DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek series

Source: http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=1411

Over the summer, Netflix added all of the Star Trek series to it’s instant service–well, all but one: Deep Space Nine. This made me sad, because DS9 was my favorite, but I figured it would be a good opportunity to catch up on Voyager and Enterprise, which I watched some of (two seasons and one season, respectively) but never really got into. I tried, and quickly remembered why I’d stopped watching those shows (Neelix and implausibility, respectively). I was already in a Star Trek mood, though, so I went back and started watching The Next Generation. I really enjoyed this series while it was on TV–it’s final season ended my senior year of high school, and my friends and I were all Star Trek nerds–and in rewatching some of the old episodes I was delighted to see that they held up over time. It wasn’t just nostalgia that made me like them in high school, and in fact many of the episodes I remember as kind of boring turned out to be pretty great once I watched them with a more discerning eye.

Last night, having just watched “Pen Pals” from season two (specifically because it was recently covered in Tor.com’s TNG rewatch), I decided on a whim to do a search for DS9, just in case Netflix had added it to the Instant Streaming options. TNG is great and all, but the episodic nature of it was really starting to get to me. I wanted the depth of an ongoing story, and the darkness and tension of DS9′s murky political minefield. What could it hurt? I pulled up the search window and…it was there! My sweet, precious Deep Space Nine! I went straight toward the end of season two, when the long-form story just starts to get going (a two-parter about the formation of the Maquis, a resistance/terrorist organization) and started watching.

I love this show so much. We start that episode by watching someone plant a bomb, and then instead of watching it explode, we jump to the control room and listen to Dax and Kira have a snarky, half-friendly-half antagonistic conversation about dating. Not only does this serve as a perfect example of the Hitchcock Principle (“Suspense is when you know there’s a bomb but it doesn’t go off”), its wonderful character development, and nicely humorous. Then the bomb goes off and a ship explodes, and the entire sequence is a perfect, representative slice of DS9: darkness, conspiracy, humor, character, and mundane life. These characters didn’t have time to catalog anomalies and dork around with the Prime Directive, because people were setting bombs on their ships. It was all they could do to keep their heads above water while the darker forces of the universe did everything it could to destroy them. And in the midst of it all they do their best to live a normal life.

The first two seasons of Deep Space Nine were still trying, albeit half-heartedly, to mimic a normal Star Trek show; you still got a lot of political stuff (I can’t even count the number of people I’ve talked to who hate the show based solely on its early preoccupation with Bajoran politics), but there was a lot of “Anomaly of the Week” type stuff. I’m not saying that the other Trek shows were frivolous–they’re well-known and well-loved precisely because they deal with weighty issues like ethics and responsibility. The difference with DS9 came in its tone, which was dark and tense and far more bleak than the others. Every Trek show has tricky questions, but DS9 has questions with no good answers–and, more importantly, consequences that come back to haunt the characters for years.

The TNG episode “Pen Pals” is a great example. Data accidentally contacts a young girl on a dying planet, resulting in a fascinating quandary over the Prime Directive: do they save her? Do they save her planet? If saving her will irrevocably destroy her culture, is it still worth it? If the only other option is death, does the Prime Directive even matter? They wrestle with this back and forth for an hour, and it’s great science fiction, and then in the end they choose to save her planet and–here’s the kicker–wipe the girl’s memory. They broke the Prime Directive by directly interfering with a developing culture, and then there were zero consequences, and then they flew away and never thought about it again. All of their deep, philosophical theorizing was interesting, but ultimately meaningless.

Deep Space Nine doesn’t have that kind of crap. If they mess with something and cause a problem, they’ll have to deal with it, probably several times. They’re a space station, so they can’t just fly away to a part of space they haven’t ruined yet. The Maquis I mentioned earlier were a resistance group forged by the events of a TNG episode: the Federation came to a political agreement with the Cardassians, resulting in a demilitarized zone that displaced a lot of people. Colonists in Federation territory suddenly found themselves, and the homes they’d given so much to build, under enemy control. TNG never really dealt with this, but DS9 used it all the time. The colonists felt betrayed, and when the Cardassians exercised what the colonists considered to be unfair control, they formed a resistance movement and/or terrorist organization. They blew stuff up and killed people, and the DS9 characters couldn’t just wipe anyone’s memorizes or reroute power to the deflector array, they had to hang around and deal with it and try to make peace in an impossible situation.

In season three, Deep Space Nine embraced its long-form nature and went whole hog, starting a massive war that consumed not only the Federation and the Cardassians, but the Klingons, Romulans, and a new alien nation called the Dominion. The one where the Romulans join the war is one of the best episodes ever: the Federation is losing the war and needs more help, so they order DS9′s captain to enlist the Romulan’s help as allies through “any means necessary”. If he doesn’t get their help, the Federation will be destroyed–but the only way to get their help is to break his own set of ethics in a profound and terrifying way. There are no easy answers on DS9, and the implications of his decisions in that episode haunt him forever.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this–I can’t convince you, objectively, that a piece of art is “good.” It’s on Netflix now, so watch it for yourself. Perhaps it would be simpler to say that DS9 has my favorite characters of any Star Trek show and leave it at that. Perhaps it’s enough to point out that DS9 was run, in part, but Ronald Fracking Moore, who also ran the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Whatever convinces you to try it, try it. It’s my favorite Star Trek show ever.

(And that makes it the best.)

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine’s “Rejoined” Analysis – The First Same-Sex Kiss/Relationship In Trek History (2)

Source: http://www.kissingfingertips.com/ds9.html

To continue, the taboo against reassociation carries with it dire consequences. If two symbionts reassociate, their hosts are exiled from the Trill homeworld. This means that when the current hosts die their symbionts will not be joined to new hosts, the symbionts simply die with them. Since nothing is more important to a joined Trill than protecting the life of the symbiont, this is a life-quaking decision.

After spending time together and trying desperately to ward off feelings they both obviously share, Jadzia and Lenara succumb to their passion and… kiss. Oh boy, do they ever. I don’t actually have a top ten most passionate lesbian kisses list, but I think if I did this one would be on it. Anyway, later on aboard the Defiant, Jadzia saves Lenara’s life in a plasma-fire accident. They vow on the spot never to let anything come between them again, but Lenara’s courage fails her and she eventually decides to go back to Trill, leaving Dax heartbroken.

Part of the debate is, as veiled in metaphor as this story is, does it even count as a lesbian story anymore? Sure, the two women kiss, but it seems the “real” couple involved here are Torias and Nelani. I would say yes, and here’s why. Lenara freely admits that she’s never had so much trouble separating her feelings from those of a past host. The reason for this is obvious; the attraction between Dax and Khan isn’t the only attraction going on here. Jadzia and Lenara are obviously attracted to each other as well, and hit it off on a physical and intellectual level. That’s what makes Dax so unwilling to accept this taboo when she’s been the first to champion all matters of Trill honour and duty in the past. She’s not Torias, she’s Jadzia Dax, and she’s in love with this woman she can’t be with, simply because their symbionts have history. As Dax says, the irony is that she and Lenara have more in common than Nelani and Torias ever did. But the word irony isn’t really appropriate, it’s more of a tragedy.

The point, I’d like to think, is that fear and intolerance should never get in the way of love, regardless of who that love is between. People who try to explain away the storyline in terms of the symbiotic relationships and try to get it to fit into their limited (and often homophobic) mindset are missing the whole point. The episode also tells us a lot about Dax’s strength too, and how far she’s willing to go for love. Dax is a bit of a romantic at heart and awfully stubborn. Actually I think “Rejoined” sets the stage nicely for the interracial Klingon/Trill romance and wedding that happens later on in the series. Dax always likes to do things her own way, and we love her for it.

Susannah Thompson and Terry Farrell both do a pretty good job with this episode, especially with acting romantic tension while speaking line after line of nothing but technobabble. Thompson especially I thought was wonderful, with her luminous eyes and having the unsympathetic role of being the one who folds under social and family pressure. She despises herself for her own weakness, while she’s in absolute awe of Dax’s strength of will and moral certainty. It’s a finely nuanced performance which is so different from the passionate, raw sexuality of the Borg Queen she went on to play successfully in Star Trek: Voyager. (She’s also starred on Once & Again.)

Whether you agree that “Rejoined” was successful or not, it certainly caused a stir, and very few other episodes of DS9 are talked about with the same level of fervour as this one. As a political statement it kind of falls flat, and as a gay episode it has plenty of problems (this was one of the earliest examples of “sweeps lesbianism“), but I’m willing to forgive a lot of that simply for that kiss that I never thought I would see on Star Trek.

If people will insist on comparing Babylon 5 and DS9, with the former always coming out on top, ultimately it comes down to this: regardless of where the idea originated, at least DS9 had the guts to show the lesbian kiss that the B5 producers chickened out of showing between Ivanova and Talia. That earns a lot of lesbian brownie points in my book.

Note: The second ST: DS9 episode to deal with lesbian characters (including another onscreen kiss) was the seventh season episode “The Emperor’s New Cloak”.

Got a comment? Write to me at nancyamazon@gmail.com

…

Rinda:

And I just want to add one more thing here in addition to the article,

With regard to good kisses and since I am a Niner & a Gater, this one caught me by surprise and it was funny as hell. Great performance from Rodney, all the way during this episode. Just a Hats off to Stargate Atlantis, a one awesome series and a one awesome franchise.

Season 2, Ep. Duet

DS9 Stories/News: Learning to Love Star Trek, Part 47: “Dax”

Source: http://scifiblock.com/features/blog/learning-to-love-star-trek-part-47-dax.htm

By Robert Ring, Tue, 11/30/2010 – 08:08

“Learning to Love Star Trek” is a weekly blog series by Sci-Fi Block Editor in Chief Robert Ring, begun January 1, 2010. In this series of blog posts, Robert is endeavoring to determine whether he can make a Star Trek fan out of himself through an exposure to a combination of episodes from Star Trek the Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation (Update: TNG has now been replaced with Deep Space Nine). Click here to read his introduction to the experiment.

Okay, we’re back to the good with “Dax.” This isn’t a great episode, but it’s pretty interesting, and it’s a lot better than the three that come before it. “Dax” focuses on the two halves of Jadzia Dax — Jadzia the human and Dax the symbiont living inside of her. While it feels more like a disguised explanation of who/what Jadzia, Dax, and Jadzia Dax are than a story-based episode, “Dax” is engaging enough to satisfy.

“Dax” starts off with a group of Klaesrons attempting to abduct Dax. The Deep Space Nine crew pulls them back in via tractor beam just in time, though, and we learn that they are not actually kidnapping her. They are taking her into their custody to be tried and executed for the murder of a war hero. It’s not Jadzia who did it, though; it’s the symbiont’s former host, Curzon. Sisko, who was close friends with Curzon Dax, naturally does not want to let her go. So, they have an informal trial on DS9. At the center of the trial is the attempt to determine who Jadzia Dax is. Is she purely Jadzia, playing host to a passive life form? Obviously not. Is she Dax, exercising complete control over the host, Jadzia? Maybe. Or is she a combination of the two, a new entity comprised of the minds of both individual organisms. Ding ding ding!

All the episode has going for it, really, is this search for the true identity of Jadzia Dax. If she’s Dax, the logic goes, she needs to go with the Klaesrons and be punished for her crimes. If she’s not only Dax, or if she’s a new combination of both minds, either half or all of her is innocent of the crime and thus doesn’t deserve to be punished. There’s a lot of back-and-forth between Sisko, who is essentially defending Jadzia, and Klaesron, who wants to arrest her. It is for the most part fun hearing them argue about who/what Jadzia is/isn’t, based on her current personality and the memories and traits she retains from the symbiont’s former hosts. It is this sort of questioning that ultimately leads us to ask what makes anyone who they are, not just symbiotic amalgams. In the end, we discover that when a symbiont bonds with a new host, even though it retains all its older memories, it becomes a new entity, melding its mind with the host for the duration of their life together.

I’m just sayin’, I’m really glad human heads didn’t evolve this way.

What may be even more interesting than the identity questioning here is Sisko’s overall response to the matter. He basically makes it clear that he wants to keep Jadzia from being arrested no matter what. Even if past legal cases of the same nature offer the precedent that current host/symbiont entities should be held responsible for a symbiont’s past actions, Sisko says that he has to figure out a way for her to be deemed innocent. Does Sisko’s loyalty to his friends outweigh his obligation to uphold justice? I don’t know yet, but the question hadn’t crossed my mind until this episode.

I’m disappointed in the way the episode ends, however. After all the debating, testifying, and expert opinion, we find out that Curzon Dax was never responsible for the crime in the first place. This was Deep Space Nine’s chance to allow its characters to come to a possibly controversial decision regarding the nature of symbiont/host identity, but they squeezed their way out of it. The worst part is that I’m not even sure why. The conclusion that everyone except the Klaestrons was definitely leaning toward would have meant that Jadzia Dax shouldn’t be held responsible for the events, so whatever the consequences, they would have been minor. By allowing Curzon Dax to have been innocent, though, the episode avoids carrying any moral consequence at all. Just to be safe next time, the Federation should probably come up with some laws regarding these things. I wonder why they hadn’t already.

So, an upswing in quality, but not an enormous upswing. “Dax” primarily works as a way to tell everyone just what and who Jadzia Dax is. It has some aesthetic merits, but it’s mainly exposition. I can deal with that. It’s nothing I’d probably care to go back and watch again, though.

DS9 Stories/News: Garak Talks…

In this interview Robinson discusses the experience portraying such a complex character as well as the differences he saw between Deep Space Nine and the other Star Trek series. He also discusses his Star Trek experiences off-camera, including directing episodes of DS9 and Voyager and writing the Garak-focused novel A Stitch In Time.

By Marcello Rossi

May 18, 2011

Source: http://www.startrek.com/article/andy-robinson-interview-inside-star-trek-magazine

Let’s talk about your multi-dimensional character, from simple tailor to secret agent. What was it like from an acting point of view? Which were the challenges?

Was there something that you put in this character…  your acting experience?

Robinson: It was deceptively complicated playing Garak. Obviously, one of the complications was all the makeup and the costume, which was very uncomfortable, very confining, and the makeup, which I had a bit of a claustrophobic reaction to it at the beginning. But I got over that. That was fine, and as a matter of fact, the look of the character is what was enormously helpful because he looked so unique. It was kind of wonderful for an actor to have a character that looks like that. It’s a gift! I think more challenging was that the character… whatever the character said is not what he meant. We have an expression: subtext. That much of the truth of Garak was like a glacier: you saw only the tip of the glacier, but then, underneath the tip, was the very complicated truth of his life. So, playing that subtext, living with that subtext, presenting that subtext behind a mask of affability, of friendliness, of congeniality, I think that was both the challenge and the pleasure of the character.

The relationship with the other cast members? Did you become friends with someone?

Robinson: I knew some of the cast members even before we started the show. René Auberjonois; I’ve known him for many, many years, Armin Shimerman is someone that I became good friend with, and of course Alexander Siddig, or at the beginning, when he was Siddig El Fadil. He and I became very close friends, and he’s doing wonderful work now in various films. It was a very strong acting company, with very strong personalities and I think probably the strength of the show was the ensemble of these actors. To have a really great ensemble is not necessary that people like each other as long as they respect each other, and there was an enormous amount of respect for the actors on that show.

According to you, what are the differences between Deep Space Nine and the other Star Trek series?

Robinson: I think the biggest difference between DS9 and the other Star Trek series is that Deep Space Nine was more nuanced, had more ambiguity. Rather than being black and white, there are more grays. I was surprised; even the new Star Trek movie, I guess they had to… it adheres to the old format of the evil villain who’s angry at everyone and wants to destroy a world, even though they don’t understand quite why he wants to destroy it. And I think that people who really liked Deep Space Nine are people who like ambiguity, and like when the characters are not either good or evil, where they are like most of us: they are complicated people with a little bit of each in each of those characters. Plus, obviously, it didn’t take place on a spaceship going to one planet after another; it took place on a space station, which I also found much more interesting as well. In that sense it was kind of like the last frontier, at the edge of the unknown, and with all these very interesting types of characters that would appear, and these dramas that would play out.

I also feel that Deep Space Nine had more theme, and by that I mean they dealt with very difficult issues. Like there is an episode, it’s one of my favorites; it’s called “The Wire,” where Garak is addicted to this drug. And it was basically about drug addiction. There was another episode where Avery Brooks and I, where Captain Sisko comes to Garak for help with the Romulans and basically it exposes the American innocence, that we want to do these things in the world, but we’re not really willing to take the consequences of our actions, and sometimes we have to do very dirty things, and we have to hurt people, and we pretend that that doesn’t exist, that Americans would never do that. We dealt with issues like that and I don’t think… you know… the other shows really went as far as we did.

“In the Pale Moonlight” is a very good episode…

Robinson: It’s a wonderful episode!

Can you tell us something about your directorial experience on DS9, and also on some episodes of Voyager? What was it like?

Robinson: At first it was very difficult, because there is so much technical work that has to be done on these shows. Blue screen, green screen. At the beginning I was very intimidated by the technical requirements of directing. It’s not just directing actors; it’s a little more complicated than that. But then, in the end, it came down to it: it was directing actors. Sometimes, directing your friends is… maybe I’d rather direct people I don’t know, but they were great. But they were all very kind to me, especially when I first started, because that’s when I first started directing films, on Star Trek. It was a gift! I’m grateful to the producers allowing me to direct episodes.

You wrote a novel about Garak, about your character. Why? And what was it like to be a writer?

Robinson: I started writing about Garak because, coming to the Star Trek franchise and being cast as an alien, a Cardassian, I had no idea what that was. I barely know about human beings. But then suddenly to be cast as an alien… it was a challenge. So I decided to write about the character and create the world of the character and I did this in the form of a diary that Garak kept: every day he would write about his experiences and so forth. And then I started going to conventions, like this one, and I started reading from the diary and the fans, the audiences loved it. So I started writing more, and I started crafting it more and, like a lot of people, I’ve always wanted to write a novel! That’s when I started working into a novel. Then the people at Simon and Schuster, the publisher, agreed to let me do it, and it was a bit of a big deal because I was the first actor to write a novel without what they call a ghost writer, or with someone else writing it for me. Because I wanted to write it by myself, I didn’t want anybody else writing it.

A generic question about science fiction: what are the advantages and what the disadvantages of working in a science fiction show?

Robinson: If the science fiction is really good, if it comes from the imagination. If we are imagining a world that’s an extension of this world and an extension of our behavior and an extension of the choices that we’ve made, I think that’s the most interesting science fiction. It’s much more difficult if the science fiction is more fantasy, where it really doesn’t have basis in the reality of our lives and the reality of our world. I think that’s why I liked very much working on Deep Space Nine, because I think that the station was a metaphor for our world, but obviously projected into the future. I think that has a power and people are attracted to that, because if they can see something that’s honestly projected into the future, not something that’s sort of airy-fairy… it turns them around a little, it re-orients the way they think about this world.

DS9 Stories/News: Captain’s Log – The Best of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Source: http://trek.fm/captains-log/2011/10/14/the-best-of-star-trek-deep-space-nine.html

by Christopher Jones

Asking a fan to name the five best episodes of a Star Trek series is like asking Quark which Rules of Acquisition are the best. There are too many that lead to profit to choose just five. Neverthless, I’m going to set out to name five of the best episodes from DS9.

The Visitor

The only episode of Deep Space Nine to be nominated for the Hugo Award, “The Visitor” is a story that works with or without the Star Trek elements, and that makes it pure science fiction at its best. This account of Jake Sisko’s life following the apparent death of his father tugs on the heartstrings and effectively conveys to the viewer that enormous sense of loss, anguish, and guilt. Feeling responsible for the accident that caused Captain Sisko to lose his life, Jake spends years looking for a way to bring him back. He studies science at the cost of his writing career, his marriage, and his health. In the end he comes to find that only his own death can restore things to the way they were, and he sacrifices himself to save the person he loves most.

Far Beyond the Stars

In 1998, during Black History Month, DS9 aired one of the most creative stories in Star Trek history. Under the stress of the Dominion War, Sisko loses consciousness and finds himself in 1953 New York working as an SF writer named Benny Russell. “Far Beyond the Stars” is the tale of Russell’s struggle as a black writer in the 1950s who must conceal his identity and who fights to publish his story about a future space station and its black commander. More than just another commentary on racism, “Far Beyond the Stars” explores the feeling of insiginificance humanity faces as we learn how vast the universe really is, and delivers one of DS9’s most memorable quotes when the Preacher tells Benny “You are the dreamer—and the dream.” Without a doubt one of Star Trek’s finest moments.

Past Tense

Halfway through DS9’s third season came this two-part episode that was a glimpse of the greatness to come. Like “The City On the Edge of Forever” 28 years earlier, “Past Tense” tackles the issue of homelessness and poverty. But unlike TOS’s foray, “Past Tense” delves into the societal and governmental reaction to the problem, revealing the cold shoulder that most of the “haves” of the world turn on the “have-nots,” and the possible long-term consequences. The story is set in the year 2024—Sisko, Bashir, and Dax having been thrown back in time by a transporter malfunction—and thus says something about the urgency of the problem as it faces American society. Thrown into special “districts” of San Francisco—essentially walled prisons—people whose only crime is not having a job finally reach the breaking point and revolt. Caught in the middle, it is up to Sisko to protect the timeline when a historical figure is killed prematurely. Forgetting all the nonsense about the transporters and the timeline, no viewer can fail to stop, if only for a moment, and think about this injustice of our society. Effective storytelling.

Sacrifice of Angels

What appeared to be the culmination of the Federation-Dominion War proved to simply be one of several turning points in the conflict. Nevertheless, “Sacrifice of Angels” is about as exciting as they come and features special effects of a quality rarely seen on television (in those days). But beyond these fun superficial elements is a story a love, betrayal, and loss. As the long-lived tension between Gul Dukat and his daughter reaches its apex, it appears that a happy resolution is at hand when she admits that she loves him. At that moment we are granted a glimpse into the heart of an evil man, and see a tiny, flickering flame of goodness. But when it becomes clear that the title refers not to the destruction of the Prophets and the wormhole, but to the death of Ziyal at the hands of Dukat’s assistant, Damar, the house of cards comes tumbling down. In the end, one of the most powerful scenes in the Star Trek canon comes when a broken, dejected Dukat morosely returns Sisko’s baseball, saying only “I forgive you.”

Trials and Tribble-ations

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Trek, both DS9 and Voyager produced special episodes. And while Voyager’s “Flashback” was great, it was “Trials and Tribble-ations” that had its cake and ate it, too. Marrying the best of the past with the best of the present, DS9 used techniques perfected in Forrest Gump to send Sisko and crew back to Deep Space Station K-7 where they witness firsthand the events of the classic TOS episode “The Trouble With Tribbles.” The original Enterprise never looked so beautiful, and comic moments abound. One of the many highlights is when Worf is questioned about the difference in appearance between current Klingons and those of TOS. His response? “We do not discuss it with outsiders.” If you’ve never seen this one, do yourself a favor and watch it tonight. A fabulous tribute.

Other Favorites

In addition to these five, here are some other episodes that I consider the best of Deep Space Nine:

“A Time to Stand”
“Babel”
“Badda Bing-Badda Bang”
“Call to Arms”
“Crossover”
“Defiant”
“Doctor Bashir, I Presume?”
“Homefront”
“If Wishes Were Horses”
“In the Pale Moonlight”
“Little Green Men”
“Paradise Lost”
“Playing God”
“Rapture”
“Rejoined”
“Shattered Mirror”
“Tears of the Prophets”
“Through the Looking Glass”
“Visionary”
“What You Leave Behind”
“Whispers”

So those are my picks for the best of DS9. Certainly there are many others that I love and that are great examples of Star Trek. Think of this as a starting point. No doubt you’ll disagree with some of my picks, and you may even think I’m a Cardassian vole for leaving your favorite off the list. But that passion and debate is what has allowed Star Trek to endure for 45 years. So feel free to add to the comments* below and let me know which episodes are your favorites and why you love them.