Why was the last episode of DS9 so incredibly awful?

[ElimGarak]

To be more specific:

I thought Dukat's character became completely absurd. The entire scene with him and Kai Winn chanting in the fire caves would have fit better in "Ernest Scared Stupid" than in any semi-serious scifi series.

also, and this bothered me the most, the black and white flashbacks for the main characters felt like really bad tv drama kitsch. I half expected to hear Dawson's Creek theme music playing in the background.

 

[JustKate]

^ We're just going to have to agree to disagree. Dukat is indeed a fabulous character, but the way I saw it at the time (I haven't seen the episode in years, but I recently received season 7 as a present, yay!), Dukat had to do something dramatic, either dramatically good or dramatically evil - he is just not a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. And he chose evil. Which was, for him, a perfectly legitimate choice. Maybe it will strike me differently when I rewatch it.

 

[Gary7]

OP joins and just two days later posts a highly contentious stab at DS9 as their first order of business?

 

[JustKate]

Maybe, Gary, it's been eating at him for, like, years?

 

[Shatnertage]

I'm not crazy about DS9's finale. There were a lot of problems with it (some good things, too), but I think the main issue was that the writers were too concerned with wrapping up the plot(s) and not focused enough on the story. Sisko at the beginning is charged with getting Bajor into the Federation and being there for his son. So in the last episode he seemingly voluntarily leaves Starfleet, Bajor, and his son to live with the Prophets. And poor Jake, abandoned by his father...it just didn't seem right.

AGT, on the other hand, had a pretty thin plot, but did a great job of thematically wrapping up the TNG story.

As far as overall quality, I'd put TNG, DS9, and VOY all on the same level, each excelling in some areas, with ENT slightly behind them.

 

[Dukhat]

I'd argue against calling it a "cheap move". Just because it's the last episode doesn't mean they have an bottomless money pit to call on.

I'm not saying they had to make lots of new footage; just don't reuse footage from an episode whose battle was still fresh in my mind. I'd rather not see any footage at all than reused footage, but that's just me.

same here, all this pedantry over re used scenes is hardly an issue to most people except the complete nerd

Thank you for calling me a complete nerd. I love you too.

To be more specific:

I thought Dukat's character became completely absurd. The entire scene with him and Kai Winn chanting in the fire caves would have fit better in "Ernest Scared Stupid" than in any semi-serious scifi series.

also, and this bothered me the most, the black and white flashbacks for the main characters felt like really bad tv drama kitsch. I half expected to hear Dawson's Creek theme music playing in the background.

So you condemned the entire two-hour series finale as a contrived pile of garbage because of those two factors?

 

[Balrog]

I loved DS9 and the DS9 ending. I found it quite satisfying and ended exactly the way the writers wanted it to end.

That's the one gripe I have with fandom - people gripe about what THEY want happen. I'm satisfied they got to tell their story how they wanted.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

The Dominion War stuff was generally good, as was the sense of closure for many of the characters. But the Sisko and Path Wraiths stuff is pretty awful. Its clear the writers didn't really know what they were doing with that whole thread. They didn't plot it out well.

 

[Jono]

Shouldn't there be a bigger budget available for Season Finales?

I'm sure they had budget issues with the final episode. I swear I read somewhere that they overspent earlier in the season/throughout the season and that hamstrung them a bit for the final.

Can't find where I read that but here is something from MA on the finale in relation to the cost of using Farrell's images for the finale and why they weren't used.

After all, this was a show where we had to cut out hundreds of thousands of dollars from the original draft.

So it probably did have a bigger budget, but it was still not enough for what they wanted to do.

 

[M-Red]

I enjoyed WYLB very much. It was bold, and I thought it was epic on multiple story fronts. It also gave us the goodbyes and narrative conclusions that I look for in a series finale.

(*Otoh, I don't hold the lack of conclusions against AGT, since it was supposed to be a capstone for the show while also being a transitional story for JLP and the crew..)


For a TV finale, WYLB covers a lot of ground and contains some great moments and heavy material.
-the invasion of Cardassia
-the final death of Weyoun
-the razing of Cardassia
-Martok's "victory" toast
-the treating signing
-goodbyes and Vic's song
-multiple love stories between characters
-the Sisko-Dukat showdown
-the farewell montage
-Odo and the Great Link
-a fantastic final fade-away shot to the music...


Really -- did you truly think Sisko was going to "die?" It took some courage for them to really do that....




And who didn't like this?

 

[Sindatur]

I basically enjoyed WYLB, my only issue with it, was the timing of getting down into the Firecaves (Dukhat/Winn measured agaisnt the Dominion War being tied up vs. The seeming minutes it took Sisko to get there after the Treaty signing).

As far as where they went with that part of the story, to me, it fit perfectly into the rest of the Prophets/Pah Wraiths/Emissary story arc. And I'm so confused by all these folks who say Ben abandoned Jake and went off to live with the Prophets. It's not like Sisko contacted the Prophets and "Said, OK, I'm ready, carry me home to the Celestial Temple". He fought with Dukhat, to defeat the Pah Wraiths and they fell into a pit, which the Prophets grabbed him up from, and brought him to the Celestial Temple. He didn't go to the Fire Caves with the intention or knowldge he would not be returning to the Station.

 

[Hober Mallow]

The Pah-Wraith story was ill-developed. It could have been interesting, with the build up over several episodes of events none of the main characters are aware of and it just kind of ends very suddenly.

Otherwise, I didn't think the finale was that bad. It wasn't great, but I liked how they basically wrapped up most of the story early so we could spend some time saying goodbye to the characters.

 

[myselfeneye]

The ending was exactly what it needed to be. It suited everything that happened in the series, much like All Good Things was about everything that TNG had been about in its 7-year run; TNG had tons of temporal anomalies, bonding betweeen a very close crew, Q, humanity being tested...and DS9 was about hardship, overcoming adversity, loads of combat, and The Prophets. I get that this is a vast oversimplification and there's plenty I've ignored. Bear with me.

Sisko was for Bajor, that's right--which is why he had to defeat Dukat. He did that for Bajor. And the Pah-Wraiths had come up before. Remember The Reckoning? Remember the episode where Dukat tried to induct Kira into his Pah-Wraith cult on Empok Nor? Spooky stuff.

 

[cml898]

The DS9 Finale wasn't quite all it was meant to be but I fully believe and accept that the writers did the best they could under difficult behind the scenes circumstances. Having read the official DS9 companion I know that plans were made so the writers of the finale could really take their time and get it right. Then people got sick and they had to fill in here and there and other stuff came up and in the end they just didn't have the time they'd hoped for. I still think it turned out great. I'm not bothered by any of the Pah Wraith stuff and pretty much enjoyed everything they did. But having read all that I can't help but wonder what might have been if the best laid plans hadn't crumbled somewhat.

 

[Gagarin]

Better than AGT. Not because AGT was bad, but because DS9 was serialized, so there was years long tension and bondings coming apart and together. Character arcs arced after 7 years. It was... cathartic, while AGT really had to set up catharsis in 90 minutes by its own or by exploiting allusions.

Jadzia being dead harms the episode (and being absent from stock footage also does, but to a lesser degree). Also missing is a scene of watching the Dominion actually retreat back to the Gamma quadrant - that could have been rewarding.

 

[myselfeneye]

Those are good points. DS9's entire final arc could be considered the finale. After all, Rom and Leeta's arc is done prior to WYLB. It's a shame we don't see them in the finale. After all, a big finale like that should feature everyone it can in some way, shape or form--or at least it would be nice if it did. I don't think we saw Keiko or the O'Brien kids either, except in the flashbacks. So changed I'd have made would have been to include every character possible, even as a 2-second walk-by. Hell, I'd even have gone out of my way to show the guy who runs the Klingon restaurant. But that's just me.

 

[bbailey861]

I was very satisfied with how everything was tied up. There was a lot of story to cover and they covered it very well, with some memorable script lines. I was happier when the story continued seamlessly with the books.

 

[Shikarnov]

The only beef I had with the episode was the omission of Jadzia from the memories montage at the end. She was Sisko's best friend, Worf's wife, and an integral part of the show for six years, and yet appears not once during the recap. I understand that there were real-world reasons for her not appearing, but you'd think Paramount could cough up whatever Terry Farrell's royalty would have been. How much could it have possibly been for a few clips?

 

[SAndrews10]

From what's been said they didn't ask when they used her voice earlier in the season so the answer was flat out no for the finale no matter what the price was. It was on principle alone

 

[Worf'sParmach]

The Dominion War stuff was generally good, as was the sense of closure for many of the characters. But the Sisko and Path Wraiths stuff is pretty awful. Its clear the writers didn't really know what they were doing with that whole thread. They didn't plot it out well.

Agreed. I loved everything but that. I didn't like the whole Season 7 "Sisko's Mom is a Prophet" thing at all anyway so him disappearing into the fire pits was just the nail in that coffin. And why have Kassidy be pregnant if he just going to disappear? That was just an unneccesary plot point. Leaving Jake was drama anough without leaving the unborn kid too.

I'm sure they had budget issues with the final episode. I swear I read somewhere that they overspent earlier in the season/throughout the season and that hamstrung them a bit for the final.

Can't find where I read that but here is something from MA on the finale in relation to the cost of using Farrell's images for the finale and why they weren't used.

Budget was a huge issue. It's why they reused battle scenes (which, frankly, I never noticed) but more notably why Jadzia is absent from the montage. To me, not getting Farrell on board with that would have been enough to scrap the whole montage thing altogether, but I'm a purist that way.

From what's been said they didn't ask when they used her voice earlier in the season so the answer was flat out no for the finale no matter what the price was. It was on principle alone

You're right, it had to do with the use of her voice in Penumbra without her permission. Though, everyone has a price, especially a moderately talented B-lister like Farrell.