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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The 34th Rule by Armin Shimerman & David R. George III (Review)

Posted on September 30, 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.

The 34th Rule is a particularly notable piece of Star Trek fiction. It is the first Star Trek novel credited to a main cast member while their show was still on the air. Armin Shimerman, Eric A. Sitwell and David R. George III had pitched the idea for The 34th Rule as an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When the producers were not interested in developing the idea, Shimerman and George decided to expand the idea out into a full-length novel. The 34th Rule was released during the seventh season of Deep Space Nine.

Shimerman was not the first actor to be credited on a Star Trek novel. William Shatner had already launched his own “Shatner-verse” series of novels following the “resurrection” of James Tiberius Kirk after his death in Star Trek: Generations. However, Shatner was pretty much done with the franchise at this point – having officially passed the torch to his successors as part of Generations. However, Shimerman was the first to publish a novel while the show was on the air.

The 34th Rule is a decidedly ambitious piece of work. It is clumsy in places, perhaps a little heavy-handed and on the nose. Nevertheless, it is a well-constructed and thoughtful Star Trek epic – one the feels in keeping with the mood of Deep Space Nine, even if it occasionally veers a little too far.

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Armin Shimerman, Bajor, david r. george, David R. George III, deep space nine, ds9, Ferengi, quar, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the 34th rule | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Voyager – Eye of the Needle (Review)

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Darren

Eye of the Needle really should be a bigger deal than it is.

Looking at the basic premise of Star Trek: Voyager, a story like Eye of the Needle should be an “event.” It should, at the very least, be a mid-season finalé. Ideally, the episode would serve as the season finalé, bringing a sense of closure to year of adventuring by our crew, suggesting that there is some measure of hope for them. Perhaps home is not as far away as it might seem.

“Hm. You appear to have beamed me up in my pyjamas…”

Voyager is a show about a ship stranded on the far side of the galaxy. The crew are isolated from friends and family. The return journey will take seventy years. It is quite possible that this will be a generational voyage. The Voyager crew will return home to a world that has changed without them. It’s heartbreaking even to think about.

So the ship’s first chance to get home should be something to get excited about. It should be cause for celebration; it should feel like a lifeline dangling just within the reach of our characters. There should be a sense that this sort of think might only happen once, and everybody best be prepared for it. Instead, it happens six episodes into the season, and the audience spends forty-five minutes waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Thoughtful Janeway pose #452…

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: doctor, Earth, eye of the needle, home, romulans, star trek, star trek: voyager, voyager | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Destiny (Review)

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Darren

The biggest problem with Destiny is that it doesn’t feel fully-formed. The show plays more like a series of vignettes than a single story. There are some nice character beats, and a sense that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is an ensemble show, but Destiny meanders far too much. It seems like it wanders around without any singular purpose, any strong central point to tether it.

Is it about Sisko’s relation to the title of “Emissary”? Is about peace between Bajor and Cardassia? Is it about O’Brien and flirty Cardassians? Is it about Kira’s faith and her position on Deep Space Nine? Is it about end time prophecies?

It seems to be about all these things, but with no real commitment to any of them above the others. The end result is that it’s not about any of them particularly well.

Picture perfect…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: bajorans, bible, cardassians, destiny, ds9, gamma quadrant, jeffrey lamp, jeffrey s. lamp, nineties, Peace, prophecy, religion, René Echevarria, star trek, star trek: deep space nine | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Heart of Stone (Review)

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Darren

Heart of Stone feels quite similar to Life Support. Once again, there’s a main plot that doesn’t involve Kira quite as much as it should. Once again, this is supplemented by a subplot involving Quark’s mischievous nephew, Nog. And yet – while still flawed in a number of ways – Heart of Stone works a lot better than Life Support did, primarily because it’s a lot more thoughtfully constructed. The lack of focus on Kira is explained as part of the plot; Nog isn’t holding down an unfunny comedy subplot, he’s getting some nice character development.

Heart of Stone is occasionally a little heavy-handed in its character beats, but it works well because it pitches its plot at the right level, focusing on the characters at the heart of these stories.

A rock and a hard place…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: change of heart, deep space nine, Dominion, female changeling, heart of stone, Kira, nog, Odo, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, Starfleet, unrequited love | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Malibu Comics) – The Rules of Diplomacy (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on September 24, 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.

One of the more interesting aspects of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the way that the cast actively involved themselves in the mythology of the show. Armin Shimerman originally pitched The 34th Rule as an episode of the show, along with Eric A. Sitwell and David R. George III. Andrew Robinson published A Stitch in Time, a novel based on notes he had been making about Garak during the production of the series. Even J.G. Hertzler co-wrote the Left Hand of Destiny duology.

Of course, this was not a unique occurrence. Walter Koenig had written an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, an issue of Marvel’s on-going Star Trek comic and even The Machiavellian Principle, a play performed at the Ultimate Fantasy convention. John DeLancie had co-written The Gift, a story published in DC’s Star Trek: The Next Generation comics. Ethan Phillips and Robert Picardo would lend their names to tie-in Star Trek: Voyager books.

However, it seems reasonable to observe that the supporting cast on Deep Space Nine were particularly interested in fleshing out and developing their characters. So it seems appropriate that Aron Eisenberg should co-write The Rules of Diplomacy, a special about Nog earning some credits before shipping off to Starfleet Academy.

You can’t go home again…

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Filed under: Comics, Deep Space Nine | Tagged: aron eisenberg, deep space nine, Ferengi, klingons, malibu comics, nog, Quark, rules of diplomacy, star trek | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Life Support (Review)

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Darren

Life Support is the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to air after Star Trek: Voyager went on the air. It’s amazing how quickly Deep Space Nine settled back into the role of “the other Star Trek show on television.” A lot of attention was focused on launching Voyager, with the show put in the awkward position of launching (and, in the years ahead, supporting) the new television network UPN. As a result, Voyager got a lot of press and a higher profile.

Deep Space Nine fell back into familiar routines. Life Support is far from an exceptional piece of Deep Space Nine. In fact, it’s a deeply flawed piece of television. However, it feels free of the identity crisis that dominated the first half of the third season. This is Deep Space Nine free of the expectations of being “the only Star Trek on television”, and allowed the freedom to just keep doing whatever it wants to do.

It doesn’t do any of the things that it wants to do particularly well, but it does them in its inimitable way.

Dead air…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Bajor, bareil, Cardassia, Federation, kai, reviews, Sisko, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, the friends of vedek bareil, voyager, Winn | 10 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Prophecy & Change: The Orb of Opportunity by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Darren

It is fun to imagine the negative space that exists between various episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In its third season, the show was making nods towards serialisation, but there was never really a point where the series could not be broken down into reasonably well-defined episodic units. Even during the ten-hour series finalé, each of the constituent elements had its own narrative thrust and its own clear purpose. So it is fun sometimes to try to connect these threads together.

The ordering of episodes in a season of television is very interesting. It creates a fascinating connective tissue in the minds of fans. Although each episode is its own story, they come together to form something larger and more intriguing. On The X-Files, for example, placing Never Again directly after Leonard Betts changed the whole context of the episode. There are threads that do not necessarily exist within the individual episodes, but can be implied by the sequencing of the shows.

Placing Heart of Stone directly after Life Support is an interesting choice in several respects. It creates all sorts of interesting implications and developments, contradictions and possibilities. It is weird to have an episode about Odo’s attraction to Kira air directly after an episode focusing on the death of Kira’s long-term love interest; give her a week or two of space, guys. Similarly, it is strange to go from Nog’s characterisation in Life Support to his development in Heart of Stone.

The Orb of Opportunity is very clearly intended to bridge the gap between those two episodes, explaining how and why Nog developed in the way that he did.

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Andy Mangels, deep space nine, ds9, essentialism, Michael A. Martin, nog, prophecy and change, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, Starfleet, the orb of opportunity | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Voyager – Time and Again (Review)

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Darren

It’s really remarkable the sense of self that Star Trek: Voyager had three issues into its run. It took Star Trek: The Next Generation two years to figure out what it wanted to be. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine only really settled down in its fourth season. Star Trek: Enterprise reinvented itself twice before it was cancelled. On the other hand, Voyager just seemed so aware of what it was and what it was going to be within only a few episodes.

Sure, there would be a few changes made in the years ahead. The Borg would appear in the third season; Seven of Nine would join the cast in the fourth. Janeway’s fickleness has yet to be firmly established; the Doctor hasn’t come to the fore. And, yet, three episodes in, it is quite possible to look at Star Trek: Voyager and get a sense of what the next seven years will be like. The shape of things to come.

Time and Again is a time travel story, but it’s also the first time that Voyager pulls a full-on end-of-episode reset. It will not be the last.

Guest starring: anomaly of the week!

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: janeway, paradox, Prime Directive, reset button, star trek, star trek: voyager, time and again, time travel, voyager | 11 Comments »

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

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Darren

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 »

Win! A Copy of David Gerrold’s World of Star Trek!

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Darren

As you may have picked up, we are big fans of Star Trek here at the m0vie blog, and we are big fans of David Gerrold as well. Mr. Gerrold has recent released a number of his classic novels in eBook format, including The World of Star Trek. Originally published in 1973 and updated in 1984, the book offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the franchise and is an invaluable glimpse behind the curtain. A full list of Mr. Gerrold’s eBooks are available via his official site, or by clicking the image below.

We have an excerpt from the classic below and Mr. Gerrold has kindly volunteered to host a give away here. For your chance to win a copy – and four of David Gerrold’s eBooks of your choosing – simply leave a comment below. Simply leave a comment on the article stating you would like to be entered in the draw and we’ll pick a name from a hat. Enjoy!