Lynch's Spoiler Review, Part 2: DS9 Season 3
Timothy W. Lynch
for DS9. Part 1 of the article is episode-by-episode comments. --TWL]
II. DS9 Season 3 -- General Commentary |
----------------------------------------+
This season of DS9, as you might have been able to tell from my
show-by-show take, is not one I found all that satisfying. I've been
watching Trek in all its forms for about two decades now, and
reviewing it since the second season of TNG; and sad as it is to say,
rarely have I been so disheartened about the way a series is going.
When DS9's second season came to a close, I was amazingly
optimistic. The season had been terrific; there were a lot of interesting
balls hanging in the air, from the Maquis to the Bajoran/Cardassian
situation to the Kai to the Dominion; most of the regular characters had
managed to grow and change to the point where most of them were
quite interesting to watch react to new situations; and on the whole,
most aspects of the production were clicking along just fine.
This season, that has not been the case -- and as much as I hate to
point fingers, I think the majority of the weakness has been in the
writing. The regular cast has been fine (with the possible exception of
Terry Farrell, who tends not to invest Dax with the necessary depth a
significant chunk of the time), and the directing has also usually been
pretty good. I think the show has changed in its conception in many
significant ways, and that the show has not yet managed to figure out
where it's going as a result.
Consider: the Maquis situation, brought up so nicely last season, has
been virtually ignored entirely here. The only significant use of it was
in "Defiant", which was still primarily a Tom Riker show, and the
Maquis were barely mentioned apart from in that one show. Now, I
realize that the Maquis as a concept were primarily brought in to
provide a backdrop for "Voyager", but most of the Maquis is *not in*
the Delta Quadrant; it's still in the demilitarized zone, and the
Federation and Cardassia still have to deal with them. So why aren't
we seeing that?
Then, there's the Bajoran situation. The internal Bajoran dissent and
schisms are still being dealt with, at least on some occasions, and
that's good (though more on it shortly). However, the
Bajoran/Cardassian angle is virtually *gone*; swept out of existence
by the shoehorned treaty between the two. I'm not opposed to the
treaty itself; had it been justified, dealt with properly, and a path to
future good stories, I'd be all for it. However, it wasn't either of the
first two, and aside from "Destiny" (which was quite good), it hasn't
really had much of an effect either. The treaty feels more like a way of
avoiding future Cardassian-centered work than anything else, and that
simply does not ring true with me.
I'd also note, however, that the religious side of the Bajoran issue is
pretty much a dead issue as well now that Bareil has been killed off.
With Bareil alive, we had a way to deal with problems in the Vedek
Assembly; with him dead, all we have is Kai Winn to make
pronouncements -- so unless something significant changes, there's
apparently no longer any visible dispute within the Bajoran religious
community.
And the Dominion? Oh, we've seen plenty of the Dominion. Gobs of
it, in fact. And frankly, I think that may be just the problem. I
worried aloud in last year's review that the "Threat From Beyond the
Wormhole!" might be overused to the detriment of everything that had
made DS9 unique up to that point. Unfortunately, that seems to be
very much part and parcel of what has happened.
Another thing that's happened to DS9 a lot this year is something that
happened to TNG in its last few seasons as well: technobabble
galore. It doesn't work any better here than it did there -- in fact, it
works less so for me. Part of that's because I'm so sick of it that I've
almost unconsciously started to tune it out, and part of that's because
the setting itself is a lot less conducive to "gizmo episodes" than the
Enterprise was. Regardless of why it doesn't work, however, the fact
remains that it doesn't -- and as such, even excellent shows like
"Destiny" are turned into less than what they could be. ["Visionary",
on the other hand, did a reasonable job on that front: there really
wasn't all *that* much in the way of technobabble, and what there
was was used for a purpose, namely pointing the finger at the
Romulans to blame for the mess.]
Another factor that's jumped way, _way_ up this year is the use of
Ferengi for comedy-centered shows. In past years, we've had "The
Nagus" or "Rules of Acquisition" -- one Ferengi-centered show per
year. "The Nagus" worked fine; "Rules", in my opinion, didn't.
This year, though, we had "The House of Quark", which strikes me
in retrospect as a Ferengi-centered show pretending to be a Klingon-
centered show; "Prophet Motive", a Ferengi show using the Prophets
(the *Prophets*, for heaven's sake) as window-dressing; and "Family
Business". And that's not even counting the Nog-centered B plots
that were rather pervasive in the series as well.
I have to ask: to *what* is this sudden interest in the Ferengi due? I
mean, they've been entertaining from time to time, yes; but "if some is
good, more is better" strikes me as a Ferengi philosophy in itself, not
a particularly good philosophy for Trek. Has Trek finally turned into
*such* the golden goose that shows about money-grubbing are
considered entertainment? (Based on the publication of the Rules of
Acquisition by Pocket, it would seem so.)
This isn't to say the season hasn't had its high points -- it certainly
did, and the Garak 2-parter is up there with Trek's very best.
However, I've noticed a somewhat disturbing trend:
The most prolific writing team for DS9 this season was that of Ira
Steven Behr (now running the show, I'm told, with the departure of
Michael Piller) and Robert Hewitt Wolfe. They provided the story for
nine of the episodes this season, and the teleplay for one other; Wolfe
also wrote one episode without Behr ("Second Skin") and Behr co-
wrote the story for "Fascination" without Wolfe, giving us a total of
12 episodes out of 26 this season that they were responsible for.
Of those, only two scored above a 7: Wolfe's "Second Skin", and
part 1 of "Past Tense". The average of their shows is in the mid to
high 5's: substantially lower than the season as a whole, and thus
quite a bit less than the remainder of the shows.
On the flip side, there were five shows (only five, depressingly) this
season that were 9's and higher: "Destiny", "Visionary", both parts
of the Garak story, and "Shakaar". Four of the five drew on DS9's
core strengths of political, cultural, and religious conflict; but more
worryingly, all of the three one-shots were freelance stories, so far as
I can tell.
This suggests, to me, that a shake-up is needed. I don't mean to
imply that the current crew lacks talent: based on their previous work,
I know that's not the case. (I also have vivid memories of Peter Allan
Fields' early work: yes, he did tremendous jobs later, but he also did
"Cost of Living" for TNG.) I do, though, think that Behr, Wolfe,
Moore, and Echevarria might be overextending themselves a little
(Moore in particular, given that he's been with Trek for six years as a
writer at this point *and* is co-writing the next TNG feature along
with his work on DS9).
That said, I hope next season is a turnaround. The addition of Worf
to the mix could be very good, very bad, or something in between.
As with all else, it depends on the use to which he's put; and I'm not
making any plans to judge it this early. (My review of next year's
opener, on the other hand, should wax lengthy on the subject. :-) )
Well, if you've made it this far, congratulations; I'm done. (And there
was much rejoicing...) A season-end review of "Voyager" will be
around sometime in the next couple of weeks (certainly before season
2 starts :-) ); as for DS9, see you in about two months.
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu
"So, do you want to go back to your shop, and _hem pants_ -- or shall
we pick up where we left off?"
-- Enabran Tain
--
Copyright 1995, 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.
I am me.
quoting specific instances (I have the worlds worst newsreader), but I
felt I had to make a few comments.
1. Personally, I loved "House of Quark". I thought the humor worked
incredibly well, and the story built well upon what we know of both
Ferengi and Klingon culture. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I'm a
huge Mary Kay Adams fan :)
2. Personally, I loathed "The Adversary". Giving the entire crew
lobotomies just to make the premise work and have the episode stretch to
an hour is just wrong (they used the same idea in TNG's "Homeward". Ugh.)
Everytime they confronted a situation where they knew for a fact that
the changeling was present, they all froze. They didn't shoot. They
just stood around and waited for it to escape. Very bad.
3. I liked Fascination. Sure, it was a comedic farce with the trappings
of DS9 around it, but that didn't make it any less funny.
4. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. "Cost of Living" is one
of my favorite TNG episodes.
I was going to go on about the horrendous idea of putting Worf on DS9,
but I think I've said enough.
- Jason