The Delta Flyers now covering DS9

[Crewman6]

The stupid was out in force for "Things Past", a generally terrific episode that the gang almost completely dropped the ball on.

There was so much talk about "inconsistency" and "breaking the rules" of the episode, as if not realizing that the false reality didn't require any rules whatsoever, since it was a literal dream being played out in Odo's head.

But, fine, let's pretend there are rules that matter. They seem to think that Odo's hallucinations are inconsistent. They aren't. They seem to think that the rest of the gang can see the first appearance of a "ghost" Bajoran. They clearly, obviously cannot. They can't see any of the hallucinations. Only Odo can. That's the point. And it is entirely consistent throughout the episode. They just all managed to get it wrong.

There is nothing else inconsistent except that things are supposed to not completely make sense. It's supposed to be like a Twilight Zone episode where things appear normal but get progressively more strange until we understand why and then, retroactively, all the pieces fall into place. How they didn't grasp that is astonishing. I was literally yelling at the speakers on more than one occasion.

I will say Robbie did kind of have one good point, in that Odo's attitude never actually changes throughout the episode. He starts out all the way back on the Runabout feeling guilty and being withdrawn and sullen and continues to act that way throughout the show.

Perhaps if Robbie was right, maybe Odo was feeling brief pride over his actions during the Occupation, that might have been an interesting way in and set up some contrast to how he acts later.

But, really, once they're back in time and Odo knows what's up, which is very soon, he'd have to flip pretty quickly. So, logically, Robbie's idea would only buy them a scene.

And it still wouldn't completely track. If everyone was praising Odo's behavior during the Occupation, Odo, being Odo, would certainly be focusing on his one big failure in his mind, not lapping up the praise uncritically.

I honestly don't think Odo needs a traditional "arc" to have this episode work. It's not about him changing his mind or point of view, but rather just confronting head on and admitting to himself (and others) what he did and what he tried to forget.

That's powerful enough and all the episode really needs.

So, another huge whiff from the collected Delta Flyers.

Sigh.

 

[Weyoun 251]

The stupid was out in force for "Things Past", a generally terrific episode that the gang almost completely dropped the ball on.

There was so much talk about "inconsistency" and "breaking the rules" of the episode, as if not realizing that the false reality didn't require any rules whatsoever, since it was a literal dream being played out in Odo's head.

But, fine, let's pretend there are rules that matter. They seem to think that Odo's hallucinations are inconsistent. They aren't. They seem to think that the rest of the gang can see the first appearance of a "ghost" Bajoran. They clearly, obviously cannot. They can't see any of the hallucinations. Only Odo can. That's the point. And it is entirely consistent throughout the episode. They just all managed to get it wrong.

There is nothing else inconsistent except that things are supposed to not completely make sense. It's supposed to be like a Twilight Zone episode where things appear normal but get progressively more strange until we understand why and then, retroactively, all the pieces fall into place. How they didn't grasp that is astonishing. I was literally yelling at the speakers on more than one occasion.

I will say Robbie did kind of have one good point, in that Odo's attitude never actually changes throughout the episode. He starts out all the way back on the Runabout feeling guilty and being withdrawn and sullen and continues to act that way throughout the show.

Perhaps if Robbie was right, maybe Odo was feeling brief pride over his actions during the Occupation, that might have been an interesting way in and set up some contrast to how he acts later.

But, really, once they're back in time and Odo knows what's up, which is very soon, he'd have to flip pretty quickly. So, logically, Robbie's idea would only buy them a scene.

And it still wouldn't completely track. If everyone was praising Odo's behavior during the Occupation, Odo, being Odo, would certainly be focusing on his one big failure in his mind, not lapping up the praise uncritically.

I honestly don't think Odo needs a traditional "arc" to have this episode work. It's not about him changing his mind or point of view, but rather just confronting head on and admitting to himself (and others) what he did and what he tried to forget.

That's powerful enough and all the episode really needs.

So, another huge whiff from the collected Delta Flyers.

Sigh.

This was an episode that would have benefited from Armin and his nit-picking - yes it can be frustrating and some of his points are spurious but the little things like them not being able to work out if other people than Odo could see the dead Bajoran and that in fact the person they were asking Odo to name was Thrax would have been caught by him

Plus side - I had forgotten about this episode and so it nudged me to rewatch and it was a very good episode in my opinion (and Dax's treatment by Dukat - while at a lower level - is bang on in line with what Kira experiences when she is sent back via Orb and learns about her mother

 

[Tuskin38]

are people pointing this stuff out in the Patreon comments? Do they even read them?

 

[VDCNI]

Enjoyed Rapture and Darkness and the Light.

The latter helped by the return of Nana who enlivens the podcast whenever she appears.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

The rapture review was surprisingly ebullient, focusing a lot on the directing and Brooks' acting. And for once, Farrell sounded really sharp, even pushing back against the other's curmudgeonly comments.

 

[VDCNI]

Yes. I can't remember the exact point that was being made but at one point she just cut across the boys and was very much well it worked for me and made it clear that was the end of the conversation.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Yes. I can't remember the exact point that was being made but at one point she just cut across the boys and was very much well it worked for me and made it clear that was the end of the conversation.

Are you referring to when Garrett wondered why Bajoran 's couldn't have figured out the reflection in the waterfall?

 

[VDCNI]

Are you referring to when Garrett wondered why Bajoran 's couldn't have figured out the reflection in the waterfall?

It might have been. I felt it was more where Robbie was talking though.

Anyway The Begotten was decent, they were critical, but mostly of the b story which is a bit of a dud.

 

[Crewman6]

Enjoyed Rapture and Darkness and the Light.

The latter helped by the return of Nana who enlivens the podcast whenever she appears.

Nana is so good I wish she was a regular host. But I never really dug "Darkness and the Light" and the ending sequence feels like a cheesy serial killer movie from the 90s, a bad riff on "Silence of the Lambs" and its many imitators.

 

[Crewman6]

Are you referring to when Garrett wondered why Bajoran 's couldn't have figured out the reflection in the waterfall?

That was a fair point by Garrett, though! (For a change!)

 

[Crewman6]

It might have been. I felt it was more where Robbie was talking though.

Anyway The Begotten was decent, they were critical, but mostly of the b story which is a bit of a dud.

The last few episodes have been entertaining enough without any egregiously oddball opinions or lapses into stupidity. But I think they were too harsh on "The Begotten", which I think is a wonderful episode (if you look past the dopey-ass waste-of-time B-story.)

Robbie did at least admit it comes together nicely in the end, but I enjoyed the build-up plenty myself. The scenes with Odo riffing with a cup full of goo are surprisingly tender.

 

[Crewman6]

Middling reviews all around for "For the Uniform", which is fair, since it really is a mediocre episode.

Hilariously, when asked by listener mail what Janeway would do in similar circumstances, Robbie was quick to point out that Janeway violated the prime directive constantly and did many other morally questionable actions.

At least someone was paying attention!

 

[FlyingWave]

wow, they really bashed things past? i really liked this episode

 

[VDCNI]

Bit bemused why the concept of a Dominion/Federation war leading to billions of deaths was so hard for Robbie to understand in the latest podcast.

Also them all thinking fake Bashir should have looked like a Changeling at the end of the episode which wouldn't have added anything and would have required the expense of another actor and make up.

 

[Crewman6]

Bit bemused why the concept of a Dominion/Federation war leading to billions of deaths was so hard for Robbie to understand in the latest podcast.

Yeah, that was insane. The federation has, what, 150 or so planets? Its population could be well over a trillion. Very easy to lose billions in an interstellar war with such stakes. Lose just one planet and you've easily crossed that threshold.

Also them all thinking fake Bashir should have looked like a Changeling at the end of the episode which wouldn't have added anything and would have required the expense of another actor and make up.

I mean, it might have been cool if we saw Fake Bashir do one small changeling thing. Like stretch his arms to reach a console or something once he was alone.

But Changelings have no "default" appearance. They don't like mimicking solids, they only do so when necessary. They adopted Odo's appearance when they met him as a sign of welcome and then just kept doing it, mostly for the benefit of the audience, so we'd know they were changelings, and because, well, they had to look like something.*

But having the Bashir changeling suddenly look like an Odo-esque changeling would make literally zero sense.




*FWIW, once upon a time, Ron Moore offered the explanation that the changelings (mostly the main Female Changeling) kept the Odo appearance as a kind of "dig" to him, but that feels like muddy, post-facto rationalization and a little out of character for the changelings. But whatever works, it's really not something that requires an explanation. The Female Changeling first appeared to Odo in that way, there's no reason to ever alter it.

 

[StewMc]

Robbie also thought it was fake Bashir that sent a message to the station towards the end, rather than the real one, and that’s what made them realise he was a changeling…

 

[Crewman6]

Robbie also thought it was fake Bashir that sent a message to the station towards the end, rather than the real one, and that’s what made them realise he was a changeling…

Yeah, that was a friggin' WEIRD (okay, DUMB) mistake. Why the hell would the Changeling have contacted the station?

The entire point was that the REAL bashir contacted the station from the friggin' gamma quadrant, making everyone instantly realize that there had been a changeling masquerading as him the entire time. I'm disappointed Garrett didn't notice the slip, that's usually the one thing he's good for. (Terry makes enough plot errors herself that there was no way she was going to catch it.)

 

[Some Sort of Lemur]

The subscriber-only Kenneth Marshall interview was really good (I had no idea he was Marco Polo in the Yin Ruocheng-starring Marco Polo miniseries, which I’ve wanted to see for years), not so much for all that much Trek-related but more in the interview-with-a-personable-actor-who’s-done-some-interesting-stuff way.

For the show overall, though, I have to admit the shine’s come off for me and I’ve canceled my subscription. I think the earlier-season episodes were really interesting, getting a lot about the nuts-and-bolts of making DS9 (and television in general), but ironically as the series gets more and more into its rhythm it seems like they have less and less interesting to say. I think part of that is that they’re learning the show at the same time the directors, actors, and writers were learning to make it. Part of it’s that there’s a lot more Quark in those early years (so more for Armin Shimmerman to talk about, and while I don’t begrudge him for it or anything it’s clear he views the show through a very specific lens).

I think part of it, too, is that I saw very little of the early years of the show until the DVD era and only watched the show live, from midway in season three onward, at a pretty young and impressionable age. On the one hand it means DS9 is special to me, and on the other it means, that, while I’m not a regular rewatcher, I have seen most episodes, multiple times (and the podcast actually got me to do a slow-motion mostly-rewatch of DS9; just watched “Call to Arms” a couple days ago), so I notice stuff like missing major story points and it kind of gets to me; missing major story points combined with nitpicking really gets to me.

Again, having viewed it as a kid maybe some of the turns of story or plot logic made sense to me in ways they wouldn’t had I first seen it as an adult. I wonder how much of it, though, comes from taking notes through the story—I sometimes suspect they’re so busy breaking things down when watching that it’s hard for them to put things back together. I don’t think it’s an issue so much of DS9 being so special to me I can’t take a critique of it, more that the way it’s being critiqued seems to be missing the forest for the trees sometimes.

In a meta-sense it is interesting that one of the more frequent notes (and it does almost seem sometimes like they’re giving notes on a thirty year old show) is that this or that could have been clearer. This is one of those things that’s both a bit annoying as a podcast listener but also pretty revealing about how TV is actually made—a lot of things do have to be made clear, or repeated, because there’s an (accurate) assumption that the audience isn’t totally watching. It’s something Ron Moore brought up about moving to Voyager—barely paraphrasing, Moore said Voyager aimed at the level of the guy looking for a beer in his fridge with the TV on in the background while on DS9 and TNG they tried to reward audience attention.

I really enjoyed the back-and-forth on previous pages of this thread over TV because I also generally appreciate MacNeil’s perspective, although I think it also kind of reveals the limits of TV. One of the things most TV strives for is consistency, and a lot of his advice and critiques are pretty much right if you want to make good TV. Great TV, though, is both consistent and original, and by the time we’ve hit DS9’s fifth season these writers had been writing for Star Trek for years—they had the rhythms down, they knew the basics of making good Trek, so they really could go for departures. They knew the rule book good enough to throw it out, which is part of what makes DS9 unique among the Trek series I think.

It’s kind of funny in that it shows the limits of TV as a medium, particularly a commercial medium, where it’s hard to see where breaking the rules might work and where it’s just an unnecessary risk. I’m not involved in TV production so I’m happy when it works out, but I can see why it gets on MacNeil’s nerves.

I’ll still occasionally check out the free version, as I did before subscribing (largely for those bonus interviews), particularly when a guest host’s involved, but I think it’s mostly run its course for me.

 

[Crewman6]

The subscriber-only Kenneth Marshall interview was really good (I had no idea he was Marco Polo in the Yin Ruocheng-starring Marco Polo miniseries, which I’ve wanted to see for years), not so much for all that much Trek-related but more in the interview-with-a-personable-actor-who’s-done-some-interesting-stuff way.

For the show overall, though, I have to admit the shine’s come off for me and I’ve canceled my subscription. I think the earlier-season episodes were really interesting, getting a lot about the nuts-and-bolts of making DS9 (and television in general), but ironically as the series gets more and more into its rhythm it seems like they have less and less interesting to say. I think part of that is that they’re learning the show at the same time the directors, actors, and writers were learning to make it. Part of it’s that there’s a lot more Quark in those early years (so more for Armin Shimmerman to talk about, and while I don’t begrudge him for it or anything it’s clear he views the show through a very specific lens).

I think part of it, too, is that I saw very little of the early years of the show until the DVD era and only watched the show live, from midway in season three onward, at a pretty young and impressionable age. On the one hand it means DS9 is special to me, and on the other it means, that, while I’m not a regular rewatcher, I have seen most episodes, multiple times (and the podcast actually got me to do a slow-motion mostly-rewatch of DS9; just watched “Call to Arms” a couple days ago), so I notice stuff like missing major story points and it kind of gets to me; missing major story points combined with nitpicking really gets to me.

Again, having viewed it as a kid maybe some of the turns of story or plot logic made sense to me in ways they wouldn’t had I first seen it as an adult. I wonder how much of it, though, comes from taking notes through the story—I sometimes suspect they’re so busy breaking things down when watching that it’s hard for them to put things back together. I don’t think it’s an issue so much of DS9 being so special to me I can’t take a critique of it, more that the way it’s being critiqued seems to be missing the forest for the trees sometimes.

In a meta-sense it is interesting that one of the more frequent notes (and it does almost seem sometimes like they’re giving notes on a thirty year old show) is that this or that could have been clearer. This is one of those things that’s both a bit annoying as a podcast listener but also pretty revealing about how TV is actually made—a lot of things do have to be made clear, or repeated, because there’s an (accurate) assumption that the audience isn’t totally watching. It’s something Ron Moore brought up about moving to Voyager—barely paraphrasing, Moore said Voyager aimed at the level of the guy looking for a beer in his fridge with the TV on in the background while on DS9 and TNG they tried to reward audience attention.

I really enjoyed the back-and-forth on previous pages of this thread over TV because I also generally appreciate MacNeil’s perspective, although I think it also kind of reveals the limits of TV. One of the things most TV strives for is consistency, and a lot of his advice and critiques are pretty much right if you want to make good TV. Great TV, though, is both consistent and original, and by the time we’ve hit DS9’s fifth season these writers had been writing for Star Trek for years—they had the rhythms down, they knew the basics of making good Trek, so they really could go for departures. They knew the rule book good enough to throw it out, which is part of what makes DS9 unique among the Trek series I think.

It’s kind of funny in that it shows the limits of TV as a medium, particularly a commercial medium, where it’s hard to see where breaking the rules might work and where it’s just an unnecessary risk. I’m not involved in TV production so I’m happy when it works out, but I can see why it gets on MacNeil’s nerves.

I’ll still occasionally check out the free version, as I did before subscribing (largely for those bonus interviews), particularly when a guest host’s involved, but I think it’s mostly run its course for me.

Oh, I didn't know there was a Kenneth Marshall interview! Is it only for high-level subscribers? (I'm as low as you can get.)

With Blaze of Glory still to come, I was hoping they'd get him to appear on the show.

Don't blame you for losing interest in the show. I am very lukewarm on it at this point myself, but still (usually) throw it on for those long, traffic-filled commutes.

I find more sophisticated podcasts hard to focus on while driving, but this one obviously goes down easy. When it's not annoying the crap out of me.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I must admit that I never even gave this thread a second look: the title looked like it was either something about the Tom-Paris-and-Harry-Kim-designed spacecraft becoming the new standard for DS9 defense and utility craft, or maybe a band called "The Delta Flyers" doing a cover of DS9's open/close music (and perhaps of other standard cues).