DS9 Versus: A viewing experient

[Pemmer Harge]

Field of Fire: hmm, this is another of those Ezri episodes I can't really get on board with. I just didn't find it very interesting.

Bliss starts out really well, but squanders its potential and becomes far too generic in the second half - a condition I'm tempted to call Voyageritis. I still find it more entertaining than DS9 this week though. Also, I'd forgotten William Morgan Sheppard was in this - I guess he's the go to guy for crusty old bearded men. "Ask Commander Minbari friend" indeed.

Next week should be a good one.

 

[Sykonee]

Wow. 13 days now since last. Well, there is that whole holidays thing, which burned me out pretty good last week. Still, there's one other reason for this delay, of which I'll get to in a sec...

Week 19: (Ending 02.21.99)
DS9 - Chimera (Airdate 02.17.99)
VOY - Dark Frontier (Airdate 02.17.99)

I think Trek Fatigue has set in. No, not so much for this project, and not even in general - I mean what it must have been like to watch all these series when they first aired. 1997 feels like such a long time ago compared to 1999, where DS9 and B5 kept dropping all these amazing episodes in a (mostly) serialized fashion. Even VOY was starting to pull itself out of a rut. Now though, B5's pretty much gone, and with DS9 no longer constantly being compared to it, the show seems to have grown contently fat. Yes, there's been some solid individual episodes, but when was the last time anything significant happening in the DS9-verse? Early November, with Treachery.... Remember in '97 when you might have a Dominion Arc episode, or a Maquis Arc episode, or a Klingon Arc episode, or even a Character Backstory episode (because really, at this point, how much more backstory can we tell about these characters)? Man, such good times. Get back to this stuff! We don't need anymore Ezri episodes, dammit!

And VOY... well, it hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been great either. Hardly any episode has been 'must-see', as you'll be perfectly fine following the series if you miss one. Granted, there's been a few minor changes this season, but nothing that'll make you go, "Wait, what!? Oh man, I gotta start following this show now!" if you hadn't already.

Hold on though. What's this? Rumors abound of a Major Event 10-Episode Arc for DS9, and VOY is even giving us an Event Episode of their own this week! Hm, well, okay, I guess I can still tune in, see what's all this hubbub, bub.

DS9 gives us an Odo episode this week, written by Echevarria. Welp, you know that's going to be quality right out of the gate. It starts out rather typically for its premise, of Odo coming into contact with another Changeling that isn't a Founder, and having to make a Tough Decision whether to join Laas on a search for others or not. That in of itself provides a good deal of character study for Odo, but then the episode starts to study the nature of his relationship with Kira, and suddenly it takes on a whole new level of drama.

The trouble with the Odo/Kira 'ship to this point is it's been mostly one-sided: Odo giving, Kira receiving (yah, yah, make the obvious joke). This is the first time we see Kira sacrificing something for his sake, and it's possibly one of the biggest sacrifices one can make: letting someone you love go. Okay, now I'm sold on this relationship, and the Odo pixie-dust scene at the end was just the icing on the cake.

Lots of cool stuff happened on VOY too. Some high-stakes action, self-sacrifice on the part of Seven, spiffy SFX ...it's like a typical VOY episode on steroids! Still, I can't help but feel like I've seen Dark Frontier before...

Oh yeah, we've seen this from Odo, turning his back on his 'proper' family (if the Borg could even be considered Seven's proper family) for the sake of his new family. They even redid the "Welcome home." scene! Can't you be more creative? Or were you studying from this guy:

Lucas: It's like poetry, they rhyme.

VOY may have been more ambitious in scope, but DS9 brought something fresh to the table. Nod goes to Chimera.

Weekly Winner
DS9

Next:
DS9 - Badda Bing, Badda Bang
VOY - The Disease

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Chimera, for my money, is one of the best episodes of DS9. The character of Laas, played excellently by the always reliable J G Hertzler, gave us a fresh angle on the changelings - no mean feat considering how far we are into the show - and the the way his story combined with the Odo-Kira story was superb.

I also never really bought the Odo-Kira relationship before this point - in His Way it felt like Kira suddenly loved Odo mainly because the script wanted her to - but now I do buy it and the scene between them at the end was one of the most powerful moments in the entire series. I think that by exploring love between two completely different species, this is, in a way, one of the best pure science fiction episodes DS9 has done.

Hats off to René Echevarria - always one of Trek's best writers - I think he's written the best episode of Season 7 here.

Dark Frontier? Well, it's OK. Certainly a pretty big specatacle, but I didn't really find the story as compelling as I'd expect.

 

[TheGodBen]

Lucas: It's like poetry, they rhyme.

You've just made me glad that I watched the prequel trilogy's special features, and that's quite an accomplishment.

 

[Seven of Five]

I was beginning to pine for this thread. I hope people have had suitably festive fun!

I was really looking forward to Dark Frontier, hoping that more light would be shed on the Borg Queen. The action was pretty good, but the story was a bit dull. Why have the crew suddenly decided that actively looking to fight Borg ships is a good idea? Why was it so easy for the crew to actually defeat the Borg? Why did the Hansens know about the Borg even though nobody did until Q flung the Enterprise far off into Borg space?

Disdain for the way VOY used the Borg really set in with this episode, yet unfortunately they continued to use them.

DS9 wipes the floor easily. Chimera was a brilliantly written episode that sold us the Kira/Odo relationship properly (and thus means that the seperation of the two in WYLB is heartfelt.) Laas was an interesting character, invoking a crisis in poor Odo. Odo always seems at best when loyalties are being questioned, as opposed to being locked in a wardrobe and not talked about.

The ending is pretty much perfect.

 

[Sykonee]

Week 20: (Ending 02.29.99)
DS9 - Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang (Airdate 02.24.99)
VOY - The Disease (Airdate 02.24.99)

*sigh*

Back to the fluff, I see. Yeah, it's passable fluff, entertaining in that inconsequential way that a number of comedy Holodeck episodes go. Even Vejar's love of slow-mo was put to good use. This is the last one though, right? We've been hearing things are going to properly pick up now, right? Don't lose us, DS9, you're barely hangin' on by a hair at the moment in testing your audience's patience with these continuous one-offs. Even S3 didn't feel like such a drag between Arc Episodes as S7 has now.

But hey, here's the good news, boys. You were still more watchable than VOY this week, which presents us with a dilemma that totally flies in the face of nearly every single Romance-Of-The-Week Trek episode we've ever seen (yes, including YOUR'S, Kathryn, back in Counterpoint - why didn't you reprimand YOURSELF, huh!? *sigh*). Not to mention the brick-to-the-face allegory of "love being a disease" nonsense. I'll just right up and list the four things I liked about The Disease, and forget this episode ever aired (because, y'know, any episode that starts with Harry with a Love-Interest-Of-The-Week is doomed for failure - it's just one of those universal VOY laws):

1. The idea of the generation ship (including how it looked).
2. The bridge banter between Tuvok, Paris, and Chuckles.
3. That one-take tracking shot of Janeway and Kim's argument from the briefing room to her ready room (though not so much the out-of-character content of the argument itself)
4. Vander's ass. (and some of her character's wide-eyed enthusiasm over a Class Whatever nebula, if I'm to be honest)
Bonus Odd Observation: How did Tal get a Samsung LCD TV in her quarters?

Weekly Winner
DS9

Next:
DS9 - Inter Arma Enim Silent Legas
VOY - Course: Oblivion

 

[Pemmer Harge]

How did Tal get a Samsung LCD TV in her quarters?

Replicator?

Neither of these episodes is very good, but I'd give Voyager the win. DS9 feels kind of self-indulgent this week. I'm sure the writers and actors had a good time, but as an actual episode it feels very inessential.

 

[Bones2]

Two fantastic episodes of each next. Though I'd award DS9 the win.

 

[Kai Winn]

I was really looking forward to Dark Frontier, hoping that more light would be shed on the Borg Queen. The action was pretty good, but the story was a bit dull. Why have the crew suddenly decided that actively looking to fight Borg ships is a good idea? Why was it so easy for the crew to actually defeat the Borg? Why did the Hansens know about the Borg even though nobody did until Q flung the Enterprise far off into Borg space?

the hansens took residence on a cube, and failed to brief the federation on their findings, remember? i wonder how many more times this nonsense is going to come up? talking about crap, what exactly was chimera about? i stopped watching it when that space butterfly travelling ftl entered the shuttle, rumbling through its tubes. i recalled that odo couldn't leave the elevator of ds9 due to the force fields around it, and wondered what part of a vessel made for open space, and battle, and entering atmospheres, and furnished with structural integrity fields might be protected less than a lift? the exhaust pipe perhaps? bloody hot, and there's anti-matter along the way. zero points for sheer absurdity. it's not so that dark frontier was a revelation, but in any case better than this.

 

[TheGodBen]

talking about crap, what exactly was chimera about? i stopped watching it when that space butterfly travelling ftl entered the shuttle, rumbling through its tubes.

So you gave up after 2 minutes and 30 seconds then? Well, that makes you expertly qualified to critique the episode and label it as crap.

 

[Tosk]

what part of a vessel made for open space, and battle, and entering atmospheres, and furnished with structural integrity fields [...]

Why do you assume that there was an unbroken, unprotected path from the cabin all the way to space?

Laas is an accomplished shapeshifter, why wouldn't he be able to manipulate forcefield settings and/or hatches?

 

[Kai Winn]

yes, they can turn into any lifeform there is, and any physical and chemical phenomenon down to the quanta (maybe laas turned into photons?), but what they can't produce is proper faces, and an intestinal tract. how are those guys fueled, anyway? if something's alive, it needs some sort of energy.

 

[Sykonee]

yes, they can turn into any lifeform there is, and any physical and chemical phenomenon down to the quanta (maybe laas turned into photons?), but what they can't produce is proper faces, and an intestinal tract. how are those guys fueled, anyway? if something's alive, it needs some sort of energy.

They're fueled by fire, obviously. Or maybe it's fog.

(*gasp*, imagine if the Kai watched that far into Chimera!)

 

[Tulaberry whine]

I distinctly remember The Disease was the episode where I gave up on Voyager. Oh sure, I saw a few episodes here and there after this one (generally out of a sort of morbid curiosity), but The Disease is where I realised Voyager was never going to be the show I wanted it to be.

The Disease was an ill conceived, poorly executed and altogether toe curlingly stupid episode. For a group of adults, the entire situation and its handling was embarrassingly (although in hindsight, predictably) juvenile.

 

[Sykonee]

Y'know, I just realized I made last Week's End-Date February 29 ...in a non-Leap Year! Ah, heh, whoops! (actually, it was supposed to be 28 - just a typo.)

Week 21: (Ending 03.07.99)
DS9 - Inter Arma Enim Silent Legas (Airdate 03.03.99)
VOY - Course: Oblivion (Airdate 03.03.99)

So after bitching last week about the lack of Arc episodes lately, we get follow-up episodes from BOTH shows this week. Sweet!

Just when you'd probably almost forgotten about them (because they're just that good at what they do!), Sloan of Section 31 returns to recruit Bashir for a little espionage on Romulus. Hey, we're getting a Romulan episode too? Nice.

This is a really talky episode, but in keeping the plot threads twisting with nearly every scene, you can't help but remain fixated on what's going to happen next. Can Bashir stop Sloan? Who else can he trust? Wait, so that's not what's going on? Oh, wow, he was in on it all along?

Inter... may be a bit cynical in its outlook, but that's the point. Eternal optimism will only get you so far before someone with low ethics tries to takes advantage of it in their favor. How we deal with such opportunistic individuals is often dictated by how far our moral compass allows us to go - for some like Sloan, it's very far indeed.

Course: Oblivion was cynical too, but in about as dickish a way as I can think of. Seriously, the moment the alta-crew's time-capsule failed, I thought, "God, what a dick move by the writers."

Which tells me two things about this VOY episode. One, that I was actually invested in the fate of these poor duplicates, even if their existence was amongst the most ludicrous things the show has ever done. Two, that they were mostly victims of arbitrary plot mechanics, thus any resulting drama rings false.

Dupe-Janeway inexplicably continuing their journey to Earth when it's revealed that it isn't their home? Yeah, that's being kind of a dick to everyone else who doesn't want to go there anymore. Hard-Headed Dick Aliens preventing them from finding a nearby alternative? Man, what dicks. And finally, the whole ship disintegrates just as the real crew shows up, so their existence is never known of, and rendered meaningless. Yep, even fate is dickin' them around.

There's fatalist storytelling, and then there's dickish storytelling, and for this episode to reach its fatalist conclusion, the writers had to pull out nearly every dick plot-block to do so. DS9 takes this week, and VOY can go eat a ...turkey sandwich.

Weekly Winner
DS9

Next:
VOY - The Fight

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I quite liked Course: Oblivion actually. At least it was a bit different and I love that episode title.

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges is better though. Somehow, Inquisition left me a bit cold, but this one really works with its twists and turns and revealing the darker corners of the Federation (DS9 inheriting the legacy of The Undiscovered Country here). I appreciate the bold, large scale storytelling they decided to go for in this episode.

...

Hang on! If the head of Romulan intelligence was a Federation agent, why did Sisko have to go to such great lengths to get the Romulans into the war?!!

 

[Geck]

Course: Oblivion has always been polarizing. People love it or hate it. It pissed me off the first time I saw it though, and it pisses me off now, for the same reasons you went into. It's just cheap writing.

Inter Arma is generally really strong though. Great to have the follow-up with Sloan and some Romulan intrigue. Only downpoints for me are Adrienne Barbeau taking over as Cretak, and Adm Ross being (IMO) mischaracterized.

 

[Kai Winn]

One, that I was actually invested in the fate of these poor duplicates, even if their existence was amongst the most ludicrous things the show has ever done.

Weekly Winner
DS9

Next:
VOY - The Fight

i thought st finally got this shape-shifting business right, the matter becomes the person with the person's mind, memories etc. the two ships' meeting was unlikely, but not impossible, they headed the same way departing from the demon planet after all. certainly not more unlikely than sloan beaming away the millisecond before he's being vaporized, and nobody realising that's all staged. a fine coordination between the romulan hitting the trigger of his phaser, and somebody unseen pushing the transport button. no happy ends in either of them, that's what i like. anyway, inter... is a fine episode which deserves to win.

 

[Bones2]

The Fight next. Easily the most underrated episode of anything ever.

 

[Kai Winn]

oh my. that's the voyager episode i didn't have the patience to watch entirely, after some minutes of chakotay boxing clumsily i didn't care anymore. scores a win here. who would have tought?