DS9 Versus: A viewing experient

[Sykonee]

Week 35: (Ending 06.23.96)
DS9 - Broken Link (Airdate 06.17.96)

Y'now, for a season finale, this is possibly one of the quietest ones done yet. Well, except for VOY's Learning Curve, which was just a straight-up WTF of a season finale. But let's take a look at all the shows' season finales in this Versus thus far:


DS9 - In The Hands Of The Prophets
Political thriller! Religious drama! "NNOOOOO!!!"

TNG - Descent, Part 1
BORG! LORE! PSYCHO DATA!!

TNG - All Good Things...
Picard x three!!!

DS9 - The Jem'Hadar
Shit get blowed up. DOMINION!!!

B5 - Chrysalis
Ain't nuthin' the same no more...

VOY - Learning Curve
WTF?

DS9 - The Adversary
The Thing!!! Odo gets his murder on.

B5 - Fall Of Night
Shit get blowed up!! Kosh, unleashed!!

VOY - Basics, Part 1
Crew left for DEAD!!!

DS9 - Broken Link
Odo gets sick.

And yet, despite having one of the tamest plots of these season finales, Broken Link drops such a bombshell on us, it's possibly one of the most effective endings of them all. After all, it's not every series you can take one of your main characters, completely alter his genetics, and not totally reset by the end (I'm looking at you, VOY!). Odo's a humanoid now, and goodness-gracious, it looks like he's stuck that way too.

Then, we find out ol' Bug-Eyes of the Klingon Empire is a ...Changeling!?? Oh. Shit!!

Weekly Winner
DS9

Next:
Season 4 Versus Tally & Recap (and this looks to be a doozy of a recap...)

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Broken Link is excellent, definitely one of Season 4's best episodes and one of DS9's best season finales. In retrospect, some of the plot threads introduced here don't really have as much impact on the show as we might have expected, but in and of itself it's a really good bit of television. Good to see the female changeling again and the scene where Odo emerges from the link is classic. Also, finally this Klingon business seems to be going somewhere! OK, it'll never really work, but at least we'll get a couple of excellent episodes out of it in Season 5.

 

[Sykonee]

Season 4 Tally
Before anything, I'd like to say thank you to all the readers and contributors to discussion that has made this thread double in size since the last season tally. For a project that took five pages to complete its first season, it's quite remarkable that S4 has taken 20 pages to wrap up. There's something to be said for toughing through early-project apathy. Hm, now why does that seem appropriate?

Once again, the way this works is a point is given to each show that wins a week in a given category: Solo, Trek vs Trek, Trek vs B5, and Triple Versus (all three shows airing against each other). Thus:

Solo
DS9 - 4
VOY - 9
B5 - 2

Trek vs Trek
DS9 - 2
VOY - 0

Trek vs B5
DS9 - 2
VOY - 0
B5 - 2

Triple Versus
DS9 - 3
VOY - 2
B5 - 10

Well, the results seem straight-forward enough. DS9 had a fairly consistent season but no clear advantage. The only way VOY was able to amount any kind of victory was if neither show was airing an episode the same week. Meanwhile, B5 started to pull away with several victories in all the key categories. In fact, considering two of its best episodes (Point Of No Return and Severed Dreams) were on Solo weeks, the results could have been skewed even further in B5's favor.

B5 the clear winner then, right? Not so fast.

Judging this season based solely on which had a better episode during a given week doesn't tell the whole story. Looking at those results, it'd be assumed B5 was light-years more brilliant than either Trek. And, well, that's just not true. There were a lot of close calls and squeaker wins this season, and the only reason B5 got many of them was due to its heavier emphasis on Event Episodes. Its main arc really started to ramp up in the fall and come to a head in the spring, holding your attention with the heavily serialization of the show. On the other hand, DS9 really excelled at Character Episodes, with several strong outings that would have easily beat either show under other circumstances.

So, to be fair, I've gone back to the "Yay/Nay" tally, where I give each episode of the season either a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and figure out the ratio of good-to-bad episodes. Though it won't change the overall results, it'll give a clearer representation of just how these shows compared to each other.

DS9
19:6 = 3.17

VOY
11:15 = 0.73

B5
16:5 = 3.2

Well, I guess it's true. VOY sucked during its S2; it couldn't even break even with good-to-bad episodes. And, in what seemed to be the trend anyway, B5 just edges out DS9 here too. These two shows are neck-and-neck at this point in quality, with B5 having the edge on Event Episodes and DS9 the edge in Character Episodes. All either one has to do to gain a clear advantage over the other is step up their game in the other's strong category (re: DS9 needs more Event Episodes, B5 more Character Episodes). VOY, on the other hand... needs to step up its game period.

Overall, this has been a highly entertaining season, and if B5 and DS9 can carry their momentum into the next, it looks like we're going to be in for one hell of a ride. These two combatants are constantly finding ways to one-up the other, and rumor has it they've got plenty of new tricks in store for us. Even VOY, despite falling behind, seems able to occasionally keep the others on their toes.

B5 retains its title but just barely so.

Season Winner
B5

Next:
VOY - Basics, Part 2

 

[Harvey]

It's worth noting that Learning Curve wasn't filmed as the finale of Star Trek: Voyager's first season. That would be The 37s, which was held back until the second season along with several other episodes. Of course, that's hardly a groundbreaking finale either, but, meh.

 

[Seven of Five]

Thematically The 37s is a better season finale, but I agree in it being an average episode.

Nice recap anyway Sykonee! I know a lot of people really enjoy season 4 of DS9 but I found the Klingon arc to be treading water a lot of the time. The characters are where the show's heart is, and it's there where it trumps Babylon 5. B5 is ahead on the merits of its arcs exploding during season 3; easily my favourite season.

And poor VOY just lags behind, needing a good boost to get it anywhere near the other two. It's had some quality episodes in season 2, but these are usually inbetween the more average ones.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Season 4 has some great episodes, but it's not one of my favourite seasons of DS9 overall. The Klingon stuff dragged it down - the first and last episodes did good things with it, as did Return to Grace, but the other Klingon episodes were average or bad and the whole thing felt vague and sort of pointless. Also I thought that the middle of the season was a let-down. This tends to happen on DS9 to an extent, but other seasons kept the momentum at a good level by putting excellent two-parters there. Season 4 had Homefront/Paradise Lost, which was pretty good, but just didn't have the power of Past Tense or In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light. Also, while Worf did become a decent DS9 character in Season 5, he didn't really work for me in most of Season 4.

On the plus side, we got the beginning of the Eddington arc, Dukat becoming more interesting and the introduction of some excellent recurring characters.

Anyway, now we move on to DS9's greatest season!

 

[Sykonee]

For curiosity's sake, I decided to do a "Yay/Nay" tally for S2 as well. The results pretty much revealed what the head-to-heads revealed anyway, but it may be interesting for stat junkies.

TNG
10:15 = 0.67

DS9
18:8 = 2.25

B5
7:7 - 1.00

I should note the B5 tally only includes its first season up through TKO, ignoring the episodes that aired during the summer. Then again, as I recall, the quality of those episodes was split as well, so it probably wouldn't change the ratio much.

 

[Sykonee]

Finally got past a logarithm mid-term. Ugly stuff, finding derivatives of those buggers. Anyhow, let's commence with the new season!

SEASON 5

Week 1: (Ending 09.08.96)
VOY - Basics, Part 2

Looks like VOY's out of the gate early again. Guess the show wants to build up some momentum before the big boys come back from their summer layoffs, when it'll probably get trampled in the dirt again. Heh, well maybe not. We'll have to wait to find out.

In the meantime, here it be wrapping up its cliffhanger. The on-ship stuff was entertaining -hey, when you got Dourif as your hero, how can it not. The on-planet stuff? Eh, alright, though not exactly riveting. Seemed like a bunch of running around with an inevitable 'work-together' climax. I guess the episode does what it needs to do but it feels too easily wrapped up (that's it for Seska, wha'??). How many more weeks until DS9 or B5 returns? Four? *sigh*

Weekly Winner
VOY

Next:
VOY - Flashback

 

[Seven of Five]

Yeah, Basics was a pretty disappointing two-parter, but VOY definately has some better ones down the line. It was a bittersweet ending for Sudar, a duff ending for Seska, and a very bad ending for the baby storyline. No baby or Seska makes Chakotay far less interesting.

So it's the week ending September 8th? Was this date chosen so that Flashback would be as close to the 30th Anniversary celebrations as possible? I'm not sure of what day VOY aired on as I'm a UKer.

 

[Sykonee]

So it's the week ending September 8th? Was this date chosen so that Flashback would be as close to the 30th Anniversary celebrations as possible? I'm not sure of what day VOY aired on as I'm a UKer.

Apparently VOY began airing Wednesday this season. September 8, '96 was a Sunday (I've always had my TV weeks end Sunday, since that's usually when most folks regard the end of the TV week).

But yeah, it might have been in order to air as close to the 30th Anniversary. On the other hand, VOY jumped out of the gate early the year before as well.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Basics Part II is entertaining, but not really that satisfying. Let's face it, having Talaxians as the cavalry just doesn't work and it was a lousy end for Seska, who was a great character.

 

[DevilEyes]

The way the baby storyline turned out was one of the most unconvincing, lamest cop-outs ever, beating even the Littly Nicky retcon on BSG. Oh well, genetics is a tricky thing, so Cardassians and Kazon produce human-looking babies? Yeah, right. It had 'reset button' written all over it. Why did they ever start that storyline? And did they just change their minds between seasons and decided they had to let Chakotay off the hook? It would have been much better if he had to take care of the baby, it would have given him something to do for the rest of the series, beyond just being Janeway's yes-man.

 

[Kegg]

The thing about Basics Part II is... it's expected. And safe. The villains are disposed of, it's not really Seska's baby, it's all terribly abrupt whiplash faster than you can say 'reset button' at the top of your lungs.

And did they just change their minds between seasons and decided they had to let Chakotay off the hook? It would have been much better if he had to take care of the baby, it would have given him something to do for the rest of the series, beyond just being Janeway's yes-man.

Or let Seska keep Chakotay's baby. Is the specifics of the gene pool really such a big deal?

 

[Deranged Nasat]

And did they just change their minds between seasons and decided they had to let Chakotay off the hook? It would have been much better if he had to take care of the baby, it would have given him something to do for the rest of the series, beyond just being Janeway's yes-man.

Or let Seska keep Chakotay's baby. Is the specifics of the gene pool really such a big deal?

Would Chakotay want Seska raising the child? He'd likely insist Janeway help him take (as he'd likely phrase it "rescue") his baby back.

See, here's a great potential story arc with lots of complex dramatic ambiguities and conflict, and Voyager threw it away. I'm with Devil Eyes here.

 

[TheGodBen]

The way the baby storyline turned out was one of the most unconvincing, lamest cop-outs ever, beating even the Littly Nicky retcon on BSG. Oh well, genetics is a tricky thing, so Cardassians and Kazon produce human-looking babies? Yeah, right. It had 'reset button' written all over it. Why did they ever start that storyline? And did they just change their minds between seasons and decided they had to let Chakotay off the hook? It would have been much better if he had to take care of the baby, it would have given him something to do for the rest of the series, beyond just being Janeway's yes-man.

My understanding of the situation (and be aware that this is all based on internet hearsay) was that Michael Piller intended for the baby to be Chakotay's and that the episode originally ended with Seska surviving. But Jeri Taylor was taking over the show in season 3 and she wanted the Kazon stuff over with and she didn't want the consequences of Chakotay having a child, so she rewrote parts of Basics Part 2 to finish off that plotline once and for all. She felt that Star Trek should be safe and episodic, and that's the direction she took Voyager in season 3, and that's one of the many reasons why VOY season 3 was crap.

 

[Sykonee]

It'd have made an interesting contrast between two children growing up on the ship, Wildman and Seska's kid. On the other hand, the whole Chakotay's 'baby' arc felt irrelevant. They dropped that big bombshell way back in the first half of S2, then barely talked about it again until the season finale. It was a non-issue in the end. Tsk.

Week 2: (Ending 09.15.96)
VOY - Flashback (Airdate 09.11.96)

That was fun. The Excelsior stuff, at least. Why couldn't we have seen more of that? No... NO! Don't go back to the Voyager sickbay! I want to stay on the Excelsior. Wha' the.... A 'memory' virus?? Meh, okay, whatever it takes to get some good Tuvok backstory.

As a 30th Anniversary Tribute, Flashback was good. You can tell there was a lot of heartfelt nostalgia paid to the TOS movie era here. It's a shame we couldn't have gotten more of that in this episode but I s'pose if I really wanted to see more, I could just throw on STVI again. I mean, it's not like the whole crew of VOY can go back in time and tag along with Captain Sulu. That would just be silly, right?

Weekly Winner
VOY

Next:
VOY - The Chute

 

[Seven of Five]

Flashback was okay. I enjoyed the Excelsior stuff too but I wonder whether the writer had actually seen TUC. In the show, Tuvok only had two months of starship experience, whereas in TUC Excelsior had just returned from a three year mission to the Beta Quadrant. In the film, two months have passed between Praxis exploding and Gowron being murdered, compared to two days in Flashback. And of course, Valtane is still alive at the end of the film.

Aside from the most nitpicky of nitpicks, it was okay. I think they made the mistake of focussing on the plot a bit too much, as that was very thin. The nostalgia stuff was very good.

 

[hg99076]

apologies

 

[Fist McStrongpunch]

That'd be a great site if most of the links didn't lead to incorrect DS9 episodes or weren't broken entirely. Whatever, it'll prolly be shut down soon enough.

 

[Sykonee]

Week 3: (Ending 09.22.96)
VOY - The Chute (09.18.96)

Wouldn't a more appropriate title for this episode be The Clamp? Hm, on the other hand, that might end up being frequently mistaken for The Clap. Not the best thing, I wager.

Well, it looks like Kim can have a solid episode after all. I really like the character Zio though, sort of taking Kim on as a potential acolyte. Wish we could have had some sort of closure to his story, even just him handing off his papers to Kim before he leaves. Would have been better than the all-too easy escape scene.

Still, if VOY can get down in the dirt like it did this week more often, its S3 may actually have a chance at standing toe-to-toe with DS9 and B5 this year after all. Let's hope it can keep up this promising momentum.

Weekly Winner
VOY

Next:
VOY - The Swarm