[DS9] Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Empok Nor"
Timothy W. Lynch
WARNING: Long-abandoned spoilers await for DS9's "Empok
Nor".
In brief: Primarily a what's-lurking-in-the-shadows tale, but full
marks for atmospherics.
======
Written by: Hans Beimler (teleplay); Bryan Fuller (story)
Directed by: Michael Vejar
Brief summary: O'Brien leads a team including Garak and Nog to a
supposedly abandoned Cardassian station for supplies, but the
mission quickly becomes more complicated when it's not so
abandoned as they thought.
======
"Empok Nor" was a rarity for DS9: it was a more-or-less completely
standalone story, with no pretensions of being anything deeper than it
was or carrying any hidden messages about the characters. It did
what it wanted to and then it relinquished the stage. A steady diet of
that isn't something I'd really value (bearing too much relation to
cookie-cutter television), but it makes for an interesting change once in
a while.
Given that, "Empok Nor" is a rather easier show to review than many
other shows have been of late. It wasn't trying to do anything earth-
shattering with characterization as "Children of Time" did, nor bring
back long-awaited characters such as was the case with "Blaze of
Glory". Nope -- "Empok Nor" was basically a horror-movie, killer-
on-the-loose tale, and as such can be easily broken down into how
well it set up the problem, whether the "jeopardy" situations were
realistic, and how the resolutions worked.
Unfortunately, even though "Empok Nor" is an interesting change of
pace as a standalone story, it's also introducing elements that we really
ought to have heard of before. If DS9 has been having a problem
picking up spare Cardassian parts, you'd think we might have heard
about it sometime in the last five years -- and if there's another station
around to cannibalize, one wonders why that hasn't been done at
some time in the past as well. The idea of "we need these parts, so
let's check out this station over there" is fine, but it felt like a slightly
artificially induced situation inviting an artificial solution. Given the
situation, however, heading to Empok Nor makes sense, and the
makeup of the team felt right as well -- most particularly the necessity
of bringing Garak along. The idea that Garak was needed to help
disarm Cardassian booby-traps makes a lot of sense, and images of
Garak in an environmental suit doing just that helped lend the idea
even more credence.
After that, the story settled down into "there's someone else on the
station, and they're killing off the heroes" mode. I rather like the way
it was introduced -- seeing the soldiers revive, and then Nog
happening to be in the right place to see the runabout destroyed. That
felt effective, and quietly ruthless in the typical Cardassian fashion.
The question of "well, why are these soldiers here?" was a valid one
as well, and it was good to see it asked but not entirely answered.
The rest of the "duel against the soldiers" was entirely predictable,
unfortunately. I mean, really -- if a team comes on board consisting
of O'Brien, Garak, Nog, and four other people whom we've never
seen before, anyone betting on the other four coming out alive is
someone with way too much money on his or her hands. In addition,
anyone who's even *heard of* a "killer inside the house" horror
movie could pick out the circumstances of most of the deaths pretty
trivially -- as soon as someone separates or gets distracted, boom,
that's it. As such, about all the middle third of the episode had going
for it was atmosphere and what characterization it could give to the
cannon fodder.
Fortunately, both of those worked fairly well. Despite their limited
screen time, most of the four guests -- engineers Pechetti and Boq'ta
plus security officers Stolzoff and Amaro -- had distinct personalities
that came across pretty well. (Amaro may have been the one
exception; I didn't get much of a sense of what he was like.) In
addition, Michael Vejar has always done well with tense, cramped
situations, both in several B5 episodes ("Convictions" being an
example) and in DS9's "The Darkness and the Light" earlier this
season -- and all of that served to distract the viewer pretty well from
the fact that the story was in a section it had to get through.
Once the drug-affected Garak stabbed Amaro, however, the last
section of the story kicked into gear. To an extent, there's not much
of a shift from "team vs. unknown enemy" to "team vs. turncoat
enemy" in terms of the plot -- after all, it's not likely that any of
O'Brien, Garak, or Nog is actually going to die, particularly O'Brien.
What made this more interesting than the earlier section is that we got
to see *both* sides of the strategizing rather than simply that of the
"good guys", and that Andrew Robinson got to play Garak as a bit
more twisted than usual (which says a lot).
The angle of Cardassian xenophobia and O'Brien's reputation as "the
hero of Setlik Three" was an interesting twist to put on it, and
certainly gave Garak a good bit of history to toss back in O'Brien's
face -- but somehow, given that we haven't heard anything about
O'Brien's time there or any sign of hostility towards Cardassians in
years, it felt a little forced. (I was also disappointed that during
Garak's taunts about O'Brien being a predator and a killer, we didn't
get some sort of reference to last year's phenomenal "Hard Time".)
The dialogue was top-notch, not surprisingly; Hans Beimler's usually
good with dialogue, and it's tough to go too far wrong with both
Colm Meaney and Andrew J. Robinson in the same room. Even so,
though, I couldn't quite buy into the emotional side of the story, just
because O'Brien *has* proven so often that he's not a killer (such as
in "Hard Time").
The practical side of the episode's last third also had a problem,
despite being interesting. That problem is Nog. I don't have any
problem with Nog being along; he seems fine as an assistant to
O'Brien, and didn't seem particularly annoying to either the salvage
team or the viewer. No, the problem I have is with Garak's treatment
of Nog -- after Garak's brutal killing of Amaro and his general
interest in getting at O'Brien, I see absolutely no reason why Garak
should take Nog hostage instead of just killing him in front of
O'Brien. If he wants to make O'Brien suffer and bring out the urge to
kill, *revenge* is the way to go, not a hostage situation. As such,
Nog brought a dose of dramatic silliness to the tension, which I
didn't care for. (I would much have preferred that the two of them
confront Garak, and that Garak somehow grab or wound Nog *then*,
bringing the final confrontation right on the heels of the abduction
rather than having to use the abduction to somehow "legitimize" the
confrontation.)
O'Brien's gamble, however, was nice. I'd guessed that he had
something like that in mind, given how carefully he laid down the
phaser and the tricorder -- even so, finding a way to rig the phaser
to explode when properly triggered was an appropriate solution for
someone who claimed he wasn't a soldier any more, but an engineer.
It's also something that Garak should never have fallen for under
ordinary circumstances, but a Garak crazed by blood-lust and convinced
that O'Brien was the same way made for easier pickings. I rather
liked the final confrontation between them, as a result -- it made it
clear that O'Brien was no match for Garak physically, but found a way
to out-think him.
The final scene back on the station, despite being a reset-button
scene in the sense that there's not really going to be any major
fallout from O'Brien's and Garak's attempts to kill each other,
nonetheless rang true and made sense. Given that Garak certainly
wasn't in his right mind, this is one time when it seems *reasonable*
that there won't be any major fallout in terms of long-range
consequences, perhaps not even emotionally. Both O'Brien and Garak
seemed to realize that the situation was necessary at the time and
doesn't really reflect their true natures, and decided to leave it at
that. For once, that's not a problem.
Some shorter notes, both good and bad:
-- Michael Vejar's past work wasn't only noticeable in the "cramped
and tense" scenes; the shot of O'Brien and Garak talking to each other
in the infirmary through a window strongly echoed a similar
Londo/Lennier scene in B5's "Convictions". Even if I hadn't known
Vejar directed this show, that shot might have made me guess.
-- A few technical questions. First, I'm wondering how the
communicators managed to work, since I believe they're supposed to
need a power source. Second, given that it was established earlier
that tricorders weren't working, I'm wondering how O'Brien got his to
function with the phaser in the final battle with Garak.
-- Garak also refers to the soldiers as potentially being an idea of
"the High Command", which strikes me as a very Klingon reference.
"The Central Command" makes more sense if you're talking Cardassian
authorities.
That about covers it. I'd have to call "Empok Nor" a somewhat more
shallow show than has been par for DS9's course, lately -- but if you
can accept that and put aside a couple of dramatic necessities (the
hostage-taking and the sudden existence of Empok Nor in the first
place, for instance), the show works as an hour-long ride.
In sum, then:
Writing: A few standard cliches, and I didn't fully buy into the
emotional issues -- but for what it was, it mostly worked.
Directing: No problems at all; I've no idea how Vejar would do with
something sweeping and uplifting, but give him something
tense and cramped and he's fine. :-)
Acting: Need you ask? It was primarily Meaney and Robinson; that
statement is close to sufficient in and of itself.
OVERALL: 7, I think; solid for what it meant to be, but not much
more.
NEXT WEEK: A rerun of the forgettable "The Ascent", followed by
a rerun of the much superior "Rapture". See you in three weeks.
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
tly...@alumni.caltech.edu <*>
"If I'd been any closer to that phaser, it would have killed me."
"Well, don't take this the wrong way, but -- that *was* the plan."
-- Garak and O'Brien
--
Copyright 1997, 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.
David Spiro
Timothy W. Lynch wrote:
> despite being interesting. That problem is Nog. I don't have any
> problem with Nog being along; he seems fine as an assistant to
> O'Brien, and didn't seem particularly annoying to either the salvage
> team or the viewer. No, the problem I have is with Garak's treatment
> of Nog -- after Garak's brutal killing of Amaro and his general
> interest in getting at O'Brien, I see absolutely no reason why Garak
> should take Nog hostage instead of just killing him in front of
> O'Brien. If he wants to make O'Brien suffer and bring out the urge to
> kill, *revenge* is the way to go, not a hostage situation. As such,
> Nog brought a dose of dramatic silliness to the tension, which I
> didn't care for. (I would much have preferred that the two of them
> confront Garak, and that Garak somehow grab or wound Nog *then*,
> bringing the final confrontation right on the heels of the abduction
> rather than having to use the abduction to somehow "legitimize" the
> confrontation.)
>
2 points here. First, and perhaps I missed something somewhere along the
way, but why is Nog, a cadet here at the station at all? Is he on some
type of internship from the Academy? Is he on a summer break perhaps?.
I'm a little unclear on this point. Second, as to the choice of holding
him hostage, I think that worked perfectly well considering Garak's
belief that this was similar to the Cardassian board game he was so fond
of. It seemed to me to be just another way of baiting O'Brien, to get
him to play the "game" so to speak. Just as Garak tried to goad him into
playing the game on the runabout enroute to Empok Nor, his taking of Nog
hostage was along the same vein, at least in Garak's mind. To him, this
was nothing more than an extension of that game.
--
David C. Spiro
bage...@ix.netcom.com
****************************************************
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by, and it
has made all the difference." - Robert Frost
****************************************************
James D Thompson
Timothy W. Lynch wrote:
> That about covers it. I'd have to call "Empok Nor" a somewhat more
> shallow show than has been par for DS9's course, lately -- but if you
> can accept that and put aside a couple of dramatic necessities (the
> hostage-taking and the sudden existence of Empok Nor in the first
> place, for instance), the show works as an hour-long ride.
DS9/Terok Nor-style Cardassian stations have been mentioned before
(maybe in one of the books, though, I don't recall), and there was a
line that established Empok Nor as being abandoned about a year ago;
so the use of another station for parts isn't that contrived.
David Thompson
Jeff Jacques
David Spiro (bage...@ix.netcom.com) writes:
{snip Lynch stuff}
>
> 2 points here. First, and perhaps I missed something somewhere along the
> way, but why is Nog, a cadet here at the station at all? Is he on some
> type of internship from the Academy? Is he on a summer break perhaps?.
> I'm a little unclear on this point.
I think Nog is on some sort of internship-type arrangement. If you recall
in the previous week's episode ("Blaze of Glory") he was working in
Security. In "Empok Nor", he was working with the Engineering team.
Maybe the Academy sends its cadets into environments where they can try
out different career fields, to see which one they like the best
and want to pursue on a more permanent basis.
--Jeff
--
************************************************************************
"You do have a lovely daughter. She must take after her mother."
-- Garak to Dukat, "In Purgatory's Shadow" --
************************************************************************
David E. Sluss
David Spiro (bage...@ix.netcom.com) asked:
DS>[W]hy is Nog, a cadet here at the station at all? Is he on some
DS>type of internship from the Academy? Is he on a summer break perhaps?.
DS>I'm a little unclear on this point.
Jeff Jacques <co...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
JJ>I think Nog is on some sort of internship-type arrangement. [...]
JJ>Maybe the Academy sends its cadets into environments where they can try
JJ>out different career fields, to see which one they like the best
JJ>and want to pursue on a more permanent basis.
That's exactly right, and is explained in the B-story of "The Ascent,"
which is rerunning this week.
--
\\ David E. Sluss --- A.K.A. Slugenstein \ SLUGS trivia: \
\\_________email: slu...@pitt.edu_____________\____"Follow the trail"______\
// "I'm impatient with stupidity. My people / Commercial email will be /
// have learned to live without it" - Klaatu / returned to sender in bulk /
Scott B. Hunter
tly...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
[snip]
>Unfortunately, even though "Empok Nor" is an interesting change of
>pace as a standalone story, it's also introducing elements that we really
>ought to have heard of before. If DS9 has been having a problem
>picking up spare Cardassian parts, you'd think we might have heard
>about it sometime in the last five years -- and if there's another station
>around to cannibalize, one wonders why that hasn't been done at
>some time in the past as well. The idea of "we need these parts, so
>let's check out this station over there" is fine, but it felt like a slightly
>artificially induced situation inviting an artificial solution. Given the
Well, 1) the station was only abandoned a year agon, so it wasn't an
option before that, and 2) would anybody in their right mind suggest
an operation which requires you to trust Garak unless absolutely
necessary?
>The angle of Cardassian xenophobia and O'Brien's reputation as "the
>hero of Setlik Three" was an interesting twist to put on it, and
>certainly gave Garak a good bit of history to toss back in O'Brien's
>face -- but somehow, given that we haven't heard anything about
>O'Brien's time there or any sign of hostility towards Cardassians in
>years, it felt a little forced. (I was also disappointed that during
>Garak's taunts about O'Brien being a predator and a killer, we didn't
>get some sort of reference to last year's phenomenal "Hard Time".)
>The dialogue was top-notch, not surprisingly; Hans Beimler's usually
>good with dialogue, and it's tough to go too far wrong with both
>Colm Meaney and Andrew J. Robinson in the same room. Even so,
>though, I couldn't quite buy into the emotional side of the story, just
>because O'Brien *has* proven so often that he's not a killer (such as
>in "Hard Time").
Well, I wouldn't expect that too many details about the "secret" of
"Hard Time" are public (the chief and Bashir knew; MAYBE his
wife). The problems he experienced could be chalked up by anyone else
to being imprisoned for 20 years, and that's not much fodder for
Garak's taunting. Besides, the old "soldier O'Brien" stuff cut so
close to the bone for BOTH men that its easy to see Garak fixating on
it.
>-- Garak also refers to the soldiers as potentially being an idea of
>"the High Command", which strikes me as a very Klingon reference.
>"The Central Command" makes more sense if you're talking Cardassian
>authorities.
That may have been something of a snide remark, given relations
between the two species these days and Garak's contempt for the
current Command...
scott
--
"He felt a rising, choking sense of worship and recognized it for what
it has always been for mankind -- self-respect."
_More_Than_Human_, by Theodore Sturgeon
Timothy J. Lee
|picking up spare Cardassian parts, you'd think we might have heard
|about it sometime in the last five years
Before the Dukat / Dominion coup in Cardassia, what would have
prevented DS9 from purchasing spare parts from Cardassian manufacturers?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Lee timlee@
Unsolicited bulk or commercial email is not welcome. netcom.com
No warranty of any kind is provided with this message.
Timothy W. Lynch
nob...@not.for.email (Timothy J. Lee) writes:
>|picking up spare Cardassian parts, you'd think we might have heard
>|about it sometime in the last five years
>Before the Dukat / Dominion coup in Cardassia, what would have
>prevented DS9 from purchasing spare parts from Cardassian manufacturers?
How quickly they forget. :-) I don't suppose it's worth pointing out
that for the first three seasons of DS9, the Federation and the
Cardassians were not exactly friendly.
For about a year or so, you have a point. For the three years prior
-- no.
Tim Lynch
Christopher B. Stone
In article <5mdbm2$b...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
Timothy W. Lynch <tly...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
>>Before the Dukat / Dominion coup in Cardassia, what would have
>>prevented DS9 from purchasing spare parts from Cardassian manufacturers?
>How quickly they forget. :-) I don't suppose it's worth pointing out
>that for the first three seasons of DS9, the Federation and the
>Cardassians were not exactly friendly.
But that doesn't mean no trade existed whatsoever, does it? And in any
case, perhaps the crew subsisted on DS9's own stock of spare parts for the
first three years.
--
Chris Stone * cbs...@princeton.edu * http://www.princeton.edu/~cbstone
"Isolationism must become a thing of the past." -Harry Truman
rs...@lehigh.edu
In article <5m9fvo$k...@brokk.cs.cornell.edu>, hun...@cs.cornell.edu (Scott B. Hu
Scott, you just gave me a great idea for a story. What if the station had
been abandoned _after_ the Cardassian-Dominion Alliance? What if that drug
they were working had been a *Cardassian* version of the White? Talk about a
freaky story--the Dominion control Cardassia, and then they work on
controlling the Cardassians....
(Your comment about the current Command is what got this going).
rick
"God-schmod, I want my _monkey man_!"
---Bart Simpson
Robert Oliver
> they were working had been a *Cardassian* version of the White? Talk about a
> freaky story--the Dominion control Cardassia, and then they work on
> controlling the Cardassians....
The Dominion already does control Cardassia and the Cardassians...more
or less. It was handed to them by Gul Dukat.
--
Robert Oliver (rol...@mint.net)
Big Country: Steeltown (http://www.mint.net/~roliver/bc-mint.htm)
Usenet: alt.music.big-country
A Guide to the Star Trek Universe
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