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.
