Re-Watching DS9

It's not DS9, but it's a '90s show: they have Roc on in the break room at work. I haven't seen that in a LONG time! It was pretty good show, it was socially relevant, Charles S. Dutton was great... and I'm showing my age!

Charles S. Dutton would've been good to have on DS9.
I remember ROC. Haven't seen it since it first aired. Good show, Charles S. Dutton is always a win in casting decisions.
 
"Necessary Evil"

Super neo-noir. If they made this black-and-white, it could be like a movie from the 1940s. Quark and a sexily dressed Bajoran woman, Mrs. Vaatrik Pallra, are in a darkened room. Rain, thunder, and lightening outside. Quark is sitting down while Mrs. Vaatrik is standing, offering to pay Quark to do a job for her. Then enticing him with something extra without saying it explicitly, much like was done during the Hays Code. Quark agrees to do it. Then out comes a Bajoran man who, if this were a '40s movie, would be a gangster. I loved the way all the shots were blocked. When Quark sits, you can tell he's listening. When Mrs. Vaatrik is standing and walking, the camera follows as if asking, "Where are you going with this?" She wants Quark to steal something without getting caught.

Back on the station, Quark brings Rom with him, and at first I'm asking, "Why the Hell is Quark bringing Rom with him?!" Then Rom reveals he knows ways of breaking in that Quark didn't know about. The very FIRST sign in the series of Rom being underestimated and turning out to be smarter than everyone thought.

Turns out that Quark and Rom stole a lockbox that had in it a list with eight Bajoran names. I completely forgot about this. And they take a picture of the list before putting it back into the box. If this were 2024, he'd take a cellphone picture of it. But anyway...

I love when the Bajoran Gangster (that's what I'm calling him) shows up, behind Quark and Rom, cloaked in shadows. Really keeping up with the neo-noir. Jaro never scared me, even with his Cardassian tactics. But this guy partially hidden shadows? That scares me. Makes me think he's capable of anything... and it turns out he is. The gangster shoots Quark and takes the list! BAM! I love not remembering everything! It's like watching for the first time.

Quark is hauled off to the infirmary. Meanwhile Sisko and Odo play Good Gop and Bad Cop respectively, trying to find out from Rom what happened. Odo makes for a great Bad Cop, accusing Rom of killing Quark, telling Rom he has his eye on him and that he's not as stupid as he pretends. Then Sisko asks Rom what happened. Rom explains that a Bajoran stole a list of names they found. When Rom shows Odo where they found the list. It was hidden in an old establishment on the Promenade that's no longer there. A chemical shop...

... then Odo thinks back to when he first came onboard Terok Nor. The lighting is dark, except for some neon lights overhead, it looks gray, black, gray-ish blue, and now it even really does feel like an old black-and-white movie.

When Dukat meets Odo for the first time he says that he thinks Odo would make a good investigator since he can shapeshift his way into places other people can't. That's Dukat for you. It's not that he's looking at what Odo can do, he's looking at what Odo can do for him. Actually, it's the same with any employer, but it has added meaning when it comes to Dukat, given how one-track-minded he is.

Dukat has a great line when he asks Odo if he's seen death before, distinguishing between different types of death, "Those were casualties [of war]. This is murder."

I was interested to see how they'd square the circle of Odo working for the Cardassians. Dukat says Odo has handled disputes before. Odo says it's because he's seen as a neutral party. Dukat wants Odo to help him as someone neutral as well. He wants him as an investigator and wants him to investigate this murder.

I'm going to break this review up into two posts. The second part will come later.

I'll finish off by saying Odo's log at the beginning of the episode feels less like a log and more like a Private Eye Detective giving his own inner-monologue. All that was missing was the accompanying jazz music.

And I'll leave you with some of this music right here. ;)

 
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"Necessary Evil" (Continued)

When there's an overhead view of Terok Nor's Promenade, it looks so different compared to DS9's Promenade. Fences dividing everything. Harsh neon lights that illuminate themselves but leave everything else dark. Everyone dressed in black. An announcement from a Cardassian over a speaker. You know... this is what people who hate DS9 like to pretend is how the series is every week!

Dukat takes Odo to the Chemical Shop. After Dukat leaves, Odo asks the Bajoran woman, Mrs. Vaatrick, who runs it about the murder. Her husband was killed shortly after he had an affair with another Bajoran woman. Mrs. Vaatrik thinks this Bajoran woman killed him in a fit of rage. Odo wants to know if she can point out who this woman was... and it turns out to be Kira! Okay. I remembered that Kira was in the flashbacks (and that she had long hair) but it didn't remember the affair part, and especially not that Kira was the one who had an affair with Mr. Vaatrik. Totally caught by surprise.

Then we cut back to the "present" and my first thought was, "Damnit! Why'd we have to cut back to the present?" If you're familiar with my posts, you know I'm normally not into prequels. That being said, I'd have loved to have had a prequel that took place on Terok Nor. If it had been done in the '90s, early-'00s at the latest. A Terok Nor series (or even a mini-series) would've been interesting to see.

In the series' present time, Kira catches up with Odo. In the back of my mind I'm thinking, "Did Kira murder Vaatrik?" When Odo finds out that Kira's thinking back to the same incident, and she leaves, the camera lingers on Odo's suspicious face and the music swells up. That was the PERFECT midpoint do the episode. And a great cliffhanger before what would've been the commercial break.

Back to Terok Nor. When Odo approaches Kira, he says, "A pretty girl like you shouldn't be eating alone." Straight out of a '40s movie. Kira takes it the wrong way, then Odo starts over. This shows how socially awkward Odo can still be at this point, but they don't dwell on it. Instead Odo asks Kira if she had an affair with Vaatrik. Kira insists she didn't and holds firm on that. She also tells Odo that, unofficially or not, Odo's working for the Cardassians. Odo says he doesn't choose sides. Then Kira says that sooner or later he'll have to.

In the Present, Odo asks Mrs. Vaatrik about the list that was found in her old chemical shop. Ms. Vatrick says she doesn't know what he's talking about. She says she wishes she knew and wants to help solve anything relating to Vaatrik's death. When Odo leaves, he pulls a Columbo. He says, "Oh, there was one other thing" but it might as well have been Columbo's "Oh, by the way... " Odo asks Ms. Vaatrik about her electricity bill. Power was shut off due to lack of payment, then turned back on because she had the money to pay for it finally. To be honest, I liked it better with lights off. But the set still looks lovely fully illuminated. Mrs. Vaatrik says she got a loan from a friend, but Odo's visibly suspicious. The entire exchange feels very Real World. He wants to know who this friend is. Mrs. Vaatrik says the friend has nothing to do with this. Odo says then she wouldn't mind giving the name. But she deflects and doesn't answer. The very next day, Ches'Sarro, who's name Odo mentioned was on the list, ends up dead. He doesn't think this is a coincidence at all. He drowned. Odo wants his death to be treated like a homicide.

On Terok Nor, Odo meets Quark for the first time. Quark's looks as dark and drab and yes, gritty, as the rest of Terok Nor. Quark even dresses differently, He wears dark browns. I like that he dresses differently for two resaons: 1) It shows fashion during the Cardassian Occupation. 2) Even without that, fashions change over time. It also tells me the level of attention to detail DS9 is dedicated to.

Odo wants to know if Quark knew Kira and wanted to know what she was doing. Quark lies and says they were having sex. Odo sees right through that, breaks Quark's alibi, and Dukat comes in impressed. Dukat wants a name for whoever the murderer was, and Odo says he won't give him one until he's sure who it is. Dukat says Odo's not afraid of anything, Quark tries to suck up to Odo, then Dukat and Quark start laughing.

Then, in the best transition to The Present yet, everyone on DS9's Promenade is laughing. Is the laughing symbolic of something? If it is, then I think it's symbolic of people who have no honor laughing at Odo, who does. Everyone wants to play Odo, and he doesn't want to be played. Both Dukat and Quark had also brought up the Cardassian Neck Trick that Odo used to do. They were all laughing at him when he did that was well.

Odo has pieced together everyone who was on the list and everyone on the list has paid Ms. Vatrick in the last two days, explaining why she had money again. They wanted her to keep quiet.

On Terok Nor, Odo thinks Kira killed Vaatrik and says she's been lying when she said she was at Quark's. Kira says it was an alibi, but not for murder. It was an alibi for sabotage on the station. This is when Kira puts Odo to the test about who's side he's on. She says flat-out she's part of the Resistance and that she couldn't have murdered Vaatrik because she's in the middle of sabotaging Ore Processing at the time of his death. Odo says he believes Kira. Then, Dukat comes in, asks Odo if Kira's who was responsible for the murder. Odo says she wasn't the murderer and also doesn't say anything about the sabotage. So, at the very least, Kira learned that Odo wouldn't expose her.

Returning to the Present, the Bajoran Gangster is about to murder Quark when Rom saves his life. Then Rom starts screaming. Both while the Gangster is trying to kill Quark and afterwards when he finds out Quark is going to live! I'm tempted to take a tenth of a point off of my rating for the scream, but I won't do it. Odo is also able to piece together that everyone on the list was a Collaborator during the Occupation. When Ches'Sarro's name was mentioned, he was killed. Vatrick was a collaborator with a list of other Collaborators. Odo also figures out that Kira was the one who killed Vatrick five years ago. She got close to the list, but never actually got it, and she had to kill Vatrick before he killed her. Kira asks Odo if she'll ever be able to trust her in the same again and the episode chooses not to have Odo answer. Roll credits.

Summing Up: In case you couldn't guess, I give this episode a 10. "Necessary Evil" is my favorite episode of Deep Space Nine up to this point. Very adult, very detail oriented, no easy answers, great cinematography, lots of character nuance. It's all there.

But didn't I give "Duet" an 11? Yes, I did. I think it's the best episode so far. "Necessary Evil" is my favorite. A slight difference. The Hell with the Re-Watch, I'll want to put on "Necessary Evil" again sometime soon, no matter where else I am in the series.
 
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Peter Allan Fields was a fantastic addition to the franchise. He didn't pen many episodes, but almost all of the ones he did were damn good. ("The Host", "Cost Of Living", "The Inner Light", "DAX", "PROGRESS", "DUET", "THE CIRCLE", "NECESSARY EVIL", "BLOOD OATH", "CROSSOVER", "FOR THE UNIFORM", and story for "IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT" and "THE DOGS OF WAR".) Behr also said Fields created Garak. That alone is a worthy note.
 
Prior to the end of the season, "Dax" was my favorite episode of Season 1. And now "Necessary Evil" is my favorite episode of Season 2. So, yeah. Go Peter Allan Fields!

One major thing that makes "Necessary Evil" work as an Origin Story -- besides not feeling like a Comic Book Movie, looking at you Star Trek (2009) -- was that it was made by the same cast and crew, and thus was able to feel like something that would naturally lead into DS9. It's the same reason I think Better Call Saul works as a prequel to Breaking Bad. I can buy it as, "This is the main series' past!" If it's made by someone else, starring someone else, made decades later, I'm not going to buy it. I might enjoy it on its own terms (like I did the prequel seasons of Discovery), but I'm not going buy it as something natural or organic.

Another thing that makes "Necessary Evil" work as an Origin Story is that it plugs a hole that I think needed to be plugged. How do the Bajorans trust Odo when he worked for the Cardassians? "A Man Alone" tried to address this last season, but didn't go too far with it. "Necessary Evil" shows how Odo resisted putting himself into the Cardassian camp and the Bajorans could trust him up to a point, but not with their most sensitive information. It was something I needed to see as opposed to being told.

At the end, I think when Odo didn't answer if he could trust Kira the same way again and just looked down, I think it worked on two levels. On one level: it left some mystery at the end of the episode. On another level: it didn't lock the writers into a specific direction. The series is still at a point where they're exploring and seeing what they can do. So, they wanted to leave the window for themselves open.
 
I watched "Deathwish" yesterday, and I stand by what I said earlier. I think Q fits in on VOY. The chemistry between Kate Mulgrew and John DeLancie is pitch-perfect. Probably helped by the two actors being friends in real life.

I'd go so far as to say "Deathwish" is probably one of my Top 3 Q episodes. The others being "Tapestry" and "Q Who".

Q just didn't fit in on DS9. So, I'm glad they didn't try to force it after his one-and-only guest appearance.
 
Ironically, Q appearing only once might retroactively be because Q discovers (on his own, since he can go anywhere in time at any moment) Sisko is part Prophet, and he doesn't feel the need to bother with the Prophets.

That's a very creative interpretation!

Maybe Q just doesn't like being punched in the face. Okay, it doesn't actually do him any permanent damage, but it's still unpleasant. And turning Sisko into dust might be seen as an overreaction.
 
Since I re-watched VOY by starting with S4-S7 before moving on to S1-S3, and I'm at the end of Season 2, I only have one season left. I'm going to burn through that. Which means I'm going to slow down the DS9 Re-Watch for a bit. My goal is to be totally done with Voyager before I hit Babylon 5.

I'm also starting The Expanse this week. Friday, to be exact. People whose opinions I respect both online and in real life have HIGHLY recommended the show to me. When I made that announcement on Facebook, my godsister was excited. She's the one who told me I'd really like it. So my expectations are sky-high. Hopefully they live up.

I'll probably have my reaction/review of "Second Sight" up Wednesday or Thursday. After that, since it addresses Jennifer's death, I'll use that as my opening to finally look at what all the shots with The Prophets mean in "Emissary" and during The Circle Trilogy.

So, to sum up: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, and The Expanse are now going to be my Big Three Sci-Fi Series that I watch. Looking forward to all of it!
 
So, to sum up: Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, and The Expanse are now going to be my Big Three Sci-Fi Series that I watch. Looking forward to all of it!
If you end up deciding that you don't enjoy Babylon 5, please remember that you're watching it alongside Deep Space Nine and The Expanse! You've raised the bar pretty damn high there.

Same goes for The Expanse if you find that's the one not living up to the hype.
 
I'm also starting The Expanse this week. Friday, to be exact. People whose opinions I respect both online and in real life have HIGHLY recommended the show to me. When I made that announcement on Facebook, my godsister was excited. She's the one who told me I'd really like it. So my expectations are sky-high. Hopefully they live up.
I love The Expanse. I'd recommend the books too.
 
I agree that it's excellent. The cast is great. Just don't go in thinking there is really a "Season 6". For I suspect off-camera reasons, it was rushed, and by runtime is less than half of every other season.
Thanks for the head's up! Fortunately, I've had to deal with something like that before. A long time ago.

I'm a child of the '80s, so I had to deal with a truncated "fourth season" of Transformers, which was basically just a glorified three-episode toy commercial. If you know, you know. Eight-year-old Lord Garth felt ripped off.
 
"Second Sight"

Much like dreams themselves, this is a weird one. On the fourth anniversary of Jennifer's death, Sisko is thinking about her, then he walks he Promenade at night, and sees a woman named Fenna. Fenna's hair is very '90s, with all that sculpted gel, but the way she's dressed with that red outfit wouldn't look out of place in the 2020s. Sisko falls in love with her, but she keeps disappearing. And he can't figure it out. During one of the times he sees Fenna, we get to see what DS9 looks like through one of the upper pylons. That was a nice perspective. One that made for a perfect, intimate setting. Even more so than the quiet of the Promenade at night. But she disappears again!

I would've said this was one of the quieter episodes, but then Seyetik. He's Ego On Steroids. It's insane. And that laugh. It's like whenever certain people are talking to someone and they have that laugh. I don't get it. Why do some people always crack some lame-ass joke and then have a laugh after it? "HA! HA! HAA!" Oh, and he's had several wives. Gee, I just can't imagine why he's been through so many! "HA! HA! HAA!" And his current wife is Nidell. At first I misheard that name and it sounded to me like Adele. It's late at night. Nidell looks just like Fenna, except it's the other way around: Fenna looks like Nidell. Fenna's a manifestation of Nidell whenever she's unconscious. Weird technobabble stuff.

I would've liked the episode a LOT better if it just focused on Sisko and Fenna. The scenes Sisko has where he talks to Jake and talks to Dax about Fenna are great additions too. The rest? Well, Seyetik can go crash into a planet and create a Sun that's like Genesis On Steriods the same way his personality is Ego On Steroids. "HA! HA! HAA!"

I don't have much more to say about this episode. How about it, Odo? Do you think I have any more to say about this episode? "Let me guess. You don't know." Straight from Odo himself.

Summing Up: Well... ummm... I don't know. I have to break it down to its components. The Sisko/Fenna stuff is an 8. A quiet 8, but an 8. The stuff with Seyetic is a 5. Maybe a 6 if I want to be generous. I like the sci-fi mystery surrounding Nidell/Fenna, and they didn't go overboard with it. That's a 7. And the episode does have some very nice shots, like I said.

I don't know. I think I'll go with a 7. In spite of The Great Seyetik, not because of him. I could've rounded down to a 6, but Seyetik doing us a favor and killing himself made me decide to round up instead. ;)

And all the scenes with Fenna really were nice. When Nidell asks Sisko what Fenna was like and Sisko says, "She was like you," I think it was the perfect button to put onto the end of the episode.

EDITED TO ADD: I've changed my mind. I normally don't like to give half-points, but this time I'm going with a 6.5. It's a "mid" episode. But at least it's a high mid.
 
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This is a one-off post about The Expanse before getting back into DS9. Here's my fresh off-the-presses, real-time review:

I've watched MOST of the first episode of The Expanse. I've had to stop it five minutes short because I have to go to work. Will finish it off when I get back. Great visuals. Great acting. It's the most realistic depiction of what I expect the future to be like that I've seen in a sci-fi show.
 
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I've watched MOST of the first episode of "The Expanse". I've had to stop it five minutes short because I have to go to work. Will finish it off when I get back. Great visuals. Great acting. It's the most realistic depiction of what I expect the future to be like that I've seen in a sci-fi show.
Don't worry, it gets better.
 
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