TV kerfuffles, and more DS9
Nov. 10th, 2003 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakCatching up on the news brings with it some real bizarre moments. So there has been a major kerfuffle about what sounds like a typical worthy-but-dull TV biopic about Ronald Reagan? If the summaries are anything to go by, it's centred on his marriage with Nancy , and he's even presented as innocent of the entire Iran/Contra affair, and yet it was deemed as besmirching his honour and CBS had to pull it. Meanwhile, the Brits, bless them, apparently have no problem with TV films like The Deal (anything but worthy and dull), about the very much alive-and-reigning Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, in which script and director have zero interest in their spouses and present neither gentlemen as a candidate for canonization. But then, Britain is the country which gave the world Spitting Images and Monty Python.
(Am reminded of coming to the US at age 14 for the first time, in the middle of the Reagan vs Mondale election campaign, and being really bemused about Reagan's popularity. Partly because I saw him on Spitting Images first.)
(Which is probably why if I had to write a script about Reagan, I'd still go for satire. Life-of-a-Great-Man movies are very hard to pull off convincingly anyway, and even if you consider Reagan to be single-handedly responsible for the US winning the Cold War, you've got to admit that between his, err, eccentric ideas about geography, Nancy's flirtation with Frank Sinatra, Reagan charming Maggie Thatcher, and of course the Contra thing, there is ample fodder for satire. Oh, and of course: Falcon Crest! That was popular in the 80s, and with Jane Wyman starring, there could be some allusions worked in.)
(It would have been more fun than what the CBS two-parter sounds like, too, and at least then the furor would be understandable.)
Now for morethreatened promised DS9 reviews.
In earlier seasons, we saw Sisko going from being uneasy about being the Emissary to accepting it. But season 5 is when he goes that crucial step further. When Sisko, in Rapture starts to have visions and to completely believe in them, the ground has been laid - we saw him single-mindedly before, we saw him coming to see less "the wormhole aliens" and more "the prophets". But he still put Starfleet rationalism first when in doubt. Not this time. What happens to Sisko is clearly a mystical experience, and a question of faith which will continue to be posed. In Rapture, he's willing to go against what so far has been a very important goal for him - bringing Bajor into the Federation, at least in the short term, because he believes, genuinely believes, due to his visions, that this will spell doom for Bajor. He's also willing to accept his own death in order to keep the visions. Now I do know that within the same season, we'll see the reason for the visions and why Sisko's decision was right, but I wonder what would have happened if his faith - and the Bajorans - were to be tested a bit longer. If some years would have passed without anything happening, and with Bajor suffering disadvantages because of the delaying of Federation membership. Whether Sisko would have kept the faith, as it were.
(With hindsight, the backstory they retcon for Sisko's origins in season 7 also fits in beautifully with the events of Rapture because you could argue it's here where he first accesses the not-human part of his nature. Neat.)
Rapture also offers one of the few times where Kai Winn gets the better of Kira in a way which has nothing to do with intrigues. As I observed in an earlier entry, Winn always reminds me of a Renaissance Cardinal. She's a political animal through and through, but she's also quite genuinely devoted to her faith, which makes her such a well-rounded antagonist and ultimately a tragic figure. The point she makes to Kira, that the Resistance were hardly the only ones who fought the Cardassians, and that she didn't have weapons when doing so from a prison camp, doesn't just shut Kira up (for the time being) but also serves as a reminder to the viewer that Winn isn't some female equivalent of the moustache-twirling, smirking villain of a melodrama.
Due to Nana Visitor's pregnancy, there weren't many Kira scenes in early season 5, but The Darkness and the Light, the first Kira-centric episode of the season (shot at a point where Visitor was no longer pregnant but Kira still is), makes up for it. I always admired and loved the way DS9 never shrank away from the fact that Kira's past as a Resistance fighter wasn't some clean tale of heroism where she killed only bad guys in self defense and never ever harmed civilians. They had Kira calling herself a terrorist repeatedly (one reason why a character as Kira as a sympathetic, leading regular would be impossible these days). While never excusing the horror of the Cardassian occupation, they presented the Cardassians as individuals with individual degrees of responsibility and varying attitudes towards the past. We get the entire spectrum from Dukat as the former head of the occupation to Natima Lang as a dissident. So when, in the climax of the episode, Kira comes face to face with her Cardassian enemy, we naturally root for her to free herself but have to concede that the Cardassian has a point as well. Kira's statement, that he got crippled because as a Cardassian, no matter how innocent (at that point), he had no business being on Bajor, is understandable from her pov. The Cardassians had the superior weaponry, they were the occupiers, and the resistance did not have the luxury to find ways of killing only the people in charge. But what the Cardassian replies is also correct. That particular bomb she set blasted an entire wing and didn't just cripple him (who was a servant, not a soldier) but killed everyone else, including the entire family (I assume this means children as well) of the Gul who was actually the target. Now do you define this as "collateral damage" in a fight to liberate a people from a cruel oppressor, or was "cowardly murder" done by terrorists? I've seen the media do both in our world.
The fact Kira gains the opportunity to free herself not because her enemy does the Evil Overlord Gloating ™, but because she asks for compassion and he actually shows some by giving her a sedative (which she knows won't work), an opportunity which she then uses to kill him, unhesitatingly, is just the crowning touch on a superb episode. Kira's last word, that "the innocent are just an excuse for the guilty", are clearly referring to herself as well to the dead assassin. Ah, DS9, series of moral ambiguity, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
In addition to these terrific character-driven episodes, we also get a wonderfully light-hearted comedy and the best homage of later Trek to TOS there is: Trials and Tribble-ations. First of all, a cheer for digital technology which made it possible. Secondly, there are so many adorable touches that one hardly knows where to start:
- Agents Dulmer and Lucsly from the Office For Temporal Investigations: best X-File homage in a Sci-Fi series, all wrapped in a Classic Trek homage to boot!
- The clever way Worf and the writers evade an explanation on why the Klingons look different in the Kirkean era which is totally in character for Worf
- Worf recounting the Great Tribble Hunt for Odo
- Bashir and O'Brien in the elevator
- "…and women wore less": Jadzia looks great in the 60s era miniskirt, and her roguish twinkle when she says, re: young Leonard McCoy, "he had the hands of a surgeon" is just perfect
- I do admit I got a kick out of the little digs at Kirk-the-Übermythos: first Dax totally ignores him to swoon over Spock, then O'Brien mistakes a Redshirt for him and raves about the masterly self-demeanor of Kirk, i.e. the Redshirt)
- "…and I can see myself, Kirk's head in one hand, and a tribble in the other": Charlie Brill is such fun in the brief but essential part of the aged and resentful Klingon-in-human-disguise, and praise the prophets they got him back for this episode.
(Am reminded of coming to the US at age 14 for the first time, in the middle of the Reagan vs Mondale election campaign, and being really bemused about Reagan's popularity. Partly because I saw him on Spitting Images first.)
(Which is probably why if I had to write a script about Reagan, I'd still go for satire. Life-of-a-Great-Man movies are very hard to pull off convincingly anyway, and even if you consider Reagan to be single-handedly responsible for the US winning the Cold War, you've got to admit that between his, err, eccentric ideas about geography, Nancy's flirtation with Frank Sinatra, Reagan charming Maggie Thatcher, and of course the Contra thing, there is ample fodder for satire. Oh, and of course: Falcon Crest! That was popular in the 80s, and with Jane Wyman starring, there could be some allusions worked in.)
(It would have been more fun than what the CBS two-parter sounds like, too, and at least then the furor would be understandable.)
Now for more
In earlier seasons, we saw Sisko going from being uneasy about being the Emissary to accepting it. But season 5 is when he goes that crucial step further. When Sisko, in Rapture starts to have visions and to completely believe in them, the ground has been laid - we saw him single-mindedly before, we saw him coming to see less "the wormhole aliens" and more "the prophets". But he still put Starfleet rationalism first when in doubt. Not this time. What happens to Sisko is clearly a mystical experience, and a question of faith which will continue to be posed. In Rapture, he's willing to go against what so far has been a very important goal for him - bringing Bajor into the Federation, at least in the short term, because he believes, genuinely believes, due to his visions, that this will spell doom for Bajor. He's also willing to accept his own death in order to keep the visions. Now I do know that within the same season, we'll see the reason for the visions and why Sisko's decision was right, but I wonder what would have happened if his faith - and the Bajorans - were to be tested a bit longer. If some years would have passed without anything happening, and with Bajor suffering disadvantages because of the delaying of Federation membership. Whether Sisko would have kept the faith, as it were.
(With hindsight, the backstory they retcon for Sisko's origins in season 7 also fits in beautifully with the events of Rapture because you could argue it's here where he first accesses the not-human part of his nature. Neat.)
Rapture also offers one of the few times where Kai Winn gets the better of Kira in a way which has nothing to do with intrigues. As I observed in an earlier entry, Winn always reminds me of a Renaissance Cardinal. She's a political animal through and through, but she's also quite genuinely devoted to her faith, which makes her such a well-rounded antagonist and ultimately a tragic figure. The point she makes to Kira, that the Resistance were hardly the only ones who fought the Cardassians, and that she didn't have weapons when doing so from a prison camp, doesn't just shut Kira up (for the time being) but also serves as a reminder to the viewer that Winn isn't some female equivalent of the moustache-twirling, smirking villain of a melodrama.
Due to Nana Visitor's pregnancy, there weren't many Kira scenes in early season 5, but The Darkness and the Light, the first Kira-centric episode of the season (shot at a point where Visitor was no longer pregnant but Kira still is), makes up for it. I always admired and loved the way DS9 never shrank away from the fact that Kira's past as a Resistance fighter wasn't some clean tale of heroism where she killed only bad guys in self defense and never ever harmed civilians. They had Kira calling herself a terrorist repeatedly (one reason why a character as Kira as a sympathetic, leading regular would be impossible these days). While never excusing the horror of the Cardassian occupation, they presented the Cardassians as individuals with individual degrees of responsibility and varying attitudes towards the past. We get the entire spectrum from Dukat as the former head of the occupation to Natima Lang as a dissident. So when, in the climax of the episode, Kira comes face to face with her Cardassian enemy, we naturally root for her to free herself but have to concede that the Cardassian has a point as well. Kira's statement, that he got crippled because as a Cardassian, no matter how innocent (at that point), he had no business being on Bajor, is understandable from her pov. The Cardassians had the superior weaponry, they were the occupiers, and the resistance did not have the luxury to find ways of killing only the people in charge. But what the Cardassian replies is also correct. That particular bomb she set blasted an entire wing and didn't just cripple him (who was a servant, not a soldier) but killed everyone else, including the entire family (I assume this means children as well) of the Gul who was actually the target. Now do you define this as "collateral damage" in a fight to liberate a people from a cruel oppressor, or was "cowardly murder" done by terrorists? I've seen the media do both in our world.
The fact Kira gains the opportunity to free herself not because her enemy does the Evil Overlord Gloating ™, but because she asks for compassion and he actually shows some by giving her a sedative (which she knows won't work), an opportunity which she then uses to kill him, unhesitatingly, is just the crowning touch on a superb episode. Kira's last word, that "the innocent are just an excuse for the guilty", are clearly referring to herself as well to the dead assassin. Ah, DS9, series of moral ambiguity, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
In addition to these terrific character-driven episodes, we also get a wonderfully light-hearted comedy and the best homage of later Trek to TOS there is: Trials and Tribble-ations. First of all, a cheer for digital technology which made it possible. Secondly, there are so many adorable touches that one hardly knows where to start:
- Agents Dulmer and Lucsly from the Office For Temporal Investigations: best X-File homage in a Sci-Fi series, all wrapped in a Classic Trek homage to boot!
- The clever way Worf and the writers evade an explanation on why the Klingons look different in the Kirkean era which is totally in character for Worf
- Worf recounting the Great Tribble Hunt for Odo
- Bashir and O'Brien in the elevator
- "…and women wore less": Jadzia looks great in the 60s era miniskirt, and her roguish twinkle when she says, re: young Leonard McCoy, "he had the hands of a surgeon" is just perfect
- I do admit I got a kick out of the little digs at Kirk-the-Übermythos: first Dax totally ignores him to swoon over Spock, then O'Brien mistakes a Redshirt for him and raves about the masterly self-demeanor of Kirk, i.e. the Redshirt)
- "…and I can see myself, Kirk's head in one hand, and a tribble in the other": Charlie Brill is such fun in the brief but essential part of the aged and resentful Klingon-in-human-disguise, and praise the prophets they got him back for this episode.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 06:34 am (UTC)It must be very hard for scriptwriters to avoid taking potshots at Reagan, because whatever one thinks of the overall effects of his presidency, he had some really satire-worthy moments. As I understand it, though, the scriptwriters for this one shot themselves in the foot by, among other things, writing Reagan making an insensitive comment about AIDS that as far as anyone can tell he never actually made. His record on AIDS was lousy, and it's not that it isn't the kind of thing he probably would have said, but they don't have any proof that he did.
The "big 3" networks here try very hard to at least appear politically impartial and respectful of the office of the presidency. They would never run the kind of hard-hitting satire that I gather might be fine in Britain. I think any real problems with the Reagan bio could probably have been fixed by editing, but the networks are scared of any suggestion that they have a liberal bias, and I suppose it seemed safest to just scrap the whole thing. Which of course gets them bashed from the left for having a conservative bias. Which all discourages them from trying to do political biography at all, ever.
They had Kira calling herself a terrorist repeatedly (one reason why a character as Kira as a sympathetic, leading regular would be impossible these days).
Yeah, it's interesting to look at Kira's backstory and the way the show handled issues of terrorism/resistance to occupation and think about how much things have changed. I think it was very well-done, and very thought-provoking, and didn't hand out easy answers. And they'd never do it now. Never.
Wasn't Trials and Tribblations a blast? Jadzia does look smashing in a miniskirt . . .
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 09:43 am (UTC)I read about that, too, and agree that it probably been saver to stick to documented comments with sensitive topic such as AIDS. However, in The Deal the script let's Tony Blair declare, re: the late, much loved Labour leader John Smith, that he's out of date and: "Just look at him - I mean, the whole Edinburough Bank Manager thing" This was no documented quote, either, and in theory Blair's people could have complained that he's being portrayed as insensitive and snobbish about the departed J.S. without any proof he was. No such thing happened. Actually, the only complaints I could trace down were that Peter Mandelson was portrayed too nicely. So I assume it's really because...
They would never run the kind of hard-hitting satire that I gather might be fine in Britain.
'Tis sad that this is so. BTW, that was my English friend
Yeah, it's interesting to look at Kira's backstory and the way the show handled issues of terrorism/resistance to occupation and think about how much things have changed. I think it was very well-done, and very thought-provoking, and didn't hand out easy answers. And they'd never do it now. Never.
Again, most unfortunate. Art - and TV can be one - should be able to deal with present-day topics.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 08:52 am (UTC)The former Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, once said, tongue in cheek, "Oh my watch as Governor, the Berlin Wall came down!" 'Nuff said!
Jadzia's ooohing over Spock is a particular favorite of mine. :)
By the way, I really enjoyed Selena's Icelandic Adventure!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 09:34 am (UTC)*g*
Jadzia's ooohing over Spock is a particular favorite of mine. :)
She's speaking for fangirls everywhere, of course.*g*
By the way, I really enjoyed Selena's Icelandic Adventure!
Thanks. They were fun to experience, too. Now I'll turn my mind to beta-reading...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 09:21 am (UTC)Oh dear. I can understand your confusion *g*. It began to get tired at the end but some of its images were ineradicable. A friend of mine collects political memorabilia and she had a great Spitting Image model of Margaret Thatcher (could even have been a teapot). In defence of American political humour though I do have to say that she also acquired on Ebay Jimmy Carter the Walking Peanut. It was a child's windup toy with a peanut-shaped Jimmy Carter that walked when you wound him up. We thought it was hilarious...
And many thanks for the excellent reports from Iceland.
Jimmy Carter peanut doesn't count
Date: 2003-11-10 09:31 am (UTC)Re: Jimmy Carter peanut doesn't count
Date: 2003-11-10 02:50 pm (UTC)http://amres-pics.com/p_asp/lk1038.asp
I can't say it looks much like poor old Jimmy (and it's gone up in price).
Oh great and wise DSN fan guru...
Date: 2003-11-10 10:21 am (UTC)Alas, only...
Date: 2003-11-10 10:23 am (UTC)Re: Alas, only...
Date: 2003-11-10 10:27 am (UTC)screencaps...
Date: 2003-11-10 12:48 pm (UTC)If you do create icons, please share?
I will share
Date: 2003-11-10 12:54 pm (UTC)http://startrek.epguides.info/
and
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/DS9/index.html
The ones at www.section31.com aren't completely updated yet in the later seasons.
Yeah, it's strange, isn't it?
Date: 2003-11-17 04:38 pm (UTC)Oh, I love, love, love 'Rapture'. I so wish...
Date: 2003-11-17 04:26 pm (UTC)*breaks down laughing due to having misspelled 'Star Fleet' as 'Star Frell' now for the third time*
Err, where was I?
*starts laughing again*
Sorry, too silly for coherent thought here. Blame waiting for definite news about the future of FS since Wednesday. ARRRRRGH
Re: Oh, I love, love, love 'Rapture'. I so wish...
Date: 2003-11-18 04:42 am (UTC)Mind you, I can understand Starfleet being uneasy. The temptation to exploit a "Messiah" position must be incredible, plus one of the most important reasons for the Prime Direktive was that they didn't want to replay White-God-Cortez-and-the-Indians on a planetary scale...
Terrorists as sympathetic charactes on American TV
Date: 2003-11-17 04:34 pm (UTC)Hmm. May I quote a line spoken by John Crichton in ep. 4.20: We're So Screwed: Hot to Katratzi? -- "Since we're now nuclear terrorists..." And his techniques certainly are very much those of a terrorist.
But then, of course, Farscape was cancelled shortly after that ep had been shot. *is tempted to create conspiracy theory on the spot*
Re: Terrorists as sympathetic charactes on American TV
Date: 2003-11-18 04:42 am (UTC)Still, there is a difference between the way John & Co. are presented on Farscape and Kira's backstory on DS9. First of all, John doesn't have a cause beyond "want to stay alive and want my friends to stay alive as well" and, pre-season 4 at least, "must keep wormhole tech from other people so they won't exploit it". Secondly, he's not religious. Now terrorists with strong religious convictions and A Cause, like Kira, are decidedly not the flavour of the month, to quote
Incidentally I think if Kira were to meet John she'd classify him as an amateur wannabe terrorist the way she did Thomas Riker...