I am watching DS9 for the first time (some observations)
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Yikes. Of all the stories to try out after a limited season one run and it's the horrid baseball apocryphally-misused Vulcan story!
Proving even a misfire with one spinoff can lead to finding another spinoff for a revisitation.
I too was hyped with DSC as it was going to be dark and compared to DS9... erm, they're light years apart, pardon the pun...That was my DSC impression as well. And fanservice, especially bringing in TOS characters and even re-introducing them into the canon as canon, and even worse the fanservice's fanservice of the mirror universe. It all felt hollow, at best.
DS9's first year does have ups and downs but not for the same reasons.
Sweet! Am looking forward to the updates!
I do agree, Q did not fit into DS9 and the format it embraced and ran with. But, IMHO, the biggest goal was to differentiate DS9 from its predecessors and on that level Q-Less is a masterpiece. They showed sides of Q that TNG could not begin to do. Like Q taking away the cure he gave Vash and she's limping in the Promenade and nobody gave a rat. If that's not an eye-opener about how this station isn't the galaxy's version of the Brady Bunch house or anywhere on the NCC-1701-D, then nothing will be.
I liked the story as a whole, even if the second half devolved into some faff about looooooooove by these Prophet shiny light things. I recall Picard could have been used a little more in the second half as well, but he's used wonderfully at the start. I also recall how Sisko did to Quark unlike what Picard did to Sisko, which made things even sweeter - about staying on station and help build. Picard... needed to stay on the "D" where he told the ideals instead of having to live them. But the premiere was meant to make Sisko be the better captain and who better than Picard to set the stage? That's the brilliance that made up for the exploration of luuuuuurve, which felt more like a throwback to TOS'67 mixed with any cheesy soap opera than DS9'93.
It's a common trope in sci-fi, for actors to play aliens as stereotype gays (e.g. AlphaCentauri from Doctor Who's "The Curse of Peladon".) But until earlier today I had no idea Andrew Robinson was trying to make the character actually gay. For audiences that want the shipping, some of them would be happy just for that shallow amount of fluff to be shown. For me, Garak's depth of personality, complexity and intrigue as shown throughout the 7 seasons (as with most characters on DS9 because it's panache is with complex characters of some depth) is far more interesting and engaging than who he hops into bed with and there's no problem with Garak and Bashir being best friends or married or anything else either. Because nobody really cares who I hop into bed with unless it's with them and as such I don't care why anyone else hops into bed with unless it's with me. And if they do care, that's even better. Just not for the same reasons but this is getting past a certain point and leading too much into tangent territory. Incidentally, I'm Kinsey 4 and am simply a lot more complex than that but before we get even more into tangent territory I'll course correct:
I also found the Bashir/Kira introduction to be astoundingly good. He's all shiny happy for new experience in the frontier and meets someone who'd lived through hell and is understandably very bitter. It's another gem that TNG couldn't even begin to do yet DS9 nails it off the bat, so even while finding their ground in that first season they had a lot that already worked or was already deeply thought out.
"Move Along Home" is an oddball, designed to (IMHO and I'm probably wrong
) make the viewer feel awkward, especially with the Wadi game with song everyone bloody hated but was supposed to be awkward so the audience gets that alien situation feel, as well as really establishing Quark/Odo and letting Quark be a three-dimensional character, breaking the comedy routine mold TNG set Ferengi up as being. "Profit and Lace" was so awful that they brought in some of the cast of 1968's "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" to try to hype up the comedy aspect. P&L is indeed a singular level of "bad" that stands alone and with no other episode coming even remotely close.
It's funny. To this day, readers sometimes complain that Kira is too mean to Bashir in the opening of my DS9 novel, but at that time I wrote that chapter, the show hadn't aired yet and all I had to go on was an advance copy of the script for "Emissary," in which she rips him a new one, so I picked up on that and ran with it.
Years later, of course, readers expect them to be on friendlier terms.
Just a quick update:
Sorry, I've been busy the past couple of weeks but my schedule is slowing down for the next few days. I intend to get back to watching Season 2 in the next day or so.
I have left off partway into "Cardassians", in the scene where Rugal first reunites with his Cardassian father, Kotan Pa'Dar.
Sorry, I've been busy the past couple of weeks but my schedule is slowing down for the next few days. I intend to get back to watching Season 2 in the next day or so.
I have left off partway into "Cardassians", in the scene where Rugal first reunites with his Cardassian father, Kotan Pa'Dar.
I was born in 82 and somewhat grew up with TNG, thus, it was my favorite. In fact, although I watched DS9 I really did not care much for the series. However, I came back to it as an adult as I decided I needed to give it another chance. Being a Trekker, I felt one chance hadn't been fair; I had to be fair to my Trekker heart. haha. Although TNG is still my favorite series, DS9 comes SOOOOOO close to tying them for that title. I've watched the entire series, probably... 2 or 3 DOZEN times in the last 5-years and I still love every single episode with just as much excitement as the last time. As for STSC... I tried. I really did, but I just can't. To me, it's too generic and hasn't claimed a right, or rather, a place, in the Trek family. My goodness, even the Orville has inadvertently accomplished that task. 
SC... I tried. I really did, but I just can't. To me, it's too generic and hasn't claimed a right, or rather, a place, in the Trek family. My goodness, even the Orville has inadvertently accomplished that task. 
TNG or DS9 at least the women aren't dressed like sex toys.
I tried to watch a TOS episode Last night, the one with KHAN!
I just couldn't keep watching it. I just can't ignore/ get past/ forgive the asinine women's uniforms.
And although I love Picard
Sisko sure ain't bad either!
But DS9 to me is so much more how I would expect living in space to be. I wish they had done more background aliens and more of ones that aren't human looking. (Saw a few minutes of Sector 9 the other night, cool aliens)
As we see with Quark, Julian's dad and Jake not everyone is the premier expert perfectly all knowing, Shakespeare quoting
Expert musician, top notch foil fencer like everyone seems to be on The Enterprise.
And because you're not all of the above they don't drop you off on a class H planet alone.
I tried to watch a TOS episode Last night, the one with KHAN!
I just couldn't keep watching it. I just can't ignore/ get past/ forgive the asinine women's uniforms.
And although I love Picard
Sisko sure ain't bad either!
But DS9 to me is so much more how I would expect living in space to be. I wish they had done more background aliens and more of ones that aren't human looking. (Saw a few minutes of Sector 9 the other night, cool aliens)
As we see with Quark, Julian's dad and Jake not everyone is the premier expert perfectly all knowing, Shakespeare quoting
Expert musician, top notch foil fencer like everyone seems to be on The Enterprise.
And because you're not all of the above they don't drop you off on a class H planet alone.
He may have had great hope for the future, with regards to what humanity will accomplish, but he was still a man of his time, which would've coloured how he approached making the actual show.
Miniskirts were a sign of women's liberation in the 60s, which for a show made in the time was a statement, though in universe makes little sense. It's a shame Uhura, Rand or Chapel never had trousers on at least once during the show, just as Picard, Riker, Data, La Forge or Worf never rocked the skant in TNG.
Yea,
but not for 40 year olds.
Many old Men on TOS, not so many old women on TOS.
McCoy and maybe Scotty could be counted as old. I'm not sure two is many.
No reason the fashion cycle couldn't be on miniskirts in Kirk's time, or that they might be on burqas for that matter.
I still remember from Bob Justman and Herb Solow’s book “Inside Star Trek” how in the episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” Justman and Solow had to step in and overrule Roddenberry when he was trying to make Sherry Jackson’s costume tooo revealing, since he wanted even more material removed from the upper part of her costume. According to Solow and Justman, Jackson couldn’t even wear a bra under her costume on screen because there wasn’t enough material to cover the bra.
Really? Seems about the same to me. Girdles stopped being worn at the beginning of the 60s and skirts raised high above the knee. Maybe it depends which women and under what circumstances - middle class 22 year olds at a dance club vs upper class women in their 50s at the opera?
In the end, the so-called Sexual Revolution benefited business far more than women. TOS' mini-skirts are more or less an artifact.
I am not sure you realize how restrictive the world was for women before the sexual revolution. It wasn't just that women ought to be virgins on their wedding night. Women working outside a handful of traditional fields were seen as stealing a job that should be going to a man, and a poor investment in college or on-the-job training because they would probably quit as soon as they got married. In some small ways businesses figured out how to make money on it, but the beneficiaries were women and to a smaller extent the whole society.
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