Star Trek

BORING

^ What was boring, the episode or the series?

OUR MAN BASHIR: Fair to Good

In this episode, Bashir is in a "James Bond"-like holo-suite program when a transporter accident puts DS9 officers into the program as characters.  Bashir has to navigate the story without killing their characters even though they are trying to kill him.

This was an amusing episode with some good fun with Garak.  I liked it when Garak said, "I joined the wrong intelligence organization" when he saw the life of "James Bond".

Nana Visitor played a really good sexy russian spy...nice job!

Jim

Yeah, that was a good one. Cheesy spy stories are awesome.

At least the holodeck failure in “Our Man Bashir” made a little more sense than normal.  And they combined the holodeck accident with the other #1 over-done type of Star Trek story: the transporter accident.

Maybe Bashir was very disappointed that Garak (and the accident) interrupted his holodeck time because he was suppose to have sex with a lot of the characters and no he couldn’t.

Probably Bashir got interested in this type of spy story at least partly because of the time he’s been around Garak.  So it was interesting to see Garak get into the mix.  Love how he talks about how ridiculous the Bond spy movies are compared to real life spying.

Eddington and other “lower tier” characters like Rom really had a chance to shine in this episode.  That was great.

Did you notice that the stardate for the episode had a “007” in it?

By the way, I believe Bashir was not planning to kill Garak.  I think he meant to just knick him with that gun shot, as he ended up doing in the episode.  Anyone else think differently?

HOMEFRONT: Fair to Good

In this episode, a changeling blows up a Romulan/Federation conference on Earth.  Sisko and Odo are called back to Earth to help with security.  Jake comes along.  There is a secondary story having to do with Sisko's sick dad.

The episode was ok but it was mostly set up and not much really happened other than security preparations.  Odo enjoyed getting "phaser swept" over and over again.

It was like a reunion show of former Trek guest actors.  Sisko's dad was played by Brock Peters who played Admiral Cartwright in Star Trek IV and VI.  An Earth-based female commander was played by the actress who played Leah Brahms on TNG.  Robert Foxworth was a Starfleet Admiral in this episode.  He played the head of the Vulcan High-Command in ENT.

The episode ended with Earth having lost all pwoer due to sabotage and Starfleet security filling the streets in prepration for a Jam Hadar attack.

Jim

PARADISE LOST: Good

Earth is on high alert waiting for a Dominion attack.  It never comes.  It turns out a wayward Admiral is artificially creating panic so that Earth will prepare better for an eventual attack.  Sisko goes up against him to preserve Earth's way of life.

This was a good episode with a good message.  The battle between the Defiant and Lacota(?) was done well...and ended well.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the Dominion attacks.

Jim

I was certainly surprised at how things turned out in "Paradise Lost"...never suspected Admiral Layton was going to untimately turn out to be the villain of the two-parter.

I also liked the battle between the Defiant and the Lakota, though I thought it was a bit unrealistic for an Excelsior (even a refit one) to beat the Defiant like that. I was, however, pleased at how the battle was resolved.

One thing I wondered: was Layton responsible for bombing the conference in "Homefront"? We saw in this one he was capable of faking the Changeling morphing effect.

Well I just finished the last episode of DS9.  Started back in January and have to say at this point this has been my favorite series of the franchise.  I started with the original Star Trek back on August 29th of last year.  Between the original, animated, STNG, and now DS9 I felt more part of this series than the others.  I really liked the long story arcs and felt very connected to the characters.  Very sad to see this end.  At least now I can feel free to go through the pages on this site without fear of coming across a "spoiler".

Jim, you have many great episodes ahead of you and I look forward to your reactions to the series as it plays out.  Starting tomorrow I've got seven season of Voyager to watch - did not catch this series in its original run either (along with DS9 and Enterprise) so I'm looking forward to a few more months of all new Trek.  I'll look for your thread in the Voyager forum as I work my way through the show.  Not sure if I will make my goal of watching all Trek in a year - but I'm having a blast trying.

CROSSFIRE: Not Good

This was a disappointing episode.  It is about Odo clearly having feelings for Kira but not speaking up.  For the whole show he watched her fall for another man and he did nothing.  He meant to talk to her at the end but failed to do so.

It would ahve been so much better if he had tried...even if she shot him down.  The ending was very dissatisfying.  The only part I liked about this episode was Odo's interactions with Quark.

Jim

RETURN TO GRACE: Good

In this episode, a demoted Gul Dukat escorts Kira to a diplomatic conference with Cardassia.

I always enjoy Gul Dukat.  I think he is wondefully played by Marc Alaimo.  However, the star of this episode was the writing.  That is not surprising as I firmly believe DS9 is the most well written of the Trek series.  There were so many scenes in this episode with good dialogue...Kira and Ziyal, Kira and Dukat (multiple times), etc.  Visitor and Alaimo have great on-screen chemistry.

It is interesting how Dukat now has to play the role of resistance fighter and he admires someone he once fought.  You do get a sense that he wants to be a good person but can't let go of his fighting past.  As Kirk said in Undiscovered Country, "people can be frightened of change".

A few things confused me and I don't know whether it was by chance or misdirection by the writers.  There seemed to be times when you expected something to happen and it didn't...when Damar went down to engineering to help Ziyal...when Dukat went to the Klingon Captain's ready room to tell of his victory.  I expected something to happen and it didn't.  Some of them appeared to be pointless diversions in the end or the writers just keeping us on our toes.  Also, did anyone else suspect the Klingon ship wasn't the one that destroyed the Cardassian colony?  I thought they would find someone else did it.  They also seemed to give Damar more lines than his part deserved.  His role did nothing meaningful.  I wondered whether he was a spy.  Perhaps he has a future role in the show.

None the less, a good story with very good writing.  And Kira has become likable and respectable.  As Driver pointed out this may help me connect with the show better.

Jim

...and this episode went deeper than my review.  Not menaing to give him work but I expect Logan could dissect a lot of angles on this one.  There were just too many good subjects covered in this episode.

Jim