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Reviews
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Wrongs Darker than Death or Night (1998)
Well exceuted episode - but an utterly ridiculous plot out of left field.
These look-back's at the Cardassian occupation are always very evocative. Seeing DS9 and characters in a totally different way is often gripping. This was pretty well done. But . . .
But the main plot is absurd. You can almost see the writers around the table in the middle of a season grasping for some new idea.
There has been so much interaction between Kira and Gul Dukat for 6 years - no hint of this ever emerges -despite some very varied and intense plots with them. Dukat just calls and drops this on her out of nowhere. Just dumb.
Gul Dukat and Kira are pretty prominent people on DS9 and in the Bajoran world - is it really feasible that no one made the connection between Gul Dukat's Bajoran lover for 7 years, and Kira? No one was able to put this ridiculously obvious connection together? Just silly.
If Kira is around 5 or so when her mother goes away, and is clearly in her 30's when DS9 starts - that means Gul Dukat has been in command of DS9 and Bajor for about 30 years. Again - such an obvious plot contradiction with all that has come before in the history of Bajor and DS9.
The Orb of Time - you can change the past that easy? I mean, come on.
There's more - but you get the point.
Again, stupid plot - but actually a watchable episode once you turn your brain completely off.
Star Trek: Picard: Võx (2023)
This might be the worst thing ever put on TV.
Is this Guiding Light in space? Non-stop emoting, mindless exposition, and nod-wink-wink.
It's so bad, I am stunned writers and showrunners were actually conscious and lucid putting this nightmare together.
(And it's like the great Borg alliance at the end of Season 2 ever happened. No mention of it. No connection to it. Nothing. Maybe they drop it in and some point and show just how stupid they think the audience is.)
This show is AWFUL. They actually made Patrick Stewart . . . Bad.
I'm at a loss. They should have let the folks from "Lower Decks" do this show. They at least have a sense of humor.
To sum up . . . I didn't like it.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang (1999)
DS9 Gets Even More Preachy
Look, it's a great show, and the Star Trek series produced some of the best work on television. But it seems that someone along the line in the last two years decided to depart from not only Star Trek way of addressing issues, but the whole role science fiction plays in revealing the modern world to us through metaphor. When Sisco throws his hissy-fit that he won't go in the holo-suite because blacks weren't welcome in Vegas in 1962 - they violate a raft of sci-fi and Star Trek no-no's. First of all, this is the very first time that human racial resentment has been carried into the Star Trek future. Sisco's angry reaction is of someone who has suffered racial bigotry - which is not the case in Rodenberry's future. We've moved beyond it. It makes about as much sense as O'Brien refusing to go with Bashir into his James Bond program because the British oppressed the Irish. Or Bashir refusing to go to the Alamo program because Arabs wouldn't have been accepted in early 19th century Texas. It's idiotic and it violates the truly color-blind approach humanity has reached in the Star Trek universe. Science fiction addresses issues indirectly - like the original Trek's story of the planet that was racially divided by people who had half black/half white faces - but each 'race" had the colors on the opposites side of the face. Metaphor. Misdirection. That's how science fiction gets it done . . . not by throwing an Al Sharpton rant in the middle of the 24th century. Generally, it's a great episode and a lot of fun. But someone involved with that show insisted on grinding an ax - and accomplished the exact opposite of what they wanted to.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Time's Orphan (1998)
Good concept badly executed.
Every shows hits its weak phase - and Deep Space Nine started struggling around this time. The previous (very weak) comic Ferengi episode was followed by this very serious Molly O'Brien episode.
So much of it is rushed and shallow. The O'Brien's give up on getting back "their" Molly after a 20 second existential discussion on the nature of being - which they adjust to with little emotional consequence. Ultimately they decide to send her back to her primitive world 300 years previous, alone, with little or no discussion of whether they should all go as a family, or if they could settle on another uninhabited planet s a family. Just send her back to her cavewoman life - end of discussion.
All the while, Worf's inferiority complex about being a good father is thrust upon the viewer as a subplot with very little setup or explanation. At first it seems like it is going to be for comic relief - then it turns very soap opera like.
DSN is a great show, and had more great story lines subsequent - but there is a string of episodes at this time that show how dry the creative well had run.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Far Beyond the Stars (1998)
Over the Top on a Worthy Topic
It's genuinely too bad that the entertainment industry is so reliably liberal in its viewpoint. It means important subjects are given predictable treatment . . . and predictable is not a compliment in the arts.
In this episode, you have white racism against blacks in the late 1940's. OK. Fair enough.
But where does it go? Jake becomes a petty thief because he has no other options as a young black man. Predictable.
Worf becomes a shallow tom-catting ball-player who knows he's not really accepted by whites. Predictable.
The two white cops are brutal racists. Predictable.
The white authority figure is apathetic and driven by money even though he kind of knows he should do something. Predictable.
The one just white person is an angry liberal/lefty. Oh so predictable.
This thing could have really gone places: like having 'Benny' talk about how race was totally immaterial in his story - it literally never comes up (just as it doesn't in the Star Trek universe).
Or how science fiction makes our own reality more clear by taking away all our associations but leaving our own time's story in tact.
Or really emphasized the nature of reality that is addressed at the end of the episode.
Or a million other things. But it just went straight to America is/was/always will be a racist place.
Boring.
We've come eons in a very short amount of time in this country - further than any other country on the planet.
And we'll go eons more. But nurturing and cultivating like a hothouse flower racial grievance is going to make it very, very slow going.
Star Trek rules - but they blew the telling of the tale here.
7 stars for originality and effort.
A Different World: The Cat's in the Cradle (1992)
A truly great episode of a so-so show.
My brother and I caught this on TV one day when we were in our late teens We never watched the show, so I don't know why we caught it.
It is a fantastic piece about racial perspective. I am kind of amazed that in the last 17 years, there have not been more things like it.
It was both hilarious and thought-provoking. It was predictably sympathetic to the black side of the story - nevertheless - it was great stuff.
Kadeem Hardisson's two appearances in the retelling are worth the price of admission.
Good piece for a teacher to use for classroom discussion.