The Human Adventure Continues: Talking About Star Trek

[Kirin]

Worrrrrrrf! Hey guy, good to see ya. Sorry you had to go through the wringer so hard in your debut episode, though, that was a doozy. We've now hit the point where I'm constantly wondering whether any given character might be a Founder here to eff shit up, which I assume is the general idea.

In the previous few episodes, the one where Dax meets all her previous selves was good fun. The one with the Bajoran rebels I spent the whole last quarter going "who is that guy leading the militia?" oh yeah, it's the commissioner from The Wire, innit. The last ep of the season felt a little like poorly-earned stakes, in that the big crisis is risking a war with a purportedly dangerous race we've never heard of before and never even see in the show at all, but it did do its job of setting up the paranoia of the new status quo.

Oh, and earlier there was that episode that was just straight up "Voyage of the Kon-Tiki". Some good Ben-Jake bonding time though, which is always nice.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

DS9 has a reputation for making O'Brien suffer, but Worf and Kira are close seconds. And really, just the whole cast suffers more than probably all other Star Treks combined.

 

[Kirin]

Lots of good stuff in early season four. The Visitor (Jake spends a whole lifetime trying to get his dad back) was a real tear-jerker. Kira and Dukat's road trip in Indiscretion was a good time. (I mean, I can see *why* some misguided writer thought it'd be fun to have the two of them go further at some point, but thank goodness Nana Visitor put her foot down, geez.) Rejoined (Dax's ex) was sweet and sad. Starship Down was a nice classic "we're pretty f*cked, time to get creative" cat-and-mouse ship battle episode.

 

[FelixSH]

Glad you are enjoying DS9.

So glad that Visitor had a good handle on her character. I mean, I get that you have different writers, but shouldn't it be obvious that Kira simply can't get intimate with, of all people, Dukat? That she can't fall for specifically him? Yes, she is a woman, but come on, do they always have to fall back on romance, even if it is character assassination?

Wow, didn't expect to still get so frustrated about this awful idea.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I'm convinced among a large number of writers that there's a kind of brain-rot that goes on, where they value what's most "interesting" to them over everything else, especially what would make the most sense or be most entertaining to their audiences. Sometimes, this mentality births truly creative ideas that feels fresh and that we'd never get otherwise. But a lot of the time, it creates shit like "What if our Space-Jew fell in love with Space-Hitler?" Doesn't matter if it would make any sense, or piss everybody else off, ur be a complete betrayal of the entire show/franchise. That writer is bored and wants something NEW and UNEXPECTED!

I'll never forget the recent DS9 documentary, where a panel of former DS9 writers got together and started brainstorming a Season 8 pitch. And their genius ideas included:

1) Turning Kira into a hardline religious zealot (which went completely against her entire character development arc of the original show).
2) Killing off fan-favorite Nog in the opening minutes to set up a spooky mystery of whodunnit.

The more I hear about the writing process and all the ideas these old Star Trek writers had and wanted put into the shows, but never got made, the more I start to think, "Maybe the editors/producers of the world are Good, Actually."

 

[Kirin]

Well whatever the reason, this season continues to fire on all cylinders - Little Green Men (i.e. the Quark-fam vs the 1940s) was great silly fun and Sword of Kahless was some good Klingon lore.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I’ve mentioned before, but the friend I’m watching the whole franchise with - we’re on Seaosn 3 of TOS and only have that and TAS left before he’s seen everything.

“The Sword of Kahless” has entered his lexicon for describing any time someone acts wildly out of character/irrational for little to no reason.

 

[Kirin]

Heh, I'll admit I was wondering if the sword was literally emitting something that gave people delusions of grandeur if they touched it. But I guess it's just so much of a *thing* for Klingon culture that it doesn't need fancy tech or mystical powers to make people make awful decisions. I mean, I could see true believers going some pretty wild places if they were *literally* holding the for-reals Holy Grail in their hands.

 

[FelixSH]

1) Turning Kira into a hardline religious zealot (which went completely against her entire character development arc of the original show).
2) Killing off fan-favorite Nog in the opening minutes to set up a spooky mystery of whodunnit.

Even with Strange New Worlds and its cast of great female characters, Kira is probably still my favourite. And generally one of my favorite Trek characters, period. Bad writers, what an icky idea. And killing of Nog...yeah, amazing idea.

Anyway, Sword of Kahless is that story where Worf and a few friends go on an adventure to find that thing, right? Yeah, that was a fun episode. Also, Klingons of the TNG/DS9 era are dumbasses, I can immediately believe that they would act this way.

Little Green Men is also a lot of fun. I do like the Ferengi, when they aren't going into their dumb sexist nonsense.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Klingons of the TNG/DS9 era are dumbasses, I can immediately believe that they would act this way.

Kor is old and senile, so he gets a pass. Even though he’s also a TOS era Klingon who was conniving and pragmatic in TOS and barely resembled who he ended up being in DS9. People change, it’s ok.

Worf though, it’s definitely out of character. At least, the Worf established in TNG. I’ll probably keep saying it until I die or a brain-disease robs my memories, but DS9-Worf essentially character-assassinated TNG-Worf.

 

[FelixSH]

There is one good Klingon in DS9, if memory serves, and that's Martok (no idea if the name is a spoiler, just in case). I think Kor is even ok? But generally, Klingons of this era are the worst. Blood! Honor! Death!

It works, as a society that is falling apart, one that is rotten to the core with a hollowed-out concept of honor. A word that means everything and nothing, depending on what the person wants. You criticize me? You're without honor! We don't fight to the death? No honor! Yeah, I cheated, winning is honorable in itself!

I am fascinated by them, but they can get REALLY obnoxious. I'm so glad to know, that they will get better, even if we don't witness it firsthand.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Little Green Men is also a lot of fun. I do like the Ferengi, when they aren't going into their dumb sexist nonsense.

Truth.

 

[Kirin]

Keeps being good. Our Man Bashir is a rollicking Bond pastiche with everyone having a good time, and then we have the two-parter Home Front / Paradise Lost, which I can imagine being kinda controversial back in the day what with showing cracks in the Federation's utopian image, but compared to stuff that's gone on in later series it's a pretty quickly-resolved moment of treason.

 

[Exposition Owl]

Our Man Bashir is a rollicking Bond pastiche with everyone having a good time

That’s a fantastic episode, and my favorite thing about it is Garak the actual spy’s bemused commentary on human spy fantasy.

 

[Patrick]

Keeps being good.

An accurate review of DS9.

 

[Kirin]

Finally got to Hard Time. When other folks alluded to this episode earlier I assumed it was gonna be a horrible Dominion POW thing or something, but nope, that's still a cold war, this just comes out of a thread-bare plot with aliens we know nothing about who only exist to set up the writers' O'Brien-torture scenario. All in all it's not a bad portrayal of the effects and challenges of dealing with serious trauma, except of course that it has to be resolved in 45 minutes. They try to have it both ways by saying there's no magic cure, just hard work ahead, but you wouldn't know it by the time the next episode rolls around. Just the nature of this being kind of an in-between series structurally, where even though it has way more ongoing plot than previous Treks, it's still mainly produced as an episodic show.

Before that we had Shattered Mirror, which might be my least favorite of the MU eps so far but that's not actually damning 'cause I really loved the previous ones. (Also man, this MU really hates Ferengi.) Rules of Engagement was a Worf exploration that seemed more in character than some previous incidents (directed by Levar Burton probably helps!) Bar Association is good Rom times. And Rules of Engagement - huh, so now Dukat *is* the splinter group, we'll see where that goes.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Before that we had Shattered Mirror, which might be my least favorite of the MU eps so far but that's not actually damning 'cause I really loved the previous ones.

That's an interesting episode to me, if only because it gives Jake a certain amount of agency as a character. We've already seen how much Ben misses his wife/grieves for her, but we've never really gotten to see Jake process that. Especially since he was still pretty young when Wolf-359 went down. Of course, you have to like Jake a lot as a character to really be able to fully appreciate it, and I definitely didn't as a kid. I hated Jake. Now as an adult staring down middle age, Jake is a fantastic character.

They try to have it both ways by saying there's no magic cure, just hard work ahead, but you wouldn't know it by the time the next episode rolls around

It's even worse because IIRC at the end, turns out there kinda is a magic cure, as Bashir gives him some drugs to help take the worst edge of his depression off. Also curious how this episode would go if it were written today. Like, does Bashir prescribe some psilocybin and a little ego death? How does that affect the Chief's personality?

Bar Association is good Rom times

That episode is WILD. It starts out with Rom almost dying from masturbating too much. Hits a crescendo of Rom proudly quoting the Communist Manifesto during a labor strike(!!!). And ends with Rom switching careers.

Also, it wouldn't be a DS9 episode if it didn't include a little bit of character assassination of Worf, with him siding with the capitalist pigs/breaking the picket line.

 

[Kirin]

Hey, it's been a while since I updated on my DS9 watch-through here.

At this point I only remember a few reactions from the back end of season 4 - like Odo's double-take at Lwxuxana's preganancy in the cold open of The Muse being the most cartoonish thing I've ever seen him do. And The Quickening was a pretty solid riff on the Doctor-vs-stubborn-natives yarn. And then we end with Broken Link - in the end I don't know that the show got a lot of mileage out of taking away Odo's powers for a while, though the way he got them back in The Begotten was pretty touching even if the sad bit there was pretty predictable.

Anyway, Season 5 starts off strong with Apocalypse Rising - I knew it wasn't Gowron! Didn't make sense with him having *stopped* the previous big everyone's-gonna-die showdown. Seeing other folks' take on acting Klingon was fun, too. Then we get the Worf/Dax relationship going this season, which is usually fun times. Speaking of relationships, the Bashir/Lita traditional Bajoran breakup on Risa was lovely, we should all do that.

...Nor the Battle to the Strong was a pretty harrowing Jake episode, I thought his reactions were pretty realistic for his age and station. And then in more O'Brien bad times, the actress playing Keiko was having a lot of fun in The Assignment. Of course Tribble-ations needs no introduction and was a delight.

I'm not sure exactly what really happened in Rapture but Sisko sure is dabbling in some dangerously messianic directions at this point. And just a bit later we have For the Uniform, where, dang... Tuvix notwithstanding, that's about the most morally gray ends-over-means I've seen an MC starfleet captain get. Yeah, nominally nobody died and everyone got resettled safely, but he still yanked an entire colony from their homes to get one guy (and, admittedly, stop him from doing the same thing many times over, but still, starfleet's usually about finding a better way).

Then the big mid-season action with Purgatory's Shadow / Inferno's Light (melodramtic episode titles much?). Okay, that time I did *not* see the Changeling swap coming, though to be fair I don't know that it had been telegraphed at all, or even how many previous episodes it supposedly was going on for. Dukat's move though... I vaguely remember at the time some people were hoping for him to continue some kind of morally improving growth, but really this seems totally in character to me. Dude's a narcissist fascist through and through, catching feelings from time to time hasn't negated that.

And then, surprise Robert Picardo. Also revelations about Bashir... which I'm wondering whether ever amount to all that much?

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

And then, surprise Robert Picardo. Also revelations about Bashir... which I'm wondering whether ever amount to all that much?

It gets mentioned here and there as a plot point, but it doesn't really amount to much. IIRC the actor hated the idea, and the idea itself feels like it was a retcon born out of desperate writers trying to find ways to make the character more interesting. There's a few episodes later on that address Julian trying to hang out with other augments, but are basically autistic as a side effect, and those episodes are... kinda problematic in a modern view.

 

[Büge]

One of those episodes even goes all Flowers For Algernon with a dash of medical malpractice

 

[Kirin]

Huh. Well, I'll see when I get there I guess. Meanwhile, a couple more fun ones last night: Children of Time was a great time-loop dilemma episode, and Blaze of Glory wrapping up the Sisko/Eddington rivalry.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

One of those episodes even goes all Flowers For Algernon with a dash of medical malpractice

To Julian's credit, when he starts to catch feelings for her, he passes off doctors duties to another physician. And to the episode's credit, it comes to the correct conclusion - hey, this is messed up and should stop. But the road it takes to get there is ick, and the whole thing feels like a character assassination for Jules. Like, bro should know better, and his excuse of "I'm just so lonelyyyy" is rather pathetic.

 

[Kirin]

The Willie Mays baseball card episode was fantastic fun, loved it.

And now it's war times for realsies. I vaguely remembered about them losing the station for a while back in the day. Some good eps here as things ramp up, Rock and Shoals was a good one. Also, dang, Jake, that sure was... a decision.

 

[Kirin]

At the risk of sounding cliche, Favor the Bold / Sacrifice of Angels was some pretty epic stuff, even if the end was a bit of a well-telegraphed deus ex machina.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

For the recent-ish DS9 documentary, they remastered a section of that battle just as a proof of concept of what a DS9 remaster could look like:

Too bad Paramount is fuckin' broke

 

[Kirin]

Niiiiice.

Relatedly, because I know it's coming up, I was just poking the internet about Terry Farrell leaving the show, and ended up watching an entire half hour documentary about what a giant asshole Rick Berman is. Damn. Glad he was distracted with Voyager and mostly letting DS9 do its own thing during its later seasons (except for fucking up contract negotiations, obviously).

 

[FelixSH]

Sounds interesting. Do you have a link to the documentary?

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

Just search "What We Left Behind" -- put out in 2018. It's available for streaming in a lot of places, so you can take your pick.

It's... ok. It's more of a fluff/vanity piece than a serious documentary, and there's some parts that I think faceplant hard (e.g. they get all of the primary writers for the show in a room and have them sketch out an outline for a hypothetical S8 that sounds absolutely dreadful), and there's a lack of balance of perspectives. But it's a generally a good time/nostalgic look back at the production of the show. There are way worse ways to burn 2hrs.

 

[Kirin]

I was actually just watching some dude talking about Rick Berman (“documentary” was maybe not quite the right word), but I the thing Wist mentioned was definitely one of his primary sources.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

By a lot of accounts, Rick Berman was a dude who had - at the very least - sketchy/suss tendencies, so I'm not out here to defend him in any way shape or form. But a proper documentary would seek to get all perspectives and attempt to be as neutral as possible in its relaying of information/facts, and IIRC they never bothered to get his side of things for that doc. And while he was responsible for a lot of things that fans (justifiably) have problems with, he was also responsible for shifting the franchise towards a more family-friendly model that made it accessible to all of us as kids and made it what it is today. It's just kinda fascinating to me to observe how the fandom reacts to characters like him, versus other guys strongly associated with the creative arc of the franchise like Gene Roddenberry who by most accounts had way more skeletons in his closet/way more suss ideas in his handling of things.