some more DS9 reactions
Spoilers through 4x06 under the cuts. Please don't spoil me for any episodes past that.
4x01-02, "The Way of the Warrior"
There are no words for how much I don't care about Worf. I don't like him being forced into a show whose ensemble was working really well without him, and it seems like fanservice for the hardcore, Klingon-obsessed section of Trek fandom. Meh.
4x03, "The Visitor"
I cried my eyes out. It's a fantastic episode that I will probably never watch again because it's just too painful.
4x04, "Hippocratic Oath"
A thoughtful episode that just didn't work for me. The storytelling choices were gutsy (the sense that a real possibility for peace may have been lost, and the way O'Brien and Bashir's friendship has been genuinely, if perhaps not permanently, damaged by the choices each made [and the fact that each of them made a choice that was right in its own way]). Somehow, though, I just wasn't engaged. Probably I shouldn't have watched it right after "The Visitor."
The main thing I think I've brought away from this episode (and from 3x22, "Explorers") is that O'Brien is attracted to and at least a little in love with Bashir. I don't say this to devalue Miles and Keiko's marriage or their very deep love for each other. But what else are we supposed to do with that bit in "Explorers," when O'Brien says (slightly paraphrased): "People either love you or hate you. I hated you at first. But now, um . . . [awkward silence]"? Not to mention the moment in "Hippocratic Oath" when he very nearly says that he wishes Keiko were more like Bashir. Which is sort of played for comedy, but sort of not, and which leads in to the later moment when O'Brien explains that he destroyed Bashir's project because he felt he had to in order to save Bashir's life.
I think O'Brien is seriously committed to his marriage and wouldn't act on his feelings for Bashir (and I don't think he's even quite fully aware of them). If Keiko hadn't gone to Bajor, probably O'Brien's attachment would never have developed much at all. But she did, and it did, and it's probably just as well for O'Brien that Bashir doesn't seem to feel the same way.
4x05, "Indiscretion"
And speaking of unlikely pairings . . . when, in a much earlier episode, Garak made a remark about Dukat fancying Kira, I thought he was just getting at Dukat. Now I'm not so sure. Dukat's flirting could be just a mindfuck, which seems to be a popular Cardassian hobby, but the way he looks at her at the end of the episode seems to be something more.
I'm fascinated by what the show is doing with Dukat, who is really quite charming and likable in some ways, who loves his children and genuinely loved his Bajoran mistress . . . and is also a war criminal who participated in something very near genocide. The former isn't presented as something that makes the latter okay; nor does the latter make the former untrue. It's genuine moral complexity.
And although I'm half ashamed to admit it, I really did laugh out loud when he sat on the thorn. I have a feeling that the clip of him running the dermal regenerator over his bottom and groaning has made its way into vids . . . in entirely new contexts.
4x06, "Rejoined"
I was spoiled for this episode, but yet it was almost completely different from what I had expected. I must now admit, with some trepidation, that this episode did not piss me off.
I can see how it made some folks angry. If it's read as an allegory for homosexuality/bisexuality, then it ends up looking like an argument for conformity, closeting, pretending/attempting not to have same-sex desires. However, despite its focus on cultural taboos and the fact that the romance is between two women, I don't think it is an allegory. What Trill society forbids is relationships between people who've been involved in previous lives; that simply doesn't parse, even metaphorically, onto a prohibition against expressing same-sex desires. The story is too specific to work as allegory. (I'm not denying that it may have been intended as a [well-meant, liberal] allegory. I just mean that an allegorical reading can't be sustained.)
If one doesn't read allegorically, what emerges is a story in which two women are in love, and the fact that they're both women matters to exactly no one. Trill society doesn't care about that, nor does Starfleet, nor (somewhat to my surprise, because I seem to have picked up fanon about Bajoran sexual conservatism) does Kira. Even Quark just finds the multiple-incarnations aspect a little confusing. Neither Jadzia nor Lenara is surprised to find herself in love with a woman, and it's made very clear that these incarnations care for each other. It's not just leftovers from the heterosexual marriage of Torias and Nilani; as Jadzia says, she and Lenara have more in common than Torias and Nilani ever did. And when Lenara decides to leave, it's not (as I'd feared) because she doesn't she doesn't really love Jadzia and is in fact Totally Heterosexual OMG. It's just that she can't face the price to be paid for pursuing a reassociation.
The episode imagines a future in which sexual orientation is a non-issue, and I think it does a good job. It didn't come across as a Very Special Episode or as exploitive. I didn't get the sense that the kiss was meant as titillation for straight male viewers.
Is it bad that DS9 never had an acknowledged LGBT character or portrayed a lasting same-sex relationship? Yes. The show could have gone further than it did. But I found "Rejoined" to be a worthy achievement nevertheless.
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.
4x01-02, "The Way of the Warrior"
There are no words for how much I don't care about Worf. I don't like him being forced into a show whose ensemble was working really well without him, and it seems like fanservice for the hardcore, Klingon-obsessed section of Trek fandom. Meh.
4x03, "The Visitor"
I cried my eyes out. It's a fantastic episode that I will probably never watch again because it's just too painful.
4x04, "Hippocratic Oath"
A thoughtful episode that just didn't work for me. The storytelling choices were gutsy (the sense that a real possibility for peace may have been lost, and the way O'Brien and Bashir's friendship has been genuinely, if perhaps not permanently, damaged by the choices each made [and the fact that each of them made a choice that was right in its own way]). Somehow, though, I just wasn't engaged. Probably I shouldn't have watched it right after "The Visitor."
The main thing I think I've brought away from this episode (and from 3x22, "Explorers") is that O'Brien is attracted to and at least a little in love with Bashir. I don't say this to devalue Miles and Keiko's marriage or their very deep love for each other. But what else are we supposed to do with that bit in "Explorers," when O'Brien says (slightly paraphrased): "People either love you or hate you. I hated you at first. But now, um . . . [awkward silence]"? Not to mention the moment in "Hippocratic Oath" when he very nearly says that he wishes Keiko were more like Bashir. Which is sort of played for comedy, but sort of not, and which leads in to the later moment when O'Brien explains that he destroyed Bashir's project because he felt he had to in order to save Bashir's life.
I think O'Brien is seriously committed to his marriage and wouldn't act on his feelings for Bashir (and I don't think he's even quite fully aware of them). If Keiko hadn't gone to Bajor, probably O'Brien's attachment would never have developed much at all. But she did, and it did, and it's probably just as well for O'Brien that Bashir doesn't seem to feel the same way.
4x05, "Indiscretion"
And speaking of unlikely pairings . . . when, in a much earlier episode, Garak made a remark about Dukat fancying Kira, I thought he was just getting at Dukat. Now I'm not so sure. Dukat's flirting could be just a mindfuck, which seems to be a popular Cardassian hobby, but the way he looks at her at the end of the episode seems to be something more.
I'm fascinated by what the show is doing with Dukat, who is really quite charming and likable in some ways, who loves his children and genuinely loved his Bajoran mistress . . . and is also a war criminal who participated in something very near genocide. The former isn't presented as something that makes the latter okay; nor does the latter make the former untrue. It's genuine moral complexity.
And although I'm half ashamed to admit it, I really did laugh out loud when he sat on the thorn. I have a feeling that the clip of him running the dermal regenerator over his bottom and groaning has made its way into vids . . . in entirely new contexts.
4x06, "Rejoined"
I was spoiled for this episode, but yet it was almost completely different from what I had expected. I must now admit, with some trepidation, that this episode did not piss me off.
I can see how it made some folks angry. If it's read as an allegory for homosexuality/bisexuality, then it ends up looking like an argument for conformity, closeting, pretending/attempting not to have same-sex desires. However, despite its focus on cultural taboos and the fact that the romance is between two women, I don't think it is an allegory. What Trill society forbids is relationships between people who've been involved in previous lives; that simply doesn't parse, even metaphorically, onto a prohibition against expressing same-sex desires. The story is too specific to work as allegory. (I'm not denying that it may have been intended as a [well-meant, liberal] allegory. I just mean that an allegorical reading can't be sustained.)
If one doesn't read allegorically, what emerges is a story in which two women are in love, and the fact that they're both women matters to exactly no one. Trill society doesn't care about that, nor does Starfleet, nor (somewhat to my surprise, because I seem to have picked up fanon about Bajoran sexual conservatism) does Kira. Even Quark just finds the multiple-incarnations aspect a little confusing. Neither Jadzia nor Lenara is surprised to find herself in love with a woman, and it's made very clear that these incarnations care for each other. It's not just leftovers from the heterosexual marriage of Torias and Nilani; as Jadzia says, she and Lenara have more in common than Torias and Nilani ever did. And when Lenara decides to leave, it's not (as I'd feared) because she doesn't she doesn't really love Jadzia and is in fact Totally Heterosexual OMG. It's just that she can't face the price to be paid for pursuing a reassociation.
The episode imagines a future in which sexual orientation is a non-issue, and I think it does a good job. It didn't come across as a Very Special Episode or as exploitive. I didn't get the sense that the kiss was meant as titillation for straight male viewers.
Is it bad that DS9 never had an acknowledged LGBT character or portrayed a lasting same-sex relationship? Yes. The show could have gone further than it did. But I found "Rejoined" to be a worthy achievement nevertheless.
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.