[DS9] Cynics Corner Review: "The Siege of AR-558"
David E. Sluss
O
R Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "The Siege of AR-558"
N as reviewed by David E. Sluss
E
R copyright (c) 1998 Tiger Bay Publishing
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[ADMIN] Sorry for the lateness of this review. And apologies in
advance if the reviews of this week's DS9 and Voyager are late, which,
due to the holiday, they may be.
Spoilers ahead!
THE BOTTOM LINE: Say, that was pretty good. There were problems,
natch, but it was a decent outing for DS9, and more importantly,
gentle reader, you won't have to hear me hollering: "Why don't we see
the war!" Well, this week, anyway...
CYNICS CORNER RATING: 8.3
FILLER OF THE WEEK: The teaser scene with Rom auditioning for Vic the
Holosap, of course. It's bad enough to have time sucked away from
"important" episodes by Vic the Holosap musical numbers (c.f. "Fear
for the Profits," "Image in the Sand"), but this scene was beyond the
pale, an unfunny "comedy relief" scene in an episode in which it
didn't fit at all. And while I'm on the subject of Vic the Holosap and
his music, while the song playing while Our Heroes were waiting for
the Jem'Hadar attack made for a nice scene stylistically, I have to
wonder why those Marines, so intent on hearing the enemy approach,
didn't gut Bashir for playing music.
STOCK CHARACTERS OF THE WEEK: Well those Starfleet Marines seemed to
have walked right out of central casting, didn't they? And they might
as well have had "I will die" or "I will survive" stamped onto their
foreheads, as it was pretty obvious who would live and who wouldn't.
Oh, well, at least you could have fun coming up with the isomorphism
between these characters and your favorite "Aliens" marines.
SURPRISE OF THE WEEK: I fully expected to have Avery Brooks going nuts
this week, given the subject matter, but he was fairly reserved and
effective during the siege scenes. If anything, he may have
underplayed it.
SURPRISE OF THE WEEK RUNNER-UP: Ezri was both useful _and_ unannoying
this week. But the writers still seem to be writing for Jadzia; why
else would they be using her as an engineer, when these Marines seemed
to need _counseling_, Ezri's specialty, as much as anything?
MESSAGE OF THE WEEK: Did everyone get the moral of the story, that War
Is Bad, and Real People Get Hurt? I sure hope so, because the "framing
sequence" regarding Sisko's reading of the casualty reports is about
as subtle as a two-by-four to the groin.
STARFLEET UNINTELLIGENCE OF THE WEEK: Considering how important the
Dominion communication gizmo was billed to be, Starfleet doesn't seem
to be adequately defending AR-558. You'd think having a Starship in
orbit would be warranted, so that the Jem'Hadar can't just fly in and
beam troops down with impunity. And you'd think Starfleet would have
better weaponry. Whatever happened to those classic TOS phasers
anyway? Back in the good old days, even a pissant palm phaser could
disintegrate a humanoid, and could stun an entire group on a wide
dispersal setting. That sure would have put an end to this episode in
a hurry.
DOMINION UNINTELLIGENCE OF THE WEEK: The Jem'Hadar's mindless frontal
assault. Has it ever been explained why the Jem'Hadar become visible
before attacking? Even if the phasers don't work when they are
"cloaked" for whatever technobabble reason, an invisible Jem'Hadar
with a good knife could wreak havoc in the Starfleet ranks. They're
not exactly the brains of the Dominion operation, but you'd think they
could come up with a better tactic.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE WEEK: I certainly hope that Nog's injury is
addressed at some point (i.e. I hope that a new bionic leg won't
instantaneously and totally reset it). Otherwise, it's hard to see the
long-term impact of this episode, unless something comes of
Starfleet's possession of the communications array.
NEXT WEEK: Welcome to Dukat-town; have some Kanar!
--
// David E. Sluss (The Cynic) \\ // "I'm impatient with \\
//_________ sluss%dhp.com _________\\//__ stupidity. My people have __\\
\\ Manager of The Cynics Corner: //\\ learned to live without it." //
\\ http://users.dhp.com/~sluss // \\ Klaatu //
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