DS9 6x20 through 7x05
Jul. 28th, 2010 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitHere are some thoughts on 6x20 through 7x05 (except for "Profit and Lace," which I was advised to skip--I read an episode summary and that was quite enough).
I've actually seen through 7x10 at this point, but please don't mention anything spoilery for episodes after that.
6x20, "His Way
What the hell? Who decided that turning the show into a brainless romantic comedy for an episode was a good idea?
It's not that I'm sorry Odo and Kira got together; I'm actually pretty glad about it, which is unusual for me because I'm not a het fan. But, a hologram of an early-1960s lounge singer saving the day with his advice to the lovelorn? Really? It's cringe-inducingly stupid, and that's even before you think about the fact that 1960s Las Vegas would mean absolutely nothing to either Odo or Kira. Not to mention the sexism of the idea that Odo needed to be more aggressive and seduce Kira with his manly tuxedo-clad awesomeness. Once again, the show doesn't seem to have figured out that if a woman is interested is a man, she can make the first move instead of hanging around waiting for him to do so. Of all the people I don't imagine waiting around for someone to ask them out, or being impressed by tuxedos and dancing and Vegas-lounge-act style suavity, Kira Nerys would head the list.
Its position just after "In the Pale Moonlight" no doubt makes this episode look even worse than it is, but it's still terrible.
6x21, "The Reckoning"
"And Sisko so loved the world of Bajor that he nearly gave his only begotten son . . ." Or, in other words, I wish the show would make Bajoran religion less Christian. Show some imagination, writers!
I did like the Odo and Kira relationship in this episode, though, especially compared to the last one. Here, instead of awful "romantic" clichés, we see that the two of them talk to each other, trust each other, respect each other. Why couldn't the show have built on that dynamic in the "they get together" episode? It would have been far more romantic.
6x22, "Valiant"
This one didn't do much for me, although it was great to see a non-skinny woman playing a role that focused on her competence and personality and wasn't in any way about her weight.
6x24, "Time's Orphan"
This was an effective tear-jerker; I admit that I cried. But the plot was so nonsensical that it infuriated me. Not the random time portal stuff--I can happily accept skience in my sf. But . . . seriously, is the best Starfleet can do for the O'Briens a cargo hold? No psychological support? No systematic, planned attempt to reintegrate Molly? Not even any goddamn time off for Miles? And then Molly has one bad reaction (admittedly a very bad one) and the immediate response from Starfleet is to forcibly institutionalize her? And the only solution Miles and Keiko can think of is to send Molly back through the time portal to a time when she'd be entirely alone, without human contact, not to mention without medical care or a reliable source of food, clothing, and shelter? Did it not occur to someone that the O'Briens might, for example, move down to the planet's surface with Molly (in the present day) for six months or so while she adjusted?
One of my storytelling pet peeves is contrived angst, the sort that could be averted if people behaved sensibly. I find myself not so much feeling sorry for the characters' suffering as wanting to shake them. I felt that a lot watching this episode.
6x25, "The Sound of Her Voice"
I have nothing much to say about this one. It was a good episode for O'Brien (the scene where he's lying on his bunk talking to what's-her-name really showed off how good an actor Colm Meaney is) and for Bashir-O'Brien moments (especially at the end when Bashir asks O'Brien to please object to Bashir calling himself arrogant).
6x26, "Tears of the Prophets"
I was spoiled for the fact that Jadzia would, at some point, die. But I didn't know when or how; I was expecting it to be next season. This episode's references to her and Worf's interest in having a child should have tipped me off, but I thought she might die in childbirth or something (I'm so glad the show didn't take that route).
Because I was spoiled, her death didn't affect me as strongly as it might have done. It was sad, and I miss her presence on the show, but I knew she was doomed. And of course, because of the symbiont she's still alive in a sense, in Ezri's memories.
I'm not loving the "cult of the pah wraiths" plot or Dukat's involvement therein. Ever since "Waltz" I've been afraid that the show was going to go for a "Dukat is the devil" analogy, and sure enough, here it is.
Garak was in this episode! I was happy. But then they didn't give him anything to do.
7x01-02, "Image in the Sand" and "Shadows and Symbols"
Ah, Sisko the Chosen One. *eyeroll* The prophets arranging his birth is fairly creepy. I'm choosing to believe they did this sometime after (in linear time) his first meeting with them, since they didn't seem to have a clue who he was when he turned up in the first episode.
The plot was effective enough, although Sisko's big mythic destiny is by no means my favorite part of the show. I did like the false (or so we're told) visions of poor Ben Russell.
Mostly I was paying attention to the slash. First of all, there was Kira's little crush on Senator Cretak, although the Derna Missile Crisis put an end to that. And then, of course, there was O'Brien's love for Bashir, which is implicitly paralleled in these episodes to romantic feelings. "The things we do for love," Quark says, talking about the dangerous mission that Worf, Bashir, and Quark himself have undertaken because in their various ways they loved Jadzia. Well, O'Brien didn't love Jadzia that way; he's there because of Bashir. (I want to know what Keiko had to say when Miles told her he was going.) Of course not all the story's examples of people following someone for love are romantic: Jake and Grandpa Sisko follow Ben into the desert. But since O'Brien and Bashir are not family, and since every other example of love in the Sto-vo-kor subplot is romantic, it's reasonable to read O'Brien's love that way too.
Speaking of love, it makes me so happy to see how much Odo admires Kira. (I wish the writers had given him a favorite mystery series other than Mike Hammer, though, because the Mike Hammer novels are disgustingly sexist, racist, and right-wing. Anyway, Odo strikes me as much more of a Philip Marlowe type.)
And then there was Ezri. I like her; she doesn't have anything like the presence and charisma that Jadzia grew into in the last few seasons, but I'm okay with that. Making her young and uncertain was a good choice, rather than trying to write her as a straightforward replacement for Jadzia.
Incidentally: to my mind, Ezri's lack of interest in resuming a relationship with Worf (as evidenced here and in subsequent episodes) proves that Jadzia's love for her old flame in "Rejoined" was at least as much about Jadzia and Lenara's current attraction to each other as it was about their past-life relationship.
7x03, "Afterimage"
The psychology was a little trite, but it was something of a revelation that Garak is capable of that much guilt. And of course I was thrilled to get another Garak-focused episode (one that brought him back from the very dark characterization he got in "Empok Nor"), with some great scenes, notably Garak's ferocious attack on psychology in general and Ezri in particular, and his panicked attempt to get out of the airlock.
Although I can see the point of having Ezri be the episode's other focus (and it's an important episode for her development), I did wish that the other characters had shown a bit of concern for Garak as a person rather than as just a useful tool for Starfleet intelligence. In particular, I really don't like the thought that Bashir's friendship with Garak has fizzled out, but it's hard to read his purely medical concern in any other way. (I can imagine missing scenes, of course, but those possibilities don't change what's actually onscreen--or what's conspicuously absent.)
Not that poor Ezri Dax fared much better. Sisko's "tough love" thing sometimes makes me want to hit him. This episode was one of those times. Berating someone who's already in pain is not, in my experience, quite as helpful as the show likes to make it seem.
7x04, "Take Me Out to the Holosuite"
I'm not a baseball fan or a sports fan at all, but this was a cute episode. What made it work for me was the fact that the Niners lost, but they played the game with zest and affection for one another. They were good sports, and even Rom got a turn at bat. Also, O'Brien made scotch-flavored chewing gum.
7x05, "Chrysalis"
One of the best things about DS9, in my opinion, is the way I can be watching an episode and thinking, "Oh, that's skeevy. Why does no one see how skeevy that is?" and the show will then call whatever it was into question and demonstrate that in fact it's totally skeevy. Thus, I went from detesting this episode to thinking that it was pretty good, as soon as it became clear that viewers weren't supposed to believe that Bashir dating an extraordinarily inexperienced young woman who felt she owed him everything was a good setup for future happiness. I'm glad Serena went off to build her own life; for a while there I was afraid she was going to end up reverting to her previous state and the episode would be all about Bashir's Star-Crossed Love.
And I adored the singing scene. It did important emotional and storytelling work with subtlety and freshness, and the writers/producers dared to let it continue rather than cutting it off after a few seconds.
Returning to Bashir for a moment: he has a disturbing tendency to date women who are substantially less powerful than he is. He dated Melora (who was his patient and whom, like Serena, he wanted to "rescue"); Leeta (who's very sweet but not exactly an intellectual match, and as a dabo girl she's among perhaps the most powerless class on the station); an ensign whose name, if it was ever mentioned, I can't recall (waaaay under his rank); and Serena (smarter than him, but profoundly ignorant of life outside the Institute, emotionally vulnerable, and his former patient who felt she owed him love). The only woman he's ever been interested in who was up to his weight, as it were, was Jadzia, and in the end he stopped pursuing her. After discouragement from her, admittedly, but later there were suggestions that she'd grown to like him and (until she met Worf) might have given him a second chance.
Bashir also tends towards whirlwind romances, falling in love in an instant with women he barely knows. Like his holosuite adventures, his love life is mostly based on fantasy. The one real, long-term close tie he has is with Miles O'Brien (although I still think Miles loves him more than he loves Miles back). So my theory of Bashir is that he's technically at the heterosexual end of the spectrum, in that most of his attractions are to women, but on the whole he's rather be hanging out with other men. He's quite different from O'Brien in that respect; as much as O'Brien loves Bashir, he has a very deep connection to Keiko.
I've actually seen through 7x10 at this point, but please don't mention anything spoilery for episodes after that.
6x20, "His Way
What the hell? Who decided that turning the show into a brainless romantic comedy for an episode was a good idea?
It's not that I'm sorry Odo and Kira got together; I'm actually pretty glad about it, which is unusual for me because I'm not a het fan. But, a hologram of an early-1960s lounge singer saving the day with his advice to the lovelorn? Really? It's cringe-inducingly stupid, and that's even before you think about the fact that 1960s Las Vegas would mean absolutely nothing to either Odo or Kira. Not to mention the sexism of the idea that Odo needed to be more aggressive and seduce Kira with his manly tuxedo-clad awesomeness. Once again, the show doesn't seem to have figured out that if a woman is interested is a man, she can make the first move instead of hanging around waiting for him to do so. Of all the people I don't imagine waiting around for someone to ask them out, or being impressed by tuxedos and dancing and Vegas-lounge-act style suavity, Kira Nerys would head the list.
Its position just after "In the Pale Moonlight" no doubt makes this episode look even worse than it is, but it's still terrible.
6x21, "The Reckoning"
"And Sisko so loved the world of Bajor that he nearly gave his only begotten son . . ." Or, in other words, I wish the show would make Bajoran religion less Christian. Show some imagination, writers!
I did like the Odo and Kira relationship in this episode, though, especially compared to the last one. Here, instead of awful "romantic" clichés, we see that the two of them talk to each other, trust each other, respect each other. Why couldn't the show have built on that dynamic in the "they get together" episode? It would have been far more romantic.
6x22, "Valiant"
This one didn't do much for me, although it was great to see a non-skinny woman playing a role that focused on her competence and personality and wasn't in any way about her weight.
6x24, "Time's Orphan"
This was an effective tear-jerker; I admit that I cried. But the plot was so nonsensical that it infuriated me. Not the random time portal stuff--I can happily accept skience in my sf. But . . . seriously, is the best Starfleet can do for the O'Briens a cargo hold? No psychological support? No systematic, planned attempt to reintegrate Molly? Not even any goddamn time off for Miles? And then Molly has one bad reaction (admittedly a very bad one) and the immediate response from Starfleet is to forcibly institutionalize her? And the only solution Miles and Keiko can think of is to send Molly back through the time portal to a time when she'd be entirely alone, without human contact, not to mention without medical care or a reliable source of food, clothing, and shelter? Did it not occur to someone that the O'Briens might, for example, move down to the planet's surface with Molly (in the present day) for six months or so while she adjusted?
One of my storytelling pet peeves is contrived angst, the sort that could be averted if people behaved sensibly. I find myself not so much feeling sorry for the characters' suffering as wanting to shake them. I felt that a lot watching this episode.
6x25, "The Sound of Her Voice"
I have nothing much to say about this one. It was a good episode for O'Brien (the scene where he's lying on his bunk talking to what's-her-name really showed off how good an actor Colm Meaney is) and for Bashir-O'Brien moments (especially at the end when Bashir asks O'Brien to please object to Bashir calling himself arrogant).
6x26, "Tears of the Prophets"
I was spoiled for the fact that Jadzia would, at some point, die. But I didn't know when or how; I was expecting it to be next season. This episode's references to her and Worf's interest in having a child should have tipped me off, but I thought she might die in childbirth or something (I'm so glad the show didn't take that route).
Because I was spoiled, her death didn't affect me as strongly as it might have done. It was sad, and I miss her presence on the show, but I knew she was doomed. And of course, because of the symbiont she's still alive in a sense, in Ezri's memories.
I'm not loving the "cult of the pah wraiths" plot or Dukat's involvement therein. Ever since "Waltz" I've been afraid that the show was going to go for a "Dukat is the devil" analogy, and sure enough, here it is.
Garak was in this episode! I was happy. But then they didn't give him anything to do.
7x01-02, "Image in the Sand" and "Shadows and Symbols"
Ah, Sisko the Chosen One. *eyeroll* The prophets arranging his birth is fairly creepy. I'm choosing to believe they did this sometime after (in linear time) his first meeting with them, since they didn't seem to have a clue who he was when he turned up in the first episode.
The plot was effective enough, although Sisko's big mythic destiny is by no means my favorite part of the show. I did like the false (or so we're told) visions of poor Ben Russell.
Mostly I was paying attention to the slash. First of all, there was Kira's little crush on Senator Cretak, although the Derna Missile Crisis put an end to that. And then, of course, there was O'Brien's love for Bashir, which is implicitly paralleled in these episodes to romantic feelings. "The things we do for love," Quark says, talking about the dangerous mission that Worf, Bashir, and Quark himself have undertaken because in their various ways they loved Jadzia. Well, O'Brien didn't love Jadzia that way; he's there because of Bashir. (I want to know what Keiko had to say when Miles told her he was going.) Of course not all the story's examples of people following someone for love are romantic: Jake and Grandpa Sisko follow Ben into the desert. But since O'Brien and Bashir are not family, and since every other example of love in the Sto-vo-kor subplot is romantic, it's reasonable to read O'Brien's love that way too.
Speaking of love, it makes me so happy to see how much Odo admires Kira. (I wish the writers had given him a favorite mystery series other than Mike Hammer, though, because the Mike Hammer novels are disgustingly sexist, racist, and right-wing. Anyway, Odo strikes me as much more of a Philip Marlowe type.)
And then there was Ezri. I like her; she doesn't have anything like the presence and charisma that Jadzia grew into in the last few seasons, but I'm okay with that. Making her young and uncertain was a good choice, rather than trying to write her as a straightforward replacement for Jadzia.
Incidentally: to my mind, Ezri's lack of interest in resuming a relationship with Worf (as evidenced here and in subsequent episodes) proves that Jadzia's love for her old flame in "Rejoined" was at least as much about Jadzia and Lenara's current attraction to each other as it was about their past-life relationship.
7x03, "Afterimage"
The psychology was a little trite, but it was something of a revelation that Garak is capable of that much guilt. And of course I was thrilled to get another Garak-focused episode (one that brought him back from the very dark characterization he got in "Empok Nor"), with some great scenes, notably Garak's ferocious attack on psychology in general and Ezri in particular, and his panicked attempt to get out of the airlock.
Although I can see the point of having Ezri be the episode's other focus (and it's an important episode for her development), I did wish that the other characters had shown a bit of concern for Garak as a person rather than as just a useful tool for Starfleet intelligence. In particular, I really don't like the thought that Bashir's friendship with Garak has fizzled out, but it's hard to read his purely medical concern in any other way. (I can imagine missing scenes, of course, but those possibilities don't change what's actually onscreen--or what's conspicuously absent.)
Not that poor Ezri Dax fared much better. Sisko's "tough love" thing sometimes makes me want to hit him. This episode was one of those times. Berating someone who's already in pain is not, in my experience, quite as helpful as the show likes to make it seem.
7x04, "Take Me Out to the Holosuite"
I'm not a baseball fan or a sports fan at all, but this was a cute episode. What made it work for me was the fact that the Niners lost, but they played the game with zest and affection for one another. They were good sports, and even Rom got a turn at bat. Also, O'Brien made scotch-flavored chewing gum.
7x05, "Chrysalis"
One of the best things about DS9, in my opinion, is the way I can be watching an episode and thinking, "Oh, that's skeevy. Why does no one see how skeevy that is?" and the show will then call whatever it was into question and demonstrate that in fact it's totally skeevy. Thus, I went from detesting this episode to thinking that it was pretty good, as soon as it became clear that viewers weren't supposed to believe that Bashir dating an extraordinarily inexperienced young woman who felt she owed him everything was a good setup for future happiness. I'm glad Serena went off to build her own life; for a while there I was afraid she was going to end up reverting to her previous state and the episode would be all about Bashir's Star-Crossed Love.
And I adored the singing scene. It did important emotional and storytelling work with subtlety and freshness, and the writers/producers dared to let it continue rather than cutting it off after a few seconds.
Returning to Bashir for a moment: he has a disturbing tendency to date women who are substantially less powerful than he is. He dated Melora (who was his patient and whom, like Serena, he wanted to "rescue"); Leeta (who's very sweet but not exactly an intellectual match, and as a dabo girl she's among perhaps the most powerless class on the station); an ensign whose name, if it was ever mentioned, I can't recall (waaaay under his rank); and Serena (smarter than him, but profoundly ignorant of life outside the Institute, emotionally vulnerable, and his former patient who felt she owed him love). The only woman he's ever been interested in who was up to his weight, as it were, was Jadzia, and in the end he stopped pursuing her. After discouragement from her, admittedly, but later there were suggestions that she'd grown to like him and (until she met Worf) might have given him a second chance.
Bashir also tends towards whirlwind romances, falling in love in an instant with women he barely knows. Like his holosuite adventures, his love life is mostly based on fantasy. The one real, long-term close tie he has is with Miles O'Brien (although I still think Miles loves him more than he loves Miles back). So my theory of Bashir is that he's technically at the heterosexual end of the spectrum, in that most of his attractions are to women, but on the whole he's rather be hanging out with other men. He's quite different from O'Brien in that respect; as much as O'Brien loves Bashir, he has a very deep connection to Keiko.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 03:45 am (UTC)I feel like the Pah Wraiths could have been written differently and better. And I think the show was more intelligent with its original spin on Dukat, rather than that he's the antichrist.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 04:19 am (UTC)I feel like the Pah Wraiths could have been written differently and better
I wish they'd never been written at all. I suppose the writers may have been intending some kind of social commentary in making Bajoran religion so similar to Christianity, but it's not a very interesting or original commentary, and meanwhile another chance for some genuine exploration of alienness gets squandered.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 09:11 pm (UTC)It is definitely a squandered opportunity.