some more DS9 reactions

[kindkit]

Spoilers through 4x06 under the cuts. Please don't spoil me for any episodes past that.

4x01-02, "The Way of the Warrior"

There are no words for how much I don't care about Worf. I don't like him being forced into a show whose ensemble was working really well without him, and it seems like fanservice for the hardcore, Klingon-obsessed section of Trek fandom. Meh.



4x03, "The Visitor"

I cried my eyes out. It's a fantastic episode that I will probably never watch again because it's just too painful.



4x04, "Hippocratic Oath"

A thoughtful episode that just didn't work for me. The storytelling choices were gutsy (the sense that a real possibility for peace may have been lost, and the way O'Brien and Bashir's friendship has been genuinely, if perhaps not permanently, damaged by the choices each made [and the fact that each of them made a choice that was right in its own way]). Somehow, though, I just wasn't engaged. Probably I shouldn't have watched it right after "The Visitor."

The main thing I think I've brought away from this episode (and from 3x22, "Explorers") is that O'Brien is attracted to and at least a little in love with Bashir. I don't say this to devalue Miles and Keiko's marriage or their very deep love for each other. But what else are we supposed to do with that bit in "Explorers," when O'Brien says (slightly paraphrased): "People either love you or hate you. I hated you at first. But now, um . . . [awkward silence]"? Not to mention the moment in "Hippocratic Oath" when he very nearly says that he wishes Keiko were more like Bashir. Which is sort of played for comedy, but sort of not, and which leads in to the later moment when O'Brien explains that he destroyed Bashir's project because he felt he had to in order to save Bashir's life.

I think O'Brien is seriously committed to his marriage and wouldn't act on his feelings for Bashir (and I don't think he's even quite fully aware of them). If Keiko hadn't gone to Bajor, probably O'Brien's attachment would never have developed much at all. But she did, and it did, and it's probably just as well for O'Brien that Bashir doesn't seem to feel the same way.



4x05, "Indiscretion"

And speaking of unlikely pairings . . . when, in a much earlier episode, Garak made a remark about Dukat fancying Kira, I thought he was just getting at Dukat. Now I'm not so sure. Dukat's flirting could be just a mindfuck, which seems to be a popular Cardassian hobby, but the way he looks at her at the end of the episode seems to be something more.

I'm fascinated by what the show is doing with Dukat, who is really quite charming and likable in some ways, who loves his children and genuinely loved his Bajoran mistress . . . and is also a war criminal who participated in something very near genocide. The former isn't presented as something that makes the latter okay; nor does the latter make the former untrue. It's genuine moral complexity.

And although I'm half ashamed to admit it, I really did laugh out loud when he sat on the thorn. I have a feeling that the clip of him running the dermal regenerator over his bottom and groaning has made its way into vids . . . in entirely new contexts.



4x06, "Rejoined"

I was spoiled for this episode, but yet it was almost completely different from what I had expected. I must now admit, with some trepidation, that this episode did not piss me off.

I can see how it made some folks angry. If it's read as an allegory for homosexuality/bisexuality, then it ends up looking like an argument for conformity, closeting, pretending/attempting not to have same-sex desires. However, despite its focus on cultural taboos and the fact that the romance is between two women, I don't think it is an allegory. What Trill society forbids is relationships between people who've been involved in previous lives; that simply doesn't parse, even metaphorically, onto a prohibition against expressing same-sex desires. The story is too specific to work as allegory. (I'm not denying that it may have been intended as a [well-meant, liberal] allegory. I just mean that an allegorical reading can't be sustained.)

If one doesn't read allegorically, what emerges is a story in which two women are in love, and the fact that they're both women matters to exactly no one. Trill society doesn't care about that, nor does Starfleet, nor (somewhat to my surprise, because I seem to have picked up fanon about Bajoran sexual conservatism) does Kira. Even Quark just finds the multiple-incarnations aspect a little confusing. Neither Jadzia nor Lenara is surprised to find herself in love with a woman, and it's made very clear that these incarnations care for each other. It's not just leftovers from the heterosexual marriage of Torias and Nilani; as Jadzia says, she and Lenara have more in common than Torias and Nilani ever did. And when Lenara decides to leave, it's not (as I'd feared) because she doesn't she doesn't really love Jadzia and is in fact Totally Heterosexual OMG. It's just that she can't face the price to be paid for pursuing a reassociation.

The episode imagines a future in which sexual orientation is a non-issue, and I think it does a good job. It didn't come across as a Very Special Episode or as exploitive. I didn't get the sense that the kiss was meant as titillation for straight male viewers.

Is it bad that DS9 never had an acknowledged LGBT character or portrayed a lasting same-sex relationship? Yes. The show could have gone further than it did. But I found "Rejoined" to be a worthy achievement nevertheless.

Comments

[nam_jai]

DS9 is pretty much the only place I do care about Worf, and it's only Worf, not Klingons in general. Okay, I like Martok a little bit, too. Oh wait (heh, literally remembering these things as I type), I guess I like B'Elanna on Voyager as well, though she's just half-Klingon. Yet I didn't care about Worf on TNG, and Klingon-focused plots mostly just bore me. So, uh, those are my stream-of-consciousness thoughts on Klingons. :)

Interesting perspective on "Rejoined" -- that if it's meant as an allegory, as it likely is, it fails, and maybe kind of accidentally works because of that failure. I always thought that taken on its own, it's a good episode, and a natural story to tell in exploring what it's like to be a joined Trill. But I could sympathize with the accusation that it's a cheat to only take on sexual orientation when it's framed in sci-fi terms, and that it doesn't excuse Trek from ignoring LGBT characters otherwise. I think that has been a shameful omission, and I look at "Rejoined" as a good story that's unfortunately tinged by that context.

[starlady]

I think DS9 made much better use of Worf and the other Klingon characters as characters, and even the Klingon Empire too--in TNG they're sort of domesticated, if that makes sense, compared to TOS, whereas in DS9 they have richer storylines.

[senmut]

My fanservice was with certain TOS Klingons...

That said, i wasn't happy to see Worf come over at first; he'd become a joke on TNG (oh who's gonna kick Worf's butt this week?) but on DS9 he seemed to get a little more shine on. ((I adore Michael Dorn to pieces, so that made me happy to see him develop the role some more))

[starlady]

Definitely.

[kindkit]

But I could sympathize with the accusation that it's a cheat to only take on sexual orientation when it's framed in sci-fi terms

I see what you mean, but I really don't think the story is "taking on" sexual orientation in that sense. Precisely because it doesn't say anything in particular about orientation, it manages to say quite a lot. "Rejoined" is a love story that happens to be about two women, and the fact that it's two women is presented as completely ordinary--not a matter for comment, not an issue at all. It posits a world in which same-sex relationships are no big deal, and I think that's actually a very bold thing. Yes, the story is specifically set up so that the relationship won't continue, and maybe it dodges the question of sexual orientation a bit by saying that the characters were once in a heterosexual marriage--but it also shows them as strongly attracted to each other in the present.

As I said in my post, I don't think that makes up for the show not including any other same-sex relationships or any characters who explicitly identify as LGBT. But given when it was made and the audience it was made for (general broadcast TV in the US, and with Trek's reputation as "family entertainment"), it would have been difficult for the producers to have done much better. And the episode was far from being the brimming vat of fail that I'd been led to expect.

[nam_jai]

I think we're pretty much in agreement on "Rejoined" -- I agree that it's all the stronger for not making a Very Special Issue of the relationship being between two women. I don't really see it as a sci-fi cheat myself, but can understand why some people do, especially coupled with that TNG episode that really was heavy-handed sci-fi allegory and would have been fresher in people's memories at the time this aired.

As for whether producers could have done better at the time ... maybe this is where your non-Trekkie status gives you perspective, or realistically lower expectations of TV producers. In the Trekkie milieu of the '90s, we were used to Trek powers-that-be patting themselves on the back for the franchise's vision of an enlightened future, which fed this naive expectation they'd blaze new trails rather than lag behind.

[kindkit]

maybe this is where your non-Trekkie status gives you perspective, or realistically lower expectations of TV producers

I think having watched TOS for the first time last year did a lot to lower my expectations in terms of Trek's progressivism. I do give TOS full points for the inclusion of actors of color in significant roles (and playing admirals and scientists rather than villains), but TOS's massive sexism, which was fully endorsed by Gene Roddenberry, means I started out cynical about Trek's version of the enlightened future.

It also helps that I've seen Torchwood, a show produced by a gay man, with a bisexual lead character, and airing on the BBC (which is better about LGBT characters than U.S. TV), put a whole bunch of homophobic tropes onscreen. So I'm all too aware of how easy it is for shows to go horribly wrong even now, much less fifteen years ago.

[starlady]

This is the point when I started watching broadcast, and I remember "The Hippocratic Oath" being striking because they so clearly are both right.

I also think you're right about O'Brien and Bashir. I think the show is really good at doing dyad relations.

[kindkit]

Dyads and unexpected!UST. It seems like there could be a whole Torchwood-like sexual tangle going on under the surface.

[starlady]

Yeah, if this was nuTrek or if Star Trek were British...

[tree_and_leaf]

And then of course there's Bashir's interactions with Garak...

[kindkit]

Yes indeed. (I go into every new episode thinking both "I hope Garak's in this one" and "I hope we get a Garak-and-Bashir scene.")

[tree_and_leaf]

Apparently Siddig and Robinson deliberately set out to play it slashily (unfortunately the powers that be eventually got nervous about this and put in fewer Garak/ Bashir scenes, but what we got is still great).

[kindkit]

Yes, I've heard that they did it deliberately. Once I've seen the whole show and don't need to fear spoilers, I want to see if I can track down the source of the story (interviews, I presume, or something said at a con).

[tree_and_leaf]

I was pretty much indifferent to Worf on TNG, but I came to love him in DS9, so - while that doesn't mean you will too, don't despair yet....

[kindkit]

I hope so. Right now I'm trying not to resent the fact that he seems to be getting way more than his fair share of screen time.