DS9 Stories/News: The Magic Of Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Joint Trill and the Higher Self

Source: http://bajorron.blogspot.com/2012/02/magic-of-star-trek-deep-space-nine_15.html

Jadzia, meeting her “shadow self” in “Equilibrium”

One of the more fascinating races in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are the Trill, a species of humanoids who share existence consciousness with a slug-like creature called a symbiont. Throughout the series, the psychology of such an existence is explored quite thoroughly, as several episodes are devoted exclusively to the special problems and challenges Trill science officer Jadzia (eminently portrayed by Terry Farrell) faces due to her ‘joining’ (as is the term) to a symbiont called “Dax”. These symbionts live on after the “host” dies, we are told, and Jadzia is just the latest in a series of joinings of the same symbiont to previous hosts.

So what is the exact relationship between symbiont and “host”? Early in the series it is established that for all practical purposes, Jadzia is a separate personality from all the previous hosts, and that due to the joining, a unique personality is established by a merging of host and symbiont. Yet, this is the outside world view, as Jadzia herself adopts a very different attitude and, in the episode “Dax”, seems to hold herself responsible for the alleged sins of her predecessor, Curzon. And later in the series, in “Blood Oath” she does exactly the same when upholding a Klingon blood oath that Curzon swore but that she herself feels obliged to fulfill.

Jadzia seems very much in touch with her ‘previous lifes’, especially with Curzon, as she is often quoting him and his wiles, sometimes ad nauseam. In one episode, “Equilibrium”, she even encounters a previously unknown host, Joran Belar, who turned out to be an unsuccessfull host and whose joining had been suppressed both by the Dax symbiont itself as well as by the Trill officials.

Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell)

This all seems to point towards an existence in which a personality is brought into intimate contact with a -more or less- immortal and ‘higher’ mentality. The symbiont seems to fulfill the role of the Higher Self, the Individuality, while the various hosts deliver the Lower Selfs, the Personalities, the mortal “incarnations” that throughout the ages allow the symbiont to discover Itself. The actual act of the Joining -which is shown in the episode “Invasive Procedures”- then becomes an initiation, in which the Higher and Lower Selves are connected to each other. In that particular episode, the actual moment of contact between host and symbiont is shown as an extatic moment of enlightenment. In fact, the candidates selected for joining are referred to as “Trill Initiates”. Those initiates have followed a rigorous regimen of training and study and are subjected to numerous tests in order to determine capacity for joining.

After the joining, the newly joined Trill need some time to establish and equilibrate their new existence. We witness this in Deep Space Nine’s final season when Ezri, Jadzia’s successor, needs to come to terms with her symbiont while being stationed at DS9 in the thick of the Dominion War.

What emerges is a new and stronger, and more balanced personality. Eventual character flaws are smoothed over, so we see the single-mindedness of Jadzia turn into the warm and versatile Jadzia Dax, and the insecure Ezri into an effective officer. The symbiont cannot be moved without killing the host; an interesting reference to the irreversible nature of initiation: one cannot undo it, it is a Rite of Passage.

I cannot help seeing this as depicting the initiation pathway that -in fact- aims at re-establishing the same kind of inner cooperation between the two aspects of our soul: the Higher and Lower Selves. The severe and sometimes tedious preparations, the tests, the discipline and dedication of the Trill candidates: it is all too familiar. Now, of course, the analogy is not exact, but enough parallels may be discovered to trigger a lasting interest in the development of the Dax character. More on this subject in due time!

The Trill Homeworld

DS9 Stories/News: Of Trek and War (2)

Cont.

While the story arc itself had its problems and the series as a whole did have its flaws (overuse of the Ferengi as comic relief, a very weak seventh season with a rushed finish, poor to non-existent exit strategy for the Dominion War story arc, etc), I think the Dominion War worked overall and helped define Deep Space Nine as a series, for better or worse.

Dominion War

By contrast, the Xindi storyline in Enterprise was a good idea that was not as well executed as the Dominion War… but that describes many of the ideas Berman & Braga have come up with over the years. To begin with, the concept itself was really a clone of the Dominion War done to drive up Enterprise’s lackluster Nielson ratings. Created as a prequel by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga (both of whom had lost their touch by then, in my not-so-humble opinion), Enterprise wasn’t doing very well as a series. This was largely due to poor stories that either lacked internal continuity (on an episode-by-episode basis) or pissed all over established continuity for either the series or the franchise (by either introducing certain concepts from TNG way too soon in the timeline or by introducing potentially major threats to Earth in one episode, then completely ignoring them and the story-telling opportunities they could have raised in later episodes by never mentioning them again and zooming off to some other would-be threat). Remembering the brief viewer increase caused by the Dominion War in DS9, Berman & Braga decided to bring their own war into Enterprise with the Xindi.

Xindi Weird Stuff

Xindi Weird Stuff

While that might have been a good idea, the concept suffered problems from the start. To begin with, the entire Xindi arc wasn’t its own story; rather, it was just one season-long subset of a larger conflict that was shown, but never explained in the series: namely, the Temporal Cold War. No real details were ever given as to what the nature of the Temporal Cold War really was (a cold war across time itself, we assume?) or who first started it. We know some of the factions, but not all, nor do we truly understand their motives, beyond the old “Saturday morning cartoon villain” m.o. of “destroy the Federation!” that gets so cliché. Like many concepts from Berman & Braga, it was a great concept poorly executed and given little true depth. We saw precious little of this concept in Enterprise (aside from the occasional Suliban episode or the odd appearance by either “Future Guy” or Daniels, none of whom give nearly enough exposition), and what we did see was rather lackluster. Originally, this concept was expressed through a rather poorly-conceived race called the Suliban (which, guessing by their name, I assume were supposed to be some sort of heavily veiled parody of the Taliban?), though that didn’t quite pan out the way Berman & Braga hoped. With more viewers slipping away, they rushed the Xindi storyline into production.

Again, it began with a great concept: some faction in the Temporal Cold War called the Sphere Builders (really, you couldn’t give them a better name than that?) attempted an invasion of the Federation in the 26th Century, but the Federation repelled them. Instead of retaliating in that era, the Sphere Builders attempted to prevent the founding of the Federation. (As time travel expert M.J. Young would attest to on his website about temporal anomalies, such a notion has its own problems, but Star Trek has always played rather fast and loose with the concept of time travel, anyway.) To do this, they provided the Xindi with trumped-up evidence that the Federation would one day cause the destruction of their homeworld. (So, they’re fighting a war over something that hasn’t happened yet based on evidence “from the future” that could easily be manufactured? We can manufacture war photos using Photoshop right now. What kind of photo/video/hologram-doctoring technology would they have in the 22nd Century? Surely the Xindi thought of that!) This managed to get the Xindi moving in high gear, and they initiated a conflict against humanity – the Federation’s major founding member – by attacking Earth in “The Expanse“, Enterprise’s Season 3 opener. Enterprise gets recalled from its mission of exploration (which, I’m sorry to say, really hadn’t been going very well, as the crew of Enterprise either nearly got their ship destroyed each episode or spent as much time as they could pissing off the Vulcans, who – for whatever reason – were written to be colossal uptight assholes during the series) and assigned to head for a massive area of space called the Delphic Expanse in search of the Xindi’s homeworld. Once there, they would either parlay with the Xindi’s leaders and try for peace, or kick their asses and come back home victorious.

This war lasted all of one season (when has an actual war ever lasted only one year? Hell, Voyager took seven damn years to cross the Delta Quadrant – a feat they only barely accomplished by cheating several times via numerous space/time “shortcuts” – and the NX-01 Enterprise, which is technologically inferior to even the [/i]shuttlecraft[/i] of Kirk’s day, was able to cross this vast expanse of space in one year and return home in less time than that??). Some of the Xindi sided with our heroes; the others said, “Fuck it!” and launched a superweapon at Earth, which our heroes then had to stop in the Season 3 finale “Zero Hour“. Since the producers weren’t quite certain if Enterprise would return for Season 4 or not, they tried to bring all the major plot threads they had woven into the series (what few plot threads they actually bothered with, like the switch from a potential Archer/T’Pol pairing to a much more intriguing T’Pol/Tucker match)… Then they completely threw a giant WTF into it by ending the episode on a shot of an alien in a Nazi uniform. (I kid you not! Click the damn link and see for yourselves already!)

To be honest, Enterprise as a series bored me to tears (except for the occasionally interesting or even good episode, like “Regeneration“), and the Xindi storyline – while offering a few intriguing tidbits here and there (like “E²“) – was something I was rather blasé about altogether. To start with, I had grown weary of the emotional highs and lows of the Dominion War, so another war in an entirely different Trek series – especially when that war wasn’t the Earth-Romulan War we had been promised so many times – just didn’t hold as much appeal to me. I had just come to terms with the ending of Voyager (good or bad), and I wasn’t quite ready to commit to Enterprise the same way I had for TNG, DS9 and Voyager. Moreover, I had just started watching a different Roddenberry-based series – Andromeda – and had grown quite fond of it. The episodes I had seen of the Xindi war were very reminiscent of both the good and bad aspects of the Dominion War with a few interesting (and many not so interesting) twists. The writing, unfortunately, was still done by Berman & Braga (way past their prime, if you ask me) and the characters were still as… well, dull as they had been since series launch.

In Season 4, they left it to new Enterprise scribe Manny Coto – Brannon’s & Braga’s replacement, as they were refraining from writing duties (yay!) – to finish out the faux cliffhanger they created with the silly Season 3 finale “space Nazi” end scene. This he did in the two-part “Storm Front“, which explained how aliens had gone back in time and aided Nazi Germany, changing the timeline and enslaving America, and how our heroes had wound up back in the 1940s and blah blah blah… Normally, I enjoy alternate histories, but these two episodes stretched the concept beyond credibility.

After this horrid start, Manny Coto gave us a kick-ass final season of Enterprise, as (unlike Berman & Braga) he actually had a little something called talent. By then, however, the damage to the series had been done by Berman & Braga, and not even the Xindi conflict or the talented Manny Coto’s intriguing fan-wank scripts loaded with awesome original series references could save it. Enterprise was cancelled. The Earth-Romulan War plot they kept promising us and building up to? Never happened. As interesting as portions of the Xindi conflict were, maybe they could have focused on the Earth-Romulan War instead? *sigh*

To sum: Dominion War good, Xindi War so-so.

Anyway, that’s my two cents on the issue. Apologies for both the length of the post and the time which I posted it. (I hadn’t gotten to see my sister on her birthday, so I was taking her around town last night to make up for it.) What’s your take on the whole mess?

DS9 Stories/News: The Blasian Narrative, Doctor Julian Bashir

Source: http://blasiannarrative.blogspot.com/2011/09/star-trek-doctor-julian-bashir.html

by Ankhesen Mié

Let’s go back to DS9 for a moment, shall we?

Sudanese-born, England-raised Siddig el Fadil portrayed the boyishly handsome, genetically enhanced, yet socially naive, British-accented Doctor Julian Bashir.  By about the fourth season, the actor felt forced to change to a stage name, “Alexander Siddig”, because people were having trouble pronouncing the five syllables in “Siddig el Fadil.”

Keep in mind, the man’s full name is Siddig el Tahir el Fadil el Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim el Mahdi…and people were bitching about “Siddig el Fadil”?

*exasperated sigh*

So anyways…there’s that right there to begin with.

Pros:

1) Julian Bashir is an example of what I call “using an actor as the message, not the writing.”  In other words, the writers didn’t cast Fadil and then put words in his mouth to send a message.  His casual, series-regular presence is the message.  You can cast an Asian man to simply play a character.  His being Asian doesn’t have to be the point of the character (unlike with Sulu in the 1960s).

2) Siddig el Fadil was gorgeous; as a young girl, I primarily watched DS9 just to see him (the show so deep it went over my head at the time).  So not only was the Asian actor just playing a regular guy (hear tell, ’tis an Asian actor’s fondest wish in the West), but he was hot, and obviously meant to be a delectable piece of eye candy.  And the British accent totally helped.

3) Dr. Julian Bashir was just that, a doctor, and a damn brilliant one at that.  But we also got to know his hobbies – springball, tennis, darts, battle reenactments in the holodeck, spy stories and debating the merits of literature.

4) DS9 introduced the organization Section 31, the baddest, shrewdest, rogue organization in the Alpha Quadrant, reportedly designed to protect the interests of the Federation by any means necessary.  They put the Cardassian Obsidian Order and the Romulan Tal Shiar both to shame…and they recruited Julian Bashir for covert missions.  This is important because while his coworkers viewed him as a youthful, naive, sometimes annoying young man, Section 31 recognized what the audience eventually recognized: Bashir had a keenly analytical, shrewdly suspicious mind with an impeccable attention to detail.  In short, he was the perfect operative.

5) Bashir was most definitely sexual; we saw him numerous times with very beautiful women, ranging from fellow Starfleet officers to sexy Dabo girls.  The show even ended with his being in a long-term, committed relationship (Sulu and Ensign Kim never got that).  Made sense; a man that fine and in his prime wasn’t going to stay single for long.

6) One of the celebrated themes of DS9 was bromance, and we saw Bashir involved in at least two bromantic relationships, which Fadil and his castmates played to hilarious perfection.

Cons:

1) Despite all its brilliance, DS9 often screwed up and primary example of that was revealing that Bashir was a genetically enhanced human being, and that he owed his phenomenal intelligence and exceptional hand-eye coordination to genetic tampering.  It was also revealed that he was basically mentally impaired as a child, and when his parents simply refused to accept him as he was, they broke the law and basically had him rebuilt.  They then re-enrolled him in a new school with falsified records.

Actor Fadil was surprised with this information years into the show; it literally just popped up in the script one day, not having been an original part of his characterization.  It was a pointless subplot which, in a way, took something from Bashir.  It made him extra annoying in a non-cute way, and portrayed his family in an unnecessary bad light (they claimed they did it for his own good, not theirs).  At the subconscious level, it also seemed to tap into the notion that Asian students are basically drones whose academic dedication is unnatural.

At the same time, it was sort of amusing at to think Bashir had politely “dumbed” himself down for years, and passed amongst people as “normal.”

2) Bashir was often described as “annoying” by the other characters, and the older I get, the more I see why.  But I feel there is writing in conflict on the matter; while he’s supposed to be young and naive and eager to please, there’s also this very grave, mature, classiness which Fadil exudes that I feel defines the real Julian Bashir.  One who witnesses much pain and suffering, whose entire career is based on alleviated suffering, and whose compassion is utterly and consistently outstanding, cannot also be naive.  That’s contradictory and self-defeating.  If you’re witnessing births, deaths, and maintaining confidentiality for so many different people, you can’t be too clueless about the universe.

3) Bashir was irritatingly arrogant about his abilities sometimes, which I also feel is contradictory writing, because at times it seemed he was willing to put lives at risk or prolong suffering…simply to prove he could be the one to save them.  No…no, no.  The writers really needed to pick one.  And if they need flaws to balance out his virtues, arrogance was a really poor choice.

Final Verdict:

DS9 was, IMHO, the best of the all Trek series, so I don’t have too many complaints about this character.  One of the things Fadil said he really liked about his role was that people were so fascinated with his character – personality, how he was written, etc. – that they didn’t focus obsessively on his ethnicity.  When people told him or when he read rave reviews about the show, no one ever said how much “they liked that Indian doctor” – they just said they liked the doctor and were in awe of how he was written and portrayed.  This is, I think, a testament to the often excellent writing on that show, and the convincing work on Fadil’s part.

DS9 Stories/News: Design Appreciation, The Costumes of Deep Space Nine (2)

Cont.

Ferengi

Nowhere is the breadth of pattern more evident than in the Ferengi costume. Used as the comic element of the show, every Ferengi was always dressed in formal suits of at least three layers with metal clasps, buckles and ornimentation. You might guess that the vest and shirt were abbreviated, but Quark was sometimes shown without his jacket and you could see that each piece was fully tailored. The Ferengi are such a great example of the excellence of the DS9 costume design that we’ve devoted a gallery of enlargeable images to their genus.

Black and white

Even without colour in costumes, pattern was used extensively, often with numerous designs within a monochrome outfit, sometimes so subtly, it’s hardly perceivable in the seconds they’re on screen. But colour itself was often used to convey clues about the alien or humanoid’s true nature. Many characters were costumed from head to toe in black, indicating their evil intent without speaking a word.

This ‘good guy – bad guy’ costuming tradition was cultivated to its natural culmination in Necessary Evil (Season 2, Episode 8) when a woman believed to be a widow in need of a favour starts off clothed entirely in white. Midway through the episode she wears a purple costume and by the end, when she’s revealed to be a deceptive extortionist, she’s wrapped (and arrested) in black.

A similar costuming tactic was used for characters of ambiguous moralities and confused principles or those who were tied to evil-doers, like the daughter of a Cardassian dictator or a father who had his son genetically altered illegally, out of love for his child.

Heads

Religion played a big part on the series and the clergy were given very brightly-coloured outfits, often with flowing robes and wraps and shaped headwear that denoted their rank.

Extremely ornate headpieces, often a part of elaborate wigs, were also often seen on the show.

DS9 Stories/News: Deep Space Nine Celebrity Guest Pictures (17)

Mary Kay Adams as Grilka in Two Deep Space Nine Episodes “The House of Quark” & “Looking for par’Mach in all the Wrong Places”

Grilka was a Klingon woman from the Mekro’vak region and the widow of Kozak. Her most trusted adviser was Tumek.

After Kozak died in Quark’s in early 2371, Quark took credit for killing her husband, even though Kozak actually fell onto his own knife. She forced Quark to marry her so she could retain control of her house. Despite Grilka’s aversion to matters of finance, she allowed Quark to inspect her family ledgers where he discovered that D’Ghor, Kozak’s enemy, had been systematically attacking the House of Kozak for five years in order to weaken it.

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

Grilka was played by Mary Kay Adams.

Mary Kay Adams (born 12 September 1962; age 49) played Grilka in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes “The House of Quark” and “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places“. She is a descendant of US Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

Adams also played the role of Na’Toth on Babylon 5 during that show’s second season, taking over the role from fellow DS9 guest star Julie Caitlin Brown. Although she was listed in the show’s opening credits for the entire season, she only appeared in two episodes. Mostly, she worked with Andreas Katsulas on the show.

Adams also guest starred in the Dark Skies episode “Moving Targets” with fellow Deep Space Nine guest stars Stephen James Carver, the late William Frankfather, and Leon Russom.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Mary_Kay_Adams

…

Shannon Cochran as Sirella in Deep Space Nine Episode “You Are Cordially Invited…”

Lady Sirella, daughter of Linkasa, was Martok‘s wife and Mistress of the House of Martok.

Sirella was of noble descent, tracing her maternal lineage back to Shenara, daughter of Emperor Reclaw of the Second Dynasty. However, her 23rd maternal grandmother was actually named Karana, a concubine. (DS9: “You Are Cordially Invited“)

Courtesy of Memory Alpha.org

Although she was completely different from the woman Martok thought he would marry (he thought of her as a mercurial, arrogant, prideful woman who didn’t have sex with him as much as he wanted to), his love for her was very deep. (DS9: “You Are Cordially Invited“)

A proud and headstrong woman, Sirella was originally opposed to the marriage between Worf and Jadzia Dax, believing that by allowing aliens to join her house would threaten their identity as Klingons. Since as mistress she had the duty of approving all marriages into the family, she came to Deep Space 9 to evaluate Dax’s worthiness. Sirella’s views led her to set Dax’s standards impossibly high, eventually causing a clash between them and to her canceling the wedding. Dax eventually begged her forgiveness, changing Sirella’s mind about her. Sirella later performed the wedding ceremony. (DS9: “You Are Cordially Invited“)

She was played by Shannon Cochran.

Shannon Cochran (born 7 August 1958; age 53) from Greensboro, North Carolina is an actress who has guest-starred in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also appeared in Star Trek Nemesis. She has also guest-starred in ER, Frasier, NYPD Blue, Seinfeld and The Office (where the father of the man her character’s daughter was played by Robert Pine – though another actress would take over the role in that episode). In a StarTrek.com interview, she mentions that she married her “Defiant” co-star Michael Canavan, and that he was the only person, aside from Jonathan Frakes and Nana Visitor, she filmed the episode with.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Shannon_Cochran

Shannon Cochran (born August 7, 1958) is an American actress. While she has numerous credits to her name, she is particularly recognizable as having played the mysterious Anna Morgan in the popular 2002 film The Ring.

Cochran played Pam Beesly‘s mother in The Office episode Sexual Harassment (later replaced by Linda Purl).

She also had a guest role in the Deep Space Nine Episode “Defiant”

As Kalita, a member of the Maquis