Choices, choices
Dec. 8th, 2003 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakLife continues to be good. Within 24 hours this time, I got my Quark angst: read and admire here. . Also, ever wondered what a crossover between Frank Herbert's Dune and Dylan Thomas' Under Milkwood would read like? Well, me neither, but read it anyway: An Arrakis Christmas Tale.
Now, reviews.
As I dimly recall, Cinescape used to refer to these rather unkindly as "the annual bones they throw at Colm Meaney to keep him busy between Roddy Doyle films". The writers, in the season 5 O'Brien special on DVD, called them the Let's torture O'Brien episodes. (Said special is also where I learned for the first time that "Colm" is actually pronounced "Co-lum" - at least that's how they all say it.) At any rate, O'Brien outings (mostly) rock, and Honor among Thieves is no exception.
If Profit or Loss is the writers' take on Casablanca, here they'veplagiarised paid homage to Donnie Brasco. If you haven't seen it: FBI agent infiltrates Mafia at low level via making friends with low-level gangster who vouches for him. Personal bond grows, moral dilemma ensues. In the end, gangster friend finds out FBI guy is a mole but does not kill him; instead, he goes off to die. Mafia dons are brought down by the law. FBI guy remains with bad taste in his mouth. Low level gangster is played by Al Pacino who I believe got another Oscar nomination for this, though again no Oscar. Substitute "Orion Syndicate" for "Mafia", and you have the episode. Now just why Starfleet Intelligence can't find someone other than Miles to infiltrate the Syndicate falls under the same plot mystery as Picard's assignment in Chain of Command and Sisko's in Apocalypse Rising. Never mind; we get to see him suffer. The episode doesn't shirk away of showing us Al Pacino, I mean Bilby (great performance by Nick Tate), ruthlessly hurt and kill a man; he's a genuine criminal, not a lovable Robin Hood follower. Still, as he makes friends with Miles, protects him and keeps on singing the praises of family values it's not hard to understand why O'Brien feels guilty as hell at the end. My guess would be this is also the first time our Miles finds out he likes one of the bad guys; Bashir is usually the one making friends with shady characters and being entranced by moral ambiguities, not the Chief.
(Sidenote: also, love the cat. And the fact we do see Chester again.)
The next Starfleet guy forced to choose between personal feelings and duty is Worf, in Change of Heart. But allow me first to squee about the B-plot, which is O'Brien making Bashir take on Quark at Tongo only to have Quark soundly beat Bashir by mindmessing with him about Jadzia. You know this caters to my personal fetish (thanks, Nostalgia). Plus I enjoy seeing Quark win once in a while. And he does so with the best form of manipulation - telling the truth. Because you know he does mean what he says about Dax.
Meanwhile, we're shown what Dax does see in "Commander Boring" (Quark). As with Odo's decision last season to kill 8000 people for Kira, Worf's choice - saving Jadzia over saving the Cardassian spy - is understandable but not unambiguous. As Sisko points out, through this action he didn't just unsure the Cardassian's death but probably prolonged the War for months. Star Trek played this "life of the one versus the lives of the many" scenario a couple of times, and tends to go with the life of the one. Right? Wrong? Who's to say? I like that this particular version leaves it open.
Inquisition, or, DS9 goes Le Carré. Now we had Starfleet Intelligence before, but it was presented as a rather harmless cloak-and-dagger kind of secret service, as opposed to the Romulan Tal Shiar (introduced in the TNG episode Face of the Enemy) or the Cardassian Obsidian Order. By inventing something like Section 31, another Federation secret service whose existence is neither denied nor confirmed and thus tacitly agreed with and which has apparently no obligation to stick to the Federation constitution, DS9 did something really revolutionary in the Trekverse. Because if the Federation uses exactly the same methods as their enemies, as Bashir asks at the end of the episode, what makes them any better? End of moral superiority. (Well, to be fair, I'd still be rather living in the Federation than on Cardassia or in the Dominion.) The episode nearly becomes involuntarily funny near the end when Bashir sees his interrogator for the first time for real and finds Sloan and fellow secret agents are all dressed in black leather. Obviously, they know Bashir's affinity for 20th century pop culture and know what a villain has to look like. Or they got fashion tips from Bester on Babylon 5.
But the inquisition itself, using all of Julian's backstory established so far and some of the massive coincidences in the episodes centred around them, is one clever, sinister mind game, because as opposed to, say, the openly irrational and fanatic admiral in the TNG episode where they did the McCarthy thing, you can see how Sloan would get the suspicion on the first place. Plus it's such a nasty slap of fate for Julian, considering his fascination with all spies from James Bond to Garak.
(One of the great lost opportunities of DS9: Garak vs Sloan. Would have preferred that to Bashir and O'Brien taking on Sloan in season 7, but hey. At that point, it made sense for Garak to be on Cardassia, so can't complain.)
The moral grilling of Starfleet officers continues in the episode which I think is probably on everyone's personal Top Ten not just of DS9 but of Star Trek, all shows, full stop: In the Pale Moonlight. It's also the best Garak episode since Improbable Cause/ The Die is Cast, but fond of my Cardassian as I am, I freely admit he plays second banana to Sisko getting himself in a situation where there really is no "good" way out. By now, Sisko's obsessive trait is well established, and once he says he decided to bring on the Romulans in the war, you know he'll do it. Once Garak asks him whether he really is prepared to do whatever it takes and Sisko says yes, you know that "whatever it takes" won't just end with getting an unpleasant character out of jail. This is DS9, after all. Which is why I think it's hypocritical of Sisko to punch Garak at the end because as Garak points out - that was why he hired him in the first place. (Speaking of hypocrisy, considering that Sisko was willing to use biological weapons to force Eddington to surrender, it's not surprising he's willing to arrange for the sale of material for biological weapons to achieve his aim here as well. But it's good that Business as Usual takes place before all of this happens because otherwise, Sisko lecturing Quark on the immorality of dealing with weapons would be too much to take.)
On the other hand, can we say he's wrong? (Bashir would, O'Brien wouldn't; Dax I'm not sure about. Kira wouldn't, Worf would. Odo is a special case.) Bringing the Romulans into the war does turn the tide for the Federation, and, to quote Garak, "all it cost was the life of one Romulan Proconsul, one forger and the self respect of a Starfleet officer". (It also cost the lives of Vreenak's bodyguards but apparently Garak doesn't count them.) It's an eminently practical assassination. But again it leads us back to the question Bashir asks in regards to Section 31.
There are so many details I love about the episode - Dax' impersonation of a proconsul, Garak after having little to do during the season until then and what there was unambiguously good restored to fully delightful shades of grey, pun intended, not to mention to his sardonic edge when talking to a Federation member - but the cream on the cake is the ending - Sisko's repeated: "I can live with it. I can live with it." If I ever have to introduce somebody to DS9, and show what sets it apart from all the other Treks, this episode would be my choice.
(No His Way yet. His Way shall be reviewed together with the E!Dukat special, not because it has anything to do with the later but because as I recall - haven't rewatched it yet - this was the only O/K episode, and the only Vic Fontaine ep, to make me cringe.)
The Reckoning reminds me again of the great justification of the Pagh Wraith storyline: namely, Kai Winn. It's a very important episode in regard to Winn's development. Her truce with Sisko and Kira, established since Rapture, shatters here; we hear for the first time that the Prophets never spoke to her directly (and you can already see that the hurt and resentment of this goes way beyond scoring points with the Emissary); and she fails the test of faith everyone undergoes in this episode, which shall continue to gnaw at her. It's not just a question of faith versus ambition, as Kira thinks; it's a case of the two being irreversibly entangled. Winn has faith; she'd probably have been a happier person if she didn't. But it's not enough.
The tests of faith here aren't all religious; by not putting Kira's life ahead of her choice, as opposed to the reversed decision his older self took in Children of Time, Odo proves (and this in the episode directly after they became lovers) he does, pun intended, keep faith with her. But the person tested most severely is Sisko. And here's where this episode, upon rewatching, makes me really uncomfortable. I don't know where I had my eyes the last time, but the rather obvious Abraham and Isaac parallel escaped me during the original run. And it pushes all kind of buttons with me. The story in the Old Testament is powerful and repellent to me at the same time. Being asked to sacrifice your son. Yes, Sisko, as opposed to Abraham, offers himself instead (not that it's of any use, but I'm sure he'd gladly have gone through with it). However, when he's ignored by Prophet and Pagh-Wraith alike, he is willing to believe that either the Prophet will somehow manage to protect Jake even though it is trying to kill the entity in his body, or that Jake's life is a sacrifice that has to be made. It's one of the rare instances for Trek goes for the reverse - the life of the one for the life of the many - but the problem is that as opposed to the other scenarios, the greater good, the life of the many here is…well, a matter of faith.
Clearly we're meant to accept that the Prophets are good, the Pagh Wraiths are evil (in the Judeo-Christian dichotomy angels versus demons, or even God versus the Devil). But bearing my other favourite Space Station in mind, I have problems transferring this Manichean world view on a Sci-Fi scenario. And I have to say this is where JMS does it better, and more interestingly to boot. I'd have a lot less problems with the Pagh Wraiths if they, like the Shadows, had an agenda other than the usual comic book villains (wait, apologies to Mr. Moore, Mr. Gaiman and a lot of other writers who all create better villains) one. Jake at the end says he felt they're evil, and have to be stopped. Now I might misremember stuff, but other than killing the Prophets and taking their place the Celestial Temple, are we ever given more definite aims for the Pagh Wraiths? And as for the Prophets: Why does God need a spaceship? Sorry, wrong Trek. Now the Prophets as a Vorlon-like force for order and a gift for manipulating things their way I could accept. But the Prophets as god-like entities and protectors of Bajor with a claim on moral goodness open a can of worms. For example, what did they do during the century of Cardassian occupation? And why do they need physical bodies to fight it out with the Pagh Wraiths anyway, given that they're both energy beings, not to mention why do they risk huge casualities while they're at it? And while I'm venting my Abraham issues, I always wondered what Isaac had to say afterwards. Now much as I love the Siskos as the proud sole representatives of functional parent-child relationships on Star Trek, I think letting Jake who throughout the episode has grown ever more uneasy with his father's increasing emphasis on being the Emissary say that due to the malice of the Pagh Wraith he felt, he understands Sisko's actions is a cop-out. At the very least I want a "you believed they were going to save me… did you?" question.
Jakes shows a sound sense of survival in The Valiant, or: "Starfleet does: The Wave". Well, a bit at least. I can believe Nog getting swept up in the idea of serving on a ship of heroes his own age, plus some of the stuff the Defiant pulled off during the time he served on it wasn't that different. But Sisko, no matter under how much pressure, would have never ordered people with an opposing pov into the brig, and that ought to have alerted Nog that this particular punch of cadets-as-officers needed a reality check real soon. Jake not buying into it from the beginning reminds me how much I like that Jake really never does join Starfleet, but is the example of how a non-Starfleet career as a writer is a viable option in the 24th century. If O'Brien is the Everyman among the regulars, Jake is the civilian and remains the civilian, even in wartime. And if not civilians, whom are wars supposed to be fought for?
The opening scene of the episode, the only one not about the Valiant plot, is a sort of counterpoint to the Odo/Quark conversation in Crossfire as Odo discovers Quark loves Dax. I must say, now that Kira returns his affections our Constable is way too smug about unrequited love. Quark, when he was in Odo's shoes, was considerable nicer, in his matter-of-fact way. Though to be fair Odo limits himself to one shot ("It must kill you that she's married to Worf") and otherwise doesn't gloat or expose Quark anymore than Quark gloated or exposed him back in the day.
Next we come to the only two DS9 episodes (other than some first season ones) I had never watched before. So: Profit and Lace. Yes, I admit it. Even for a Ferengi lover like me, this was pretty dumb. Not to mention sexist. Like Beer Bad on BTVS, it had some moments but these didn't save it from being a strong candidate for "worst of". Boys, I get it that you like Some Like it Hot and Tootsie, but you know, these really were well written and emotions and self-discovery along with the farce. So, the moments:
- Slug' O'Cola: this deserves an honorary award along side of B5's "McBari's"
- Quark standing up to Brunt and ordering him out of his bar; I do like Quark-Brunt confrontations
- Quark rendering Brunt speechless by passionately smooching Nilva in front of him
- Quark, back in male form, hugging Odo (you know they love each other *g*)
Time's Orphan: the girl playing teenage Molly was great. The logic of the plot, not so much. A deserted planet in the past is better than any given planet in the present where they could have lived with her, seeing that Miles had already considered asking for transfer at the beginning of the episode? Bah. 'Nuff said.
Next: Why Kira Nerys has a double standard about collaborators (and Kira Meru wasn't one), the E!Dukat special collection, Odo and Kira and Vic, and the season finale.
Now, reviews.
As I dimly recall, Cinescape used to refer to these rather unkindly as "the annual bones they throw at Colm Meaney to keep him busy between Roddy Doyle films". The writers, in the season 5 O'Brien special on DVD, called them the Let's torture O'Brien episodes. (Said special is also where I learned for the first time that "Colm" is actually pronounced "Co-lum" - at least that's how they all say it.) At any rate, O'Brien outings (mostly) rock, and Honor among Thieves is no exception.
If Profit or Loss is the writers' take on Casablanca, here they've
(Sidenote: also, love the cat. And the fact we do see Chester again.)
The next Starfleet guy forced to choose between personal feelings and duty is Worf, in Change of Heart. But allow me first to squee about the B-plot, which is O'Brien making Bashir take on Quark at Tongo only to have Quark soundly beat Bashir by mindmessing with him about Jadzia. You know this caters to my personal fetish (thanks, Nostalgia). Plus I enjoy seeing Quark win once in a while. And he does so with the best form of manipulation - telling the truth. Because you know he does mean what he says about Dax.
Meanwhile, we're shown what Dax does see in "Commander Boring" (Quark). As with Odo's decision last season to kill 8000 people for Kira, Worf's choice - saving Jadzia over saving the Cardassian spy - is understandable but not unambiguous. As Sisko points out, through this action he didn't just unsure the Cardassian's death but probably prolonged the War for months. Star Trek played this "life of the one versus the lives of the many" scenario a couple of times, and tends to go with the life of the one. Right? Wrong? Who's to say? I like that this particular version leaves it open.
Inquisition, or, DS9 goes Le Carré. Now we had Starfleet Intelligence before, but it was presented as a rather harmless cloak-and-dagger kind of secret service, as opposed to the Romulan Tal Shiar (introduced in the TNG episode Face of the Enemy) or the Cardassian Obsidian Order. By inventing something like Section 31, another Federation secret service whose existence is neither denied nor confirmed and thus tacitly agreed with and which has apparently no obligation to stick to the Federation constitution, DS9 did something really revolutionary in the Trekverse. Because if the Federation uses exactly the same methods as their enemies, as Bashir asks at the end of the episode, what makes them any better? End of moral superiority. (Well, to be fair, I'd still be rather living in the Federation than on Cardassia or in the Dominion.) The episode nearly becomes involuntarily funny near the end when Bashir sees his interrogator for the first time for real and finds Sloan and fellow secret agents are all dressed in black leather. Obviously, they know Bashir's affinity for 20th century pop culture and know what a villain has to look like. Or they got fashion tips from Bester on Babylon 5.
But the inquisition itself, using all of Julian's backstory established so far and some of the massive coincidences in the episodes centred around them, is one clever, sinister mind game, because as opposed to, say, the openly irrational and fanatic admiral in the TNG episode where they did the McCarthy thing, you can see how Sloan would get the suspicion on the first place. Plus it's such a nasty slap of fate for Julian, considering his fascination with all spies from James Bond to Garak.
(One of the great lost opportunities of DS9: Garak vs Sloan. Would have preferred that to Bashir and O'Brien taking on Sloan in season 7, but hey. At that point, it made sense for Garak to be on Cardassia, so can't complain.)
The moral grilling of Starfleet officers continues in the episode which I think is probably on everyone's personal Top Ten not just of DS9 but of Star Trek, all shows, full stop: In the Pale Moonlight. It's also the best Garak episode since Improbable Cause/ The Die is Cast, but fond of my Cardassian as I am, I freely admit he plays second banana to Sisko getting himself in a situation where there really is no "good" way out. By now, Sisko's obsessive trait is well established, and once he says he decided to bring on the Romulans in the war, you know he'll do it. Once Garak asks him whether he really is prepared to do whatever it takes and Sisko says yes, you know that "whatever it takes" won't just end with getting an unpleasant character out of jail. This is DS9, after all. Which is why I think it's hypocritical of Sisko to punch Garak at the end because as Garak points out - that was why he hired him in the first place. (Speaking of hypocrisy, considering that Sisko was willing to use biological weapons to force Eddington to surrender, it's not surprising he's willing to arrange for the sale of material for biological weapons to achieve his aim here as well. But it's good that Business as Usual takes place before all of this happens because otherwise, Sisko lecturing Quark on the immorality of dealing with weapons would be too much to take.)
On the other hand, can we say he's wrong? (Bashir would, O'Brien wouldn't; Dax I'm not sure about. Kira wouldn't, Worf would. Odo is a special case.) Bringing the Romulans into the war does turn the tide for the Federation, and, to quote Garak, "all it cost was the life of one Romulan Proconsul, one forger and the self respect of a Starfleet officer". (It also cost the lives of Vreenak's bodyguards but apparently Garak doesn't count them.) It's an eminently practical assassination. But again it leads us back to the question Bashir asks in regards to Section 31.
There are so many details I love about the episode - Dax' impersonation of a proconsul, Garak after having little to do during the season until then and what there was unambiguously good restored to fully delightful shades of grey, pun intended, not to mention to his sardonic edge when talking to a Federation member - but the cream on the cake is the ending - Sisko's repeated: "I can live with it. I can live with it." If I ever have to introduce somebody to DS9, and show what sets it apart from all the other Treks, this episode would be my choice.
(No His Way yet. His Way shall be reviewed together with the E!Dukat special, not because it has anything to do with the later but because as I recall - haven't rewatched it yet - this was the only O/K episode, and the only Vic Fontaine ep, to make me cringe.)
The Reckoning reminds me again of the great justification of the Pagh Wraith storyline: namely, Kai Winn. It's a very important episode in regard to Winn's development. Her truce with Sisko and Kira, established since Rapture, shatters here; we hear for the first time that the Prophets never spoke to her directly (and you can already see that the hurt and resentment of this goes way beyond scoring points with the Emissary); and she fails the test of faith everyone undergoes in this episode, which shall continue to gnaw at her. It's not just a question of faith versus ambition, as Kira thinks; it's a case of the two being irreversibly entangled. Winn has faith; she'd probably have been a happier person if she didn't. But it's not enough.
The tests of faith here aren't all religious; by not putting Kira's life ahead of her choice, as opposed to the reversed decision his older self took in Children of Time, Odo proves (and this in the episode directly after they became lovers) he does, pun intended, keep faith with her. But the person tested most severely is Sisko. And here's where this episode, upon rewatching, makes me really uncomfortable. I don't know where I had my eyes the last time, but the rather obvious Abraham and Isaac parallel escaped me during the original run. And it pushes all kind of buttons with me. The story in the Old Testament is powerful and repellent to me at the same time. Being asked to sacrifice your son. Yes, Sisko, as opposed to Abraham, offers himself instead (not that it's of any use, but I'm sure he'd gladly have gone through with it). However, when he's ignored by Prophet and Pagh-Wraith alike, he is willing to believe that either the Prophet will somehow manage to protect Jake even though it is trying to kill the entity in his body, or that Jake's life is a sacrifice that has to be made. It's one of the rare instances for Trek goes for the reverse - the life of the one for the life of the many - but the problem is that as opposed to the other scenarios, the greater good, the life of the many here is…well, a matter of faith.
Clearly we're meant to accept that the Prophets are good, the Pagh Wraiths are evil (in the Judeo-Christian dichotomy angels versus demons, or even God versus the Devil). But bearing my other favourite Space Station in mind, I have problems transferring this Manichean world view on a Sci-Fi scenario. And I have to say this is where JMS does it better, and more interestingly to boot. I'd have a lot less problems with the Pagh Wraiths if they, like the Shadows, had an agenda other than the usual comic book villains (wait, apologies to Mr. Moore, Mr. Gaiman and a lot of other writers who all create better villains) one. Jake at the end says he felt they're evil, and have to be stopped. Now I might misremember stuff, but other than killing the Prophets and taking their place the Celestial Temple, are we ever given more definite aims for the Pagh Wraiths? And as for the Prophets: Why does God need a spaceship? Sorry, wrong Trek. Now the Prophets as a Vorlon-like force for order and a gift for manipulating things their way I could accept. But the Prophets as god-like entities and protectors of Bajor with a claim on moral goodness open a can of worms. For example, what did they do during the century of Cardassian occupation? And why do they need physical bodies to fight it out with the Pagh Wraiths anyway, given that they're both energy beings, not to mention why do they risk huge casualities while they're at it? And while I'm venting my Abraham issues, I always wondered what Isaac had to say afterwards. Now much as I love the Siskos as the proud sole representatives of functional parent-child relationships on Star Trek, I think letting Jake who throughout the episode has grown ever more uneasy with his father's increasing emphasis on being the Emissary say that due to the malice of the Pagh Wraith he felt, he understands Sisko's actions is a cop-out. At the very least I want a "you believed they were going to save me… did you?" question.
Jakes shows a sound sense of survival in The Valiant, or: "Starfleet does: The Wave". Well, a bit at least. I can believe Nog getting swept up in the idea of serving on a ship of heroes his own age, plus some of the stuff the Defiant pulled off during the time he served on it wasn't that different. But Sisko, no matter under how much pressure, would have never ordered people with an opposing pov into the brig, and that ought to have alerted Nog that this particular punch of cadets-as-officers needed a reality check real soon. Jake not buying into it from the beginning reminds me how much I like that Jake really never does join Starfleet, but is the example of how a non-Starfleet career as a writer is a viable option in the 24th century. If O'Brien is the Everyman among the regulars, Jake is the civilian and remains the civilian, even in wartime. And if not civilians, whom are wars supposed to be fought for?
The opening scene of the episode, the only one not about the Valiant plot, is a sort of counterpoint to the Odo/Quark conversation in Crossfire as Odo discovers Quark loves Dax. I must say, now that Kira returns his affections our Constable is way too smug about unrequited love. Quark, when he was in Odo's shoes, was considerable nicer, in his matter-of-fact way. Though to be fair Odo limits himself to one shot ("It must kill you that she's married to Worf") and otherwise doesn't gloat or expose Quark anymore than Quark gloated or exposed him back in the day.
Next we come to the only two DS9 episodes (other than some first season ones) I had never watched before. So: Profit and Lace. Yes, I admit it. Even for a Ferengi lover like me, this was pretty dumb. Not to mention sexist. Like Beer Bad on BTVS, it had some moments but these didn't save it from being a strong candidate for "worst of". Boys, I get it that you like Some Like it Hot and Tootsie, but you know, these really were well written and emotions and self-discovery along with the farce. So, the moments:
- Slug' O'Cola: this deserves an honorary award along side of B5's "McBari's"
- Quark standing up to Brunt and ordering him out of his bar; I do like Quark-Brunt confrontations
- Quark rendering Brunt speechless by passionately smooching Nilva in front of him
- Quark, back in male form, hugging Odo (you know they love each other *g*)
Time's Orphan: the girl playing teenage Molly was great. The logic of the plot, not so much. A deserted planet in the past is better than any given planet in the present where they could have lived with her, seeing that Miles had already considered asking for transfer at the beginning of the episode? Bah. 'Nuff said.
Next: Why Kira Nerys has a double standard about collaborators (and Kira Meru wasn't one), the E!Dukat special collection, Odo and Kira and Vic, and the season finale.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-08 07:46 am (UTC)Because if the Federation uses exactly the same methods as their enemies, as Bashir asks at the end of the episode, what makes them any better? End of moral superiority.
I completely agree, and I also got a bit of a kick out of realising that the Federation was at it's core really no different to the other societies we've seen in Trek. However I do have one question, in all the Section 31 episodes I don't remember seeing a non-human member, is that me or is it safe to assume that Section 31 is run purely by humans to protect Earth from the aliens?
*Bounces* Yay! In The Pale Moonlight All I can say is, ditto.
Although I think Dax would have understood why he took the course of action that he did just like she approved in For The Uniform.
Whenever I think of The Valiant I'm reminded of Nog's final words in that episode, "He was a good man, but he was a bad captain."
For a second in Time's Orphan I thought we were going to get a prolonged arc where Wild Molly would adapt to life back on the station, but perhaps it's for the best that she was changed back.
Sorry for the long post.
P.S. Love the icon.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-08 09:30 am (UTC)(Now if it were Garak vs Bester, I'd bet on Bester, but that's another question.)
However I do have one question, in all the Section 31 episodes I don't remember seeing a non-human member, is that me or is it safe to assume that Section 31 is run purely by humans to protect Earth from the aliens?
No, you're absolutely right. Section 31 seems to be a humans-only club. (Whereas all the other institutions we see in the Federation really seem mixed - and one of the movies, IV I believe, features a non-human President.)
Agreed about Dax though it's interesting that Sisko doesn't tell her. Otherwise she really is his closest confidant, but she never, in either incarnation, learns about this particular decision. Perhaps while he thinks in his head she'd understand, he fears in his heart she won't?
Whenever I think of The Valiant I'm reminded of Nog's final words in that episode, "He was a good man, but he was a bad captain."
True. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
For a second in Time's Orphan I thought we were going to get a prolonged arc where Wild Molly would adapt to life back on the station, but perhaps it's for the best that she was changed back.
Hm, I don't know. Considering I'm of the faction who did like Connor and his arc, I believe something could have been done with Wild Molly.
Sorry for the long post.
But I love long posts! Go ahead, write more!
Icon is courtesy of
no subject
Date: 2003-12-08 10:33 am (UTC)I believe that the DS9 2-parter Homefront and Paradise Lost also featured a non-human President.
Hm, I don't know. Considering I'm of the faction who did like Connor and his arc, I believe something could have been done with Wild Molly.
Don't get me wrong, it would have been interesting to see Wild Molly full time, it's just that with the upcoming huge war arc it might have detracted from it slightly. Speaking of which I didn't really have much of a problem with Connor until late Season 4 when he seemed to be acting like a bonehead.
I loved Garak and Quark because their perspectives on things were often more relateable than the Starfleet perspective given previously and while Sisko and crew altered our perceptions of precisely what the Federation and Starfleet were like it was still good to have Quark and Garak as almost avatars for the audience. Then again that could just be me as I'm not sure how many people relate to a treacherous Cardassian spy and a profit hungry Ferengi.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 03:36 am (UTC)It's not just you. On the DVD, Ira Behr (head writer) repeatedly says that Ferengi were to him 20th (and now 21st) century, unidealised human beings, and that was why he loved them.*g*
no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-09 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-08 03:09 pm (UTC)thanks, and...
Date: 2003-12-08 09:54 pm (UTC)