Star Trek | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Let He Who Is Without Sin… (Review)

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Darren

It would be tempting to treat Let He Who Is Without Sin… as an anomaly.

After all, it is very much the worst episode of the fifth season. There is a very strong argument to be made that it is the worst episode between Meridian and Profit and Lace, which makes it easier to forgive. After all, it is not as though Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has been regularly churning out episodes like Twisted, Tattoo, Alliances, Threshold and Investigations. The second worst episode of the fifth season is The Assignment, and the biggest problem with that episode is that it is both painfully generic and ground zero for a set of major future problems.

This episode is pants.

Still, it is important not to gloss over just how terrible Let He Who Is Without Sin… actually is and the very specific ways in which it is terrible. While these sorts of misfires are quite rare in the context of the series’ fourth and fifth seasons, Let He Who Is Without Sin… is not a fluke. The episode did not materialise from nowhere. It is very much the result of a number of creative impulses within Deep Space Nine firing in the worst possible ways. Unlike The Assignment, this episode does not fail because the concept and execution is an awkward fit for Deep Space Nine.

Let Who Is Without Sin… fails in ways that are very specifically tied to Deep Space Nine.

“It’s okay, Worf. The writers promised that was only the first draft they sent through.”

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: deep space nine, Let He Who Is Without Sin..., risa, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, Worf | 50 Comments »

Star Trek: Voyager – Future’s End, Part I (Review)

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Darren

In a very real way, the third season of Star Trek: Voyager begins with Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II.

After all, the episode airs directly after Sacred Ground. Although mixed into the broadcast order with a bunch of episodes that had been produced during the third season, Sacred Ground was the last episode of the second season production block to be broadcast. (Basics, Part II had been the last episode to be produced.) Sacred Ground was the last episode of Voyager to be tied to producer Michael Piller, who had been working on the franchise since the start of the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. There is some sense of symmetry there.

Tuvok and roll.

Sacred Ground feels like an appropriate place to draw a line under the first two seasons of Voyager, to suggest that the earlier incarnation of the show is finished and that a new era is beginning. After all, Sacred Ground was really the last gasp of the New Age mysticism that Michael Piller had tried to infuse into Voyager through episodes like The Cloud or Tattoo. (Piller would return to that New Age fascination with Star Trek: Insurrection.) Sacred Ground even featured something of a rebirth of Captain Kathryn Janeway.

However, if Sacred Ground represents the end of the second season, what about the start of the third season? What makes Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II such an effective new beginning?

Feels like going home.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: Brannon Braga, continuity, ed begley jr, Eugenics Wars, henry starling, Joe Menosky, Sarah Silverman, star trek, time travel, voyager | 23 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Trials and Tribble-ations (Review)

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Darren

Trials and Tribble-ations is a love letter to the franchise.

The thirtieth anniversary of Star Trek was a big deal. In many ways, the thirtieth anniversary celebration marks the end of the franchise’s cultural peak. Star Trek: The Next Generation is still fresh enough in the cultural consciousness that the anniversary is a big deal, even if the ratings on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are not necessarily what everybody would want them to be. The decline that would last through to the end of Star Trek: Enterprise only really comes into play in the wake of the big anniversary.

You know when you’ve been Gumped.

The thirtieth anniversary of the franchise was an embarrassment of riches, particularly from the perspective of a rather limp fiftieth celebration. Even the disappointment of Flashback was dwarfed by the abundance of affectionate homages and triumphant celebrations of a television series that had gone from a cult failure repeating endlessly in syndication to a pop cultural juggernaut with two television series and a successful film franchise running simultaneously. Trials and Tribble-ations was very much the cornerstone of all this.

Sure, there were other celebrations to mark the franchise’s big three-oh. While Flashback might of been a bit of a disappointment as a big anniversary special, Future’s End, Part I and Future’s End, Part II were a loving ode to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Indeed, Star Trek: First Contact went even further and threw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan into the mix, blending the franchise’s most acclaimed and most financially successful films together for the occasion. Captain Janeway even crossed paths with the cast of Frasier to mark the occasion.

Quite the lineup.

In spite of all of that, Trials and Tribble-ations stands quite apart from all the noise around it. There is a legitimate debate to be had about whether it is unequivocally the best of these productions, although it stands a very strong chance of winning that particular argument. However, there is no denying that it is the best celebration of the thirtieth anniversary. It is an adoring and affectionate love letter to the Star Trek franchise, one that seems to have been produced with giddy grin on its face and a skip in its step.

However, Trials and Tribble-ations works even beyond that. It is not simply a loving tribute to a monument of American popular culture, although that would be entirely justified. It is an acknowledgement to the decades of fandom that kept Star Trek alive during its occasional adventures in the wilderness. Trials and Tribble-ations does not just praise Star Trek for surviving thirty years despite being cancelled after three seasons, but which captures the enthusiasm that sustained the series across those thirty years.

Doesn’t scan.

It would be easy for a thirtieth anniversary special to treat the occasion as an act of cultural archeology, the careful and ritual unearthing of a popular artifact with all due reverence paid. Indeed, this was arguably the central problem with Flashback, an episode more interested in Star Trek as a memory and as a subject of nostalgia than a living breathing organism. Trials and Tribble-ations instead opts to treat Star Trek as a living and breathing organism, something tangible and material rather than abstract and ethereal.

Indeed, the episode ends with the revelation that the past is not another country. Sometimes you can bring something back. Even if that thing is a tribble.

You can go home again…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: deep space nine, Ira Steven Behr, ronald d. moore, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the trouble with tribbles, trials and tribble-ations | 35 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Assignment (Review)

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Darren

The Assignment is perhaps the most conventional episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is also one of the most disappointing.

The Star Trek franchise has long been fond of “possession” and “imitation” stories, dating back through Whom Gods Destroy and Turnabout Intruder to Lonely Among Us and Datalore and Power Play. It is easy to see the appeal of these stories from a production standpoint. An effective possession story can likely be filmed on standing sets and relies primarily upon an established member of the ensemble. For an actor, it provides an exciting opportunity to play against type, which is a great way to keep a weekly television series exciting.

O’Brien must suffer… through a terrible script.

However, it is very much a stock plot. There are only so many variations that a long-running franchise can put on the tried-and-tested formula before it begins to feel a little tired. Deep Space Nine has already had more than its fair share of “out of character” plots, from The Passenger to Dramatis Personae through to Crossover and all the other mirror universe episodes. It gets to the point where “there’s an evil alien inside Keiko O’Brien” feels like a fairly bland iteration of this particular type of Star Trek story.

In a season where Deep Space Nine spends so much time pushing the boundaries of Star Trek, it is frustrating to see the show offer up such a generic installment.

Rom is in a bit of a fix…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: bradley thompson, david weddle, o'brien must suffer, pah wraiths, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the assignment | 15 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – … Nor the Battle to the Strong (Review)

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Darren

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.”

– Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)

Far afield.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Ernest Hemingway, Jake Sisko, nor the battle to the strong, René Echevarria, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the klingons, war | 17 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Looking for Par’Mach in All the Wrong Places (Review)

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Darren

In some ways, the fifth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine serves as an amalgation of the third and fourth seasons of the show, reconciling the bold new direction that began in The Search, Part I with the detour that commenced in The Way of the Warrior.

In some respects, the fifth season feels like an attempt to get the show back on a track that it largely abandoned in favour of the (studio suggested) Klingon focus of the fourth season, but incorporating the lessons learned during that fourth season. One of the more interesting aspects of the fifth season is how much time the show spends rolling back from the bigger decisions of the fourth season. The war with the Klingons (mostly) ends in Apocalypse Rising. Odo gets his groove back in The Begotten. Worf gets his honour back in Soldiers of the Empire.

Klingon Love Songs.

The fifth season also very clearly and very closely adheres to the format of the third season rather than the fourth. The fifth year’s big mid-season two-parter, In Purgatory’s Shadow and By Inferno’s Light, is very clearly intended to mirror the third season’s two-part adventure Improbable Cause and The Die is Cast more than the fourth season’s Homefront and Paradise Lost. That focus is also quite apparent in Looking for Par’Mach in All the Wrong Places, the third episode of the fifth season that is a direct sequel to the third episode of the third season.

It is also perhaps Deep Space Nine‘s best attempt at doing a sex farce.

A Quarky love story…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | 8 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Ship (Review)

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Darren

It seems we’re approaching an impasse.

We’ve already arrived.

– Kilana and Sisko sum up the fifth season

Under siege.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Dominion War, Jem'Hadar, richard beimler, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the ship, war | 16 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Apocalypse Rising (Review)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Darren

Apocalypse Rising stands quite apart from the other Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season premieres.

Most obviously, it the only single-part season premiere across the entire seven seasons of Deep Space Nine. Emissary and Way of the Warrior were two-hour television movies. The Homecoming fed into the franchise’s first official three-part story. The Search, Part I and The Search, Part II were obviously a two-part episode, while Image in the Sand and Shadows and Symbols provided a two-part introduction to the seventh season. A Time to Stand segued directly into Rocks and Shoals while also setting up a six-episode arc.

The times, they are a-changeling…

This is not to suggest that Apocalypse Rising is a more typical Star Trek season premiere. It is not a continuation of Broken Link in the same way that The Best of Both Worlds, Part II is a direct continuation of The Best of Both Worlds, Part I or that Basics, Part II is a direct follow-on from Basics, Part I. While Apocalypse Rising does resolve a cliffhanger left dangling by Broken Link, that cliffhanger was only really set up in the final two minutes of the episode. Indeed, the cliffhanger dangling from Broken Link recalls the endings of The Jem’Hadar or The Adversary.

Apocalypse Rising is also notable for being the first season premiere that is not positioned as a jumping on point, that is not intended to either expand the scope of the show or recruit new viewers. One of the luxuries of avoiding the traditional cliffhanger structures to bridge seasons was the freedom to begin each season with a relatively clean slate and introduce new elements. The Search, Part I and The Search, Part II introduced the Defiant and retooled the show to focus on the Dominion. The Way of the Warrior brought Worf over and shifted emphasis to the Klingons.

Klingon to the status quo…

While Apocalypse Rising does represent a slight shift in the tone of the show, it is not a radical new departure. More than that, it leans rather heavily on the show’s established mythology and in some ways indicates a desire to get the show back on track following an extended detour into war with the Klingons during the fourth season. Apocalypse Rising confirms what was made clear during the fourth season of the show, that Deep Space Nine has eventually evolved into its final form. Apocalypse Rising is a show so comfortable with itself that there’s no need to reinvent.

Although a little cramped and rushed in places, Apocalypse Rising represents a strong start to a stellar season. It is an efficient and effective piece of television, one that demonstrates the clarity of focus driving the season that will follow.

Drinking games…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: apocalypse rising, deep space nine, Dominion, gowron, Klingon Empire, Odo, politics, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, war | 8 Comments »

Star Trek – Season 3 (Review)

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Darren

This July and August, we’re celebrating the release of Star Trek Beyond by taking a look back at the third season of the original Star Trek. Check back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the latest update.

The third season of Star Trek was always doomed.

NBC had wanted to cancel the show after the second season, but a massive outpouring of fan support (and no small amount of press coverage) convinced them to renew the series for a third year. However, this was not a pardon. It was at best a temporary reprieve. The budget was slashed. Key creative personnel were lost. Outsiders with minimal experience in science-fiction television were drafted. The show was exiled to the graveyard shift of late Friday nights, when its target audience would either be in bed or out on the town.

With all of that in mind, it is no wonder that history has been cruel to the third season. The third season is generally regarded as a massive step down in quality from the first two years of the series, and that is certainly true. Without a strong producer like Gene L. Coon or a quality script editor like Dorothy Fontana, Star Trek would struggle to match the consistency of those first two years. Even before factoring in budget cuts and other constraints, the third season cannot compete with the prior two seasons on an episode-to-episode basis.

However, there is also a recurring sense that the third season of Star Trek is odd. It feels tangibly different from the two seasons that came before it. However, it also feels markedly different from the twenty-four live action seasons that followed. There is a strange tone to the season, one that feels distinct from that of the larger Star Trek franchise. The third season is populated by ghost stories and dying worlds, by mythology and folklore. Repeatedly, the logic that drives plots seems more magical than rational.

This lends the third season an almost mystical and irrational quality. While Star Trek has flirted with irrationality and dream logic before, most notably in the episodes credited to writer Robert Bloch and instalments like Shore Leave or The Immunity Syndrome, the third season grabs these concepts with both hands. There is a sense that all of the assumptions underpinning the Star Trek universe are up for grabs, that nothing can truly be known for certain, and that relaity itself is coming undone.

Coupled with a recurring motif of dying races and dead worlds, this irrationality serves to cast a shadow over the entirety of the third season. For all that the third season embraces the utopian ideals that would become a staple of the franchise, the third season is permeated by an apocalyptic dread. There is a sense that doomsday is approaching, that death is an inevitability, that all might be lost. In a very real way, this perfectly captures both the production realities of the third season and the general mood of the time around it.

Continue reading →

Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: star trek, the original series | 7 Comments »

Star Trek – Turnabout Intruder (Review)

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Darren

This is the end.

And what an ignominious ending it is. Turnabout Intruder is the last episode of the original Star Trek run, bringing down the curtain on three years of boldly going and bidding farewell to this cast… at least for the moment. It is also an infamously terrible episode of television, in which Captain Kirk finds himself swapping bodies with the psychotic scientist Janice Lester. Lester is repeatedly categorised as insane, but her primary motivation seems to be rebellion against Starfleet’s institutional sexism.

It’s full of stars.

Seen as this is a Gene Roddenberry story, Turnabout Intruder sides entirely with Starfleet on the matter. This was the same writer and producer who would later balk at The Measure of a Man because he thought that Data should willingly surrender himself to Starfleet experimentation. So, instead of becoming an exploration of sexism and discrimination, Turnabout Intruder instead becomes a vigorous defense of institutionalised misogyny. Of course Starfleet doesn’t allow women captains, the episode suggests, they could never handle the strain!

It is an episode that really puts paid to the show’s claims of liberal progressivism, credited to a writer who would in later years cultivate a mythology of himself as the architect of that liberal progressivism. Turnabout Intruder is just about the most damning argument against the franchise’s utopian idealism imaginable, which makes it particularly insulting as a series finale.