YOU! The Contrarian

[Nerys Ghemor]

Speaking of Ties of Blood and Water, Second Skin rarely seems to show up on lists of the most popular DS9 episodes, but it would make my top 5 no problem.

Oh yeah, Second Skin, too. But that one seems to get a lot more credit than Ties.

And I definitely prefer Ezri to Jadzia.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I don't like any of those episodes that focus on the Bajoran culture or their conflict with the Cardassians. I like the Weyoun scenes in "Ties of Blood and Water", but not the rest of it. I'm also not as huge of a Garak fan as most of the forum seems to be. Sometimes I find the way he says everything in the same mannered tone of voice infuriating (makes me wonder why people praise the actor so much), but he has his moments.

 

[carlmarx]

I've found I'm in the minority when it comes to "The Search Part II". I had absolutely zero problems with the twist ending. I actually thought it was clever and added a disturbing sort of creepiness factor to the whole thing.

And does anyone else agree that Part II of "Past Tense" is better than Part I?

 

[snakespeare]

That sexiest DS9 character poll is interesting, but I wonder what the result would have been had they listed the mirror universe characters, too. Somehow I think Mirror Kira might have fared better than regular Kira.

 

[DevilEyes]

That sexiest DS9 character poll is interesting, but I wonder what the result would have been had they listed the mirror universe characters, too. Somehow I think Mirror Kira might have fared better than regular Kira.

You're wrong.

Poll: Prime Universe Kira or The Intendant?

 

[Too Much Fun]

And does anyone else agree that Part II of "Past Tense" is better than Part I?

I think both parts suck. Generally, I feel Star Trek is justified when they make an episode a two parter, but in that case, there wasn't even a good enough story to make even a single episode bearable. Kind of like "Time's Arrow" on TNG, although its first part had some decent moments.

 

[snakespeare]

That sexiest DS9 character poll is interesting, but I wonder what the result would have been had they listed the mirror universe characters, too. Somehow I think Mirror Kira might have fared better than regular Kira.

You're wrong.

Poll: Prime Universe Kira or The Intendant?

Indeed I am.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

I've found I'm in the minority when it comes to "The Search Part II". I had absolutely zero problems with the twist ending. I actually thought it was clever and added a disturbing sort of creepiness factor to the whole thing.

And does anyone else agree that Part II of "Past Tense" is better than Part I?

I kind of feel that I ought to dislike The Search, Part II, since in general I'm not so crazy about that kind of storytelling, but in fact I found it quite an effective and ominous foretaste of the kind of threat the Dominion would go on to pose.

As for Past Tense, I love both halves equally.

I think I may be in the minority in thinking that Season 3 was better than Season 4.

 

[Eyes]

I love both parts equally in Past Tense. I think its a brilliant two-parter and certainly the best time-travel story in Trek.

As for the Search Part 2, the only good thing about it was Garak's heroic death, the rest was just average, and not really what I'd expect of a two-parter.

 

[flemm]

I liked WDTDON, too. What do people say about it? OK, it is a massive retcon, but it doesn't really contradict anything we had seen before. I think some people had a problem with the time travel aspect, but I don't see why - we'd have to write off about 30% of all Trek episodes on that grounds, I never had a problem with it as a storytelling mechanism, and in this case, for once it didn't end up creating any paradoxes.

For what it's worth, I also like both of these episodes quite a bit. I guess they probably wouldn't make my top ten (though Ties of Blood and Water might depending on my mood), but anyway I think they're both high-quality DS9 fare.

Ties is the less gimmicky of the two, but the time travel in Wrongs has never bothered me. It's tied to an orb experience as I recall, so it's basically a spiritual journey (as so many of the prophet-related episodes are). As such it doesn't need to make sense to be effective.

Not that pure sci-fi time travel needs to really make sense either when you get right down to it. The question is more: is it used effectively as a storytelling device? In Wrongs I think the answer is basically, yes. The writers never stopped finding ways to torture Kira, but what is interesting is that the character continues to grow throughout and doesn't get trapped in eternal victimhood, as one might expect.

I also like Second Skin, though not as much as the above two episodes.

Beyond that, the degree of loathing expressed on the Interwebz for Let He Who Is Without Sin... originally surprised me a bit. Granted, I only watched the episode once and I didn't like it much, but it didn't stand out to me as particularly awful either. By the same token, I thought The Visitor was okay, but I was surprised to see how revered it is on the boards. I've never really been that taken with it.

I think Children of Time is an underrated episode. It's probably the only DS9 episode that doesn't happen on the station, has nothing to do with the Dominion War and doesn't focus on a single character that I find at all memorable. I think the episode works for me because it confronts the crew with compelling choices and avoids wrapping the whole experience up with too neat a ribbon at the end.

I'm a fan of Season 7. I understand that the choice to make Dukat the evil Pagh Wraith Emissary is not popular, and I could have done without it as well, but for me that choice doesn't overshadow the rest of the season, which is chock full of many of the show's best outings, including The Siege of AR-558, Chimera, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges and Tacking Into the Wind, just to name a few. The whole Final Arc is flawed, but nevertheless awesome overall in my view. I'll take "flawed, yet awesome" anyday.

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

I don't like "Far Beyond the Stars." I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

I don't care for the Klingon Honor eps, whether they centred around Jadzia or Worf, and in fact am not a big fan of Worf on DS9 (I liked him on TNG, but he was overexposed by being a regular on two Treks).

I do like "Emperor's New Cloak," and generally feel we got to see far too little of the Mirror Universe. (And only one ep, ever, with MEzri? Come on!)

I like the Ferengi episodes, although I can leave Prophet and Lace or whatever aside.

 

[Navaros]

I love Valiant, especially because the punks get blown up. What a great episode! I'll never understand why it is generally hated, especially since Abrams' Trek is pretty much identical to it plot-wise and cast-wise, yet gets near universal acclaim.

I cannot stand The Sound of Her Voice, I consider it to be ludicrous tripe, and the sound of her voice sounds awful to boot.

I'm not a huge fan of Duet. Yes it is a good episode, but IMO it gets way, way overblown by sometimes being considered one of DS9's best or even DS9's very best. I wouldn't even put it in my top 20 DS9 episodes.

I'm not a huge fan of The Visitor, which IMO is also a good episode that gets way, way overblown by very often being considered one of DS9's best or DS9's very best. IMO to even contend for one of those slots it would have had to avoid using the lame big red reset button at the end of the episode, which for some inexplicable reason, gets rightly condemned when it is used in other Trek episodes yet The Visitor gets a free pass on it. It also is nowhere near the best of DS9 IMO because it doesn't have any relevance whatever to the overall story of DS9, ie: Dominion War, and in fact kind of contradicts that story by conveniently pretending that the Dominion doesn't exist.

I love a lot of the Quark episodes that don't get much discussion, such as Bar Association and Body Parts. Those are both masterpiece episodes; not sure why they have fallen through the cracks and rarely ever get recognized.

i watched 'the abandoned' today. had seen it before, but thankfully forgotten what it was about, and hope i'll manage again. is it a highly regarded episode around here?

I'd say The Abandoned is also a masterpiece episode that has fallen through the cracks and does not get recognized like it should.

I absolutely love Statistical Probabilities, I'd probably consider it as one of DS9's top 5 episodes, and certainly within the top 10.

I very much dislike Apocalypse Rising, it has way, way too many ludicrous plot holes as a result of the writers trying to ramrod and ad hoc change into the story at the last minute that in no way makes any sense (Martok instead of Gowron being the changeling).

I dislike Trials and Tribble-ations. I am offended by how they screwed-up the Enterprise's chime motif when it first appears (how hard is that to copy and paste correctly?!). I am greatly disappointed that they didn't even try to do work on the very best scene in the whole episode, when Kirk confronts Scotty one-on-one. They should have included O'Brien in that scene as a replacement for Scotty. Instead, they copped-out and just cut the scene from the episode. Lame! I have no idea why this is considered one of DS9's best. It certainly should not be IMO. The 'plot' has no relevance to DS9's story in any way, nor any substantive meaning at all; both of which would be necessary for it to be one of DS9's best.

I loathe many of the Kira-centric episodes to the point that I find them mostly-unwatchable, like: Wrongs Darker than Death or Night, Ties of Blood and Water (only watchable scenes in this whole thing are the Weyoun/Dukat ones), Heart of Stone (Visitor's horrible acting ruins that one, although Auberjonois and Eisenberg are quite good in it), The Darkness and the Light (Visitor's horrible acting kills this too).

I greatly dislike Starship Down. Silly melodrama and totally lacking suspense due to not showing the Jem'Hadar bridge at all, like great episodes of this type do (ie: Balance of Terror). The only watchable scenes in this are the Quark subplot --- too bad Quark wasn't given the entire episode to himself, it would have been a far, far better episode then. Visitor's horrible acting in this one once again makes her scenes unwatchable.

I dislike You are Cordially Invited. I find it to be useless filler nonsense, and a great lowering of the bar in terms of Season 6's quality.

I love Honor Among Thieves. A truly great episode. It seems to only be regarded as average though.

I loathe most Bajoran-centric episodes, unless Kai Winn figures prominently in them in which case I love them due to her stellar acting.

I can't stand any of the MU episodes, are are IMO uniformly pointless schlock and a waste of good episode slots that should have been used on something worthwhile instead.

I despise just about every single Jadzia-centric and Ezri-centric episode.

I also notice that I'm a contrarian for liking Ferengi episodes, little did I know.

Actually, I made a Poll about that a year or two ago and the vast majority (~70% IIRC) voted that they love the Ferengi episode overall rather than hate the Ferengi episodes overall (I only included two Poll options in order to get clear results).

So no, you are not a contrarian for liking Ferengi episodes, even though it may seem that way because Polls are not in every thread in which Ferengi episodes get slammed.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Worf. I'm on and off with Worf, sometimes he really annoys me, sometimes I'm quite glad he's there. Depends on my mood.

Also re: Take Me Out to the Holosuite - I LOVE that episode! Will be forcing the family to watch it later.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I'm not a huge fan of Duet. Yes it is a good episode, but IMO it gets way, way overblown by sometimes being considered one of DS9's best or even DS9's very best. I wouldn't even put it in my top 20 DS9 episodes.

Agreed.

I dislike Trials and Tribble-ations. I am offended by how they screwed-up the Enterprise's chime motif when it first appears (how hard is that to copy and paste correctly?!). I am greatly disappointed that they didn't even try to do work on the very best scene in the whole episode, when Kirk confronts Scotty one-on-one. They should have included O'Brien in that scene as a replacement for Scotty. Instead, they copped-out and just cut the scene from the episode. Lame! I have no idea why this is considered one of DS9's best. It certainly should not be IMO. The 'plot' has no relevance to DS9's story in any way, nor any substantive meaning at all; both of which would be necessary for it to be one of DS9's best.

Oh, them's fightin' words! That's my favourite episode. I think you are nitpicking too much. You want to criticize this episode for not including a sound effect perfectly? That's a pretty miniscule and insignificant detail to get worked up over. And replacing Scotty with O'Brien in that scene would have been too much work. Even if they had tried it, it would have been too fake-looking, which would most likely irritate you even more than the episode as it is. That's expecting too much of the technology they had to work with at the time, and even with modern technology, it might still be phony. With how much effort it took to time the look between Jadzia and Kirk and the words between Sisko and Kirk, I can't imagine a whole conversation between Kirk and O'Brien possibly being done convincingly.

You seem to keep putting down episodes for being too self-contained. I actually prefer those episodes over some of the more arc-connected ones. Along with this episode, "You are Cordially Invited..." and "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" are other favourites of mine. I always care about characters first and story second, so I love those episodes for having so many enjoyable moments and interactions between characters.

I loathe many of the Kira-centric episodes to the point that I find them mostly-unwatchable, like: Wrongs Darker than Death or Night, Ties of Blood and Water (only watchable scenes in this whole thing are the Weyoun/Dukat ones), Heart of Stone (Visitor's horrible acting ruins that one, although Auberjonois and Eisenberg are quite good in it), The Darkness and the Light (Visitor's horrible acting kills this too).

Now you're saying stuff I can agree with again.

I dislike You are Cordially Invited. I find it to be useless filler nonsense, and a great lowering of the bar in terms of Season 6's quality.

You are an odd fellow. Now I'm back to disagreeing with you. That was my favourite episode of season 6, and the highlight of that season, in my opinion.

I despise just about every single Jadzia-centric and Ezri-centric episode.

How dare you. The one about Ezri's family sucks, but I love all of the other ones centered around Dax. It's weird how we can agree so much on some episodes and yet feel completely opposite about others.