Star Trek: Watergate

The other day I was reminded that one of the unwritten season 7 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes would have been a follow up to season 6’s In the Pale Moonlight, the episode which often (and imo justly) ends up on people’s not just best of DS9, but best of Star Trek lists. Now, according to what I’ve heard, the idea was that Jake, in his capacity as budding journalist, would to his horror uncover what his father (and Garak, and various other people) did to get the Romulans as allies. In the end, TPTB decided not to do the episode because it would have damaged the Ben & Jake relationship, perhaps on a fundamental level, and it being the final season, there would not have been time to rebuild it.

On the one hand, I’m in much sympathy with this argument. The Siskos – both Ben & Jake, and Ben & Joseph – were that rarity in the Star Trek verse (and in US fiction in general), a loving, functional father & son relationship as opposed to the usual daddy issues ridden dysfunctionality. I would not have wanted to destroy this, especially with no time for rebuilding.

On the other hand: it could have been a great story. And it would have been pay-off for Jake’s decision to become a writer and reporter that also tied directly into the main storyline. Also, Sisko’s „I can live with it“ conclusion to In the pale moonlight was depending on no one other than Garak knowing exactly what he’d done. (Quark et all knew some, but not why.) Would he have been able to live with it if the person he loved most in the 'verse would have found out?

( More spoilery talk for In The Pale Moonlight and spoilery polls follow )

"Whatever he creates, he has to wreck"

It seems all that material for Orson Welles' final movie which was lingering in various jealously guarded archives will finally be released, which I had heard about, and there is a trailer, which I hadn't seen until now:

"The Other Side of the Wind | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix" (Watch on YouTube)

On the one hand: one of those works which can't possibly match all the expectations stoked through years of non-release. On the other hand: new Welles film! And even his failures were never boring and got into your mind.

Incidentally: this article about Errol Morris working on a documentary about Stephen Bannon contains, among other things, the information that Bannon, as a follow up to his "Thomas Cromwell at the court of the Tudors" comparison of yesteryear (aka the one which made us all go "...doesn't he know how Cromwell ended?) has now declared his fictional movie mirrors to be, wait for it: Bridge over the River Kwai and Chimes at Midnight. Leaving aside the obvious "what did David Lean and Orson Welles do to deserve him as a fan?", I'm a bit baffled as to who he thinks he is in these films. I mean, presumably William Holden rather than Alec Guinness in Bridge, and I can see the Holden character as self flattery (pragmatic American, sees things more clearly than stuffy Brit), but said character ends up dead without having accomplished what he wanted to do, so...? As for Chimes at Midnight, aka "Orson W. distills his life long obsession with the Henriad in general and Falstaff in particular in one movie": um. He can't possibly see the Orange Menace as Hal and himself as Falstaff, can he? Can he?