I was only speaking of the series' relationship to contemporary politics. Pop-culturally, I don't think there's been a science fiction series as self-aware as Farscape. Perhaps Red Dwarf, although many of the references in that series are either lost on me due to me being too young and not British enough (i.e. not at all).
Heh, you're probably younger than me. It's just that in Serbia we didn't get DS9 on TV until 2001, or was it late 2000. Funny how that mattered 10-15 years ago, while today everyone is simply downloading new shows a few hours or a day after an episode airs. Hm, well, I thought it sounded like the generic kind of accent that "Eastern Europeans" have in American movies (even though "Eastern European" accents are really a bunch of completely different accents, British and American movies and shows treat them all as interchangeable, with actors from former Yugoslavia constantly playing Russians, and so on), but I'll have to check it out the next time. Maybe that was just what I was expecting, because I was reading a bit too much into it (humans = Americans, aliens = those wacky Eastern Europeans). I'm sure it wasn't an Italian accent, I'd certainly have recognized that.
It makes me feel young. I could have sworn that I was 16 or 17 when DS9 finished, so I'm always surprised to remember that I was 13. I used to watch DS9 seasons 3-5 in a Star Trek fan club several months before it aired on Sky One and I remember being in school the next day trying to explain how awesome The Way of the Warrior was, or trying to reenact with my hands how the Defiant stopped Changling Julian from blowing up Bajor real good. To think that I was still in primary school at the time is shocking.
You'll find that the aliens end up having different accents, even within the same race -f'instance, an 'American' sounding Centauri in Lord Kiro (played by Gerrit Graham, perhaps more known as the suicidal Q named Quinn 'round these here parts). JMS made a conscious effort to have no alien race have a mono-culture. PS: I apologize for some delay at the moment with the next Week, as I've been studying for a Calculus Final, and finding time to watch 3 episodes in one sitting is quite tough. I should be back to this on the weekend.
Don't worry about it, I'm planning to give Enterprise a rest for a few days myself because I've got several exams coming up, so if I can't find the time to watch 1 episode at a time I can't expect you to find the time for 3. But your next review had better be good.
I thought it was a bad Italian accent, granted, but whatever. And you're right, the accent thing is even weirder when you consider that B5 does have an Eastern European character - Ivanova, a Russian - who speaks with a rather American accent. Given Straczynski's Eastern European heritage, though, I doubt he's trying to imply anything. Feh, fossil! I was twelve. I think. Or thirteen, I'm not sure anymore. Which makes my extensive ruminations about how contrived the Breen were as a last minute addition to make the Dominion look intimidating, with their lack of development being touted as a defining character trait (and my defence of Ezri as a useful and valuable addition to the cast for reasons completely unrelated to how cute she was... sorta) all the more surprising. I wasn't quite as verbose, though. The arguments with the handful of people who actually watched DS9 was fun. We all agreed that "Call of Arms" was great, that's about all I remember. Lucky bastard you. I kept watching that over and over. One of the handful of Trek episodes I recorded off TV I loved it so much. It was something I watched with friends on one occasion. For me it was like one of the movies, and I think it was my first real introduction to DS9 (this being the day of TNG, VOY, and the entire goddamn TV seeming like one conduit for Star Trek and maybe the Simpsons. I miss that.)
I'm not sure either, I know that the final season began in the autumn some time (I remember watching Take Me Out... while doing my Irish homework) and that was a year after it aired in the US, so if it finished airing in January then I was 13. If it finished in late February or March I was 14. Either way, it was a long time ago. I just liked it when things went boom. It was similar for me, I joined that club while they were mid-way through season 3 and while I thought DS9 was okay, I was much more interested in seeing Voyager back then. But then came WOTW and it blew me away, and when I went into school the next day nobody believed me when I said over a hundred Klingon ships attacked the station. For years afterwards I watched it whenever it aired on TV, and one day when my dad saw me watching it he said something like "Not that stupid episode again". I couldn't understand why he didn't think it was as brilliant as I did. The 200th anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria? But I don't want to wait 28 years for your next review, and I don't see what Return to Grace has to do with the life of a long-dead British monarch.
what's the rush? return to grace will not take place for another 363 years. try to acquise to the inevitable, voyager's going to win in the end. b5 is exhausted with the conclusion of the shadow war, there are still 1 3/4 seasons left, and the lead of ds9 is too small to withstand voyager's strong seasons 4 and 5.
When I was reviewing Voyager I began to lose faith in season 3 and publicly considered giving up, but the promises that seasons 4 and 5 were excellent kept me going. Personally, while seasons 4 and 5 were a clear improvement over season 3, I don't understand what people were talking about. Season 4 was strong for the first 2/3, so that might be a battle, but the season went off the rails for the final third and has only 1 clear victory for Voyager: Living Witness v The Rekoning. As for season 5, I found it annoyingly average with only 1 classic episode; Timeless. I know that a lot of people don't like DS9's final season and I can understand why, but in my opinion it is a clear win for DS9 that year.
Deep Space Nine's final season has a lot of problems. Evil Dukat, Pah-wraiths... but it also has Ezri Dax. I remember liking VOY's fifth season, but regretting the absence of Ezri Dax. I think this parallel B5's fifth season, which as I recall had Byron and no Ezri Dax. I'm pre-emptively calling it for DS9 folks. You actually did your Irish homework? A more diligent student than I, clearly.
Ezri is OK, but the Cardassian rebellion tips it for me in favor of DS9 S7... enough for it to beat any VOY season, though not enough for it not to be my second-least favorite DS9 season, due to Red Eye Dukat, Space Jesus Sisko and the Pah-wraiths.* *That sounds like a band name. A very silly band name. Even funnier than Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny.
i reckon the fight is a clear loser (with some luck vs badda-bing badda-bang in an absurdity competition), while drone, timeless, infinite regress, thirty days, latent image, chaotica, dark frontier 1 + 2, someone to watch over me (probably the best of the season), and relativity are safe bets for voy. the rest might go either way. ezri dax is part of ds9's 7th season problem, the confused child cheapened it considerably, while retiring kes and adding 7 was a great upgrade for voy. i wonder what they were thinking at ds9, mixing some innocence to the military command tunes and warmongery.
I was a special case when it came to Irish. I was in the top class of my year, and I was in the top five of my class, but I could never get the hang of Irish, and since I was considered a good student in everything else my Irish teachers expected more out of me. I can't remember a moment in my life more shameful than sitting my Junior and Leaving Cert exams and asking for the ordinary level paper. Wasn't that a porno? Oh wait, I'm thinking of Kandy Thrace and her Special Destiny. While I don't think The Disease is as bad as many do, Badda Bing... should win that week. I'm not a big fan of Drone (something which caused a kerfuffle in the review thread), and when I watched Take Me Out... on DVD (rather than while doing some stupid homework for a horrible dead language) I thought it was pretty funny, so I'd give DS9 the win. Timeless is going up against The Siege of AR-558, so that will be a though battle but I'd give the nod to Voyager on that one. I thought Infinite Regress was okay, but I like Covenant for giving us one last Kira/Dukat episode, so that could go either way, I'd probably side with DS9 myself. Thirty Days doesn't isn't going up against DS9 that week, but it was a mostly good episode, the same is true with Latent Image and ...Chaotica. Dark Frontier went up against Chimera, and since I found Dark Frontier disappointingly average I'd give it to DS9 again. Someone to Watch Over Me goes up against The Changing Face of Evil, and as fun and enjoyable as it was to watch Dr Shmully fall in love with Seven, I can't see it beating the destruction of the Defiant. Relativity goes up against Taking Into the Wind, which is another no contest win for DS9 in my opinion. Add in these, which are some of the great episodes of season 7: Afterimage V Night - DS9 wins Treachery, Faith... V In the Flesh - Oh dear gods, how DS9 wins. Inter Arma... V Course: Oblivion - DS9 wins So, in my opinion, DS9 wins 9 of those rounds and Voyager wins 1, so the crappy DS9 episodes in season 7 need to be really crappy for Voyager to "win". But, of course, this isn't my thread, and Sykonee is sure to choose different episodes than me. If he ever gets off his lazy ass and gets back to work, that is.
Hey, I took the ordinary level paper of science at the junior cert and did no sciences for the leaving. I very likely understand science less than almost all the other posters on this board. In fact, most of my rudimentary knowledge is based on criticisms people make of science fiction being inaccurate (yes, I read something about vacuum in a textbook, but really it's just the reason the Enterprise shouldn't go woosh.) Hm. I don't know - Armin Shimerman said that Quark's speech in that episode was his favourite in the series, and that moment alone - combined with it being a darn fine episode - may count for something. It's going to be an interesting call, anyway. By contrast, I'd pick "Someone to Watch Over Me" here. The Doctor, lonesome in a French diner, playing on the piano? That, and the aforesaid lameness of the ZOMG MYSTERIOUS BREEN SUPERVILLAINS really pushes it over the edge for me. Skyonee's call, though, it's the battle of the character episode versus what is very much an Event episode.
Oh, a commoner. And there I was thinking you were an intellectual, like myself. How disappointing. Sorry, I'm still a bit snobby about science. My experience in secondary school was that the smartest people chose sciences, geography (the lazy man's science ) or languages in the Leaving, while all the idiots went with the business subjects. I knew the financial crisis was coming well in advance of everyone else. The writing in the episode is good, and that speech is one of the highlights of the whole series, but I just can't get over how much I dislike Paul Baillargeon's score. And it's not just in this episode, it affects my judgement of all the episodes he scored on DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. I can't even explain my dislike of his music, I just find it too... wavery. Associating it with The Muse, Let He Who is Without Sin and Precious Cargo doesn't help. STWOM is good, and I'd rate it higher if something had come of it, but for the next two and a bit years Shmully's feelings for Seven are used almost exclusively as comic relief, and that hurts the episode for me. It also that that annoying subplot where Neelix babysits a drunk.