the way of the warrior | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Way of the Warrior (Review)

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Darren

This February and March, we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily Tuesday through Friday for the latest review.

The third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was really just a dress rehearsal for what lay ahead.

The third season had been a tumultuous time for the show, with Michael Piller departing the franchise to pursue opportunities outside Star Trek. It was the year directly after the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and all attention was focused on the pending release of Star Trek: Generations and the launch of Star Trek: Voyager. On top of that, the third season suffered from a great deal of confusion and disorganisation throughout the year, making it very hard for the production team to set an end goal for themselves.

“This could be the start of a beautiful friendship…”

In fact, the third season of Deep Space Nine was such a mess that the production team had not even managed to hit the end of season cliffhanger that they wanted. The Adversary had been drafted at the last possible minute when the studio vetoed the idea of ending the year with a Vulcan withdrawal from the Federation. This is not to discount the long list of impressive episodes produced during the season, but it does illustrate that the third season of Deep Space Nine had not progressed according to plan.

At the same time, it was a vital learning experience for the show. It provided a clear framework for what followed, providing producer Ira Steven Behr with a foundation from which he would build the rest of the run. The work put in during the third season would pay dividends in the fourth and fifth seasons, as the show began to play with and pay off ideas that had been carefully and meticulously established during that most chaotic of seasons. In fact, the show begins paying off those dividends with The Way of the Warrior, the first episode of the fourth season.

Klingons woz ‘ere…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: alexander siddig, deep space nine, ds9, Ira Steven Behr, klingons, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, serialisation, Sisko, star trek, star trek: deep space nine, Television, the way of the warrior, war, war on terror, Worf | 25 Comments »

Star Trek: Enterprise – Sleeping Dogs (Review)

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Darren

Next year, Star Trek is fifty years old. We have some special stuff planned for that, but – in the meantime – we’re reviewing all of Star Trek: Enterprise this year as something of a prequel to that anniversary. This January, we’re doing the first season. Check back daily for the latest review.

There’s really very little to say about Sleeping Dogs. It’s not particularly good, it’s not particularly bad. Like Civilisation before it, it’s an episode of Star Trek constructed to a familiar formula. The ship in question answers a distress call from an alien ship. Our crew attempts a rescue mission, during which the away team end up stranded. Meanwhile, our captain tries to figure out how to communicate with an alien from a radically different culture, eventually coming to realise that he must address them on their terms.

These are all stock elements, and they are mixed into Sleeping Dogs with a minimum of fuss. The only real kink in Sleeping Dogs is that the aliens in question are Klingons. However, we’ve spent so much time with Klingons in the various other Star Trek spin-off shows that using them as a light seasoning in a fairly stock Star Trek plot doesn’t make for a particularly appetising combination.