DS9 Stories/News: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Leeta’s Love Life

Source: http://thehathorlegacy.com/star-trek-deep-space-nine-%E2%80%93-leeta%E2%80%99s-love-life/

by Revena on September 14, 2006

I want to continue with my series about the female characters of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (see the previous article, “Jadzia’s Gender,” here) without too much of a gap between articles, but, of course, I’ve been insanely busy for the last few weeks, and haven’t had any time to do the prep work for another article, much less write one.

So I’m gonna cheat a little bit, and write about Leeta (played by Chase Masterson). This is easy, because while I think Leeta is great (there are not many DS9 characters that I wouldn’t describe as great, really), she does get a lot less screen time than most of the other female characters, and what I want to say about her is comparatively easy to express. It goes a little something like this:

Leeta is sexy. She is played by a lovely actress, she is usually dressed in low-cut and/or tight-fitting costumes, and her job is linked to her sexuality – she’s a dabo girl at Quark’s. Leeta is also sexual. In her first appearance on the show (in the third season episode “Explorers”), she flirts quite openly with Dr. Julian Bashir, whom she later dates. The two eventually break up, without acrimony, on Risa, where Leeta is shown enjoying a sensual encounter with another man (“Let He Who is Without Sin”¦” in season five).

Sexuality isn’t the only thing Leeta’s got going for her – she has a strong sense of justice (she becomes quite involved in the formation of the Guild of Restaurant and Casino Employees), she is friendly and seems to have many platonic relationships, and though she can be a bit flighty, she’s no dummy.

But her sexual energy is definitely one of her most marked traits. And even though that’s the case, Leeta winds up with one of the happiest endings on the show by the end of the series. She hasn’t had any traumatic injuries, and her emotional trauma is no worse than that which affects any other character (Leeta loses friends to violence, but so does everyone else on DS9). She’s fallen in love, had that love returned, and gotten married. She gets along well with her new husband’s family. And, in the second-to-last episode of the series, that husband is named Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance. Leeta gets love, health, and a husband who is politically powerful (and, presumably, a comfortable living as well).

How many other sexy, sexual female characters can you think of on television that end up so well? The sexy woman is usually the victim, or at least the recipient of some shaming or punishment from other characters on the show. She needs to be taught a lesson, made to pay, reformed, exposed as the slut she is – or else her sexiness needs to be linked somehow to a violent death or assault, in the constant sexualization of violence that we consumers and producers of Western media are so invested in.

There certainly are other female characters who are as flirty and as sensual as Leeta, and who wind up with happy endings anyway – but not many. As a person who doesn’t believe that there’s anything wrong with healthy expressions of adult sexuality, I’ll take all the Leetas on TV that I can get.

DS9 Stories/News: Some ‘Deep’ Talk with Alexander Siddig (3)

Cont.

Cairo Time

Jordan Hoffman: So let’s talk about the new movie Cairo Time, which I think is the first time you’ve played a romantic lead, is that correct?

Alexander Siddig: It is indeed, it is. Since I was at school, that’s the first time I’ve played a romantic.

Jordan Hoffman: How much fun is it to woo the hearts of audiences like that? To lay on the charm thick for the sake of the audience?

Alexander Siddig: It’s pretty great. It wasn’t so much, I have to confess I wasn’t really thinking of the audience when I was in Cairo but I – to gaze into that lady’s eyes [Patricia Clarkson] is quite thrilling.

Jordan Hoffman: Your character sort of welcomes this woman into the Egyptian culture and the city of Cairo; how much familiarity did you have with Cairo prior to making the film?

Alexander Siddig: Well, you know it’s one of the places that’s sort of been in my reference library all my life in the sense that I was born in the Sudan which is the neighboring country and up until – I mean forever we’ve had a treaty with Egypt and immigrants come and go; my whole family lived in Cairo for years. And so it was a familiar place and I’d been there in the 80’s as a kid really, so I knew my way around and I felt very comfortable and relaxed there. So it was easy to make the little leap from a Sudanese man to and Egyptian man which I had no problem doing.

Jordan Hoffman: So you didn’t have to think it too much.

Alexander Siddig: No, I really didn’t. It’s a really honest city for all its evils. It can be quite filthy – that’s not exactly an evil is it by world standards. But it lays itself out to you as a tourist. London for example, is an impossible city. You need to know people in London to find out where things are and what’s going on and you can’t make friends here unless you were kind of born here. So, Cairo is much more friendly and available to people.

Jordan Hoffman: So when you were shooting this film, it was a Canadian production, but it’s still a large western production and there isn’t too much of that on the streets of Cairo. How were you treated by the general population?

Alexander Siddig: They were completely puzzled by us. They were like, ‘what the Hell is that?’ they just couldn’t quite make out what weirdness we were doing. This was bigger than an ordinary video camera, we weren’t just saying hi in front of a landmark we were doing scenes, so when they could they would sort of jostle into the frame to get involved. Which was fine on some levels, but as soon as they started looking into the camera and stuff it was a total nightmare.

Jordan Hoffman: So that shot of nearly getting hit by a motorcycle, was that actual?

Alexander Siddig: We really did – well it was a stunt, but the interesting thing was that the stunt guy had never done a stunt in his life – was not a stunt man. He literally tried to run her over. And I must have buried my nails deep into her arm to get her out of the way she was absolutely – she was shaking afterwards. She wasn’t used to that.

Jordan Hoffman: Was it all Egyptian crew? Or was it Canadian crew?

Alexander Siddig: It was a beautiful mix actually. It was a whole jumble of different people. The Egyptians were brilliant, I mean really brilliant; and kind of cool and cosmopolitan and wanted to take us all out to cool places to hang out in the evenings. Egyptians – thank God you know Cairo is not a dry city and is not massively fundamentalist.  It’s got fundamentalist aspects, but you can still have a really swingin’ time.

Bashir and O’Brien

Jordan Hoffman: Who from the old days that you don’t get to see do you like to hang out with the most at conventions?

Alexander Siddig: You know I love hanging out with Nicky deBoer.

Jordan Hoffman: I see.

Alexander Siddig:  She is just hilarious; great, great girl. And um if I see Colm Meaney we’ll have a drink and bitch at each other. That’s all we do. I realize looking back at my history with him, I went out with him twice a week every week for seven years – drinking. Boy, he can pack em away.

Jordan Hoffman: I would imagine.

Alexander Siddig:  And all we did was fight. And I guess that’s what they did on the show too. But we fought in real life all the time. He would set me up, he’d take me to Irish bars where they hated English people. I would think they were being racist about the fact that I’m black and they weren’t. The just hated the English people, they would just hear my accent and they’d – and he just laughed his head off.

Jordan Hoffman: Did you ever actually play darts, though, is the real question.

Alexander Siddig:  No. No. That would be very weird.

Jordan Hoffman: There needs to be a separation between art and life.

Alexander Siddig:  Yes, because that was the only separation, the dart game.

DS9 Stories/News: Goodbyes

Source: http://deflipside.com/?page_id=1693

by Christopher DeFilippis

DeFlip Side, Vol. 1, No. 6
(First Appeared: June/July, 1999; First Light E-zine, Issue #82)

This is going to be short and sweet, folks. My original plan for this month’s column was to bid a fond farewell to Deep Space Nine, until recently the best show on television. I was going to do an in-depth review of the final episode, exploring whether or not it brought the Dominion war arc to a satisfying conclusion, as well as if it proved a fitting send-off to the best Trek series ever; my swan song to the swan song, so to speak. But those ne’er do-wells at Paramount took the wind out of my sails. After watching the finale, I came to only one inescapable conclusion: It’s not over.

After all, Sisko left his baseball behind.

Of course, there’s also the question of his unborn child, his career in Starfleet, a new Defiant that needs to be broken in, an unfinished real estate transaction on Bajor and his promise that he would return “in a year from now or yesterday.” But the baseball is the cincher. He doesn’t leave home without it, much less take up permanent residence in Prophet limbo. We haven’t heard the last from him or the rest of these characters. I don’t know when or in what format, but we’ll see them again. Bet on it.

This fact colors my opinion of the two-hour series finale. As a final good-bye, it would have left too many loose ends. But as a “so long for now” it was perfect. It brought enough closure to satisfy, but egged us on just enough to keep our expectations for a return simmering on a low frame somewhere in the back of our brains. Like Kira and Jake, we’re all gazing out of a portal on the Promenade, waiting patiently to see what happens next.

I’ll spare you all a long-winded essay on what I liked and why. Different parts of the finale will have appealed to different people for different reasons. But there is no call for excess exposition. After all, we’re not talking about “Mirror Image” here (the legendarily confusing finale to the TV series Quantum Leap). Instead, I’ll be as succinct as possible:

The Good Stuff:

• The death of Kai Winn.
• The kick-ass battle scenes.
• Kai Winn’s unfortunate demise.
• Garak’s revenge on Weyoun.
• Barbecued Kai.
• Nog’s promotion.
• Pah Wraiths 1, Kai Winn 0
• Kira’s ironic role in the liberation of Cardassia.
• Kai Winn all gone.
• Ezri’s nearly exposed breasts.
• Bye bye Kai.
• Sisko plowing Dukat over the cliff’s edge in a flying tackle.
• The old bag bites it.
• Martok’s self-satisfied belt of blood wine while standing on bloated enemy corpses.
• She’ll finally shut up.
• The faint hope that once O’Brien accepts a teaching position at the academy, he’ll attain some kind of rank (Where does “Chief” fall, anyway? As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between ensign and lieutenant. So Nog outranks him now? Not a proud legacy for more than a decade in uniform…).
• Winn-kabob.
• Damar’s last stand.
• Burn Winnie burn.
• Worf’s new-found honor and influence with the Klingon council.
• Are those Kai burgers I smell?
• Bashir finally gets some.
• Armagedd-Winn.

The Bad Stuff:

• Vic Fontaine’s schmaltzy send-off.
• A too-short stand-off between Dukat and Sisko that smacked of the
• Kirk/Mitchell showdown in “Where No Man has Gone Before” (“Get on your knees and pray to me, James”).
• A tuxedo-clad Odo melting into the Great Link.
• The use of stock footage of a Klingon getting blown down a corridor on a wave of fire (from The Undiscovered Country, I think).
• Worf’s flashback sequence that held not a smidgen of Jadzia memories. (I guess Paramount didn’t want to have to pay residuals to Terry Farrell.)

 

As you can see, the good clearly outweighed the bad. I think the very best thing about the episode, and the series over all, was that I could never tell exactly how things would turn out. And even when I did have a pretty good idea of where things were going, the characters would reach their destinations via completely unexpected routes.

This rule holds true for the future of Deep Space Nine. It’s a foregone conclusion that Sisko will come back. Just watch; he’ll soon get tired of playing pinochle with Wesley on the astral plain and shuffle back into his mortal coil for a return to his old life. But to what effect? Will he be considered a lord on Bajor? Will his new found Prophet wisdom cause a rift between him and his all-too-human friends and family? Will he have hair? I can’t even guess at the possibilities.

Of course, we’re most likely to be hearing from Worf the soonest. I just hope the powers that be use the opportunity they’ve created to full effect in the next movie. Worf’s position as Federation ambassador to Qo’noS lends itself to a sweeping story that could encompass the Federation and Klingon Empire and propel the franchise forward, something it sorely needs after the disaster that was Insurrection.

The one thing I do not want to see is a feature length film that combines the Next Gen and DS9 casts. The writers have a tough enough time as it is finding useful roles for the entire Enterprise-E ensemble with each outing. If they tried to add the DS9 crew as well, the screen would be packed tighter than Seven of Nine’s Wonder Bra, but with a far less marvelous result. I’ll pin my hopes on a small-screen reunion that will give the DS9 characters and plot lines free reign.

In the meantime, I guess I still have Voyager to give me my Star Trek fix, though it’ll be like going from heroin to methadone. Now that the DS9 writers are freed up, maybe they can help put Voyager on the right track and raise it to the standards we’ve come expect from Star Trek. But I’m not gonna hold my breath. I don’t have to anyway.

When DS9 premiered, I still had a maniacal hatred of new Trek. I wasn’t sucked over the Next Gen event horizon until Generations hit the theaters. And by the time I got into DS9, it was well into its run. So I ask you to pray with me now that channel 11 in NY soon starts rerunning the series from the beginning. There are three years worth of episodes I’ve never seen. It’s a little something extra to look forward to.

See Pop? Sometimes it works to your benefit to be a day late and a dollar short…

DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Stories/ News: Odo & Kira Relationship Review (11)

  “The Abandoned”

Review originally printed in ORACLE

Newsletter July 2011

____________________________________

 

Review written by Mary Shaver

The Jem’Hadar boy, now confined in a holding cell, is becoming more anxious and agitated with every passing minute. He begins hurling himself against the forcefield in desperate attempt to escape. On the other side of the forcefield, Bashir tells him his condition is the result of the enzyme that is missing from his system. The boy is belligerent and argumentative with Bashir until Odo arrives. Interesting that the boy denies to Bashir that there is anything wrong with him, but when Odo releases him from the holding cell and inquires about his health, the Jem’Hadar admits there is something wrong with him and catalogues his symptoms to Odo.

 

Bashir needs to run more tests to help him replicate the missing enzyme. The boy resists until Odo says he should agree. At once he becomes compliant and cooperative. Bashir leaves to retrieve the equipment he will need and Odo makes some friendly overtures to the boy. When he offers to show him around the station the Jem’Hadar defers to whatever Odo wishes. This isn’t what Odo wants – he wants to know the boy’s wishes and desires, and is somewhat startled when the boy jumps out of his chair, gets right in Odo’s face and announces that what he wants is to fight. Not Odo, but everyone else. He asks Odo if that is wrong and rather that criticize the boy’s choice, Odo suggests they find other interests. He then tries to get the Jem’Hadar to relax and even encourages him to smile – something Odo himself hardly ever does. Perhaps in this instance the Constable should take his own advice!

 

Chief O’Brien thinks he may have found a supply of the drug needed by the Jem’Hadar to replace the enzyme missing from his system. Odo joins him in the salvage ship to examine the container. O’Brien wonders aloud why the Founders would engineer the Jam’Hadar to be addicted. Odo’s explanation illustrates the stark difference between himself and his people. What better way to ensure total control over the Jem’Hadar, as well as guarantee their loyalty, than to addict them to a drug that can’t be replicated and that only the Founders can provide? Odo understands all too well what it is like to be controlled by others and now vehemently opposes the idea of exercising control over anybody (well, except perhaps Quark!). When O’Brien comments that it seems like a cold-blooded thing to do, Odo responds with a hint of sadness in his voice. “My people don’t have blood.” And this, perhaps is as good an explanation as any for why the Founders have no compunction about enslaving others. Is Odo wondering if the basic and fundamental differences between his people and the solids prevent his people from having any feelings of compassion for beings who are different from them?

 

The drug found in the salvage ship works and introduces into canon the vial of what will become known as Ketracel White, and the tygon feeder tube that delivers the drug into the Jem’Hadar’s carotid artery. Revived now and at full strength, the Jem’Hadar now poses a huge potential danger to the station’s inhabitants.  When the boy requests and then insists that he stay with Odo in his quarters, Odo is initially uncomfortable with the idea, and then sees the value in having the Jem’Hadar with him. Not only will it give him a chance to work with the boy and help him move beyond the limitations of his programming, but it will also assure a measure of safety to the DS9 personnel.

 

In Odo’s quarters, the Jem’Hadar is enthralled by Odo’s Changeling abilities. When Odo points out that some shapes are more difficult to master, like the humanoid face, the Jem’Hadar challenges him to explain why he would want to look like a humanoid since he (Odo) was better than them. Odo’s explanation that being different is not the same as being better confuses the boy who admits he instinctively knows that he is inferior to Odo, but superior to everyone else. Odo attempts to re-wire the boys ‘hard-wiring’ by telling that they are all equal and that he needs to ignore his instincts because they are wrong. Rather than accept Odo’s words however, the boy instead concludes that he must be defective because he also knows that Odo can never be wrong. Odo stubbornly persists, insisting that he is not infallible and urging the boy to begin to think for himself. Odo might be realizing that he’s in for an uphill battle, but he isn’t about to give up. He asks the boy what he wants, not what he thinks Odo wants. After a moment’s reflection, the Jem’Hadar says he wants to know more about his people – who he is and where he came from, something Odo can certainly relate to. Odo shares with the boy his own history of being orphaned, found and raised by aliens, and their common connection of not knowing who his people were or what they were like.

DS9 Stories/News: DS9 Stories/ News: Odo & Kira Relationship Review (8)

 

“The Abandoned”

Review originally printed in ORACLE

Newsletter July 2011

____________________________________

 

Review written by Mary Shaver

ODO:

 

Is that all you can think about?

Killing?  Isn’t there anything else

that you care about?

 

JEM’HADAR TEENAGER:

 

I… I don’t think so.

 

ODO:

 

But there’s so much more to life

than that… there’s so much for you

to discover… to experience…

 

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

 

Odo learns that not everyone can expand beyond the limitations of their natures.

 

EPISODE SUMMARY:

 

An abandoned baby, discovered in some cargo salvage, turns out to be a Jem’Hadar whose genetic engineering accelerates his growth.  Within a day he is an adolescent and Odo agrees to take the teenager under his wing in an effort to help the youngster grow beyond his warrior nature.  

 

EPISODE ANALYSIS:

 

 

Quark purchases some salvage from a Boslian trader and is surprised to discover a baby of unknown origin hidden in the wreckage. Bashir’s examination of the baby turns up a number of unusual readings, most significantly that the child has an abnormally high metabolic rate. Within hours the baby has grown into a child of 8 or 10 years. Not only is this mysterious child growing at an alarming rate; he also seems to have remarkable cognitive abilities. Without any external stimuli, he has learned language, speech and  has the capacity for reasoning and understanding.  Bashir concludes that this child is the product of genetic engineering that is far advanced beyond anything seen in the Federation. To add to the mystery, the child is missing a key enzyme and without a synthetic substitute, he will die. A culture that is capable of this level of technology surely wouldn’t have overlooked something so basic; it must have been a deliberate omission. Bashir is stymied.

 

“The Abandoned” is the first Odo-centric episode since the devastating events of “The Search.”  Despite whatever internal conflicts he might be experiencing after finding his people and learning that they are the Founders of the Dominion, Odo is soldering on in the humanoid world. And while he finds no common ground with his people as to their philosophy of the universe, Odo did take away some positive things from his encounter with the Great Link, and is beginning to embrace his Changeling heritage.

 

While Dr. Bashir is searching to understand the anatomy of the orphaned child in the Infirmary, Odo, searching for a better understanding of himself, is beginning a journey of self-discovery. The first step in this journey is his decision to move out of the stifling little closet at the back of his Security office that has been his make-shift home since the days of Terek Nor, and take regular crew quarters.

 

We learn this as Kira arrives with a gift for his new quarters – a houseplant. Odo answers the door chime and very deliberately chooses to greet her outside his quarters in the corridor. Unabashedly interested about the configuration of his quarters, Kira at first peers over Odo’s shoulder, trying to get a peek inside the room, and when he closes and locks the door she confesses her curiosity  – and she apparently isn’t alone. According to her, “everyone” is curious to see his quarters. For a painful moment Odo seems to be reliving the sort of curiosity he used to excite while a lab specimen. Kira is blissfully ignorant that her words and actions have caused the Constable some consternation, but Odo quickly recovers and invites Kira in. She looks in wonder at the strange collection of items that populate the room and seem to be scattered everywhere. Somewhat apologetically, Odo explains that he hasn’t finished organizing everything. From his expression Odo appears to be looking for her approval. When he then goes on to clarify the purpose for the objects – to practice and explore his shapeshifting gifts – Odo is acknowledging the next step in his journey. Shapeshifting is no longer something he does simply as part of his job when the need calls for it. His reluctance until now to change shapes arguably has its roots in the things he was forced to do when confined to Mora’s lab and when he was taken out ‘on parade’ for the entertainment of the Cardassians. Meeting his people and learning at the feet of the Female Changeling has altered his thinking and now Odo is beginning to understand what it means to be a shapeshifter. He has discovered that the ability to mimic various shapes, forms, textures and surfaces can be a joyful and pleasurable experience. For a man who has seen so little joy in his life, this has to be something of an epiphany to Odo.