DS9 Versus: A viewing experient

[Seven of Five]

I suppose I agree, I really did enjoy Fair Trade. Neelix has come to the end of his Delta Quadrant knowledge, and is worried Janeway will turf him out on his arse. As funny as *that* episode would have been, him using desperate measures to prove his usefulness was very appealing. Janeway reaching out to him at the end was sweet also. I do like Neelix episodes, which sounds yukky to say, but there it is. His character is interesting in his spotlights, but then he's totally misused the other 95% of the time.

The Darkness and the Light starts off strong, but kind of wavers towards the end. And yes, Kira running off into trouble without any input from the O'Briens was disconcerting. Kira had been a bit watered down when she became pregnant, so it was good to see her back to her usual self. Just a bit too extreme I think under the circumstances.

VOY wins? Teh world is endings!

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I like The Darkness and the Light a lot. In fact, Kira's confrontation with Prin is one of my favourite scenes on DS9. And the baby thing? Didn't even occur to me and indeed still doesn't! It's cool to have Mike Vejar working on the show as well.

 

[Bones2]

Part of me wanted Kira to get it in the neck in that episode. She never started being likeable for me until she finally got with Odo.

 

[Kinggodzillak]

Once Kira goes on her revenge quest, she breaks a whole bunch of rules and recklessly endangers O'Brien's child in the process.

The thing about that is...the child was in danger regardless of whether Kira did or didn't go after Silarin. He was trying to kill her, after all, and I don't doubt that if she'd been in the O'Brien's quarters with Furel and Lupaza he'd still have blown the window out, baby or no baby.

What really was her alternative?

Next:
VOY - Alter Ego

Oh, why couldn't TDATL have gone up against this one? I've been trying to rewatch Voyager lately, but season three just utterly killed what little enthusiasm I had left for it, and Alter Ego is the episode that finally made me give up on the whole series and throw my DVDs on ebay...

 

[Sykonee]

The thing about that is...the child was in danger regardless of whether Kira did or didn't go after Silarin. He was trying to kill her, after all, and I don't doubt that if she'd been in the O'Brien's quarters with Furel and Lupaza he'd still have blown the window out, baby or no baby.

What really was her alternative?

I s'pose that's true but, again, the lack of seeing any sort of consequences for her actions is what hurts here. The ending has a sort of "Oh, well, she got the bad guy, so I guess all's well in the end" feeling to it, which shouldn't be the case considering how reckless she did act. Granted, they were probably short on time, and it's not like it ruins the episode or anything. It simply comes off unfinished.

Week 16: (Ending 01.19.97)
VOY - Alter Ego (Airdate 01.15.97)

Hm, maybe I discontinued the "Blatant Rip-Off Watch" prematurely. Oh well.

I like the ending of this episode. It's nothing groundbreaking but it at least has sincerity and heart to it. The part between Marayna and Tuvok that is, when he's on her station. Oh, and a lot of those new FX shots of Voyager sure look spiffy!

The rest of Alter Ego is meh. I really don't care about Harry getting all butt-hurt and jealous over a freakin' holodeck character (seriously, wha'?), much less feeling he has competition with Tuvok. After all, we know (or at least figure, given that he's Vulcan and all) he would never cheat on his beloved back home. That's just silly, though not as silly as the Evil Attack of the Luau Minions! Mwa haha!!!

Both shows skip a week, then come right back against each other again. Geez, this has been a wonky January schedule, huh? Oh, and B5 returns as well. Missed that!

Weekly Winner
VOY

Next:
DS9 - The Begotten
VOY - Coda
B5 - The Long Night

 

[DevilEyes]

The thing about that is...the child was in danger regardless of whether Kira did or didn't go after Silarin. He was trying to kill her, after all, and I don't doubt that if she'd been in the O'Brien's quarters with Furel and Lupaza he'd still have blown the window out, baby or no baby.

What really was her alternative?

I s'pose that's true but, again, the lack of seeing any sort of consequences for her actions is what hurts here. The ending has a sort of "Oh, well, she got the bad guy, so I guess all's well in the end" feeling to it, which shouldn't be the case considering how reckless she did act. Granted, they were probably short on time, and it's not like it ruins the episode or anything. It simply comes off unfinished.

It comes off as unfinished for me, but for other reasons. I am not surprised or shocked that Kira would give the "you were all targets" speech to a crazy guy bent on revenge who's killed her friends and trying to kill her, and I am sure she does believe that on one level, and that it's what she tells herself, but I'm not buying it for a moment that this is the whole story and that deep inside she doesn't feel guilty about anything she did in the resistance. It was as early as season 1 that she admitted she felt bad about some of the things she had done, but now nothing is bothering her, after she got the bad guy? No, I don't believe it, and it's not true of the character who said in the second episode of the show that she wasn't proud of some of the things she had done, and who said the previous season that the kind of life she had led as a terrorist "eats away at your soul". The Darkness and the Light is an episode that just cries out for a follow-up, and it never got it. If it did, it might have been a really great episode.

After the 4 seasons of BSG, I am starting to think that this episode actually reveals Ron Moore's biggest flaw as a writer, which would become more pronounced and obvious in BSG, in later seasons in particular. Let me get this straight, he is one of my favorite SF TV writers, and at his best he's written some really great episodes, but he has a couple of big flaws: his biggest flaw as a showrunner is the lack of planning, and his biggest flaw as a writer is the habit of making characters do things that he thinks will be edgy and shocking - even when it doesn't get a proper follow-up and leaves you with the feeling that the character is free of any consequences only because they're a main character, which still doesn't explain even the lack of any visible soul-searching, remorse, torment you'd expect from the character in the next episodes, where you'd expect it to be mentioned, but it's not, because... well, the writers just forget about it or don't care to mention it. The ending of TDATL is a milder case of this, compared to all the time he did that in BSG. I remember all the times in his podcasts when he was gushing about scenes that made me want to slap a character: "Oh, isn't Roslin wonderful, she just said 'if I wanted to airlock a baby I would say it' ha ha I love her", etc. The most awful example has to be

Spoiler: season 4 of BSG

Athena shooting Natalie

- I can just see RDM being happy because it was so unexpected and made a mostly sympathetic character into a crazy murderer, while killing off unceremoniously a character who had become quite popular at that point. He must have been thinking "Oh how cool is this, none of them expected this to happen, I'm really pushing the boundaries again, ain't I?"...nevermind that it was just random, and that the lack of any consequences made no sense whatsoever, and definitely ruined the character of

Spoiler: BSG season 4

Athena.

OMG, I am really speaking like a disappointed BSG fan still hurting from season 4. I guess I could compare my attitude to RDM to a relationship that has come to the point where you're really wondering if the breakup is inevitable: you really liked a guy and thought he was so great, you were captivated by his charm and wit and his good qualities, and you were willing to overlook his annoying habits and traits, which seemed tiny and unimportant... but then, with time, those annoying traits become more prounonced, they bother you more and more, until they start to overshadow his good traits, and even the things he did in the past that you were willing to forgive at the time now look much worse to you... until you realize you might need to dump him...

 

[Sykonee]

*snip*

Heck, I've only watched through S2 of nuBSG, and I already saw that trend in Moore's work. It's actually put me off picking up S3 and S4, at least until I'm ready to put up with more anti-heroism angst again. Er, that, plus waiting for the prices of the DVDs comes down some.

 

[Kai Winn]

Oh, why couldn't TDATL have gone up against this one? I've been trying to rewatch Voyager lately, but season three just utterly killed what little enthusiasm I had left for it, and Alter Ego is the episode that finally made me give up on the whole series and throw my DVDs on ebay...

just before the great braga episodes come up. distant origin, scorpion, scientific method, yoh, miab, living witness. you have a second chance on youtube.

 

[USS Fardell]

Week 15: (Ending 01.12.97)
DS9 - The Darkness And The Light (Airdate 01.06.97)
VOY - Fair Trade (Airdate 01.08.97)

Both these episodes are nothing more than blatant B5 rip-offs. I mean, just look at the way they're directed. It's like DS9 took a bunch of the shadow lighting and framework you see in the later seasons of B5 to do its episode, and VOY just style-bit the grungy Brown Sector station stuff. Huh, what's that? What about the directors? Oh...!

Perhaps the directors being used to directing B5 made the directors direct what they knew, so the episodes came off as being like B5...

 

[mattyhugh]

Week 15: (Ending 01.12.97)
DS9 - The Darkness And The Light (Airdate 01.06.97)
VOY - Fair Trade (Airdate 01.08.97)

Both these episodes are nothing more than blatant B5 rip-offs. I mean, just look at the way they're directed. It's like DS9 took a bunch of the shadow lighting and framework you see in the later seasons of B5 to do its episode, and VOY just style-bit the grungy Brown Sector station stuff. Huh, what's that? What about the directors? Oh...!

Perhaps the directors being used to directing B5 made the directors direct what they knew, so the episodes came off as being like B5...

/facepalm

 

[TheGodBen]

Perhaps the directors being used to directing B5 made the directors direct what they knew, so the episodes came off as being like B5...

 

[Bones2]

Perhaps the directors being used to directing B5 made the directors direct what they knew, so the episodes came off as being like B5...

Please Ben, put an apostrophe in there. That hurts my eyes.

 

[TheGodBen]

Please Ben, put an apostrophe in there. That hurts my eyes.

It hurts my eyes too, but I'm not the one that made it and I'm too lazy to try and fix it. Besides, anyone that has seen my picture of Scott Bakula on a pony knows that I'm crap at photoshop.

 

[Seven of Five]

It made me so happy when I saw it though.

Oh, Alter Ego was pants. That is all.

 

[Sykonee]

Has been nearly a week already? Yikes! Well, it has been a busy one, but I've been hit with the flu, so I'll do a double-viewing today to make up for it. First up:

Week 17: (Ending 02.02.97)
DS9 - The Begotten (Airdate 01.27.97)
VOY - Coda (Airdate 01.29.97)
B5 - The Long Night (Airdate 01.30.97)

Basically a week of each show doing what they do best. DS9 has yet another strong Character Episode, B5 picks up right where it left off with a major Arc episode, and VOY crashes yet another shuttle. Still, not a perfect week by any stretch.

Gripes?

Well, the conclusion to The Begotten seems just a tad too tidy. I'll grant they undoubtedly had to pare it down to make room for most of Odo's playing with a beaker of goop, and that was quite charming; however, Odo getting his shapeshifting abilities back really needed to be a much bigger deal. Here, it's treated more as an eventual afterthought. Same with the O'Brien's baby's birth, really.

And Coda... That was a waste of time. Because it was a waste of time. Y'know, since it was a waste of time. Like, how it wasted time. Time, was wasted. The thing that annoyed me the most, however, was how it wasted time. Then they reveal it's all the Evil Plans of an Evil Alien, which turns things silly. Oh well, at least we got a few more close ups of Kes. I could watch her take up the screen for an entire episode! *swoon*

B5 stumbled a bit out of the gate, dropping a whole bunch of 'catch-up exposition'. Yeah, I can understand the need for that since it's just come back from winter re-runs, and there's a whole bunch of plot to re-establish, but man does it ever come off stilted. The rest of the episode's mint though. We get our payoff to the Londo-G'Kar plot, with quite the unexpected twist thrown in to it! The thing that's great about this is we actually get to spend half the episode dealing with the aftermath. Then there's all the final stages of Sheridan's Big Gamble. Even though it was just a small part, you really feel for Ericson's sacrifice here. That seems to be the theme with this episode, huh? People dying for a greater good, and the bitterness that eats at those who end up doing the killing (Vir literally killing, and Sheridan ordering someone to their death).

Yeah, B5 wins. Would there be any doubt?

Weekly Winner
B5

Next:
DS9 - For The Uniform
VOY - Blood Fevor
B5 - Into The Fire

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Oh, I love The Long Night! Much better than the last one in my opinion. It builds up to the next episode, but stands as a great episode in its own right since it gives an excellent pay-off to the Londo-G'Kar-Vir-Cartagia stuff, even if there's more pay-off to come. I especially liked Vir's reaction to what he did - that boy's come a long way. It's a great episode for Sheridan as well, both in the White Star stuff and his scene with Ivanova. Overall it's probably one of the most emotionally intense episodes of B5.

The Begotten isn't on the same level, but it's a decent episode. Kind of a sequel to The Alternate, but better. The stuff with Dr Mora was a lot better than the Shakaar-O'Brien stuff, but I found the scene with Kira and Odo at the end very touching. I think for part of this season their relationship recovered some of the quality it had in Seasons 1 and 2, possibly because the writers had (or so I've heard) temporarily dropped the idea that Odo was in love with Kira.

 

[DevilEyes]

Oh, I love The Long Night! Much better than the last one in my opinion. It builds up to the next episode, but stands as a great episode in its own right since it gives an excellent pay-off to the Londo-G'Kar-Vir-Cartagia stuff, even if there's more pay-off to come. I especially liked Vir's reaction to what he did - that boy's come a long way. It's a great episode for Sheridan as well, both in the White Star stuff and his scene with Ivanova. Overall it's probably one of the most emotionally intense episodes of B5.

The Begotten isn't on the same level, but it's a decent episode. Kind of a sequel to The Alternate, but better. The stuff with Dr Mora was a lot better than the Shakaar-O'Brien stuff, but I found the scene with Kira and Odo at the end very touching. I think for part of this season their relationship recovered some of the quality it had in Seasons 1 and 2, possibly because the writers had (or so I've heard) temporarily dropped the idea that Odo was in love with Kira.

This is a mind-boggling idea. How could they "temporarily" drop the idea that he was in love with her, after this had been established with such certainty so many times - without DS9 becoming as horrible with continuity as... no, not even VOY - as horrible as Heroes?

 

[Pemmer Harge]

This is from Memory Alpha's article on A Simple Investigation:

"The producers intended this episode to illustrate to viewers that Odo was no longer in love with Kira. They were satisfied with how the relationship had ended in "Crossfire" and they felt that the only chance Odo and Kira had to get together was while he was a humanoid, but with Shakaar in the picture, this never happened. As such, as far as the producers were concerned, Odo and Kira were back to just having a very deep friendship, something which this episode was designed to illustrate. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) However, only five episodes later, in "Children of Time", they changed their minds again and Odo's love for Kira would finally be revealed to her, albeit not by him."

I actually quite liked the Odo and Kira romance, but mainly after they got together. I found a lot of the stuff about him being in unrequited love with her kind of boring.

 

[DevilEyes]

This is from Memory Alpha's article on A Simple Investigation:

"The producers intended this episode to illustrate to viewers that Odo was no longer in love with Kira. They were satisfied with how the relationship had ended in "Crossfire" and they felt that the only chance Odo and Kira had to get together was while he was a humanoid, but with Shakaar in the picture, this never happened. As such, as far as the producers were concerned, Odo and Kira were back to just having a very deep friendship, something which this episode was designed to illustrate. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) However, only five episodes later, in "Children of Time", they changed their minds again and Odo's love for Kira would finally be revealed to her, albeit not by him."

I actually quite liked the Odo and Kira romance, but mainly after they got together. I found a lot of the stuff about him being in unrequited love with her kind of boring.

I was in two minds about the unrequited love thing, because any episode that focused on Odo's emotions could never be bad due to Rene Auberjonois's amazing acting. You just had to feel for Odo. But at the same time, the storyline didn't do anything for Kira. I didn't like the one-sidedness, and was relieved when she found out, and when they got together. But if there never had been any hint about Odo being in love with her, I would have been as satisfied with them being close friends.

However, once we learned that Odo was deeply in love with Kira, there was no going back IMO. Making characters fall in and out of love just like that would have really cheapened them. It's not just some crush we're talking about, this was portrayed as something very deep and strong on Odo's part. If it was someone else, say Bashir, it wouldn't be hard to buy, but I can't see Odo as someone who has short-lived crushes that come and go all the time.

I am surprised by the reasons given against the relationship. Thinking that they could only be together while he was humanoid is quite narrow-minded for an SF writer. It's the difference between their species that makes the relationship more interesting. "Inter-species" relationships between people who are actually 99% similar - and human-like - except for a few bumps and ridges, are dime a dozen in Trek.

As for Shakaar, he and Kira had very little chemistry, and the writers never even bothered to flesh out the relationship. I could never really buy it the way I did Kira/Bareil.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

It's the difference between their species that makes the relationship more interesting. "Inter-species" relationships between people who are actually 99% similar - and human-like - except for a few bumps and ridges, are dime a dozen in Trek.

Definitely, which is part of why Chimera was such a great episode. That one and the Final Chapter pretty much vindicated the Odo-Kira relationship for me.