First time watching DS9

[Rahul]

Hello guys!

Long time lurker here, this is my first post, so forgive and correct mistakes!

I consider myself a long-time trekkie and have seen all series. Except DS9 and TAS. That is about to change! I grew up on re-runs of TOS and watched Voyager when it was the "new" series. Later I catched almost all of TNG in re-runs and followed ENT. But I never got into DS9. I´m not a complete stranger to it, I have seen a lot of Episodes in re-runs (and thereby already know a lot of plot-twists. Sorry!), but out of order, which wasn't a problem with TNG or TOS, but I found it impossible to get in the middle of the Bajoran conflict/Dominion war or the character stuff, and I really disliked all the religious stuff. This is maybe the reason why a lot of people didn´t get into DS9, even though it´s a great series, it´s incredible hard to access once the plot has already advanced a little bit.

But now a friend of mine has talked me into watching the whole series (she has all the DVDs). And since I always like to see other people experiencing and commenting stuff I like for the first time, I will do the same and post my thoughts on each episode and hope someone is interested enough to read it

(One last note: I have already seen all first 15 Episodes up to "If whiches were horses", so the reviews of those episodes will be relatively short and maybe I will mix up some things)

 

[MacLeod]

The first couple of seasons of DSN are a bit of a mixed bag, with a lot of fairly average episodes. However that being said S1 does have some highlights esp. towards the end i.e. "Duet" which is not only a great DSN but a great ST episode. Anyway I'll comment more later.

 

[Rahul]

So let the reviews begin:

Emissary

Synopsis
I will not post a synopsis. I am not good at this

General thougts
First of all, this is an episode I have never seen before, so it was all new to me. And holy cow! I felt completely transformed back to the 90s! There was an aura of naivete and excitement around me like watching TNG for the first time!
I like the setting so far. This place really feels like a "last outpost" and the strange aliens (incredibly good makeup for the background characters!) are really setting the mood. This feels like a place the Enterprise would visit one week and then leave for good. Now we (the watchers) have the chance to really see the casual live out there!

Characters

Sisko
Okay, this is weird. I really disliked Sisko in the pilot. That has changed a lot in the last 15 episodes, but in this first episode, he came across very unprofessional. He was overly aggressive to Picard (with his wife being killed it´s understandable, but he should blame the Borg, not Picard. And an officer has to be more professional!!) and he was a real creep in the flashbacks when he met is wife the first time. Respect for letting your leading man cry the all the time the latter half of the episode (with the wormhole aliens). Again, really weird, I think Sisko since the second episode is the most professional Captain (well, Commander) and embodies good authority as a Captain and a father. But this first Episode was all wrong...

Jake
I really like Jake. There´s not a lot that stands out about him, but his relationship to his father (and later to Nog) really are one of the high-marks of the series and unique in all of Star Trek! (Especially compared to ...shudder... Wesley)

Kira/Quark/Odo
Funny thing: Awesome characters that define the show (nothing more needs to be said), but with horrible makeup in the pilot. Good thing that already improved in the second episode!

Jadzia Doesn't stand out to me, but I don#t mind her.
O'Brien I alredy liked him in TNG, it#s good to have a familiar face here to ease the transition to the new series.

Julian Bashir
My favourite character in the pilot. He's dorky, arrogant, but also good-hearted, naive and has a sense of excitement and wonder to him. He really IS out there exploring the Galaxy!

Back to the Review of the Episode:

Pros:
-All the characters are introduced. They are a great combination of types
-The setting and VFX were (for the time) outstanding
- I really love the Cardassians! I thought they were the stand-out villains of TNG (together with the Borg) and love to see more of them!

Cons
-The plot of the Episode wasn´t that exciting
-The politic situation around the station (Cardassian station, Bajoran territory, Federation personal, Terrorists, former Borg-assimilated Captains) is really hard to get into.

Final musings
This is definitely a character-driven episode, not a plot-driven one. It introduces us to all major players and it succeeds at it. A lot of the characters aren't fleshed out yet, but their potential is hinted at big time! I'm excited to watch the next episodes. But the following episodes really need a bit more plot.

Final Grade
8/10
Good writing and coulorfull characters in an average plot

 

[Rahul]

Okay, the next revies will be a lot shorter, I have already seen the first 15 episodes and will try to catch up fast, so that I can review the episodes I am currently watching:


Past Prologue

Synopsis
A former Bajoran terrorists comes to DS9 to destroy the wormhole.

Pros
-Lursa and B'Etor!!!
-Garak!
-There is a little twist (the Bajoran freedom fighter is almost as evil as the Cardassians).
-The make-up (Kira and Quark, sadly not Odo) has greatly improved
-Sisko is badass for the first time! Yay!
-This episode really introduces Kira. And I love her! Star Trek has not the best record regarding female characters (Troi, Crusher, T'Pol,...), but Kira is awesome!

Cons
-Again: The plot. It was very thin. This was an Episode that made an awful lot of fun to watch (Klingons! Cardiassians! Terrorists! Bombs!), but once it finished you realised it could have been a lot more.

General
A good first Episode. It reintroduces us too all important characters and the situation. This was -again- more a character driven episode. I would have liked to see more of the Cardassians. The motivation for the bajoran terrorist was not that good.

Grade
7/10
(About my grading system: 5 will be "average", and 2 or 3 a bad episode, so there will be a lot Episodes with lower grades coming. Just FYI, because a lot of other reviews on the Internet average at 7or8/10 or with three or four out of five stars. For me, 5 will be the middle and this Episode was better than average)



A man alone

Synopsis
An evil guy tries to frame Odo for his own murder which he faked with a clone. Everyone suddenly mistrusts Odo. Bashir has seen Frankenstein and creates his own clone of the killer in a jar.

Review
The first Episode I didn't like that much. The citizens of DS9 turning against Odo for racist reasons came out of the blue and didn't make a lot of sense: It would be much more logical for them to hate him because he worked as a collaboratuer for the Cardis, not because he´s a shape shifter!
This also highlights a problem: Odos former relationship is not fleshed out yet. Why does Kira trust him? For all she knows he worked as a security chief on a slave/mining station. Why does she trust him even though she didn't know him before? (Or did I missed something?)

Pros
- I liked the scifi-twist (killing a clone)
- Kira

Cons
-What happened to the clone after the Episode? It should come as a real shock for any sentient being to learn that he was born, simply to convict someone as a murderer! The DS9-crew acted higly unethical. The story of the newborn clone (with Bashir as his Frankenstein) would have made for a lot more interesting Episode!

Grade
4/10
Good ideas, bad realisation. The Episode is written and entertaining like a 5/10, but the main characters and DS9s citizens are unethical monsters! Would normally be a 3/10, but the character introduction and good writing saves it a bit.



About the reviews:
I will try to get up to the Episode "If whishes were horses" till the end of the week, after that it will be a bit slower but more detailed. I currently have a lot of work to do, so I will use watching and writing about DS9 as my entertainment for my rare spare time. I hope you enjoy!



EDIT:
I have edited a short synopsis to each episode to tell them better apart. Also, in the future I will be handing out awards (like best moment, character etc.) for remarkable moments. Also, I will be handing out the Dr. Evil-Award for moments when the good guys act highly unethical. I give this one retroactively to Dr. Bashir in "A man alone" for creating his own clone of a killer, only to convict said killer of murdering his own clone, then sending his own clone away without psychological support.

 

[Rahul]

The first couple of seasons of DSN are a bit of a mixed bag, with a lot of fairly average episodes. However that being said S1 does have some highlights esp. towards the end i.e. "Duet" which is not only a great DSN but a great ST episode. Anyway I'll comment more later.

Hi MacLeod!
Yeah, this is what i have heard before. I have already seen "Duet" a long time ago on tv and was completely blown away by it! One of my all-time favourites of all of Star Trek, so I'm looking forward to see it again on DVD. I was actually a lot of surprised to learn that a lot of Episodes I identified with DS9 (and were likely the reason I didn't really get into it back then, like most of the Bajoran stuff with Kai Winn and the Prophets) were in the first seasons. But now, with a serious lack of new Trek/Stargate/BSG/Firefly (seriously? Why is there no new Scifi?) I will see it and enjoy all the parts aorund it that I have missed for so long

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the series as you watch it, as a whole, for the first time. Indeed, I would like to read your thoughts again of the pilot after you have watched the entire series.

I'm not sure why Sisko's demeanor would be problematic. He is a man trying to put together his life after tragedy, something which I, as a husband and father, would understand. All the other lead characters of Star Trek series are unrealistic in their ability to free themselves of attachments.

In the bigger perspective, I think Emissary is one of the better Trek pilots. Like TMP, Farpoint, Caretaker, Broken Bow, and even ST09, it shows the crew coming together and joining, in some manner, in the leads' decisions. That aspect is not remarkable--only Kira makes an impression beyond Sisko in this one episode--and can vary in importance and execution from series to series. It also follows the line of TMP and Farpoint as an attempt to establish something about the way that humans can, or will, see the universe and the values they will take with them. On this point, I think it does much better by making the quest for understanding so personal. In Emissary, Sisko does something that Kirk and Picard only claim: that the discovery of the unknown is also the discovery of oneself.

 

[Rahul]

Emmisary is definetly one of the best Star Trek pilots. It's main focus is the story of Sisko, a broken man and father. And as I said, I actually liked the part where he was crying the whole last half. The part where the wormhole-aliens asked him "why do you live here?" was most effective.
I just couldn't stand the writing for his character or his acting in most of the other parts of the episode (save his moments with Jake). I would have totally believed him as a crew member, but he didn't carry the authority as THE commanding officer of the station. And his acting in the scene where he met his wife the first time was downright creepy.

That being said, the writers probably noticed this too. Because already in the second episode, Sisko has seriously leveled up and become a serious leading figure, and as an actor he has grown into the role really fast (remember how long Worf took to become the badass in TNG? Sisko pulled a fast one).

 

[MacLeod]

Well it's not uncommon for actors to be more comfortable in a roll after a couple of episodes.

 

[dub]

Fun reading your comments! Look forward to the rest of your reviews as you continue!

 

[Dobian]

I'm on my first viewing of Deep Space Nine as well, halfway into season 3. Wait until you watch "Duet", that's a great one. Just watched "Life Support" last night. First episode I've seen where I went, "Come on, really?!" Plus I find all episodes that feature Nurse Ratched...uh, Kai Winn...exasperating. I want to punch her face through my tv screen, lol. I won't spoil it by saying more.

 

[Rahul]

Thank you dub!

Babel

Synopsis
A strange disease causes aphasia on the station. Screenwriters happy not having to write coherent dialogue.

Review
The prospect to not being able to talk to others is a true nightmare. In such, the idea of an airborne virus that causes aphasia and infected people being perfectly conscious but not able to express themselfes, babbeling incoherent words before they die, is horrific! Sadly, the surrounding episode isn't equally inventive. But it ends on a big bang, when Kira tracks down one of the creators of the virus and Odo saves the station from an exploding ship of an alien that wants to break quarantine.

Pros
-This virus is truly horrific!
-The atmosphere is claustrophobic and nightmarish. A moody piece
-I love the docking clamps on the airlock! Tractor beams are fine, but nothing beats a good piece of realistic hardware
-Odo got a fine moment by saving the ill-advised alien

Cons
-It doesn't seem that realistic for an opressed scientist during an occupation to invent such a masterpiece of a virus. And not having it already used somewhere else
-The solution to the crises is a big letdown: Find the person who created it by looking on a screen and forcing him to create an antidote. gnah!

Dr. Evil-Award
Goes to Kira Nerys for attempted murder by abducting and infecting a suspect with a deadly virus, even though she didn't knew if he had an antidote or even knew anything specific about said virus. If someone had sent a Bajoran police officer to his house, the man probably would have complied as easily.

Grade
5/10
An average episode

 

[Rahul]

Captive Pursuit

Synopsis
The Predators have had enough of the Xenomorphes and genetically engineered their own prey, Tosk, a reptillian that is the perfect fugitive, born to never get captured. Who visits DS9. And gets immediately captured.

Review
A really great premise, and a great story! Tosk looks great, and his relationship with O'Brien is totally believable. The biggest complain is, that it is an action-oriented episode. With lousy action. Somehow every battle and the big escape seemed very slow. A hunt should be a thrilling experience, especially a manhunt. The episode is certainly good, but there never was any suspense.


Pros
-Tosk is a great character
-the idea of aliens creating a being that is a willingly prey is great and has a lot of potential
-The first visitors from the Gamma-Quadrant. And they are truly alien!


Cons
-lame action, no suspense. IN. A. MANHUNT.
-Tosk doesn't seem very cunning. If he would really have been such a great prey, he would have outwsmarted the DS9-crew and been a lot harder to capture. Indeed, he seemed very gullible.
-Sadly, the hunters with their red uniforms and big metal helmet looked really stupid.

Other musings
-Why does it have to be O'Brien that befriends Tosk? Kira, as an underdog and warrior would have made much more sense. Or Bashir as the good-hearted doctor who wants to help any being
-This is truly an episode of missed opportunities. The concept itself is grandiose. Is it morally justifiable to hunt a being that likes to be hunted and lives to be the perfect prey? There could have been so much follow-up episodes! How does a society like that of the hunters work, that hunts sentient beings, but definetly has some kind of ethics (they don't hunt other people. Just tosks). What if the good guys have to hunt a tosk to get the respect of the hunters? What is a Tosk worth? What if a Tosk decides he doesn't want to be prey?
The bad thing is, the aliens look so incredibly stupid that there is absolutely zero chance to see them ever again. Compare that to Voyagers Hirogen, who are just the Preadors from the Schwarzenegger-flick, but much better realised and fleshed out than here. The hunters of this episode really could have been a recurring threat with an interesting twist on ethics. Instead they became a one-off for a good, but unexciting episode. Simply because they looked stupid.

Grade
6/10
Above average

Edited: spelling

 

[Rahul]

Q-Less

Synpsis
Q and Vash visit DS9. One thing leads to another, and soon an alien energy-being, trapped in a crystal and threatening the station is auctioned at Quarks. Sisko honours Captain Kirk by punching a supernatural being in the face.

Pros
-John de Lancie! They could literally make a whole episode where Q is waiting for an appointment and I would enjoy it. There were a few later Voyager-storys where I got tired of him. But here he is at his best!
-I think Q has an even better dynamic with Sisko than with Picard. Picard was clearly morally superior. Sisko is easlily provoked, which made a lot more fun too watch
-Sisko has balls of steel
-The DS9-crew is barely in this episode. It's Vash' and Q's story, which is not a problem for me. I think the station is a perfect place to tell storys about different people that came to this wretched hive for whatever reasons. I like to see more storys about valiant explorers and devious aliens meeting here, on the last outpost before the unknown!
-The different aliens coming for the auction had awesome make-up

Cons
-remember when I said during the pilot that Julian Bashir is my favourite character? Yeah. His obnoxious hitting on Jadzia gets really annoying...
-I don't mind Wash, but I'm not exactly excited about her.
-The plot is -once again- stupid. What was up with the strange lifeform in the chrystal? Nobody knows...
-Quark seems awfully at handling an auction. He barely gives any information about these strange artifacts. This scene would have needed a serious rewrite
-the dynamic between Q and Vash - the centerpiece of the episode - was very interesting at first, but got repetitive really fast


Best moment
The most powerful being in the universe arranges a boxing match with Sisko. Quark makes a bet. On Sisko. Damn.

Grade
5/10
An average episode surrounding a great guest star. Sisko got one of the most badass-moments of all Star Trek-captains. While still being only a Commander. That guy has mojo.


Edited: Corrected spelling form "Wash" to "Vash". Thanks to Bad Thought for pointing this out!

 

[Rahul]

By the way, I like to hear your comments on the reviews! Even when, or especially when you disagree with me, if I have forgotten something important or if you want to tell me your own opinion on an episode.
Just please don't get ahead, I try not to read any spoilers. Even though I am already a little spoiled by re-runs on tv, I don't know a lot about the later seasons or character development yet.
BTW I'm sitting here in Germany, so I will post at strange times, and my English may not be the best all the time.

 

[Dobian]

I liked Captive Pursuit and I really liked Tosk. I thought O'Brien was a good fit because O'Brien is a man's man and I think he and Tosk bonded on that level.

 

[MacLeod]

You've got to remember this is early S1, so they are basically giving each character a story i.e :-

"Emissary" - Sisko
"Past Prologue" - Kira
"A Man Alone" - Odo
"Captive Pursuit" - O'Brien

It's a sort of get to know your characters, even though O'Brein is a carry over from TNG, he might be new to some who never watched TNG.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Q and Wash visit DS9.

Not to be picky, but the English speakers here are probably expecting it to be spelled Vash (Englee Vee, not the German Weh).

ETA: Are you watching the episodes in German? If so, I would like to learn more about the characterizations and the phrasing of key dialogue.

 

[Rahul]

Q and Wash visit DS9.

Not to be picky, but the English speakers here are probably expecting it to be spelled Vash (Englee Vee, not the German Weh).

ETA: Are you watching the episodes in German? If so, I would like to learn more about the characterizations and the phrasing of key dialogue.

Thank you for pointing that out, I have edited the spelling! Please correct me again if I make other mistakes. One of the problems if the accompanying texts to the DVDs are in German.



All episodes of DS9 that I have previously seen on television were dubbed German, but for this DVD-run I choose to watch them in English. The dub of DS9 is incredibly well made. If someone speaks, the wording carries the exact same meaning as in the original. Important plot information is delivered at the same time (so that the actors reaction are genuine), the voice actors are professional and experienced and "acting" and emoting so their voice contains the same feel and emotions. And professional translators make sure the wording matches the movement of the actors lips. Voice effects (like coumputer/alien voices or echoes in caves) are recreated and sometimes even better than in the original (the world's biggest voice and dubbing industry is behind it after all). There are professionals at work with decades of experience, voice actors are chosen to match the sound of the original. A great effort is made to make the dub consistent. For example Robert Downey Junior is always dubbed by the same voice actor, whether he plays Iron Man or Charlie Chaplin. The voices of the characters in DS9 (and really, all of Star Trek) are a bit different than in the original, but they have the same characteristics (excited, sad, naive, professional etc.). The only noticable difference being Benjamin Sisko. In the original he has a very distinct speaking style (a little bit like Shatner), while in German he sounds a little bit like a generic leading man (Imagine all leading man being dubbed by people with voices like Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeremy Irons, Morgan Freeman or Alan Rickman). Jadzia Dax is a special case, because I think her voice is a bit bland and unexciting in the original, she actually sounds better dubbed. One other thing where the dub is superior: Fictional language. Professional voice actors talking klingon usually sound a lot better than regular actors trying it for the first time.

That being said, the original language is of course the best choice. You cannot dub special accents (like Irish, or Quarks "hew-mohn"), sometimes actors have so much fun with their acting (like John de Lancie with Q) that it can not easily be recreated, and sometimes (but rarely) little mistakes happen (I remember an Episode where the Tal'Shiar is refered to as another species, not as the Romulan intelligence agency. The translator probably didn't knew this detail and it was just unimportant background chatter in this Episode, so he didn't do the full research). Fun fact: German Star Trek fans have organised and now assist in translating all Star Trek related material, so mistakes like that don't happen any more and all technical jargon and alien words are consistent.

To be honest, you stop noticing the dub after a while, especially since all of the media imported from English, French or else is dubbed. The only difference is that it is, well, different. You only notice it when you compare the two, and usually you like the version you have seen first better. I watch a lot of movies in english (there are special cinemas who only screen movies in the original language). If I have seen a movie in English first and then watch the German dub, the dub may not be bad, but all the subtle differences are quite irritating. If I have seen the dub first and then watch the original, it can happen that I actually like the voice work in the dub better (especially if someone is a bad actor in the original, he will sound normal in the dub). It's really not a case of what is better or worse, but what you prefer. I usually prefer the English version (since it is the original version), but for languages I don't speak fluid (like French or Italian) I prefer the dub over subtitles, because subtitles distract your visual attention from the cinematography and the actors performance.

The only movie I have ever seen where the German dub really failed was the recent "The King's speech", because it depended completely on Colin Firth's voice acting. And even though the German voice actor did a fine job, it didn' quite work. If you want to know how watching a (well) dubbed movie generally feels: remember when you watched The Dark Knight rises? All of Bane's dialogue was dubbed in post-production, because American audiences couldn't unterstand Tom Hardy's original voice under his mask. Did you notice it? Probably. Did it bother you? Whether it did or not, this is probably the closest feel to watching a dubbed movie.

I will continue to watch DS9 in English, because of the little details that can't be translated and because I want to hear the original actors. But be assured, the overall experience of German Star Trek fans is actually quite similar to the original.

With the exception of William Shatner. He sounds awesome in German. Nobody would ever make jokes about his speaking patterns here. If that's a win or a loss, you decide.

 

[Rahul]

You've got to remember this is early S1, so they are basically giving each character a story i.e :-

"Emissary" - Sisko
"Past Prologue" - Kira
"A Man Alone" - Odo
"Captive Pursuit" - O'Brien

It's a sort of get to know your characters, even though O'Brein is a carry over from TNG, he might be new to some who never watched TNG.

The relationship between Tosk and O'Brien still worked great, I just didn't saw the point why Tosk bonded specially with O'Brien, except that O'Brien didn't had an episode yet. (At this point I totally forgot that O'Brien once was a soldier too, who fought the Cardassians. The episode should have reminded us of that by them bonding over shared battle experience).

I still really liked that episode and it was certainly a good one. My one and only complain is, that if it would have come at a later point when the make-up department and the director have gotten more comfortable and better in their roles, this could have been a really remarkable one.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Thanks, Rahul, for the complete answer. I've watched TNG on both French and German television. Having nearly memorized those episodes, I was able to concentrate on how the language was used in each case. In terms of French, it was amazing how non-Gallic Picard comes across (even calling himself Picar-D, with a hard D, is just wrong). In terms of German, word choices made an impression, for instance Worf arguing that test-tube Kahless should be Imperator, not Kaiser.

Regardless of the strength of the translation, I would still like to know if there are changes. Arguably, Zimmerman, Grodenchick, and Eisenberg played with ethnic stereotypes, especially Jewish, in creating their characters. The point wasn't to make them Jewish (which the actors are), but to create more of a multi-cultural environment for the show. I'd like to know how that comes across. I would also like to know if there are interesting word choices in key dialogue, like in Homecoming (which you will watch soon,I believe): Sisko and Li talking about the role of heroes in political culture.

Anyway, keep up the good work.