More DS9 love
I've had a forced absence from DS9 - seasons 4-7 accidentally got sent to my old address, so I had to wait for the package to be redirected. I thought I'd take the time to write a little about the first three seasons, but the seasons arrived before I had time to translate my jotted-down notes and exclamations into an actual post. But I'll write some anyway, and insert season 4 as I see it. :-) I'm afraid with everything I've got to say, the post is going to be very disorganized, but I hope you can follow anyway!
I still haven't got a clear favourite, and I wonder if one reason I'm having so much fun with this show (usually I can't watch more than one or two seasons in a row of anything) is because the eps are rather evenly portioned out among the ensemble - I never have time to get tired of anyone. Of course, the quality helps too. I know people say the later seasons are better, and I won't deny that there are some generic scifi plots in there (enough with the false murder accusations already!) but everyone is so consistently interesting or fun or both! (Usually both.)
I have come to firmly enjoy the Cardassians, even. They remind me of Soviets, or rather, my notions of Soviets based on popular culture. :-) I love how they can be complete bastards and very charming at the same time, yet they're never woobified by the show. The Soviet comparison first struck me when Bashir talked about why he was bored of Cardassian literature. It reminded me of Milos Forman talking in his autobiography about how hard it was to write movie plots in Czechoslovakia, when you weren't allowed to set it outside a Communist country (that would be degenerate), nor have a villain within a Communist country (that would imply that Communism wasn't perfect).
Thus, when the Cardassian scientists arrived, I thought immediately of Ninotchka, though unlike Greta Garbo, the stern one on DS9 wasn't won over. And the entire situation in these couple of seasons has brought to mind "US vs. USSR" from the Opening Ceremony of the musical Chess. Which is fitting, because like Colin Mathews, Quark is clearly "The Merchandisers". But then, who is The Arbiter? At first, I thought maybe Sisko was, but then I decided that no, it has to be Odo, what with "I think both your constitutions are terrific" and all.
And while I'm on the subject of free associations, Cardassians, and Quark-as-Colin-Mathews, Garak/Bashir remind me rather of Lynda Day and Sarah Jackson - especially my favourite scene from "Friends Like These" where Sarah calls Lynda "a devious, unfeeling, calculating, manipulative bitch" and Lynda, smiling, replies "You were wondering what made me the better choice for editor." ("Of all my best friends, you are the one I hate the most." Yesyesyesyes!)
Keeping the associations going - Bashir, on his own, is rather like Wizard Howl in that "smarmy manwhore" isn't so much an insult as it is a simple description. And I certainly don't think any less of him because of it! Especially not when he keeps providing me with Bond and Biggles fantasies. :-) (Although, sorry Bashir, but the only thing I can think of when I see Biggles is this.)
Dipping into S4 for a second, I see that Siddig El Fadil/Alexander Siddig has now changed his name. Which is of course his right, thought it's a bit sad that he felt he had to. Especially since this show has the highest concentration of "names I have never heard before" ever. I think every single cast member has either first or last name I've never heard anyone else be called. *checks* Okay, apart from Terry Farrell. And even that's quite unusual for a woman. Even the guest stars sometimes have very interesting names. "We have a guy here auditioning for the role of 'loose cannon 21st century rebel.'" "What's his name?" "Frank Military." "HIRE HIM." (I loved that time travel ep, btw, it makes me wonder if Terry Pratchett had seen it before he wrote Night Watch.)
Speaking of guest stars, HI CHILDHOOD FAVOURITES SNEAKING THEIR WAY IN! I mean, first I got Brett Cullen as a Babe of the Week, which amused me, because he does tend to get those kinds of roles quite a bit, doesn't he? "We need someone who's instantly likable yet disposable." "Brett Cullen?" "Perfect." (Sorry, I keep imagining casting coversations! Also, I'm kind of amused that the shortest-lived regulars on TYR are the ones who keep popping up everywhere. Well, them and Josh Brolin. But then, he mostly plays villains these days, which is funny too.)
And then they bring in DUNCAN REGEHR as a morally upstanding revolutionary, which CANNOT BE COINCIDENCE so soon after Zorro. But then, Regehr does that kind of role very well - though I think he'd probably be even more interesting as a villain, still all low-key and reasonable. Like I've said before, he has a sort of Viggo Mortensen quality. (And like Viggo Mortensen, he mixes his arts: writing, painting, boxing, figure skating... Yeah. Wow. *g*) And I need to stop looking up spoilers that I don't want to know, but apparently he'll be recurring? YAY!
And of course there have been other people I've recognized too, like Daddy Suresh and that physicist from Joan of Arcadia, but as guest stars go, I think those two have been the most yay-worthy for me.
But of course most of my joy comes from watching the regulars, both for deep characterisation reasons and for... well, more shallow ones. In addition to Sisko's voice and Bashir's eyes, I've also now come to notice that Kira has a most beautiful behind, and a catlike quirk to her mouth, both things endearing her to me almost as thoroughly as her plotlines do. In truth, I've even come to fancy Dax's five-o'clock shadow. I do wish they'd let her grow it out (along with her eyebrows) just so I could see what her mouth looks like with it. :-)
I'm not sure whether or not I should count my love for Nog's hiss as a shallow joy, but I'm leaning towards not, because the alternative is kind of disturbing. I just think it's adorable. He's adorable altogether. I do so enjoy the Ferengi. Even though the naked-women thing makes NO SENSE. Clothes are created to protect skin against the environment. Thus, men and women tend to wear about the same amount of clothing. Yes, you'll get details of difference like how it's okay for men to go topless at the beach and not women, or - if you're a Taliban - how it's okay for men to expose their faces but not women. But you don't get societies where men wear three layers of clothing and women wear nothing at all.
Uh, yes. Possibly I should be upset about the whole keeping women in slavery thing, but that feels like proper plot. The clothing issue feels like way too much metaphor in my peanut butter.
While I'm griping, here are some more issues:
Either you have a universal translator or you don't. It drives me up the walls the way they can translate all known languages... except Klingon and Bajoran... unless what's being said in Klingon and Bajoran is relevant to the plot, in which case it translates just fine. But I fear this will continue to happen as long as scifi shows are run by people who are used to having their own language be the dominant one. (I'll say this for Doctor Who, at least the TARDIS properly translates EVERYTHING it has ever encountered before.)
If it's hard to grow plants on certain parts of Bajor because the soil is toxic, wouldn't the plants be toxic as well? In which case farming there seems a bit pointless.
Sisko, I have all respect for your abilities, but if no one has managed to build a spaceship based on old Bajoran drawings for 800 years, there is simply no way you can do it alone in four weeks, with or without replicators.
The Trills make a big deal about how necessary it is for the symbiont to survive, to the point where it's the reason Dax and Kahn CAN'T EVER BE TOGETHER OH WOE. (And also having a long-term lesbian relationship on the show wouldn't do, would it? Which is why Dax can't ever date any other women either. But I digress.) Maybe my difficulty with this is because I'm still caught up in thinking in terms of organ donation, but - wouldn't the symbiont end up untransferrable in quite a few cases anyway? If someone was blown up, for instance, or fell unconscious and died in some faraway place where no one reached them in time (think of all those stories about people rotting in their apartments for weeks), or just if someone was struck by phaser or sword in a way that killed symbiont as well as host. It seems to me each death would be a gamble. (Actually, that whole setup bugged me. It's okay for Jadzia to hang around Sisko every day, and to go on revenge missions with old Klingon buddies, but it's not okay for her to hook up with an ex-wife? What if the Jadzia part of her had just happened to feel attraction to the Lenara part of Kahn? Coupled with the Trills lying about how many Trills could be joined, it seems like Trill society isn't looking after their symbionts as well as they could have.)
While we're on the subject of Trills - nothing about Joran's introduction ep made me believe he was Hannibal Lecter, so Avery Brooks playing him thus was VERY annoying. No offence to Brooks, I love him to pieces usually. Except the beard.
And returning to the bisexuality - listen, I love that both regular women on the show are bi. Truly, I do. It'd just be nice if that was acknowledged in more than one episode each, and for Kira it's even an AU episode. It could even be questioned whether "our" Kira is bi at all, which leaves some unfortunate implications of "oh, she's evil in this reality, she's HITTING ON GIRLS." (As far as egosexuality is concerned, all problems with the Time/Space Doctor Who short notwithstanding, I think Amy/Amy was a lot more satisfying.)
In general, while I love AUs and there were bits of the Mirrorverse I really enjoyed (Garak being all LET ME TORTURE SOMEONE for one thing), it was a tad too over-the-top for me; it lacked punch. Which is ironic, considering that I loved the Mirrorman dystopian AU, which was even more over-the-top, but of course that one wasn't meant to have punch.
Also, while Lwaxana Troi was awesome the first time around, I'm a bit sad that she was so much more of a parody the second time around. I liked the awesome.
And not so much gripes as questions:
What happens if someone gets pregnant on Meridian? Do they stay pregnant for the number of actual physical days they'd be pregnant anyway (in which case, no wonder repopulation is slow!) or is the pregnancy terminated when the planet goes immaterial, or what?
So, what with O'Brien having been replaced with an exact robot replica, how do we know they blew up the right one? *g* (Press Gang joke, sorry about that.)
Should I rewatch the beginning of Voyager, now that I have the origin of the Maquis and thus will understand more? Or should I leave it off since it'll probably come off bad in comparison?
And ending up with something that IS a gripe, though not connected to the show itself:
If you buy the DVDs without having seen the show, do NOT watch the extras. Which is easy to avoid, considering that they're mostly easter eggs. (Seriously, the point with an easter egg is that it's hidden. If you have a DOZEN easter eggs it just gets tedious looking them all up and trying to remember which ones you've seen.) Clearly whoever put the extras together couldn't fathom that one might watch them after seeing only ONE season, since they're SPOILERY AS ALL FUCK. In fact, even the episode summaries are spoilery for things that happen half an hour into the episode OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Oh well. At least thanks to the evil extras on s2 (I haven't dared to see any later ones) I know what Klingons used to look like and can thus finally understand that line by Voltaire. :-)
This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/534658.html and has
comments there.
I still haven't got a clear favourite, and I wonder if one reason I'm having so much fun with this show (usually I can't watch more than one or two seasons in a row of anything) is because the eps are rather evenly portioned out among the ensemble - I never have time to get tired of anyone. Of course, the quality helps too. I know people say the later seasons are better, and I won't deny that there are some generic scifi plots in there (enough with the false murder accusations already!) but everyone is so consistently interesting or fun or both! (Usually both.)
I have come to firmly enjoy the Cardassians, even. They remind me of Soviets, or rather, my notions of Soviets based on popular culture. :-) I love how they can be complete bastards and very charming at the same time, yet they're never woobified by the show. The Soviet comparison first struck me when Bashir talked about why he was bored of Cardassian literature. It reminded me of Milos Forman talking in his autobiography about how hard it was to write movie plots in Czechoslovakia, when you weren't allowed to set it outside a Communist country (that would be degenerate), nor have a villain within a Communist country (that would imply that Communism wasn't perfect).
Thus, when the Cardassian scientists arrived, I thought immediately of Ninotchka, though unlike Greta Garbo, the stern one on DS9 wasn't won over. And the entire situation in these couple of seasons has brought to mind "US vs. USSR" from the Opening Ceremony of the musical Chess. Which is fitting, because like Colin Mathews, Quark is clearly "The Merchandisers". But then, who is The Arbiter? At first, I thought maybe Sisko was, but then I decided that no, it has to be Odo, what with "I think both your constitutions are terrific" and all.
And while I'm on the subject of free associations, Cardassians, and Quark-as-Colin-Mathews, Garak/Bashir remind me rather of Lynda Day and Sarah Jackson - especially my favourite scene from "Friends Like These" where Sarah calls Lynda "a devious, unfeeling, calculating, manipulative bitch" and Lynda, smiling, replies "You were wondering what made me the better choice for editor." ("Of all my best friends, you are the one I hate the most." Yesyesyesyes!)
Keeping the associations going - Bashir, on his own, is rather like Wizard Howl in that "smarmy manwhore" isn't so much an insult as it is a simple description. And I certainly don't think any less of him because of it! Especially not when he keeps providing me with Bond and Biggles fantasies. :-) (Although, sorry Bashir, but the only thing I can think of when I see Biggles is this.)
Dipping into S4 for a second, I see that Siddig El Fadil/Alexander Siddig has now changed his name. Which is of course his right, thought it's a bit sad that he felt he had to. Especially since this show has the highest concentration of "names I have never heard before" ever. I think every single cast member has either first or last name I've never heard anyone else be called. *checks* Okay, apart from Terry Farrell. And even that's quite unusual for a woman. Even the guest stars sometimes have very interesting names. "We have a guy here auditioning for the role of 'loose cannon 21st century rebel.'" "What's his name?" "Frank Military." "HIRE HIM." (I loved that time travel ep, btw, it makes me wonder if Terry Pratchett had seen it before he wrote Night Watch.)
Speaking of guest stars, HI CHILDHOOD FAVOURITES SNEAKING THEIR WAY IN! I mean, first I got Brett Cullen as a Babe of the Week, which amused me, because he does tend to get those kinds of roles quite a bit, doesn't he? "We need someone who's instantly likable yet disposable." "Brett Cullen?" "Perfect." (Sorry, I keep imagining casting coversations! Also, I'm kind of amused that the shortest-lived regulars on TYR are the ones who keep popping up everywhere. Well, them and Josh Brolin. But then, he mostly plays villains these days, which is funny too.)
And then they bring in DUNCAN REGEHR as a morally upstanding revolutionary, which CANNOT BE COINCIDENCE so soon after Zorro. But then, Regehr does that kind of role very well - though I think he'd probably be even more interesting as a villain, still all low-key and reasonable. Like I've said before, he has a sort of Viggo Mortensen quality. (And like Viggo Mortensen, he mixes his arts: writing, painting, boxing, figure skating... Yeah. Wow. *g*) And I need to stop looking up spoilers that I don't want to know, but apparently he'll be recurring? YAY!
And of course there have been other people I've recognized too, like Daddy Suresh and that physicist from Joan of Arcadia, but as guest stars go, I think those two have been the most yay-worthy for me.
But of course most of my joy comes from watching the regulars, both for deep characterisation reasons and for... well, more shallow ones. In addition to Sisko's voice and Bashir's eyes, I've also now come to notice that Kira has a most beautiful behind, and a catlike quirk to her mouth, both things endearing her to me almost as thoroughly as her plotlines do. In truth, I've even come to fancy Dax's five-o'clock shadow. I do wish they'd let her grow it out (along with her eyebrows) just so I could see what her mouth looks like with it. :-)
I'm not sure whether or not I should count my love for Nog's hiss as a shallow joy, but I'm leaning towards not, because the alternative is kind of disturbing. I just think it's adorable. He's adorable altogether. I do so enjoy the Ferengi. Even though the naked-women thing makes NO SENSE. Clothes are created to protect skin against the environment. Thus, men and women tend to wear about the same amount of clothing. Yes, you'll get details of difference like how it's okay for men to go topless at the beach and not women, or - if you're a Taliban - how it's okay for men to expose their faces but not women. But you don't get societies where men wear three layers of clothing and women wear nothing at all.
Uh, yes. Possibly I should be upset about the whole keeping women in slavery thing, but that feels like proper plot. The clothing issue feels like way too much metaphor in my peanut butter.
While I'm griping, here are some more issues:
Either you have a universal translator or you don't. It drives me up the walls the way they can translate all known languages... except Klingon and Bajoran... unless what's being said in Klingon and Bajoran is relevant to the plot, in which case it translates just fine. But I fear this will continue to happen as long as scifi shows are run by people who are used to having their own language be the dominant one. (I'll say this for Doctor Who, at least the TARDIS properly translates EVERYTHING it has ever encountered before.)
If it's hard to grow plants on certain parts of Bajor because the soil is toxic, wouldn't the plants be toxic as well? In which case farming there seems a bit pointless.
Sisko, I have all respect for your abilities, but if no one has managed to build a spaceship based on old Bajoran drawings for 800 years, there is simply no way you can do it alone in four weeks, with or without replicators.
The Trills make a big deal about how necessary it is for the symbiont to survive, to the point where it's the reason Dax and Kahn CAN'T EVER BE TOGETHER OH WOE. (And also having a long-term lesbian relationship on the show wouldn't do, would it? Which is why Dax can't ever date any other women either. But I digress.) Maybe my difficulty with this is because I'm still caught up in thinking in terms of organ donation, but - wouldn't the symbiont end up untransferrable in quite a few cases anyway? If someone was blown up, for instance, or fell unconscious and died in some faraway place where no one reached them in time (think of all those stories about people rotting in their apartments for weeks), or just if someone was struck by phaser or sword in a way that killed symbiont as well as host. It seems to me each death would be a gamble. (Actually, that whole setup bugged me. It's okay for Jadzia to hang around Sisko every day, and to go on revenge missions with old Klingon buddies, but it's not okay for her to hook up with an ex-wife? What if the Jadzia part of her had just happened to feel attraction to the Lenara part of Kahn? Coupled with the Trills lying about how many Trills could be joined, it seems like Trill society isn't looking after their symbionts as well as they could have.)
While we're on the subject of Trills - nothing about Joran's introduction ep made me believe he was Hannibal Lecter, so Avery Brooks playing him thus was VERY annoying. No offence to Brooks, I love him to pieces usually. Except the beard.
And returning to the bisexuality - listen, I love that both regular women on the show are bi. Truly, I do. It'd just be nice if that was acknowledged in more than one episode each, and for Kira it's even an AU episode. It could even be questioned whether "our" Kira is bi at all, which leaves some unfortunate implications of "oh, she's evil in this reality, she's HITTING ON GIRLS." (As far as egosexuality is concerned, all problems with the Time/Space Doctor Who short notwithstanding, I think Amy/Amy was a lot more satisfying.)
In general, while I love AUs and there were bits of the Mirrorverse I really enjoyed (Garak being all LET ME TORTURE SOMEONE for one thing), it was a tad too over-the-top for me; it lacked punch. Which is ironic, considering that I loved the Mirrorman dystopian AU, which was even more over-the-top, but of course that one wasn't meant to have punch.
Also, while Lwaxana Troi was awesome the first time around, I'm a bit sad that she was so much more of a parody the second time around. I liked the awesome.
And not so much gripes as questions:
What happens if someone gets pregnant on Meridian? Do they stay pregnant for the number of actual physical days they'd be pregnant anyway (in which case, no wonder repopulation is slow!) or is the pregnancy terminated when the planet goes immaterial, or what?
So, what with O'Brien having been replaced with an exact robot replica, how do we know they blew up the right one? *g* (Press Gang joke, sorry about that.)
Should I rewatch the beginning of Voyager, now that I have the origin of the Maquis and thus will understand more? Or should I leave it off since it'll probably come off bad in comparison?
And ending up with something that IS a gripe, though not connected to the show itself:
If you buy the DVDs without having seen the show, do NOT watch the extras. Which is easy to avoid, considering that they're mostly easter eggs. (Seriously, the point with an easter egg is that it's hidden. If you have a DOZEN easter eggs it just gets tedious looking them all up and trying to remember which ones you've seen.) Clearly whoever put the extras together couldn't fathom that one might watch them after seeing only ONE season, since they're SPOILERY AS ALL FUCK. In fact, even the episode summaries are spoilery for things that happen half an hour into the episode OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Oh well. At least thanks to the evil extras on s2 (I haven't dared to see any later ones) I know what Klingons used to look like and can thus finally understand that line by Voltaire. :-)
This entry was originally posted at http://katta.dreamwidth.org/534658.html and has
comments there.