Things you hate about DS9?

[PKTrekGirl]

^ I like your comment in #1.

I have long be against a DS9 film project, because chances are, they would have screwed it up. B&B would never have given the REAL DS9 writers free reign to do what they liked with a film. They would have had their hands in it up to their armpits.

And that would NOT have been a good thing.

Not in the slightest.

In fact, they are so incredibily talented at hacking good things up, they could easily have ruined DS9 completely, in one fell swoop!

A movie? No thanks.

 

[GalaxyX]

I'd much rather have aliens that can't be boiled down to just one word, personally. I don't think either Cardassians or Bajorans were anything like Humans. They both had clearly different cultural heritages and ways of thinking, and yet neither were just always spouting about "logic" or "honour." Far preferable, to my mind.

The problem is that, we as humans already know our cultures, and for a writer to try and make up a totally alien "complex" culture is a daunting task indeed. I think some series have tried, like Earth: Final Conflict and the Taelons.

In the end, unless you're willing to put some MAJOR effort, your other choices end up being: Make a simplistic culture, like the Vulcans and Klingons, or make a "complex" culture that could be any human culture with a different name. Personally if you're going to go with the "human" style cultures, don't ruin it by trying to make "exotic" alien makeups.

That's one of the things that attracted me to the show most, after five years of dull colourless characters on TNG. Good on them.

Well I don't know, I guess this is subjective. I don't think the TNG characters were as dull as people think. The dullness they do have is not because of lack of conflict, but because they were so "snobby". All they listen to is classical, all they play is chess, and all they watch on the holodeck is Sherlock Holmes and Dixon Hill. This certainly is going to make it seem like they were dull.

Because he is pissed off. About a great many things, more than any other Trek commander has ever had to handle. I'm not surprised he got a little testy.

To me it seems like the actor was simply unable to control his "black dude badassness" in the scope of what a Starfleet captain is supposed to be like.

Then I would say you either misunderstood or misremember the scene. Odo was most emphatically not mewling like a little girl. He did not confess everything to Garak. That is totally the opposite of what happened. Even while Odo was suffering, he was the one taunting Garak. Garak was the one who begged Odo to tell him something, even a lie, just so that he could stop torturing him. And not in a "you're making me do this" way either - Garak was just as upset over the whole thing as Odo was. And Odo forgave him because he knew exactly where Garak was coming from - an exile desperately wishing to go back to his people, but even given the chance, can't quite bring himself to do it because he knows they're wrong.

I suppose I can understand that. I'd have to watch the episode again.

The Dominion weren't slightly more powerful - they were massively more powerful. At first, Cardassia was nothing more than a staging ground for them - not a necessity by any means. The Feds pulled off a neat trick thanks to Sisko's relationship with the Prophets which cut off the Dominion from their hugely superior resources in the Gamma Quadrant. If it weren't for that, the Federation would have been toast.

I guess what I meant to say was that the Dominion is about the same technologically, but yes I agree with a lot more resources than the Federation

Still annoying

 

[PKTrekGirl]

GalaxyX said:

That's one of the things that attracted me to the show most, after five years of dull colourless characters on TNG. Good on them.

Well I don't know, I guess this is subjective. I don't think the TNG characters were as dull as people think. The dullness they do have is not because of lack of conflict, but because they were so "snobby". All they listen to is classical, all they play is chess, and all they watch on the holodeck is Sherlock Holmes and Dixon Hill. This certainly is going to make it seem like they were dull.

Well, for me it is more than just intellectual snobbery that annoys me about TNG characters. It is their entire ATTITUDE about the universe. The "We are the Flagship of the Federation, so we know what is best for every planet in the Universe" sort of mentality. The entire show is about the Starship Enterprise, Heros of the Universe, flying around and 'enlightening' every alien-of-the-week race they come across.

And frankly, that makes them come off as not only boring, but arrogant.

Further, these are characters who practically never disagree. One big happy family, 24/7/365. That is not REAL. That is very one-dimensional, IMO. In TOS, you have characters (Spock and McCoy) who disagreed constantly...and even got on each others nerves quite visibly. But by the time we get to TNG, disagreement is practically non-existent. Let's see a little conflict! Let's see some of that independent thought you run all over the universe preaching for!

Because he is pissed off. About a great many things, more than any other Trek commander has ever had to handle. I'm not surprised he got a little testy.

To me it seems like the actor was simply unable to control his "black dude badassness" in the scope of what a Starfleet captain is supposed to be like.

And who determines "what a Starfleet captain is supposed to be like?" YOU?

Before Sisko, we had only two Starfleet captains that we REALLY got to know. Kirk and Picard. And if you ask me, Sisko is alot more like Kirk than either of them is like Picard....because both Sisko and Kirk are unapologetically flawed heros.

Kirk spent a fair amount of time pissed off. He wasn't involved in a war, but he did participate in LOTS of hand-to-hand combat...and even fist-fights of the quasi-barroom brawl variety in non-combat situations! And he lost his temper on numerous occasions ("Khan!!!!!!!!!" being one that immediately springs to mind! ). Further, Kirk was more than just a tad "ladies man" - he loved 'em and left 'em all over the galaxy! Not exactly model behavior for a Starfleet captain, by any stretch!

Maybe you have taken your idea of 'what a Starfleet captain is supposed to be' from the wrong source? Because I think the very FIRST Starfleet captain we get to know is not nearly as much the stick-up-his-butt type as you seem to be indicating Sisko should have been.

And one final note...I know you didn't intend it...but IMO this last comment came off as a bit racist. Why can't he get pissed off the way he WANTS to get pissed off? Why can't he have the speech inflection of a black man when he is annoyed? I mean, he IS a black man!

This is like saying that Picard shouldn't act reserved and controled (as a sterotyped application of 'how the British are supposed to act' might dictate) because THAT would not be appropriate.

And last I checked, black Starfleet officers were not required to model their speech inflection, mannerisms, or anything else to make them more 'white'.

Just something to think about.

 

[indranee]

uhh, PK, Picard wasn't British (but I got your point).

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ Well, but Patrick Stewart is, which was my point. Maybe I didn't say it quite right.

Was Patrick Stewart supposed to wipe all traces of British-ness from his character in order to fit some arbitrary model of 'what a Starfleet captain is supposed to be?

Or...is 'Britishness' okay...while 'blackness' is not?

 

[Saxman1]

PKTrekGirl said:
^ I like your comment in #1.

I have long be against a DS9 film project, because chances are, they would have screwed it up. B&B would never have given the REAL DS9 writers free reign to do what they liked with a film. They would have had their hands in it up to their armpits.

And that would NOT have been a good thing.

Not in the slightest.

In fact, they are so incredibily talented at hacking good things up, they could easily have ruined DS9 completely, in one fell swoop!

A movie? No thanks.

That's what I was trying to say, but you said it better!

The real exception to the rule is TOS film series: magnificent!

I think a DS9 theatrical might have turned out to be another "Nemesis" or (judging from their TV work - God help us) "Endgame." Ugh.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ Yep. And I'd rather have no movie at all than a movie that ruins half the characters.

Plus, they'd find some sort of way to shoehorn in Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes....and if I never see either of them again, it would be fine with me.

 

[Good Will Riker]

PKTrekGirl said:
^ Well, but Patrick Stewart is, which was my point. Maybe I didn't say it quite right.

Was Patrick Stewart supposed to wipe all traces of British-ness from his character in order to fit some arbitrary model of 'what a Starfleet captain is supposed to be?

Or...is 'Britishness' okay...while 'blackness' is not?

The only times I was even aware of Picard's "French-ness" were in those episodes that specifically placed emphasis on his French heritage, such as:


TNG 1st Season episodes:
"Code of Honor" (Data mentioning the French word "counting coup.")
"The Last Outpost" (Picard mentioning the colors of the French flag.)
"Where No One Has Gone Before" (Picard has a sudden flashback to his deceased mother, Yvette Picard.)
"Hide and Q" (Q mentions the Napoleonic uniform he got from "your stodgy captain's mind.")
"11001001" (Minuet speaks to Picard in French.)
"We'll Always Have Paris" (Picard stands up his former fiancee Jenice near a cafe next to the Eiffel Tower.)


4th Season episode:
"Family" (When Picard visits his hometown vineyard home.)


6th Season episode:
"Tapestry" (Q shows Picard an image of his deceased father Maurice Picard.)


7th Season episode:
"All Good Things..." (Picard's vineyard is featured in this episode.)


Feature film:
Star Trek: Nemesis (Picard's vineyard wine is used to toast to honor the memory of their fallen comrade Data at his wake.)


The rest of the time (a span of 15 years...), I thought of him as British, even with the surname of "Picard."

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ You are missing the point.

But since I've already explained it twice, I'm not gonna do it again any great detail.

In short: We are talking about Patrick Stewart's 'Britishness' as Galaxy X's criticism of Sisko is that Avery Brooks portrayed him as a 'bad ass black guy'.

If Avery Brooks is required to take his ethnicity out of his portrayal, than why isn't Patrick Stewart held to the same standard? Why is it acceptable for Patrick Stewart to flavor his character with his own ethnic mannerisms, speech patterns and the like...and it is NOT okay for Avery Brooks to do the same?

THAT is my question.

It has nothing to do with Picard's 'Frenchness'...because Patrick Stewart is not French.

 

[Good Will Riker]

^^ During Seasons 1 & 2, the producers went out of their way to portray Benjamin Sisko in a "color blind role," meaning that just by looking at the script any male actor (of a certain age) of any ethnicity could have portrayed this role.

Starting from Season 3, the writers decided to feature more of Sisko's "African" and "African American" heritage. Just think about it? Who is the only writer onboard who just about has any understanding of cultural anthropology? It's Ronald D. Moore. You don't see much ethnic awareness in any of the other writers teleplays. It wasn't really explored until he came on board. I wonder why that is?

Plus, Patrick Stewart is white. We live in a society, where ironically, a white American will find more in common with a white Brit than a fellow African American, based on the fact that they are both of the same race from a predominantly European background. This is the same mentality used to incarcerate Japanese Americans in internment camps during the 1940's, while no German American was ever placed in one of those American internment camps during World War II.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ I understand that. But it doesn't make it right.

And that, I think is the trap which Galaxy X fell into.

It's okay for a white Brit to flavor his character...but not as okay for an African American to flavor HIS. Because 'badass black dude' is 'not how a Starfleet captain is supposed to be'.

But by whose standards?

That was my point.

I think it's an unconscious thing...which is what makes it so interesting to discuss.

And for the record, my personal feeling is that Sisko became much more INTERESTING once they agreed to let Avery Brooks have his way with the character to a larger degree.

 

[Good Will Riker]

PKTrekGirl said:
But by whose standards?

That was my point.

I think it's an unconscious thing...which is what makes it so interesting to discuss.

It is the "Dudley Do Right" clean-cut, whitebread, Starfleet mentality, mostly propagated by TNG, VOY, and ENT.

Which is the reason why Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton didn't startout with facial hairs when they began working on TNG; Michael Dorn's Worf was denied long hair for the longest time; and Avery Brooks wasn't allowed to grow a goatee or shave his head for the first 3 years of DS9. Only, James Doohan's Scotty gained a mustache and DeForest Kelley made an appearance with a beard in TMP, because long hair and facial hair was "in" back in the 1970's.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Good Will Riker said:

PKTrekGirl said:
But by whose standards?

That was my point.

I think it's an unconscious thing...which is what makes it so interesting to discuss.

It is the "Dudley Do Right" clean-cut, whitebread, Starfleet mentality, mostly propagated by TNG, VOY, and ENT.

Bingo.

And since the only one of those to come before DS9 is TNG, then we have our answer.

I suspect that Galaxy X might be taking his idea of 'what a Starfleet captain is supposed to be' from Patrick Stewart's portrayal of the character of Picard.

But who said that is the ONLY acceptable way for a Starfleet Captain to act? Shatner's portrayal of Kirk himself was certainly not like that! And in fact, Kirk is probably further away from Picard than Sisko is, because Kirk had that whole womanizing thing going on as a sideline, which is not exactly the most profession way of handling one's self as an example to one's men.

Kirk was FAR from a Dudley do-right type. And if we are setting the standard of how a Starfleet captain is supposed to act from the ORIGINAL Starfleet captain...then IMO, Picard, and Archer were FAR off standard....and Janeway, while closer to the Kirk standard, was still a ways off.

I mean, I could EASILY see Kirk poisoning the Maquis planet or subconsciously using Garak's 'special skills' to bring the Romulans into the war.

But never in a million years would Picard have done those things. Picard would have lost the war rather than manipulate the Romulans the way Garak did...and Sisko tacitly accepted! In many ways, in fact, Picard is actually the extreme end of the Trek captain spectrum. I could sorta see Janeway (because of her actions in Endgame, ironically enough) or Archer doing the things Sisko did, if I REALLY stretch. But never Picard.

Kirk? Shoot...he wouldn't even need Garak - he'd do the manipulation of the Romulans himself! I mean, if you want the job done RIGHT....

 

[TykensRift]

- Not. Enough. Garak.

- Agreed, Kira's amazing strength, felling scale-necked Cardies in powerful Kirk-chops.

- The bat'leth uppercut move. Clink, clink, blow to the stomach to double over the opponent, then uppercut for the flailing knockout. Strangely, no one was ever decapitated.

- The Kira-Odo romance. Never believed it for a moment, despite having been acclimated to the Star Trek "in the future, love knows no color, race, or gooey liquid state" tolerance. This goes double for Rom-Leeta.

- The Founders can pose as anyone, yet there are only a smattering of them who do so. The entire Jem'Hadar army pales in comparison to the kind of havoc a "battalion" of changelings could have wreaked. Served as a convenient plot device only.

- One of the worst moments in the series: Avery Brooks' histrionic overacting in the S6 episode, "In the Pale Moonlight."

 

[Good Will Riker]

^^^ Welcome aboard.


And, no matter what you say -- Avery Brooks is a brilliant actor.

 

[OldManDax]

darthvincor said:
I worship the show.
But if I must name something, it'd have to be that episode when Sisko was missing, and Worf was commanding the Defiant, and he had 52 hours or so to locate Sisko, because he had to protect some convoy when time ran out, and of course time did run out, and Worf decided to abandon the search, as Kira ordered him to do.
And then Julian (humane kinda guy, medical docter, etc...) would gladly have Worf continue to search for Sisko and let 1000s of Federation troops die, just to save one man!
Man, I hated that. So out of character. Such dreaful writing. Bashir would never do that.
In another episode, he was willing to have the Federation surrender (after some genetically enhanced calculations), to sacrifice an x amount, to save billions.
So for him, the more people you save, the better. Of course.
But WHY OH WHY was he so out of character in that one episode????? It still pisses me off.

Like every Trek series (and most crew-based space/military dramas), DS9 showed a crew who had affection and great respect for their Captain, to an extent that they are often willing to violate established protocol orders to help and/or rescue them; we see that in reverse, as well, where Captains are willing to challenge Starfleet protocol and go through hell and back to rescue a crew member. Some of the more hard-core Niners may not wish to see this (god forbid we should see an aspect of humanity and/or Starfleet as a net positive), but I think an occasional reminder that humans and/or alien stand-ins do develop bonds of affection and fraternity that go beyond beyond the dictates of hard-nosed realism or professional duty is important to making Trek characters more recognizable as people.

Navaros said:

To add insult to injury, let's be frank, Terry Farrell is hands-down the worst actress on the show. The other actors/actresses on the show have cut their teeth on theatre and real acting well before DS9. They were chosen for their acting ability, Farrell was not, and it shows.

HEAR, HEAR! Finally someone who believes the same as me.

Terry Farrell, wasn't a great actress (though she's hardly awful), and some of the writing for was clumsy, but there was a lot of good things about the character. IMO, she was a good help to the growth of many characters including Worf, Kira, Quark, Bashir, and of course, The Sisko. She also added a sense of whimsy and playfulness, as well as an adventurous aspect to the series, without which the show would've been quite weaker, IMO.

...ruining the Ferengi. That was so annoyning, suddenly the Ferengi had become human.

No. The Ferengi had grown. And changed. It's called life.

Or did you want them to be remain monolithic (which of course, somebody would've complained about)?

 

[Armus]

I though the writers gave Cardassians, especially Garak, way too much smug dialogue. I know Cardassians were supposed to love to talk but Garak's speech seemed forced a lot of times. Garak was great when he had a dramatic role to play, like in "Second Skin" or "In The Pale Moonlight". Sometimes less is more powerful. Sisko's words were short but potent.

I didn't like the way Dukat was handled from the midpoint of season 5 until he went "crazy" in season 6. The character needed more consistency to be believable. He became an ally in seasons 3 to 5 and too change him so rapidly was jolting to the audience. That being said I did like his Pah Reths arc in the last 2 seasons. Atleast it was consistent.

I hated Dax's corny one liners like "Who Says there's never a Klingon around when you need one!"

I hated when Odo sighed, when Kira got really big emotional moment and looked like she was going to burst into tears. In the last few seasons, I really grew to dislike seeing Rom and Leeta, Vic Fontaine, Admiral Ross, and most of the Ferengi episodes.

 

[payndz201]

PKTrekGirl said:

lvsxy808 said:

PKTrekGirl said:
Was there any off-screen reason they killed off Bareil so early? Maybe that had something to do with the existence of Shakaar...

They had no particular plan to kill Bareil off. The storyline for "Life Support" was in place already. The story had some random guy dying and being rebuilt with a robot brain. They decided later that it would have a greater effect if it was somebody we already knew, and went with Bareil. That's the only reason he was killed.

The writers later regretted it, which is why they put Kira with Shakaar in an attempt to recreate that dynamic. Shakaar was boring, so they killed it altogether.

Okay...I can buy this answer. I wish they hadn't picked Bareil...but I'm trying to think of a secondary character active at that time in the series who could have been an alternative...and none really springs to mind.

I'm sure that a lot of DS9 fans would have been more than happy to see Keiko dying and being given a robot brain (before dying again at the end of the episode). (Not me; I actually kind of liked Keiko, because when it comes to TV characters I seem to have an attraction to whiny, passive-aggressive women...)

TykensRift said:
One of the worst moments in the series: Avery Brooks' histrionic overacting in the S6 episode, "Far Beyond The Stars."

Fixed that for ya.

 

[DS9Continuing]

PKTrekGirl said:
But who said that is the ONLY acceptable way for a Starfleet Captain to act? Shatner's portrayal of Kirk himself was certainly not like that! And in fact, Kirk is probably further away from Picard than Sisko is, because Kirk had that whole womanizing thing going on as a sideline, which is not exactly the most profession way of handling one's self as an example to one's men.

Kirk was FAR from a Dudley do-right type. And if we are setting the standard of how a Starfleet captain is supposed to act from the ORIGINAL Starfleet captain...then IMO, Picard, and Archer were FAR off standard....and Janeway, while closer to the Kirk standard, was still a ways off.

Well, I guess the point here is that these are five different people. They have different personalities and handle situations in different ways. Yes, there are rules and guidelines for how Starfleet officers are supposed to behave, but there are still human beings (in those cases) inhabiting those uniforms.

 

[Kurtman]

TykensRift said:
- Not. Enough. Garak.

- Agreed, Kira's amazing strength, felling scale-necked Cardies in powerful Kirk-chops.

That, Ezria and the whole parallel Pah-wraith story.