[DS9] Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Defiant"
Timothy W. Lynch
compromising the security of these spoilers will be held over for trial.
So there.
Whew! This was probably the best of the season so far, folks; it's about
time!
I've got a couple of nitpicks (of course :-) ), but "Defiant" is only the
second or third show this season I've really liked. More after a quick
bit of summary. [NOTE: This summary mentions *the* major plot twist of
the show.]
======
Tom Riker, masquerading as brother Will, steals the Defiant and heads into
Cardassian space with it, forcing Sisko to help the Cardassians find his
own ship.
======
"Defiant", for the first time, dealt with some of the _implications_ of
having this Kill-o-Zap warship hanging around the station -- both within
and outside the Federation. That alone helped pay for the price of
admission; Riker was mostly gravy. (In fact, one of the few objections I
have to the show is that it featured Riker; not that this is a problem, but
that they felt it necessary to do so because it's sweeps month.)
Beginning at the beginning, then, the teaser was great fun. We've had at
least one "O'Brien has a hard day" teasers [back in "Babel"], and it's only
fair to give Kira one, too. :-) I got the definite feeling, in fact, that
Bashir had something like this planned for *months*, just awaiting the
right moment. [There might have been something other than altruism, too;
surely Kira won't be so quick to snap when she knows Bashir could prescribe
this *again*...]
Riker's unexpected appearance worked fine, and there was certainly no
reason to suspect he was anything other than who he said he was (unless, of
course, you'd seen the previews or read anything in the newspapers...). As
evidence of that, Lisa wondered out loud whether this was occurring before
or after "Generations" -- I refrained from commenting at the time. :-)
The lead-in to the theft of the Defiant also worked, at least mostly. We
did see some reasonable signs of security precautions around the Defiant,
so there wasn't a strong case of "everybody plays dumb so that Tom can get
away". There was a minor nitpick, though -- it seems from what we saw that
Tom just strolled onto the ship with a concealed phaser. Aren't the
airlock security programs supposed to catch things like that? I seem to
recall a major plot point hanging on that fact back in "Captive Pursuit"...
Ah, well; in any case, things mostly seemed to make sense.
Then, we had the big revelation: Riker's sideburns are removable! :-)
Er ... sorry. What I mean is, it's not Will, but Tom. Since I'd been
spoiled beforehand, that fact was no great surprise to me -- but what did
come as a surprise for the rest of the show was how different Frakes seems
without those sideburns. Frakes also did a good job playing
Tom-as-not-Will, and deserves a lot of the credit for that, but just that
one slight visual change made a vast difference as well. Most peculiar.
After that, we had the combination of two factors that made "The Maquis"
such a strong two-parter last year: the Maquis themselves, and Gul Dukat.
Both were very much up to snuff; Dukat seemed less canny a strategist than
usual (excluding "Civil Defense", which appears to bear no relation to
anything in this show; what, you want continuity?), but given how rattled
he was all show by the double whammy of Korinas breathing down his throat
and Riker laying waste about him, that's understandable. The Sisko/Dukat
conversations, while not *quite* up to the level we saw in "The Maquis",
were definitely one of the strengths of the show, as always.
[Speaking of "Civil Defense", though ... you'd think that after the stunt
Dukat pulled there, Sisko would not be quite so warm 'n' friendly to Dukat
even after Dukat's put in a bad position this week. Maybe he's just a
forgiving guy. Maybe we'll never see fallout from the previous show. Ah,
well.]
One intriguing bit of backstory that came out of all this, as well, was the
news that Sisko was in charge of the shipyard that built the Defiant.
Silly, you say? I don't agree; he had to be doing *something* between
Wolf-359 and taking over DS9, and if he helped BUILD the Defiant it would
help explain why Starfleet was so amazingly willing to let him have it and
keep it this year. I don't know if that line was a quick throwaway to
justify Sisko going to Cardassia this show or meant to have more thought
behind it, but I think it seals a plot question rather than creating one.
Once Sisko reached Cardassia, we hit another nitpick and a lot more plot
twists. I'll take care of the nitpick first, since it's really the only
other thing I disliked:
I don't buy that the Defiant still has a cloak. At all. More
specifically, the Romulans were (rightfully!) paranoid enough about it that
they only gave it to them to find the Founders *and* only with T'Rul along
to keep it company. Given that we've seen no sign of her, it strikes me as
a very convenient claim to say that "oh, yes, we've still got it; we just
haven't used it lately." I don't swallow it. I'm prepared to live with it
for the sake of the story in this instance, but I don't like it at all.
The rest of the Cardassia plot was beautifully written and executed,
though. I liked the continuing Central Command vs. Obsidian Order thread
we saw here, I liked the continued humanization of Dukat (to a point; much
further than this and he won't be convincing as a manipulative bastard any
more), and I liked liked *liked* Korinas. A lot.
Okay ... actually, I didn't like Korinas; she scared the daylights out of
me. :-) I very much liked the way the character was done, however -- and
Tricia O'Neil may have outdone Rachel Garrett in terms of a memorable
character this time. I want to see this one back -- soon. (But not too
close to me ... brr.)
As for the Tom/Kira side of the plot, it also worked pretty well. This was
very much reminiscent of some of the Sisko/Hudson scenes in "The Maquis" --
but given the circumstances, that's partly unavoidable, and I'm betting the
rest was intentional. The fact that we had Kira the former terrorist
lecturing Tom the terrorist wannabe was also put to *very* smart use here;
I certainly bought into what she was saying, which worried me. :-) Tom's
plan, while ill-conceived and impractical, seems so *utterly* Riker a move
that it made perfect sense for the character.
And the ending? Worked for me, for a nice change of pace. As usual, it
seemed a bit too brief, but not by much -- since this story really was, in
many ways, a Tom Riker-centered piece rather than any of the regulars, it
makes some sense to end the show right after Tom leaves the spotlight. I'm
satisfied: both with it and with the implications of the scans he made.
(Boy, won't Dukat be pissed if it turns out Tom never got close enough to
get hard data? The death sentence might get rethought, even. :-) )
About the only other annoyance I had with the whole thing was the emphasis
on Kira's attraction to Tom Riker, and that may be an offshoot of my whole
exasperation with the way Kira's been handled this year. I suppose I
should be glad it wasn't Odo this time. (And her "but I'm involved with
someone" definitely prompted a "oh, nice of you to remember it NOW!"
response from this corner.)
All in all, then, I liked "Defiant" a bundle. I've a few minor nitpicks,
but that's really all they are. This is the sort of story I hope we see
more of from Ron Moore now that he's settled in, not "The Search".
So, a few short takes:
-- I've decided that something about Avery Brooks's delivery this year has
changed for the worse. I know that everyone's attempting to make the
character more "vibrant" somehow; but to me, all it's doing is making him
stilted. His "we've heard from all these monitoring stations, NO DEFIANT!"
line, for instance, fell completely flat for me. Give me back the old
Sisko!
-- Cardassia might be a smaller empire than we'd really thought.
Certainly, if Dukat can control everything from one room on Cardassia
Prime, it can't take long for messages to travel from the planet to
anywhere in Cardassia; and we know that it's taken days or weeks to get
messages from Earth to the Enterprise at times, when they're out on the
Federation's fringes. One wonders...
-- Best Dukat line all show: "-- but someone has to pay for what's
happened here, and I don't want that someone to be ME!" Hee.
-- Oh, my, but the Defiant's battles with the Cardassian ships were fun to
watch. Nice staging, nice effects ... everything. (On the other hand, the
effects got very glitch-ridden when the Defiant pulled up alongside the
final ship to surrender; oops.)
That's about it. Wrapping up, then:
Plot: A few holes, but a solid premise and a neat idea.
Plot Handling: Definitely strong. I was pretty much riveted.
Characters/Acting: Solid.
OVERALL: Call it a 9.5; excellent work.
NEXT WEEK:
The Loooooove Station. Ooch, but this one looks like it's gonna hurt...
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu
"This is about you, isn't it? You and that other Will Riker out there --
the one with your face, your name, your career."
-- Kira
--
Copyright 1994, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
author*. Walnut Creek and other CD-ROM distributors, take note.
just another theatre geek
Timothy W. Lynch <tly...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>WARNING: This article has spoilers for DS9's "Defiant" inside. Anyone
>compromising the security of these spoilers will be held over for trial.
>So there.
>Whew! This was probably the best of the season so far, folks; it's about
>time!
No disagreement here.
>One intriguing bit of backstory that came out of all this, as well, was the
>news that Sisko was in charge of the shipyard that built the Defiant.
>Silly, you say? I don't agree; he had to be doing *something* between
>Wolf-359 and taking over DS9, and if he helped BUILD the Defiant it would
>help explain why Starfleet was so amazingly willing to let him have it and
>keep it this year.
Could be silly, could not be. It WOULD make some sense to put
someone who was at Wolf 359 in charge (or close to it) of an anti-Borg
weapon (and, of course, the DEFIANT would not be the ONLY such project).
>And the ending? Worked for me, for a nice change of pace. As usual, it
>seemed a bit too brief, but not by much -- since this story really was, in
>many ways, a Tom Riker-centered piece rather than any of the regulars, it
>makes some sense to end the show right after Tom leaves the spotlight.
Gee. A character driven piece. Imagine that. And isn't it STRANGE
that a lot of people liked it.....
>About the only other annoyance I had with the whole thing was the emphasis
>on Kira's attraction to Tom Riker, and that may be an offshoot of my whole
>exasperation with the way Kira's been handled this year. I suppose I
>should be glad it wasn't Odo this time. (And her "but I'm involved with
>someone" definitely prompted a "oh, nice of you to remember it NOW!"
>response from this corner.)
Well, it >IS< possible to be just friends with an incredibly
attractive member of the appropriate sex (damn frustrating, but possible)...
Actually, it always struck me that Kira Nerys was, at heart, an
essentially very nice, very sweet girl who was forced to grow a hard
shell to become a terrorist; in another life, it strikes me that she'd be
perfectly happy as a mother of a big family or a day care worker.
As a terrorist, she's been forced to cut off all the softer
emotions, which, for her, included compassion, care and tenderness. It's
only been in the last three years that she's found it POSSIBLE to be a
loving person, so it isn't out of the question for her to get silly and
start to form intimate links with every appropriate sentient in sight...
--
Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
The most unAmerican thing you can say is "He/she makes too much money."
Blanche Cohen
past the satellite feed here in Denver. I think it has something to do
with the airport....)
I'm not happy with the mellowing of Kira either. If I want schmatlz, I'll
watch Bashir or old episodes of Matlock or whatever with Nana in it. The
interest of the character is the edge. We're seeing the TNGification of
DS9 as KJ so aptly put it.
At the risk of sounding sexist, are TPTB worried that the audience will be
offended by an aggressive female?
Forget Kira & Odo. Personally, I like the idea of Kira & Morn. (*g*).
Better yet - watch Kira & Ivanova clean out the bar!
--
"It might be interesting to explore useless for a while" [DS9]
"Chocolate is a serious business" [TNG]
"Worst case of testosterone poisoning I've ever seen..." [B5]
Tam K. Le
>did see some reasonable signs of security precautions around the Defiant,
>so there wasn't a strong case of "everybody plays dumb so that Tom can get
>away". There was a minor nitpick, though -- it seems from what we saw that
>Tom just strolled onto the ship with a concealed phaser. Aren't the
>airlock security programs supposed to catch things like that? I seem to
>recall a major plot point hanging on that fact back in "Captive Pursuit"...
>Ah, well; in any case, things mostly seemed to make sense.
Maybe when they went through that security check (placed their hand
on the console and said their name/rank) that "cleared" them and they
could bring any weapons aboard. Afterall, in most cases when the
crew will need to be using the Defiant they will most likely bring
weapons with them. I got the impression that this airlock to the Defiant
wasn't the same one that the hunter guy in "Captive Pursuit" got zapped
when he went through.
>I don't buy that the Defiant still has a cloak. At all. More
>specifically, the Romulans were (rightfully!) paranoid enough about it that
>they only gave it to them to find the Founders *and* only with T'Rul along
>to keep it company. Given that we've seen no sign of her, it strikes me as
>a very convenient claim to say that "oh, yes, we've still got it; we just
>haven't used it lately." I don't swallow it. I'm prepared to live with it
>for the sake of the story in this instance, but I don't like it at all.
I always thought that maybe the Romulas put something special on this
cloak such that they can detect it all times! I mean, if I was the Romulan
in charge I would definitely put some safety measures on that cloak such
that I could track it in case it falls into enemy hands.
>The rest of the Cardassia plot was beautifully written and executed,
>though. I liked the continuing Central Command vs. Obsidian Order thread
>we saw here, I liked the continued humanization of Dukat (to a point; much
>further than this and he won't be convincing as a manipulative bastard any
>more), and I liked liked *liked* Korinas. A lot.
Yeah, the Obsidian Order threat and the fleet that they are building...
it's going to be very interesting how it plays out in the future. A big
old epic battle maybe... well, as epic as Star Trek can get these days.
>-- Cardassia might be a smaller empire than we'd really thought.
>Certainly, if Dukat can control everything from one room on Cardassia
>Prime, it can't take long for messages to travel from the planet to
>anywhere in Cardassia; and we know that it's taken days or weeks to get
>messages from Earth to the Enterprise at times, when they're out on the
>Federation's fringes. One wonders...
Actually, since Riker was headed into the heart of Cardassia, I
would image that communication would travel very fast since all the
ships are nearby to Cardassia Prime. Also, with that one mai control
room idea, I think that's to show the totalitarian aspect of the
Cardassian military to have one man (or "one room") control everything.
Also, I think the "this message will take 4 weeks to reach Earth" is
more from TOS than from TNG, although I could be wrong. Just don't
remember any specific episodes at this time where it would take weeks
for messages to reach Earth... except of course the ones where the
Enterprise was thrown 20 billion light years away (ala Q).
>-- Best Dukat line all show: "-- but someone has to pay for what's
>happened here, and I don't want that someone to be ME!" Hee.
That was hilarious!
>-- Oh, my, but the Defiant's battles with the Cardassian ships were fun to
>watch. Nice staging, nice effects ... everything. (On the other hand, the
>effects got very glitch-ridden when the Defiant pulled up alongside the
>final ship to surrender; oops.)
If only Kira hadn't damaged Defiant I wonder how far they would've
gotten... in that they would not have been detectable under cloak.
The ending shot was great indeed. I would've liked to see them
shoot it out, maybe in a future episode.
Does anyone else think the Cardassian cruiser ships look like
hammer head sharks when they move?
_____
"If you think hard enough, you will rationalize it." (Philosophy on ST)
Heather L. Nadelman
>
>The Loooooove Station. Ooch, but this one looks like it's gonna hurt...
Or: The Naked Now Now
Bruce James Robert Linley
In ye olden post (Attribution lost, sorry) spake:
>>
>>The rest of the Cardassia plot was beautifully written and executed,
>>though. I liked the continuing Central Command vs. Obsidian Order thread
>>we saw here, I liked the continued humanization of Dukat (to a point; much
>>further than this and he won't be convincing as a manipulative bastard any
>>more), and I liked liked *liked* Korinas. A lot.
My only peeve with this Obsidian order is that it looks like writers are
trying to transplant a plot device from TNG to DS9, namely, the Romulan
Tal-Shiar. Since the Romulans seem to be less of an issue on DS9 (the
watchdog [sometimes] guarding the cloak excepted), the writers created
the Obsidian Order within the more omnipresent Cardassians to supplant it.
The episode where Kira is surgically altered to become a Cardassian seemed
to be a partial ripoff of Troi becoming a Romulan on Face of the Enemy.
Just my $0.02
--
Reality.............................................. Bruce James Robert Linley
Internet....................... lin...@netcom.com (lin...@aol.com if you must)
Postal......................... 3675 S. Rainbow Blvd. #107, Las Vegas, NV 89103
Amateur Radio................................. KE6EQZ (-.- . -.... . --.- --..)
Rand al'Thor
> I always thought that maybe the Romulas put something special on this
>cloak such that they can detect it all times! I mean, if I was the Romulan
>in charge I would definitely put some safety measures on that cloak such
>that I could track it in case it falls into enemy hands.
Maybe that's why the antiproton beam worked: the Romulans gave
them a faulty cloaking device!
/
:@-) Scott
\
Blanche Cohen
Roger:
> As a terrorist, she's been forced to cut off all the softer
>emotions, which, for her, included compassion, care and tenderness. It's
>only been in the last three years that she's found it POSSIBLE to be a
>loving person, so it isn't out of the question for her to get silly and
>start to form intimate links with every appropriate sentient in sight...
Why am I laughing hysterically at this paragraph?
Sure. Next we'll see her as the Dabo girl? (*g*)
Robert Oliver
>news that Sisko was in charge of the shipyard that built the Defiant.
>Silly, you say? I don't agree; he had to be doing *something* between
>Wolf-359 and taking over DS9, and if he helped BUILD the Defiant it would
>help explain why Starfleet was so amazingly willing to let him have it and
>keep it this year. I don't know if that line was a quick throwaway to
>justify Sisko going to Cardassia this show or meant to have more thought
>behind it, but I think it seals a plot question rather than creating one.
It was previously established that Sisko was stationed at Utopia Planitia
following the destruction of USS Saratoga. I think it is safe to assume
that this was the shipyard that built Defiant. As an eyewitness to the
power of the Borg, it also makes sense that he helped design Defiant.
>I don't buy that the Defiant still has a cloak. At all. More
>specifically, the Romulans were (rightfully!) paranoid enough about it that
>they only gave it to them to find the Founders *and* only with T'Rul along
>to keep it company. Given that we've seen no sign of her, it strikes me as
>a very convenient claim to say that "oh, yes, we've still got it; we just
>haven't used it lately." I don't swallow it. I'm prepared to live with it
>for the sake of the story in this instance, but I don't like it at all.
Agreed. They could at least have a Romulan extra (non-speaking,
cheap acter/actress) standing in the back pretending to monitor/protect the
cloaking device even if they don't use it.
>-- Oh, my, but the Defiant's battles with the Cardassian ships were fun to
>watch. Nice staging, nice effects ... everything. (On the other hand, the
>effects got very glitch-ridden when the Defiant pulled up alongside the
>final ship to surrender; oops.)
I have one serious problem with Defiant's design--there is no airlock in
the "nose" of the ship. The nose contains a probe/torpedo launcher and the
deflector. How does anyone walk from the DS9 airlock into the ship?
>NEXT WEEK:
>
>The Loooooove Station. Ooch, but this one looks like it's gonna hurt...
It's going to do much more than hurt.
--
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Launchpad is an experimental internet BBS. The views of its users do not
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Brad Books
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu writes:
>Then, we had the big revelation: Riker's sideburns are removable! :-)
>Er ... sorry. What I mean is, it's not Will, but Tom. Since I'd been
>spoiled beforehand, that fact was no great surprise to me -- but what did
>come as a surprise for the rest of the show was how different Frakes seems
>without those sideburns. Frakes also did a good job playing
>Tom-as-not-Will, and deserves a lot of the credit for that, but just that
>one slight visual change made a vast difference as well. Most peculiar.
I noticed this as well. I heard Rick Berman mention once that when Frakes
grew the beard in between the 1st and 2nd seasons of TNG, he liked it so
much that he decided to make it part of the character of Riker. I guess they've
done that in an incredibly subtle way.
>-- Oh, my, but the Defiant's battles with the Cardassian ships were fun to
>watch. Nice staging, nice effects ... everything. (On the other hand, the
>effects got very glitch-ridden when the Defiant pulled up alongside the
>final ship to surrender; oops.)
Ah, so that wasn't just my TV! I was slightly irked that my station had loused
up its transmission right during a cool FX shot, but I guess it was a glitch in
the episode all along.
Brad
Dennis F. Hefferman
|WARNING: This article has spoilers for DS9's "Defiant" inside. Anyone
|compromising the security of these spoilers will be held over for trial.
|So there.
|
|"Defiant", for the first time, dealt with some of the _implications_ of
|having this Kill-o-Zap warship hanging around the station -- both within
|and outside the Federation. That alone helped pay for the price of
From what we saw, a squadron of Defiant-class ships could knock over
the Cardassians in a week. Put this one next to the subspace transporter in
the "Unsuccessful Research Projects" Hall of Shame.
|After that, we had the combination of two factors that made "The Maquis"
|such a strong two-parter last year: the Maquis themselves, and Gul Dukat.
|Both were very much up to snuff; Dukat seemed less canny a strategist than
|usual (excluding "Civil Defense", which appears to bear no relation to
Dukat never struck me as being that good a strategist. He ended up
on the losing end of a round of Management Poker in "The Maquis" after all.
"Civil Defense" involved him defending his own turf with a computer program
he had years to work on...and he STILL got trumped.
|One intriguing bit of backstory that came out of all this, as well, was the
|news that Sisko was in charge of the shipyard that built the Defiant.
|Silly, you say? I don't agree; he had to be doing *something* between
|Wolf-359 and taking over DS9, and if he helped BUILD the Defiant it would
|help explain why Starfleet was so amazingly willing to let him have it and
|keep it this year. I don't know if that line was a quick throwaway to
|justify Sisko going to Cardassia this show or meant to have more thought
|behind it, but I think it seals a plot question rather than creating one.
I believe a review of the premier episode will show that Sisko was
stationed at the Utopia Planitia spaceyard on/near Mars, and this has already
been established to be the Federation's #1 Place for New Ships to be Built.
Having him suddenly turn out to be an engineering major was a bit harder to
swallow...he's been in command all the time we've seen him.
|I don't buy that the Defiant still has a cloak. At all. More
|specifically, the Romulans were (rightfully!) paranoid enough about it that
|they only gave it to them to find the Founders *and* only with T'Rul along
|to keep it company. Given that we've seen no sign of her, it strikes me as
|a very convenient claim to say that "oh, yes, we've still got it; we just
|haven't used it lately." I don't swallow it. I'm prepared to live with it
|for the sake of the story in this instance, but I don't like it at all.
Oh, I'll buy it. The Romulans have been getting soft lately, and the
Federation is so trustworthy on treaty violations that the last time one of
them built a cloaking device he got arrested for it. It should probably have
a pretty secure power switch only operable by the Romulan observer, but then
again every security device we've ever seen has been bypassable with a
chewing gun wrapper and a Macgyver-class Swiss army knife.
This was indeed the best episode of the season...which is sad,
because it was really, incredibly mediocre.
|NEXT WEEK:
|
|The Loooooove Station. Ooch, but this one looks like it's gonna hurt...
I normally like Lwaxana Troi, but something tells me I should keep
some thorazine around to put myself in the proper mood to appreciate this
coming masterpiece.
--
Dennis Francis Heffernan IRC: FuzyLogic heff...@pegasus.montclair.edu
Montclair State University #include <disclaim.h> Computer Science/Philosophy
"They feed you on the guilt to keep you humble, keep you low/Some man and myth
they made up a thousand years ago." -- "Silent Legacy", Melissa Etheridge
just another theatre geek
>
>Roger:
>> As a terrorist, she's been forced to cut off all the softer
>>emotions, which, for her, included compassion, care and tenderness. It's
>>only been in the last three years that she's found it POSSIBLE to be a
>>loving person, so it isn't out of the question for her to get silly and
>>start to form intimate links with every appropriate sentient in sight...
>Why am I laughing hysterically at this paragraph?
Wellll....because it >IS< silly....
>Sure. Next we'll see her as the Dabo girl? (*g*)
Well, I just thought it would be funny to see the hardest edged
person get into the most trouble with their feelings...
Blanche Cohen
>>> As a terrorist, she's been forced to cut off all the softer
>>>emotions, which, for her, included compassion, care and tenderness. It's
>>>only been in the last three years that she's found it POSSIBLE to be a
>>>loving person, so it isn't out of the question for her to get silly and
>>>start to form intimate links with every appropriate sentient in sight...
Blanche:
>>Why am I laughing hysterically at this paragraph?
Roger:
> Wellll....because it >IS< silly....
>
Blanche:
>>Sure. Next we'll see her as the Dabo girl? (*g*)
>
> Well, I just thought it would be funny to see the hardest edged
>person get into the most trouble with their feelings...
No Roger - that's NEXT week. This week, she looked like she was enjoying it
too much.
Scott Sherter
>In <3b95ji$7...@gap.cco.caltech.edu> tly...@alumni.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
[major clipping of stuff]
>|NEXT WEEK:
>|
>|The Loooooove Station. Ooch, but this one looks like it's gonna hurt...
>
>
> I normally like Lwaxana Troi, but something tells me I should keep
>some thorazine around to put myself in the proper mood to appreciate this
>coming masterpiece.
I agree. The scenes for next week look suspiciously like the TNG episode
in its early season (can't remeber the exact name of the episode) when
an airborne virus made the enitre crew *drunken* with lust for one
another. Sigh -- here's hoping the DS9 writers will come up with
something a bit more original.......
Scott
Cook Thomas W
: As an eyewitness to the
: power of the Borg, it also makes sense that he helped design Defiant.
I can see it now (Sisko franticly pacing up and down a the store room of
ship plans):
"No. Big guns. We need *bigger* guns!"
Thomas.
Kenward Chin
>compromising the security of these spoilers will be held over for trial.
>So there.
>
>-- Oh, my, but the Defiant's battles with the Cardassian ships were fun to
>watch. Nice staging, nice effects ... everything. (On the other hand, the
>effects got very glitch-ridden when the Defiant pulled up alongside the
>final ship to surrender; oops.)
The special effects "glitch" seemed to be the flicker of the Kraxon's shields
being extended around the Defiant. Or am I missing something?
>Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
>tly...@alumni.caltech.edu
Kenward Chin
--
Disclaimer: Since transmission of this article is by imperfect methods, there
may well be discrepancies between what is above and what was
intended. Therefore, please edit this article to read as you wish.
Mathew Englander
>compromising the security of these spoilers will be held over for trial.
>So there.
>One intriguing bit of backstory that came out of all this, as well, was the
>news that Sisko was in charge of the shipyard that built the Defiant.
>Silly, you say? I don't agree; he had to be doing *something* between
>Wolf-359 and taking over DS9, and if he helped BUILD the Defiant it would
>help explain why Starfleet was so amazingly willing to let him have it and
>keep it this year. I don't know if that line was a quick throwaway to
>justify Sisko going to Cardassia this show or meant to have more thought
>behind it, but I think it seals a plot question rather than creating one.
It's actually not a new revelation that Sisko was at the Utopia-Planitia
Shipyards before taking the DS9 assignment; this was mentioned in "Emissary"
(the DS9 series premiere). However, it seemed a bit strange to me that in
"The Search, Part I", when Nechayev was explaining the provenance of the
Defiant, no one would have commented on Sisko's connection to it.
>As for the Tom/Kira side of the plot, it also worked pretty well. This was
>very much reminiscent of some of the Sisko/Hudson scenes in "The Maquis" --
>but given the circumstances, that's partly unavoidable, and I'm betting the
>rest was intentional. The fact that we had Kira the former terrorist
>lecturing Tom the terrorist wannabe was also put to *very* smart use here;
I agree with this, but I was disturbed by the blatant plot contrivance that
brought her onto the bridge in the first place. Riker said something like
"We'd all be happier to have you where we can keep an eye on you"; but it
would make much more sense to put her in the brig -- and let the forcefields
keep an eye on her.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mathew Englander mat...@unixg.ubc.ca
_____________________________________________________________________________
no one of consequence
]I agree with this, but I was disturbed by the blatant plot contrivance that
]brought her onto the bridge in the first place. Riker said something like
]"We'd all be happier to have you where we can keep an eye on you"; but it
]would make much more sense to put her in the brig -- and let the forcefields
]keep an eye on her.
Does the Defiant *have* a brig? It doesn't have much of a sickbay or
anything.. Wondering if the brig was also scrapped from the blueprints or
something.
--
|Patrick Chester (aka: claypigeon, Sinapus) wol...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu|
|Member Lovely Angels Fan Club/Fire Support Team/Cleanup Crew |
|"Weep for the future, Na'Toth. Weep for us all..." G'Kar, "Revelations"|
|Wittier remarks always come to mind just after sending your article....|
Arthur L Keenan
Cardy ship's deffensive systtems when the Enterprise did it faster than
that? They blasted a Jem'Hadar ship to hell, but it took a spread of
torps and full phasers to knock out Cardassian deffenses.
Joe Spampinato
My own spoiler space here:
> As for the Tom/Kira side of the plot, it also worked pretty well. This was
> very much reminiscent of some of the Sisko/Hudson scenes in "The Maquis" --
> but given the circumstances, that's partly unavoidable, and I'm betting the
> rest was intentional. The fact that we had Kira the former terrorist
> lecturing Tom the terrorist wannabe was also put to *very* smart use here;
> I certainly bought into what she was saying, which worried me. :-) Tom's
> plan, while ill-conceived and impractical, seems so *utterly* Riker a move
> that it made perfect sense for the character.
It would've been nice if Riker's crew had more dialogue defending their captain -
since they obviously believed in the mission as much as he did. It would have
made Kira's points seem a lot less self-righteous to have Riker come to
realize that she was right while his crew is defending him - much better drama
that way. As it was, I thought it was a little predictable and found the
dialog a little corny. Kira's observations reduced Riker to a petty, strutting
egomaniac as opposed to a character truly committed to something he believed in
struggling with his ego at the same time.
>
> And the ending? Worked for me, for a nice change of pace. As usual, it
> seemed a bit too brief, but not by much -- since this story really was, in
> many ways, a Tom Riker-centered piece rather than any of the regulars, it
> makes some sense to end the show right after Tom leaves the spotlight. I'm
> satisfied: both with it and with the implications of the scans he made.
> (Boy, won't Dukat be pissed if it turns out Tom never got close enough to
> get hard data? The death sentence might get rethought, even. :-) )
I suppose if you see it as a Riker centered piece it's acceptable. I just felt
like it could have been done better. It would have been nice to see more
interaction between Frakes and the cast, but hey - the characters are
relative strangers aren't they?
There just seemed to me to be poor dramatic development of the plot points.
Kind of like the end of a roller coaster ride - the cars just jerk to a stop.
So did the show.
Still a good episode, though.
I wonder where they'll go with "getting him out of there."
I'd like to see both Riker and Ro's characters continue
to appear and develop on DS9. Wouldn't Ro be happy to
have Tom Riker?
--
--------------------------------------------------------
Joe Spampinato sp...@alias.com
Memo: The beatings will continue until morale improves.
--------------------------------------------------------
Dennis F. Hefferman
|I agree. The scenes for next week look suspiciously like the TNG episode
|in its early season (can't remeber the exact name of the episode) when
|an airborne virus made the enitre crew *drunken* with lust for one
|another. Sigh -- here's hoping the DS9 writers will come up with
|something a bit more original.......
Too bad they didn't. They just copied a different TNG episode (not
mentioned for the benefit of the unspoiled).
I guess we'll just have to settle for the first two seasons of DS9
having been some of the best among televised SF, and abandon all hope for the
future seasons.
Nadia Dez
: Yeah, but how come it took so much phaser fire and photons to disable *1*
: that? They blasted a Jem'Hadar ship to hell, but it took a spread of
: torps and full phasers to knock out Cardassian deffenses.
Remember that these seam to be new ships. It seams that the cardassian
are investing a lot in the military which is why they are catching up.
Maybe the Jem Haddar have a good offence and poor defense.
Nadia.
Robert Oliver
Perhaps more importantly these were ships operated by the Obsidian Order.
Dukat also mentioned that they were faster than any ships of that class
that he had ever seen. I'd say the order acquired these vessles and made
modifications to them to make them more powerful. Looks like the
Cardassians worst enemy might be themselves. Hmmm...a Cardassian civil war
perhaps?
Paul Manson
I'm looking for copies of Tim Lynch's reviews for "Second Skin" and
"Civil Defence".
Any kind soul who can post them or Email them to me directly will be
revered for every as a generous caring person.
Thank you.
Live Long and Prosper, Peace and Long Life
<= PAUL S. MANSON - CRS ONLINE - TORONTO CANADA =>
Internet paul....@canrem.com < = > fidonet 1:229/15
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