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Rewatching Deep Space Nine, Part II
May. 8th, 2003 10:47 amI found the time to watch some more of my Season 2 set, which is good, since I hear season 2 of B5 is out as well, and since I'm just as fond of my OTHER favourite space station, it means I'm going to buy it. I laugh in the face of poverty.
As I remarked in my last ode to DS9, Picard will always be my favourite Captain (and Kirk my least favourite). It took me some time to warm up to Benjamin Sisko, not because I ever disliked him but because early on he didn't seem that interesting in comparison to the other characters of the show. (The war and prophet angst was yet to come.) In retrospect, I admire what the show accomplished with him; he starts out as down-to-earth, someone you could actually imagine living in your neighbourhood, and yet, by the time the series has run its course, you believe what he has become.
Something I did like about Sisko even in the early stages, and which rewatching the second season reminded me of, was the way his relationship with his son Jake was portrayed. The Trekverse is certainly giving the Jossverse some competition when it comes to dysfunctional family relationships; whenever a father/brother/son/mother turns up, you just know the regular character he's related to has spent the better part of his/her life arguing with this person. Now, I can see why: it provides drama. But it is somewhat refreshing to see Benjamin Sisko, single father, raising his son Jake with the two of them being on good terms throughout the show. Not that Sisko is perfect as a father; when Jake, in "Shadowplay", mentions dating a Dabo girl, he's shocked. But that makes him human. And he gets a grip on his instinctive reaction after he thinks about it.
(Sidenote: one odd thing about rewatching the Jake scenes is that the actor who plays Jake grew incredibly tall during the course of the series. By the time the finale came on, he was taller than anyone else on board. Watching him as a teenager actually smaller than Avery Brooks as Sisko feels weird.)
I mentioned this earlier, but the second season was really where both the writers and Terry Farrell as an actress hit their stride with Dax. ( And incidentally, kudos to DS9 for not letting the fact they already had one female warrior in the form of Kira mean Jadzia Dax couldn't be a fighter as well. ) "Playing God", an episode in which Dax gets saddled with a Trill intern for a while, was certainly the episode where I knew I had fallen in love with her, and watching it again confirmed it. There's nice continuity to "Rules of Acquisition" in showing us the fun-loving Dax playing Dabo with Quark and the other Ferengi; her fondness for all things Klingon, which was going to be important later, is alluded to when she takes her intern to a Klingon restaurant and joins in the song with the owner; and her tough, serious side is amply demonstrated in her chess conversations with Sisko and her talks with the intern. We also get some intriguing background about Jadzia, pre-joining with her symbiont, being taught and rejected by Curzon Dax, the previous Dax host. This made me very curious at the time, and I'm glad the show came back to the Curzon-Jadzia relationship in later seasons. All in all, Dax' basic philosophy which could be summed up with "if you've got nine lives, you might as well have a sense of humour about it" made her one of the most endearing characters of the Trek shows to me, and certainly the one I'd have wanted to be friends with most.
"Blood Oath", another Dax-centric episode, remains an all-time-Trek favourite for me not just because of Jadzia but because of the great way it used three Classic Trek Klingons - Kor, Koloth and Kang - added the cultural development the Klingons had taken since TOS days thanks to TNG, and came up with a touching, funny tale of basically the Four Musketeers having one last adventure. Moments that will always stick with me: Dax talking to Kor at Quark's bar, and the way he goes from drunken mirth to quiet loss and shame; Dax talking to Kang about the Klingons being just too much in love with death; the conversation between Dax and Kira about killing (btw, Nana Visitor does a superb acting job as Kira when Dax asks her about the people she killed while in the Bajoran resistence, and Kira replies, with an indescribably expression on her face, "Too many"); Kor cradling the dying Koloth in his arms; the last-but-one scene with Dax and Kor standing between their fallen friends and foes; Jadzia's expression when she returns to the station.
"Profit and Loss": or, Everybody Comes To Quark's, which is what the episode was called as a working title. TNG did Casablanca in Outer Space as well, but, imo, not as well, in a very early episode which gave us Picard as Rick and a somewhat forgettable character of the week as Ilsa. The DS9 version, otoh, got creative with the concept. For starters, Quark as Rick, instead of, say, Bashir, or Sisko, was far more subversive. It also gave Armin Shimmerman the opportunity to do more than comic relief. As opposed to the romance with Pel, which was on a lighter note and left you with the impression that Quark was fond of Pel and ready to fall in love with her, but had not actually done so, this episode does a credible job of showing him actually being in love, deeply, with Cardassian dissident Natima Lang. Who plays the Ilsa to his Rick, but as opposed to the Casablance template, Quark and Natima didn't break up years ago because she mysteriously vanished and supposedly betrayed him, but because he couldn't stop himself from using her for some financial gain. Also, instead Rick giving Ilsa the speech telling her she's better off working for the cause with her husband at the end, DS9 has Natima making that decision at the same point.
The parallels are great fun as well: Garak is of course the ideal Louis Renault (the Claude Rains character in "Casablanca"), with uncertain loyalties till the very end, and taking that legendary stroll with Quark away from the camera. Speaking of Garak, king of one-liners, he gets another character defining exchange with Bashir:
B: Assuming that you're not a spy…
G: Assuming…
B: Then maybe you're an outcast?
G: Why couldn't I be an outcast spy?
B: But you can't possibly be both
That other sparring couple, Quark and Odo, get some sparkling dialogue as well, notably when Quark asks Odo to release Natima. The way he goes from their usual mutual insult routine to running down reasons why Odo should help him to finally cutting through all the crap with "All right then - do it for me" is one of my favourite things about this episode .
Now, let's see whether that Angel download works...
As I remarked in my last ode to DS9, Picard will always be my favourite Captain (and Kirk my least favourite). It took me some time to warm up to Benjamin Sisko, not because I ever disliked him but because early on he didn't seem that interesting in comparison to the other characters of the show. (The war and prophet angst was yet to come.) In retrospect, I admire what the show accomplished with him; he starts out as down-to-earth, someone you could actually imagine living in your neighbourhood, and yet, by the time the series has run its course, you believe what he has become.
Something I did like about Sisko even in the early stages, and which rewatching the second season reminded me of, was the way his relationship with his son Jake was portrayed. The Trekverse is certainly giving the Jossverse some competition when it comes to dysfunctional family relationships; whenever a father/brother/son/mother turns up, you just know the regular character he's related to has spent the better part of his/her life arguing with this person. Now, I can see why: it provides drama. But it is somewhat refreshing to see Benjamin Sisko, single father, raising his son Jake with the two of them being on good terms throughout the show. Not that Sisko is perfect as a father; when Jake, in "Shadowplay", mentions dating a Dabo girl, he's shocked. But that makes him human. And he gets a grip on his instinctive reaction after he thinks about it.
(Sidenote: one odd thing about rewatching the Jake scenes is that the actor who plays Jake grew incredibly tall during the course of the series. By the time the finale came on, he was taller than anyone else on board. Watching him as a teenager actually smaller than Avery Brooks as Sisko feels weird.)
I mentioned this earlier, but the second season was really where both the writers and Terry Farrell as an actress hit their stride with Dax. ( And incidentally, kudos to DS9 for not letting the fact they already had one female warrior in the form of Kira mean Jadzia Dax couldn't be a fighter as well. ) "Playing God", an episode in which Dax gets saddled with a Trill intern for a while, was certainly the episode where I knew I had fallen in love with her, and watching it again confirmed it. There's nice continuity to "Rules of Acquisition" in showing us the fun-loving Dax playing Dabo with Quark and the other Ferengi; her fondness for all things Klingon, which was going to be important later, is alluded to when she takes her intern to a Klingon restaurant and joins in the song with the owner; and her tough, serious side is amply demonstrated in her chess conversations with Sisko and her talks with the intern. We also get some intriguing background about Jadzia, pre-joining with her symbiont, being taught and rejected by Curzon Dax, the previous Dax host. This made me very curious at the time, and I'm glad the show came back to the Curzon-Jadzia relationship in later seasons. All in all, Dax' basic philosophy which could be summed up with "if you've got nine lives, you might as well have a sense of humour about it" made her one of the most endearing characters of the Trek shows to me, and certainly the one I'd have wanted to be friends with most.
"Blood Oath", another Dax-centric episode, remains an all-time-Trek favourite for me not just because of Jadzia but because of the great way it used three Classic Trek Klingons - Kor, Koloth and Kang - added the cultural development the Klingons had taken since TOS days thanks to TNG, and came up with a touching, funny tale of basically the Four Musketeers having one last adventure. Moments that will always stick with me: Dax talking to Kor at Quark's bar, and the way he goes from drunken mirth to quiet loss and shame; Dax talking to Kang about the Klingons being just too much in love with death; the conversation between Dax and Kira about killing (btw, Nana Visitor does a superb acting job as Kira when Dax asks her about the people she killed while in the Bajoran resistence, and Kira replies, with an indescribably expression on her face, "Too many"); Kor cradling the dying Koloth in his arms; the last-but-one scene with Dax and Kor standing between their fallen friends and foes; Jadzia's expression when she returns to the station.
"Profit and Loss": or, Everybody Comes To Quark's, which is what the episode was called as a working title. TNG did Casablanca in Outer Space as well, but, imo, not as well, in a very early episode which gave us Picard as Rick and a somewhat forgettable character of the week as Ilsa. The DS9 version, otoh, got creative with the concept. For starters, Quark as Rick, instead of, say, Bashir, or Sisko, was far more subversive. It also gave Armin Shimmerman the opportunity to do more than comic relief. As opposed to the romance with Pel, which was on a lighter note and left you with the impression that Quark was fond of Pel and ready to fall in love with her, but had not actually done so, this episode does a credible job of showing him actually being in love, deeply, with Cardassian dissident Natima Lang. Who plays the Ilsa to his Rick, but as opposed to the Casablance template, Quark and Natima didn't break up years ago because she mysteriously vanished and supposedly betrayed him, but because he couldn't stop himself from using her for some financial gain. Also, instead Rick giving Ilsa the speech telling her she's better off working for the cause with her husband at the end, DS9 has Natima making that decision at the same point.
The parallels are great fun as well: Garak is of course the ideal Louis Renault (the Claude Rains character in "Casablanca"), with uncertain loyalties till the very end, and taking that legendary stroll with Quark away from the camera. Speaking of Garak, king of one-liners, he gets another character defining exchange with Bashir:
B: Assuming that you're not a spy…
G: Assuming…
B: Then maybe you're an outcast?
G: Why couldn't I be an outcast spy?
B: But you can't possibly be both
That other sparring couple, Quark and Odo, get some sparkling dialogue as well, notably when Quark asks Odo to release Natima. The way he goes from their usual mutual insult routine to running down reasons why Odo should help him to finally cutting through all the crap with "All right then - do it for me" is one of my favourite things about this episode .
Now, let's see whether that Angel download works...
