yates, but instead they took an episode that was supposed to be based around Bashir and gave it to Sisko. Yes, Sisko gets Bashir's sloppy seconds because Melora was deemed too good for him.

 

[Ln X]

Second Sight was crap, but Rivals is crappiest. The sad thing is there is nothing riveting or interesting about Second Sight, its like the writers ran out of ideas, and in the middle half of season 2, of DS9, that happened. Thank God for the Dominion or DS9 would have snuffed it sometime in season 3.

I would like to blame Rick Berman for thinking DS9 could work like TNG, and not getting Ira Steven Behr captaining the series far sooner (as Ira Steven Behr actually devised many of the story arcs, and envisioned the proper format we all know and love about DS9).

So f*** you Rick Berman, f*** you, you lazy ass motherf-

Well you get the point, Rick Berman was by now thinking about VOY and for him DS9 took a back seat. Because of this DS9 suffered horribly, but that's the problem with the TNG make-it-up as-you-go-along method for writing episodes. Sometimes the episodes work, sometimes you hit the jackpot, and quite a few times you fail miserably like with Second Sight.

To add insult to injury they also reused that weird red dress in Star Trek Generations.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Well, at least we're done with romances-of-the-week, for a while anyways.

Second Sight is indeed awful. They wanted to give us a Sisko episode and this is what they offer?!! Jeez, give us something to actually sink our teeth into - some actual characterization or characteristics for him, not just a meaningless romance that goes nowhere and doesn't work to begin with.

Even Melora was better. At least in that episode there was at least some justification for the romance - Bashir and Melora actually spent a little time together beforehand. Here, like was said, Sisko has one talk with her and is instantly in love.

The mid-season slump is in full force now, but I don't think it will get any worse than this.

 

[Shatnertage]

This run of episodes almost broke me.

 

[Shanndee]

I'm ashamed to admit that this run of episodes did break me for a short time while DS9 was on the air. I didn't start watching again until mid/late season 3...thank goodness for DVD!

 

[Seven of Five]

Second Sight is terrible. Poor Sisko. But he comes a hell of a way in season three, so there's that to look forward to. Romance of the week is back with a fiery vengeance, and it's poorly contrived to get to the meat of the episode, which wasn't worth all of the fuss getting there in the first place.

Unfortunately, it's a bit like being back in the first season with the next run of episode. The excellence was there at the beginning of the year, and will be there again by the end, but the middle is very middling.

I'll get my coat.

Now, since this episode is already quite bad, I can't help but nitpick. I refer you to the four year anniversary of Jennifer's death. Isn't that a bit out of whack with the timeline established in TNG? As a cliffhanger/season opener, Best of Both Worlds would have been at the end of one year, and the start of another. This episode is set a third of the way into the season. A third. A third of the way into the year is April, and the only anniversary worth recognising that month is my birthday.

Shocked and appalled doesn't even begin to describe it.

 

[Thestral]

Sisko's romance with whatsherface was more contrived than the falling in love in Moulin Rouge, and without the great songs. (I just watched it for the first time, sue me )

Clearly I need to rewatch this episode.

Oops, I must have been thinking of The Adversary.

I kinda like the idea of Odo meeting himself for the first time though. What would Odo think of himself?

 

[defiantfan]

Okay let me clear up some mistakes that I made

defiantfan, you do realise, that that movie came out 11 years after the episode?

^ The Village?

I've never seen that one, but if it's anything like The Storyteller, I might have to pass.

I realize that this was month ago and I do know "The Village" came out way after DS9 ended. It was a grammar mistake - nothing more.

The Homecoming (****)

Li Nalis may be a bit of a goody two-shoes, but Richard Baymer plays the reluctant hero well, which is weird as I can now never forget him playing Benjamin Horne on Twin Peaks,

I missed a few of the reviews and now I am backtracking. I thought Li Nalis was played by Treat Williams.

It is Baymer and I am at complete loss as to how I missed the mark on that. So sorry for the incorrect statement.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

I nearly scratched my eyes out watching "Second Sight"

 

[defiantfan]

The only reason I can halfway stand that episode is because the actress who plays the love interest ended up on Eureka.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

The only reason I can halfway stand that episode is because the actress who plays the love interest ended up on Eureka.

She was also the voice of Eliza Maza on Gargoyles, so I tune out what she's talking about and picture her having a conversation with Goliath instead of Sisko.

 

[Admiral Shran]

The only reason I can halfway stand that episode is because the actress who plays the love interest ended up on Eureka.

The best part of the episode is Richard Kiley's voice. I could seriously listen to that man read a phone book.

 

[TheGodBen]

Sisko's romance with whatsherface was more contrived than the falling in love in Moulin Rouge, and without the great songs. (I just watched it for the first time, sue me )

Ah, Moulin Rouge. I watched it with my first girlfriend while building myself up mentally for my first kiss which happened later that night, so I was a little distracted and barely paid attention to the plot. Something about Obi-Wan Kenobi and a windmill, if I remember correctly.

I kinda like the idea of Odo meeting himself for the first time though. What would Odo think of himself?

If Odo was split into two equal halves, would we get two mini-Odos?

 

[JWD75]

I hate to admit it, but I don't think that Second Sight is all that bad, though it's not a four or five star episode by any stretch of the imagination. It probably could have been improved by giving Seyetik more complexity and humanity rather than simply portraying him as a pompous overbearing jerk who laughed way too hard at his own jokes. Sisko's instant infatuation with Fenna I can accept. You just have to keep in mind that the poor guy likely hadn't been laid in four years and that Fenna was smoking hot.

The view of the station from the upper docking pylon was a nice touch.

 

[DonIago]

I actually found Seyetik amusing rather than annoying...at least I think I did, I haven't seen the episode in quite some time. I love people who are full of themselves as long as they have a sense of humor about it.

As for the rest of the episode...eh....