I bought the whole DS9 series from Deep Discount the middle of November. I've been slowly working through the the series. I just finished watching Vortex. While I don't want to do a episode by episode review, I would like to keep this thread as a journal of my passage.
First, a bit about me. My name is normally Outpost4 here and Gregg in the real world. I am 54 and an original Trekkie, being 13 in 1966, a prime age for getting sucked in by Star Trek. I have also always been open to new Trek. I really enjoyed the last two seasons of Enterprise. By now I'm tired of TNG - can you say over-exposed? - and most of Voyager loses me in technobabble. Also, Janeway sounds just like a Munchkin and I want her to follow the Yellow Brick Road home to Earth and be done with it.
As for DS9, I certainly watched some of it on first run. Emissary confused me and other episodes bored me, but I would watch an episode in DS9's first run from time to time. I have also seen an occasional episode on Spike. One of the reasons I bought the whole series was many of these episodes are new to me and this is the only new Trek I'm going to get for a while.
I was careful picking the title for this thread. So far it has been work to get through the first season of DS9. I know things don't get really interesting until season 3 but so far I have to say this is mostly bad Trek. Yes, there have been some highlights. Emissary was much better than I remember it. It does touch a lot of bases, to use an appropriate baseball analogy, doesn't it? I enjoyed Captive Pursuit, one of the few episodes so far I have seen before. I liked O'Brien's attachment to Tosk and his calling Sisko on his inaction at the end. I also enjoyed Move Along Home. It didn't telegraph its intentions and yet everything was wrapped up in a tight bow by its conclusion. One question: does Quark grovel so quickly and so poorly so often? I sure hope not. I also enjoyed the conflict in Kira's character shown in Past Prologue. I hope more is made of this. In every other episode so far, you could put a Starfleet uniform on her and not much would change.
Beyond that, this has been dreck Trek. I have heard Q-less is his only appearance in this series. Good. Both Dax and The Passenger had plot holes big enough to drive a space station through them. A Man Alone is totally out of place in the Trek world. Racism would be more subtle, not demonstrated by an angry mob at Odo's office. They should have had pitchforks and torches. The less said about The Nagus, the better. Characters flipped motivations faster than an Olympic gymnast. And Vortex? I should believe that "by-the-book" Odo is capable of letting a murderer go because of a family reunion? Pleaaassseeeee.
Some other observations. It must have been tough for the cast to learn their lines in Babel. I was especially impressed with Colm Meaney's ability to speak many consecutive sentences of gibberish. I hope they don't try to move DS9 too many more times. I don't care what kind of warp field they generate. Moving that big of a station using thrusters reminds me of a solution Voyager might come up with. The crew also solved taking over a Cardassian station rather easily, didn't they? Such a great plot device was abandoned too quickly. A partially functioning space station would have been much more interesting.
I don't mean to be negative but I have to admit in general I have been unimpressed with what I've watched so far. I will stay with it as I am a Trekkie but so far, not so good.
First, a bit about me. My name is normally Outpost4 here and Gregg in the real world. I am 54 and an original Trekkie, being 13 in 1966, a prime age for getting sucked in by Star Trek. I have also always been open to new Trek. I really enjoyed the last two seasons of Enterprise. By now I'm tired of TNG - can you say over-exposed? - and most of Voyager loses me in technobabble. Also, Janeway sounds just like a Munchkin and I want her to follow the Yellow Brick Road home to Earth and be done with it.
As for DS9, I certainly watched some of it on first run. Emissary confused me and other episodes bored me, but I would watch an episode in DS9's first run from time to time. I have also seen an occasional episode on Spike. One of the reasons I bought the whole series was many of these episodes are new to me and this is the only new Trek I'm going to get for a while.
I was careful picking the title for this thread. So far it has been work to get through the first season of DS9. I know things don't get really interesting until season 3 but so far I have to say this is mostly bad Trek. Yes, there have been some highlights. Emissary was much better than I remember it. It does touch a lot of bases, to use an appropriate baseball analogy, doesn't it? I enjoyed Captive Pursuit, one of the few episodes so far I have seen before. I liked O'Brien's attachment to Tosk and his calling Sisko on his inaction at the end. I also enjoyed Move Along Home. It didn't telegraph its intentions and yet everything was wrapped up in a tight bow by its conclusion. One question: does Quark grovel so quickly and so poorly so often? I sure hope not. I also enjoyed the conflict in Kira's character shown in Past Prologue. I hope more is made of this. In every other episode so far, you could put a Starfleet uniform on her and not much would change.
Beyond that, this has been dreck Trek. I have heard Q-less is his only appearance in this series. Good. Both Dax and The Passenger had plot holes big enough to drive a space station through them. A Man Alone is totally out of place in the Trek world. Racism would be more subtle, not demonstrated by an angry mob at Odo's office. They should have had pitchforks and torches. The less said about The Nagus, the better. Characters flipped motivations faster than an Olympic gymnast. And Vortex? I should believe that "by-the-book" Odo is capable of letting a murderer go because of a family reunion? Pleaaassseeeee.
Some other observations. It must have been tough for the cast to learn their lines in Babel. I was especially impressed with Colm Meaney's ability to speak many consecutive sentences of gibberish. I hope they don't try to move DS9 too many more times. I don't care what kind of warp field they generate. Moving that big of a station using thrusters reminds me of a solution Voyager might come up with. The crew also solved taking over a Cardassian station rather easily, didn't they? Such a great plot device was abandoned too quickly. A partially functioning space station would have been much more interesting.
I don't mean to be negative but I have to admit in general I have been unimpressed with what I've watched so far. I will stay with it as I am a Trekkie but so far, not so good.
