DS9 Rewrite Room "Paradise"

[PorthosShadow]

As good as DS9 was there are obviously episodes that fans are willing to forget for one reason or another. Now, having started watching the series again from the beginning there are some episodes that if I had the chance would like change. The first episode that I'm starting with is "Paradise"

My disappointment with this episode is mostly with Alixus who comes off more as an extreemist rather than as someone who believes she is doing something for the great good. Now, if I could have written this episode she and her son wouldn't have been the ones who engineered the situation. I would have had it so that everyone was there voluntarily but out of deep desire to maintain their way of life refused to tell Sisko and O'Brien.

Essencially the story remains the same but it becomes about a group of people wanting to keep their way of life intact rather than just one or two people. I also think more dramatic tension could have been created useing the children who have grown up in the colony who want to leave when given the chance. Anyway, I think this could have been a far more interesting episode.

 

[Treker]

More interesting?

I found it quite emotional when Sisko was put in the box.

There was even an attempt to get the fellas to be submissive to the lifestyle by putting women in their beds

I think the fact that nobody would leave at the end when given the choice was proof that they were willing to protect their way of life, just knowing what had happened didn't change where they had gotten. "Rediscovered what man is capable without technology" Like a from the future back to the past.

I think it was a powerful episode and it was really left open at the end with the people ready to decide what they wanted to do without their leader.

We are left with the powerful image at the end of one little boy and one little girl just standing there. We are left to ponder what is going through their heads just after watching these people beam off. Do they want to leave? Will they be given the choice?

It's one episode I will not forget in a hurry.

 

[Admiral Shran]

It had an excellent premise, but was ruined by the execution in my opinion.

I think Ira Steven Behr, the producer, and Corey Allen, the director, said it best.

Behr said, "In terms of what those people were doing, the message of the show always seemed a little unclear. It was a show that worked well, but I don't know if we ever found it. We went back and forth over whether what these people were doing was a positive thing or a negative thing. Star Trek is such a tech show, and making these people antitechnology, it was almost like doing a negative show on Greenpeace."

Allen said, Gail and I worked very hard to make that character (Alixus) reasonable, because her motives were right-thinking. She had created a paradise, and she needed to preserve it through discipline. We set out to let her be the reasonable and caring human being that she and I agreed she was, but we were swimming upstream. It didn't come out that way."

I think, like you suggest PorthosShadow, that she comes off as too much of an extremist, even downright criminal. If she came off as just someone working for what she thought was the greater good, it would have been better. Also, the episode really does it's best to try to get us to see things from her point of view. However, I found it impossible to sympathize with her when she was so cruel to Sisko and O'Brian.

She was also cruel to all the colonists she claimed to love so much, IMO. How was it her decision to shipwreck these people on that planet? It wasn't her choice to make. If, like you suggest, they were all there voluntarily and afraid to let Sisko and O'Brian know, than I wouldn't have had a problem with it. So, I also agree that it would have better if at least one of the colonists decided to leave with them after finding out that they were essentially being held there against their will.

I've always done my best to forget this one. It's easily one of the absolute worst episodes from Trek's greatest series. It's only possible competition for the worst of DS9 is "Let He Who Is Without Sin...," IMO.

 

[TeutonicNights]

My disappointment with this episode is mostly with Alixus who comes off more as an extreemist rather than as someone who believes she is doing something for the great good.

well, she's both?!
Anyway I always liked the episode. I can accept Alixus (and the essentialists for that matter) as the bad guys. I think anything else has been adequately adressed by Alixus' final little speech.

BTW I doubt that being in a Feddie prison (Alixus said Stephen would have ended up in one) can be worse than being stuck with Alixus on a planet eating roots and being put in a hot box.
Alixus was a criminal. Pure and simple. Any attempt at making her anything more would have been terrible imo.
And we already had stories with societies damaged by outside contact ("The Masterpiece Society", "Birthright", "Up the long Ladder"), I'm glad this was all left out this time.

 

[DevilEyes]

My disappointment with this episode is mostly with Alixus who comes off more as an extreemist rather than as someone who believes she is doing something for the great good.

well, she's both?!

Yeah, it's not like many extremists don't believe they're doing something for the greater good?! How wrong they are is a completely different matter.