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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Past Tense, Part I (Review)

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Darren

This September and October, we’re taking a look at the jam-packed 1994 to 1995 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

It’s weird to think that Past Tense aired at the very end of the period where Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the only Star Trek on television. The two parts were broadcast in early January 1995, after the release of Star Trek: Generations but before the broadcast of Caretaker, the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

In a way, these are the most “Star Trek”-y episodes of the third season of Deep Space Nine. Embracing the franchise’s utopianism and optimism, the two episodes are even structured as a gigantic homage to The City on the Edge of Forever. Unlike the somewhat cynical and jaded run of episodes leading into them, Past Tense seems to exist as an episode that could draw fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation into Deep Space Nine.

Panic in the streets…

It would have made sense to position the episodes earlier in the season, where they might have done a better job of attracting casual Star Trek viewers jonesing for a fix after The Next Generation went off the air. Unconnected to the serialised long-form plot of Deep Space Nine, engaging with important social issues of contemporary society and playing with familiar Star Trek tropes like time travel, it’s hard to imagine an episode of the third season of Deep Space Nine better suited to reeling in viewers.

As it stands, though, Past Tense aired at the last possible moment where Deep Space Nine could truly claim to be “the only Star Trek on television”, making the two-parter feel more like a footnote than a crescendo. It’s a shame, as Past Tense remains a vastly underrated instalment of the show’s third season.

Arresting drama…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: bell riots, deep space nine, ds9, Earth, Federation, Homeless, non-linear, Past Tense, past tense part 1, Roddenberry, Sisko, social issues, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, time travel, utopia | 4 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Fascination (Review)

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Darren

Well, that could have been much more unpleasant than it ultimately was.

Yes, that’s damning with faint praise, but Fascination feels like a long sigh of exhaustion after what has been a tough run of episodes. The last episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to air in 1994, Fascination came at the end of a production crunch that had seen the show desperately grasping for time. Quite a few of the first ten episodes of the season had been rushed through, with varying results – from Second Skin to Meridian.

So the fact that Fascination is not a massive soul-destroying screw-up on the scale of Meridian is a good thing, even if the episode’s plot does smell a little bit of desperation.

Dax can be quite touchy…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Avery Brooks, betazed, Betazoid, comedy, deep space nine, ds9, fascination, Lwaxana Troi, Odo, shakespeare, star trek, star trek: deep space nine | 3 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Defiant (Review)

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Darren

The September and October, we’re taking a look at the jam-packed 1994 to 1995 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

Defiant is a cheeky piece of work.

On the surface, it appears to be a rather lame bit of cross-promotion for the release of Star Trek: Generations. The first movie featuring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation had opened three-days before Defiant aired, and so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get a nice cameo from a well-loved cast member and remind audiences that the film was currently in cinemas. Jonathan Frakes is a likeable actor, and Riker has been used as an ambassador for the series before. He appeared in Cybill, after all.

However, then Defiant takes one sharp left-turn, massively upsetting expectations and becoming something a lot more interesting than a cross-media tie-in.

Guess who’s coming to Quark’s…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: deep space nine, defiant, ds9, jonathan frake, Kira, Riker, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, terrorism, terrorist, thomas riker, William Riker, william t. riker | 9 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Malibu Comics) #29-30 – Sole Asylum (Review)

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Darren

Whatever happened to Thomas Riker?

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine receives a lot of credit for its move towards serialisation as a prime-time genre show. It wasn’t a pioneer in the same way that Babylon 5 was or even Murder One had been, but it was was definitely ahead of the curve. Deep Space Nine arguably holds up better today than any of the other Star Trek shows, and part of that is down to the way that the show leaned into serialisation. Actions had consequences, effects lingered after the credits.

Hostage of fortune…

The show was very much leaning that way in the second and third season, building up plot threads that would pay off down the line. The Dominion had been seeded in the show since Rules of Acquisition. The Romulan and Cardassian pre-emptive strike was foreshadowed by episodes like Defiant and Visionary. In the third season, it became clear that Deep Space Nine was ready to commit to some long-form storytelling, in a way that was unusual for a high-profile syndicated genre show in the nineties.

However, it is tempting to give Deep Space Nine a little bit too much credit. There were points where the show seemed to struggle with pay-off and arc-building. In Emissary, Sisko was tasked with bringing Bajor into the Federation; that never happened. After Battle Lines, Kai Opaka never appeared again. Characters who seemed important dropped into and out of the show at random; characters like Martok’s son Drex, Bajoran First Minister Shakaar Edon, Subcommander T’Rul… and Thomas Riker.

The welcome wagon…

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Filed under: Comics, Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Cardassia, deep space nine, defiant, ds9, Jonathan Frakes, malibu comics, Maquis, Mark Paniccia, rod whigham, sole asylum, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, thomas riker, traitor, transporter malfunction | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Meridian (Review)

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Darren

Meridian is, to be frank, an absolutely abominable episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. As a series, Deep Space Nine never really had a concentrated run of bad episodes, like the first and second seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation or the second season of Star Trek: Enterprise or the third season of the original Star Trek. The first two seasons of Deep Space Nine might not be spectacular, but they are competently produced television – while there are a few scattered stinkers to be found, the bulk of the show comprises of mediocre and solid stories.

Instead, Deep Space Nine tended to pepper its weakest episodes throughout its run, perhaps a firm reminder that the show was never an entirely serialised experience. This wasn’t one story pushing forward, despite the presence of arcs and character development; Deep Space Nine was still prone to the pratfalls of episodic television. In this case, the pratfall was the necessity of churning out filler on a tight schedule and hoping to meet a deadline while pumping out two dozen episodes a year.

So we get unforgivably shoddy episodes like The Emperor’s New Cloak or Profit and Loss or Let He Who Is Without Sin mixed in with Deep Space Nine at the height of its form. The third season of Deep Space Nine lacks the highs of the later seasons, but that doesn’t mean it lacks the lows. Meridian stands out as the weakest episode of the season, and a serious competitor for one of the worst episodes of the show.

It appears that the toxic smell of the script is suffocating Terry Farrell…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: brigadoon, Dax, deep space nine, ds9, hilary bader, hilary j. bader, Kira, meridian, Quark, review, sexism, star trek, star trek: deep space nine | 8 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Civil Defense (Review)

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Darren

Civil Defense is an episode that really worked a lot better than it should have. The third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine hit a bit of a stumbling block in the early part of the third season. Indeed, Second Skin had been shot from what was pretty much Robert Hewitt Wolfe’s first draft of a teleplay. The Abandoned felt like a good premise pushed in front of the camera too early. Civil Defense was similarly rushed into production, with very little turn around from the production staff.

However, despite these production concerns, Civil Defense turns out to be an enjoyable pulpy adventure. The production team wouldn’t royally screw up until the next episode. The biggest problem with the script is that it feels like we’re seeing it far too late in the show’s run. Civil Defense is a fun third season episode, but it would have been a spectacular first season adventure.

“Free dissident suppression system with every purchase over twelve bars!”

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: cardassians, civil defense, deep space nine, ds9, Elim Garak, Garak, gul dukat, Nana Visitor, review, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, star trek: deep space nine, Television, terok nor | 2 Comments »

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

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Darren

The Abandoned is a problematic episode.

It’s brave and provocative and challenging, but it’s also incredibly grim and cynical. In fact, it is probably the most relentlessly pessimistic episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s third season. And, given the episodes surround it, that is quite an accomplishment. Deep Space Nine has subverted classic Star Trek storytelling before. The Maquis was really a watershed moment for the series, suggesting that paradise itself might be unsustainable – attacking Roddenberry’s utopia rather brutally.

However, The Abandoned pushes things even further. There’s a social and racial subtext to this episode that grounds it in the racial politics of Los Angeles in the mid-nineties. The story of a young angry drug-addicted killer can’t help but feel associated with the increased profile of Los Angeles’ gangland in the early-to-mid-nineties. Casting the episode’s young Jem’Hadar soldier using African American actors invites this comparison, something that director Avery Brooks himself has conceded.

The racial politics of The Abandoned are decidedly uncomfortable, but they are clearly meant to be. Still, there’s something rather cynical and pessimistic about the episode’s conclusion that this young boy cannot be saved from a life of brutality and violence.

A Jem?

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: deep space nine, Dominion, ds9, gangs, Jem'Hadar, los angeles, nineties, Odo, race, review, serialisation, Sisko, Television, the abandoned | 6 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Second Skin (Review)

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Darren

Second Skin continues the identity and reality themes running through the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Search revealed that the Dominion is led by shape-changing aliens who can impersonate anybody, after our heroes spend an episode in a virtual reality. House of Quark stemmed from lies Quark told about himself, only to discover that Klingon culture is not what it claims to be. Equilibrium revealed that Dax held secrets even from herself, having a whole other life. Second Skin confronts Kira with the idea that she may be everything she hates.

The theme will continue in the episodes ahead. The Abandoned is a rather cynical meditation on the nature-against-nurture debate. Civil Defense involves the Deep Space Nine crew discovering that the station itself is not as safe as they like to think. Meridian involves a subplot about Kira’s right to control her own body. Defiant is built around a crisis of identity for a doppelganger. Past Tense features Sisko stepping into the identity of a historical figure. And so it continues. Things are not what they appear to be; the truths we take for granted are not true.

Rewatching this first block of Deep Space Nine‘s third season, it’s amazing how cynical the show could be.

Face of the enemy…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: bajorans, cardassians, deep space nine, ds9, identity, Kira, Kira Nerys, Philip K. Dick, philosophy, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, second skin, star trek, the next generation | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Equilibrium (Review)

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Darren

Equilibrium is another troubled Dax episode. Dax is probably the hardest character on the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine cast to write for, if only because of the character’s central premise. “Well-adjusted functionally immortal alien slug inside a young woman’s body” is a nice character description, but it’s hard to ground a character-driven story in that. It’s tempting just to turn the Dax symbiote into a convenient macguffin that can drive various plots.

To date, Playing God is really the only Dax-centred episode of Deep Space Nine that has placed the emphasis on Jadzia rather than the slug inside here. (Although Blood Oath did at least try to deal with how a current Trill host deals with obligations incurred by past lives.) In Dax, the symbiote was a gateway to a pretty conventional and generic murder mystery story. In Invasive Procedures, the symbiote was something particularly valuable to be stolen and exploited.

The biggest problem with Equilibrium is that – like Dax and Invasive Procedures before it – the episode uses the Dax symbiote as a springboard to a story that is more driven by Sisko and Bashir than it is by Jadzia Dax. While Equilibrium does have a great hook and some biting social commentary, Dax feels more like a plot point than a character in her own right.

Shocking behaviour…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: 1994, 1995, america, Anger, bitterness, class, Dax, deep space nine, ds9, ennui, equilibrium, reflection, René Echevarria, ron moore, social commentary, Trill | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – House of Quark (Review)

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Darren

House of Quark is a delightful episode that probably does a better job of setting the tone for the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine than The Search. As much as the Dominion were introduced as “a big deal” and clearly intended to change the show’s status quo, the third season does very little with them. There are a few mentions here and there, a late-season two-parter, two scattered episodes looking at aspects of the Dominion, and a series finalé, but they don’t drive the third season as much as one might expect, or as much as they drive the fifth through seventh seasons.

In contrast, House of Quark is a decidedly irreverent look at the world of Star Trek, a decidedly cynical perspective on one of the franchise’s sacred cows – a downright subversive exploration of something that the franchise takes for granted.