Shatnertage's Mostly-1st-Time Watch Thread

[You_Will_Fail]

I hated "Past Tense" so much.
Probably the most preachy (like UBER preachy) and bad acted story in all of Trek.
If I wanted to be preached at for 2 hours, I'd go to church.

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ Well, that's Trek for you. When they decide to get up on their soapboxes and enter preachy-mode, they don't go about it half-assed. Other examples - Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, Who Watches the Watchers and Jetrel.

 

[JayOwl]

Not unpopular, just wrong.

I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

 

[MacLeod]

I'd give "Visionary" a thumbs up as well. Might not be the best DSN episode but certainly not the worst.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

^ Well, that's Trek for you. When they decide to get up on their soapboxes and enter preachy-mode, they don't go about it half-assed. Other examples - Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, Who Watches the Watchers and Jetrel.

Jetrel is 20 times the episode "Past Tense" is.

 

[Shatnertage]

I hear some...

"Distant Voices"

This episode seems like the classic Joe Menosky "high concept" Trek show, in that it's a great idea, but not exactly great TV drama. For me it's another episode that's extremely impressive but I didn't totally enjoy watching it.

Naturally I'm thrilled to see Garak. He always makes the show better, and this time he's getting under Bashir's skin. I wonder if Bashir knows about the Cardassian annoyance=flirtation thing? I like the twinkle in Garak's eye as he explains what makes Cardassian mystery novels so enjoyable.

Then Quark introduces a very impressive specimen--I'll call him Toothnose--to the pair and asks Bashir where to get bio-memetic gel. While I was watching, I thought that this was the stuff that went into Voyager's bio-neural gel packs, but I was wrong. In any event, it doesn't really matter.

Later on, Toothnose is stealing some when Bashir walks in on him and gets a head-charge. Ouch.

He wakes up and it's instantly apparent that everything is going to be It Was All Just a Dream. So we spend the next 35 minutes scampering around Bashir's psyche, meeting various crew members who represent parts of his mind.

I found that aspect of the episode a bit too literal and a bit too over-explained. And I have the nagging feeling that I've seen something very like this before, but I can't quite remember where.

There was a lot of good acting from Alexander Siddig in this one, but the real standout was the makeup, both for Toothnose and for Bashir. When I watched this I said that I hoped they won an Emmy for this, and, checking MA, they did. It was well deserved.

To me this was a technically impressive episode that, again, really didn't grab me from a dramatic standpoint.

And I don't think I'll be getting any drama in the near future--next up is a Mirror Universe episode.

If they were doing Trek today, I really think the MU stuff would work better as webisodes and not regular shows.

 

[Canadave]

And I don't think I'll be getting any drama in the near future

You have no idea just how wrong you are...

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I think you find out in Enterprise what biomimetic gel is and does--though I could be remembering that wrong since I only saw ENT once.

In a lot of ways--and I'm sure I'm going to catch some flak for this--"Distant Voices" reminds me of TNG's "Masks," which I did like, by the way, where the emphasis is more on the visuals than the script.

Though you'd be surprised how much worldbuilding mileage I got from that one comment about Cardassian hearing...wish we'd learned more about the differences between human and Cardassian! Given that that comment came from Bashir's mind, not from Garak, I think it's actually true.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Jetrel is 20 times the episode "Past Tense" is.

I can agree that it's better. But it's still preachy as hell.

Though you'd be surprised how much worldbuilding mileage I got from that one comment about Cardassian hearing...

Can you refresh my memory on that comment?


Anyway, I agree with Nerys on Distant Voices. Like Masks (which I also really like) it's the visuals, not the script, that's the main focus.

 

[Shatnertage]

^ I think it's that Cardassian hearing isn't that great--which makes sense since Cardassians are supposed to be quasi-reptilian (I think).

 

[TrekAlliance92]

I love "Visionary," because it definitely fits the Trek style that I like perfectly: self-contained, tech-based plots with our heroes solving an external conflict. Sadly, DS9 to me, would stray hard away from this style midway in S4 and with a few exceptions, wouldn't return. That's why I prefer the first 3 seasons to the latter 4. (Not saying the latter 4 are bad, just a matter of personal taste, really.)

And, I didn't care for "Distant Voices." Watched it once and never again.

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ I think it's that Cardassian hearing isn't that great--which makes sense since Cardassians are supposed to be quasi-reptilian (I think).

Ah, okay.

 

[JWD75]

I thought that "Visionary" was a very good episode. I'm a little surprised by how many people dislike it. But of course I like the more tech oriented high concept science fiction stories and some people don't. I think that one of DS9's strengths is wide variety of stories that it tells. It has something for everyone.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

^ I think it's that Cardassian hearing isn't that great--which makes sense since Cardassians are supposed to be quasi-reptilian (I think).

Ah, okay.

That's exactly what I was thinking of.

Personally--and one can legitimately disagree with this assessment--I treat my Cardassians as therapsids, beings closer to mammalian than reptilian, though having some traits we associate with reptilians on Earth.

This may sound silly, but the fact that Cardassian women have breasts does provide evidence that they give live birth and nurse their young. It is, however, interesting to note that we don't tend to see Cardassian women looking like Leeta, suggesting that breasts are not as sexually selected for and therefore tend to remain a bit more practical in size and function, whereas the neck ridges are. (Given that when we see women as Cardassian soldiers, they're able to wear normal armor, that suggests they are not massively endowed. I am not myself, and I would easily be able to wear the Cardassian cuirass.)

Anyway...looooong off-topic aside, yes, it was the hearing issue I was thinking of. That informed the way I designed the Cardassian language for my work, as well as the cultural role of a few other things like dance and sign language.

 

[MrJ]

I hear some...

"Distant Voices"

One of the things that I like best about DS9 is how interconnected the story line is. Even standalone episodes are connected to, or become connected to something else latter on. For example, I think this episode is the second one to mention Bashir's "pre-ganglionic fibre and a post-ganglionic nerve" mistake. The "Toothnose" guy in Bashir's mind goes further to say that he deliberately answered the question wrong. As well Bashir could have been a professional tennis player but gave up on it for some reason. Implying that Bashir is deliberately holding himself back for some reason.
　
Seemingly random facts that many DS9 fans forgot about. I don't want to spoil anything but, I would recommend remembering this when you watch episode 16 in the 5th season.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Bashir is surprisingly self-conscious once you get into his mind and underneath his cocky exterior, yes. And as MrJ says, you'll later get to learn more about where that part of him comes from.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Jetrel is 20 times the episode "Past Tense" is.

I can agree that it's better. But it's still preachy as hell.

I never got a preachy vibe from Jetrel.
"Past Tense" was pointing the finger at basically everyone, Jetrel's scope seems a lot more limited so it doesn't really bother me and I feel its definitely not laid on as thick.

"Distant Voices" is amazing. DS9 didn't deliver many high concepts, so I was glad to have Voyager for that.

EDIT- I mixed the episode up with "Whispers", I hated "Distant Voices".

 

[Admiral Shran]

^ Jetrel lays on the message/allegory of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki so thickly you could literally cut it with a knife.

Whether or not you agree with that message (I personally do - the U.S. should have sought other options), the episode itself spares no expanse in beating the viewer over the head with it.

And there's the problem, IMO. I don't like being preached at, even when I agree with the message.

 

[Shatnertage]

I think I'll give the MU episode a spin tonight, if I'm not too exhausted.

I've had a lot of work stuff to do, in addition to the kids not being conducive to quiet relaxation at home.

The more I think about what I like and what I don't like, the clearer it becomes that a lot of it's contradictory. For example, I love the comedy episodes that don't take the show seriously, but I also like the super-serious, super-dark stuff. In general I don't like PreachyTrek because a lot of it is, frankly, puerile and self-righteous. It's easy to rail homelessness or bigotry; it's harder to understand why good people can let bad things happen. With Trek having to keep things on a fairly family-friendly level, it's rare to get the kind of serious exploration of "issues" that you can on (some) other shows.

So far for me, the highlights of season 3 have been "House of Quark," "Second Skin," "Civil Defense," and "Fascination."

I'll throw "Heart of Stone" in that pile, too, just because of the acting.

 

[Athena28]

I really believe that whoever wrote this episode was no...

"Visionary"

Somewhere else on the board there's a thread asking what killed Star Trek. And, watching this, I realized it: episodes like this...

Not one of my faves, but it was ok.