DS9 Season One Rewatch Thoughts
Jan. 22nd, 2015 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
punch_kicker15My husband and I have started watching DS9. It's a rewatch for me and a first watch for my husband. I was most curious about A) how well I remembered it, B) how well the show holds up after 20+ years (!), C) how well the show holds up in comparison to Babylon 5, which we watched in its entirety a few years ago.
A. Things I remembered about Season One:
1. The pilot was awesome. The wormhole aliens were aliens in the way they thought and communicated, not just in the way they looked. Sisko's confrontation with Picard, and Sisko's epiphany with the aliens at the end "You exist here" and "Time is not linear" were impressive.
2. I loved Kira, Odo, and Sisko. Loathed the Doctor and O'Brien. I could take or leave Dax. Was completely uninterested in Quark.
3. Duet was an amazing episode.
How those things look now:
1. I had forgotten how long it takes for the pilot to get around to the heart of the episode, which for me is the discovery of the wormhole and Sisko's encounter with the aliens. It's not bad, but I was nervous my husband was going to lose interest before the good stuff, because it wasn't super-engaging. The scene between Picard and Sisko still works really well for me. Even though I knew that Picard had been enslaved by the Borg, I could understand Sisko resenting that Picard was able to recover and resume his career while Jennifer never could.
The aliens: still cool, but they seem less remarkable to me now. The "entity speaks through a bunch of people the listener knows" device was cool back then. Now I've seen it so many times on other shows that I just kind of wish that some of the actors delivering the aliens' lines were better at acting. The actress who played Jennifer was just awful, for example.
"You exist here." and "Time is not linear." When I first saw the show, I'd never lost anyone but distant relatives. I lost my dad to cancer last year, and there are some awful moments that I don't think I'm ever going to forget. If anything, it's more powerful to me now.
2. Still love Kira, so much that I got twitchy during the "Quark becomes Nagus episode" because we'd go 20 minutes without seeing her. She's walking wounded, but grows so much in the course of Season One. Odo and Sisko are well-drawn, though they'll both become more interesting in later seasons. They had no idea what to do with Dax, and the one episode about her involves her mostly frowning and saying and doing nothing. Bashir is an absolute tool in this season. O'Brien is ok as long as he isn't involved in the "poor O'Brien being nagged by his shrewish wife" storylines. It's massively unfair to Keiko and I think that's why I hated him when I watched Season One all those years ago. I enjoy Quark mostly for Armin Shimerman (aka PRINCIPAL SNYDER!), who has terrific chemistry with Odo. He's a good foil for Odo, but some of his behavior (like cheating aliens in a First Contact situation, or doing business with a notorious serial killer) leaves me wondering why Sisko, Odo, and Kira would put up with his station-endangering crap, because they all seem very crap-intolerant otherwise. I suppose it's the "Why don't the Scoobies kill Spike in the early seasons" kind of thing: he's entertaining, so the writers want to keep him around.
3) Duet is still freaking amazing television. What I remembered were the scenes with Kira and Marritza, and those are still intense, with incisive dialogue and a fantastic performance by Harris Yulin (aka Quentin Travers). What I noticed on rewatch was the support Kira receives from her friends: Sisko trusts her to conduct the interrogation, despite her emotional investment in the Gallitep mining camp. Dax offers the wisdom you'd expect from a centuries-old person: that punishment and vengeance without reason isn't enough for Kira. And Odo's investigative talents help Kira punch holes into Marritza's web of lies. All of that leads to the point where Kira can uncover Marritza's plan, forgive him for not being a hero, and refuse to let him be punished for other people's sins. Fantastic, fantastic stuff, among the best that the Trek franchise has ever produced.
B. How well the show holds up after 20+ years:
The most obviously-dated aspect of the show is the complete lack of video camera surveillance. DS9 takes place on a strategically important space station with advanced levels of technology and a military presence, and yet they have less video surveillance than a present-day La Quinta Inn in Eugene, OR. This is irritating from a storytelling perspective, when the plot hinges on something that could easily be resolved by having cameras on board.
Some of the effects look cheesy or unimpressive given how much CGI has improved in the past two decades, but to me that's not a huge deal.
I find the storytelling about Bajor to be as relevant now as twenty years ago, especially the parts about trying to build a nation out of disparate factions who were united when there were despots in charge. I haven't seen anything like that on American TV (but political TV shows are not my thing, so perhaps others have tackled this and I'm just not aware of it.) The parts about the Cardassian occupation being something that left wounds that did not disappear when the occupation went away also felt extremely relevant to me.
C. How the show holds up after seeing Babylon 5.
To me Season One of DS9 was way better than Season One of Babylon 5. B5's first season was so painful that it took us months to get through it. A lot of that was frustration with Michael O'Hare's acting style, which was really, really distracting. Some of that was that IMO B5 wasn't very good at the self-contained episode, and the arc hadn't really started yet.
I think DS9 was better at doing the little self-contained episodes (Captive Pursuit and Progress were good examples of that in Season One). Move Along Home, which is widely considered to be one of the worst episodes of DS9, had a fun moment of screwing with the expected trope (that the game would have real-life consequences for those trapped in it). I loved the "Dude, it's just a game," reaction from the alien, and I would rank that episode, silly as it was, above at least half of B5's first season eps.
I think DS9 did a better job than Babylon 5 of establishing friendships. It's so obvious, very early on, that Kira and Odo have great respect and trust for one another. When Kira has doubts about a friend of hers (Past Prologue), Odo is there to listen and offer some perspective. I know the show hadn't planned on shipping them at this point, but it's a solid foundation of friendship that works very well, even when you know what's coming next. There's also the beginnings of Sisko/Jadzhia and Sisko/Kira friendship, Kira/Jadzhia friendship, and some indication that Quark has a bit of affection for Odo.
Finally, some random thoughts after watching Season One:
A terrific guest actor's or actress's performance helps a lot in making an episode watchable. I think Scott MacDonald's performance as Tosk (the alien bred to be prey) in Captive Pursuit is key to the episode being interesting. I really felt the bonding between Tosk and O'Brien, and that kept me interested in the lengths O'Brien was willing to go to help Tosk. Sadly, the quality of the guest actors, at least in Season One, varied widely.
I was surprised how evil they let Vedek Winn be right off the bat. Basically she's plotting murder and ways to distance herself from the murder in her very first appearance.
One of my favorite moments of the entire season is in the 2nd episode (Past Prologue). It starts with the DS9 crew rescuing a Bajoran friend of Kira's, who's being pursued by a Cardassian who claims the Bajoran is a criminal. In the course of the show it turns out that Kira’s friend wants to blow up the entrance to the wormhole, and the Cardassian gets his chance to say “I warned you” before Sisko shuts off communication.
Sisko’s style of management is interesting. He will listen, but he won’t be pushed around and he won’t pull punches when he’s angry (his dressing-down of O’Brien at the end of Past Prologue is pretty harsh). I like the way that he covers for Kira in Progress (basically ordering Bashir to claim that he requested Kira stay on Jeraddo for humanitarian reasons), but going down to the planet and laying out her options to her in no uncertain terms.
I also like Sisko's relationship with Jake. It's warm and healthy, but not without frictions between them.
When I was younger, I didn’t understand the whole Garak/Bashir shipping thing. I was like “Well, they spend a lot of time together, but I don’t get it otherwise.” Garak’s only in one episode this season, but this time I was like “HOLY CRAP HE’S ALL OVER BASHIR THIS IS THE SLASHIEST FIRST MEETING I HAVE EVER SEEN WHY WASN’T THIS CANON?”
Speaking of Garak, there were a lot fewer Cardassians in Season One than I expected. The ones that were there (Garak, Marritza, Dukat) clearly left a lot bigger impression than a lot of other guest/recurring characters.
A. Things I remembered about Season One:
1. The pilot was awesome. The wormhole aliens were aliens in the way they thought and communicated, not just in the way they looked. Sisko's confrontation with Picard, and Sisko's epiphany with the aliens at the end "You exist here" and "Time is not linear" were impressive.
2. I loved Kira, Odo, and Sisko. Loathed the Doctor and O'Brien. I could take or leave Dax. Was completely uninterested in Quark.
3. Duet was an amazing episode.
How those things look now:
1. I had forgotten how long it takes for the pilot to get around to the heart of the episode, which for me is the discovery of the wormhole and Sisko's encounter with the aliens. It's not bad, but I was nervous my husband was going to lose interest before the good stuff, because it wasn't super-engaging. The scene between Picard and Sisko still works really well for me. Even though I knew that Picard had been enslaved by the Borg, I could understand Sisko resenting that Picard was able to recover and resume his career while Jennifer never could.
The aliens: still cool, but they seem less remarkable to me now. The "entity speaks through a bunch of people the listener knows" device was cool back then. Now I've seen it so many times on other shows that I just kind of wish that some of the actors delivering the aliens' lines were better at acting. The actress who played Jennifer was just awful, for example.
"You exist here." and "Time is not linear." When I first saw the show, I'd never lost anyone but distant relatives. I lost my dad to cancer last year, and there are some awful moments that I don't think I'm ever going to forget. If anything, it's more powerful to me now.
2. Still love Kira, so much that I got twitchy during the "Quark becomes Nagus episode" because we'd go 20 minutes without seeing her. She's walking wounded, but grows so much in the course of Season One. Odo and Sisko are well-drawn, though they'll both become more interesting in later seasons. They had no idea what to do with Dax, and the one episode about her involves her mostly frowning and saying and doing nothing. Bashir is an absolute tool in this season. O'Brien is ok as long as he isn't involved in the "poor O'Brien being nagged by his shrewish wife" storylines. It's massively unfair to Keiko and I think that's why I hated him when I watched Season One all those years ago. I enjoy Quark mostly for Armin Shimerman (aka PRINCIPAL SNYDER!), who has terrific chemistry with Odo. He's a good foil for Odo, but some of his behavior (like cheating aliens in a First Contact situation, or doing business with a notorious serial killer) leaves me wondering why Sisko, Odo, and Kira would put up with his station-endangering crap, because they all seem very crap-intolerant otherwise. I suppose it's the "Why don't the Scoobies kill Spike in the early seasons" kind of thing: he's entertaining, so the writers want to keep him around.
3) Duet is still freaking amazing television. What I remembered were the scenes with Kira and Marritza, and those are still intense, with incisive dialogue and a fantastic performance by Harris Yulin (aka Quentin Travers). What I noticed on rewatch was the support Kira receives from her friends: Sisko trusts her to conduct the interrogation, despite her emotional investment in the Gallitep mining camp. Dax offers the wisdom you'd expect from a centuries-old person: that punishment and vengeance without reason isn't enough for Kira. And Odo's investigative talents help Kira punch holes into Marritza's web of lies. All of that leads to the point where Kira can uncover Marritza's plan, forgive him for not being a hero, and refuse to let him be punished for other people's sins. Fantastic, fantastic stuff, among the best that the Trek franchise has ever produced.
B. How well the show holds up after 20+ years:
The most obviously-dated aspect of the show is the complete lack of video camera surveillance. DS9 takes place on a strategically important space station with advanced levels of technology and a military presence, and yet they have less video surveillance than a present-day La Quinta Inn in Eugene, OR. This is irritating from a storytelling perspective, when the plot hinges on something that could easily be resolved by having cameras on board.
Some of the effects look cheesy or unimpressive given how much CGI has improved in the past two decades, but to me that's not a huge deal.
I find the storytelling about Bajor to be as relevant now as twenty years ago, especially the parts about trying to build a nation out of disparate factions who were united when there were despots in charge. I haven't seen anything like that on American TV (but political TV shows are not my thing, so perhaps others have tackled this and I'm just not aware of it.) The parts about the Cardassian occupation being something that left wounds that did not disappear when the occupation went away also felt extremely relevant to me.
C. How the show holds up after seeing Babylon 5.
To me Season One of DS9 was way better than Season One of Babylon 5. B5's first season was so painful that it took us months to get through it. A lot of that was frustration with Michael O'Hare's acting style, which was really, really distracting. Some of that was that IMO B5 wasn't very good at the self-contained episode, and the arc hadn't really started yet.
I think DS9 was better at doing the little self-contained episodes (Captive Pursuit and Progress were good examples of that in Season One). Move Along Home, which is widely considered to be one of the worst episodes of DS9, had a fun moment of screwing with the expected trope (that the game would have real-life consequences for those trapped in it). I loved the "Dude, it's just a game," reaction from the alien, and I would rank that episode, silly as it was, above at least half of B5's first season eps.
I think DS9 did a better job than Babylon 5 of establishing friendships. It's so obvious, very early on, that Kira and Odo have great respect and trust for one another. When Kira has doubts about a friend of hers (Past Prologue), Odo is there to listen and offer some perspective. I know the show hadn't planned on shipping them at this point, but it's a solid foundation of friendship that works very well, even when you know what's coming next. There's also the beginnings of Sisko/Jadzhia and Sisko/Kira friendship, Kira/Jadzhia friendship, and some indication that Quark has a bit of affection for Odo.
Finally, some random thoughts after watching Season One:
A terrific guest actor's or actress's performance helps a lot in making an episode watchable. I think Scott MacDonald's performance as Tosk (the alien bred to be prey) in Captive Pursuit is key to the episode being interesting. I really felt the bonding between Tosk and O'Brien, and that kept me interested in the lengths O'Brien was willing to go to help Tosk. Sadly, the quality of the guest actors, at least in Season One, varied widely.
I was surprised how evil they let Vedek Winn be right off the bat. Basically she's plotting murder and ways to distance herself from the murder in her very first appearance.
One of my favorite moments of the entire season is in the 2nd episode (Past Prologue). It starts with the DS9 crew rescuing a Bajoran friend of Kira's, who's being pursued by a Cardassian who claims the Bajoran is a criminal. In the course of the show it turns out that Kira’s friend wants to blow up the entrance to the wormhole, and the Cardassian gets his chance to say “I warned you” before Sisko shuts off communication.
Sisko’s style of management is interesting. He will listen, but he won’t be pushed around and he won’t pull punches when he’s angry (his dressing-down of O’Brien at the end of Past Prologue is pretty harsh). I like the way that he covers for Kira in Progress (basically ordering Bashir to claim that he requested Kira stay on Jeraddo for humanitarian reasons), but going down to the planet and laying out her options to her in no uncertain terms.
I also like Sisko's relationship with Jake. It's warm and healthy, but not without frictions between them.
When I was younger, I didn’t understand the whole Garak/Bashir shipping thing. I was like “Well, they spend a lot of time together, but I don’t get it otherwise.” Garak’s only in one episode this season, but this time I was like “HOLY CRAP HE’S ALL OVER BASHIR THIS IS THE SLASHIEST FIRST MEETING I HAVE EVER SEEN WHY WASN’T THIS CANON?”
Speaking of Garak, there were a lot fewer Cardassians in Season One than I expected. The ones that were there (Garak, Marritza, Dukat) clearly left a lot bigger impression than a lot of other guest/recurring characters.