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shallownessIt took me longer than I intended, of course, but I’ve cracked open the season 2 DVD boxset, and watched the first disc of episodes.
I like that the first three series are interlinked and focus on the Federation/Starfleet’s relationship with Bajor and its factions, plus how it brings in the Cardassians and their recent past with Bajor. Given that this was the start of a new series and they had to reintroduce everyone (I especially felt that when watching The Homecoming, where Julian gets the shortest shrift, and, interestingly, the most alien or non-Federation characters are introduced first ) my only big quibble is that they don’t even mention that Sisko is the Emissary. Otherwise, the first three episodes are interesting individual stories leading directly on to each other.
So, things are unravelling on Bajor and Sisko feels responsible and worried (on the personal front, Jake has started dating. O’Brien’s family life didn’t get any mention this time). When Kira learns a Bajoran resistance leader with a heroic reputation who was thought to be dead is actually on a secret Cardassian prisoner camp, she thinks that his return will stop xenophobic extremists like The Circle (I might have snickered at their graffiti, because oooh, graffiti).
Kira being Kira, she never stopped to think that someone who’d been a POW for ten years might not be able to or wish to step up to be the leader Bajor needs him to be. And, actually, he doesn’t want to, and to prove he isn’t what the Bajorans believe him to be, he tries to runs away. Sisko gives him a ‘buck up’ speech that made it my headcanon that Ben Sisko’s favourite Batman adaptations are by Nolan. His reward and Kira’s for her daring rescue? Li Nalis or whatever his name is gets Kira’s job as liaison on the station and up pops ‘To Be Continued’.
It was a little too broad at times. I also wondered why Kira and O’Brien didn’t use a transporter at one point and Quark’s security was surprisingly lax considering he was divvying up his cash, but Odo-Quark, Quark-Rom and Dax-Kira are nicely re-established.
The Circle is probably my favourite episode of the quartet, just – although they were all of a high quality. It has a ho-hum opening, but the brilliant scene where everyone comes to say goodbye to Kira and cross-talk reached a whole new level, with Bashir being confused – let’s put it down to him coming into the room halfway – and Odo being Really Upset at Kira leaving the station and her way of taking it. All I’m saying here is that Kira matters to Odo. Anyway, her Hot Vedek turns up and invites her to his monastery (the more I think about it, the more inaccurate that seems as a title). The Hot Vedek is hot, but the actor isn’t a patch on Visitor and Fletcher (Winn). The Prophets give Kira a confusing message on Bajor.
Meanwhile, the Circle increases in power, and even Quark is moved to help fight against them. Sisko tries to find out what’s really going on – intrigue! For the Cardassians are secretly providing the Circle with weapons because they want the Federation gone so that they can control the Wormhole. Sisko’s boss is called Admiral Chakotay – any relation? His new first officer is a bit dithery, but well-meaning. (This episode made me go and research what the Prime Directive is. It is not what I thought it was. It is more like ‘when the writers find non-interference to be handy or remember it’s a fundamental principle of the Federation's.’)
Kira is magnificent in this episode. I love how it examines her devoutness at a point in her life where she’s looking for direction. The romance with her Hot Vedek is kicking off. She’s tortured, but it merely makes her willing to take action. Winn is her poison-laced honey-dripping self, willing to make a deal in order to be Kai (spoiler: I automatically typed Kai Winn twice and had to delete it). The idea of a newly liberated people turning to civil war has, again, accumulated resonance there days. I really liked the Sisko-Kira and, obviously, the Quark-Odo moments.
In The Siege, Sisko and several officers remain behind, hidden in the station, as the Bajoran military comes up to claim it for Bajor. They are, basically, living their boyhood dreams until it gets serious, for having shown some flickers of leadership potential, Li Nalis (who doesn’t mean as much to the audience as he does to Bajor) dies heroically to save Sisko.
In my favourite strand, Kira and Dax fly to Bajor to try to bring the proof of Cardassian involvement to the politicians’ attention, meaning we have ladies bantering while showing competence (although after being forced into a crash landing, they need the Hot Vedek’s help). By the end of the episode, quite a lot about Kira’s vision makes sense and the visual of Dax as a Bajoran Vedek comes true. (Farscape made more of this taking advantage of alien iconography – I will always remember Aeryn dressed up in Scorpius’s suit, but there was that episode where everyone was different races too.)
What I love is that there are so many Bajoran agendas going on here. Winn gets away with it because she didn’t commit to Minister Jarrow’s cause in public. Keiko also gets a moment to grumble at O’Brian choosing Sisko/Starfleet over their family, while Molly is cute.
Invasive Procedures is more of a stand-alone. A convenient plasma storm (I don’t recall if the station is prone to them, I’ll have to keep an eye out) means the station is down to a skeleton crew aka the regular cast minus Jake. Thanks to Quark’s greed, the crew is overpowered by four invaders. Two are Klingon mercs (I think one was played by the actor who would go on to play Tuvok) one i a lady with a traditional Star Trek hairstyle, who had a tough enough upbringing to be able to overpower Kira (!!!) and John Glover, which was a nice surprise.
He was playing a Trill who really, really wanted a symbiont. Never mind that transferring Dax into him would kill Jadzia. We never know why he was rejected as a host, but possibly the lack of a moral compass or psychological issues... The operation was remarkably bloodless, but watching Jadzia wake up so alone without Dax was heartrending. Glover was well able to play up the before and after.
Sisko has to manipulate the new being who carries memories of their friendships and The Hairstyle who is feeling like she’s lost her love to do the right thing and Quark manages to redeem himself enough that Kira and Odo don’t throttle him.
There are a few rough edges, like how easily Quark distracts Odo and yet another time when they fail to use the transporter. But it does have poignancy, delving more into what it means to be a Trill, joined or not. At the end, Jadzia Dax, externally a young woman, has even more memories to carry.
So, a consistently good and promising start to the season, I thought.
I like that the first three series are interlinked and focus on the Federation/Starfleet’s relationship with Bajor and its factions, plus how it brings in the Cardassians and their recent past with Bajor. Given that this was the start of a new series and they had to reintroduce everyone (I especially felt that when watching The Homecoming, where Julian gets the shortest shrift, and, interestingly, the most alien or non-Federation characters are introduced first ) my only big quibble is that they don’t even mention that Sisko is the Emissary. Otherwise, the first three episodes are interesting individual stories leading directly on to each other.
So, things are unravelling on Bajor and Sisko feels responsible and worried (on the personal front, Jake has started dating. O’Brien’s family life didn’t get any mention this time). When Kira learns a Bajoran resistance leader with a heroic reputation who was thought to be dead is actually on a secret Cardassian prisoner camp, she thinks that his return will stop xenophobic extremists like The Circle (I might have snickered at their graffiti, because oooh, graffiti).
Kira being Kira, she never stopped to think that someone who’d been a POW for ten years might not be able to or wish to step up to be the leader Bajor needs him to be. And, actually, he doesn’t want to, and to prove he isn’t what the Bajorans believe him to be, he tries to runs away. Sisko gives him a ‘buck up’ speech that made it my headcanon that Ben Sisko’s favourite Batman adaptations are by Nolan. His reward and Kira’s for her daring rescue? Li Nalis or whatever his name is gets Kira’s job as liaison on the station and up pops ‘To Be Continued’.
It was a little too broad at times. I also wondered why Kira and O’Brien didn’t use a transporter at one point and Quark’s security was surprisingly lax considering he was divvying up his cash, but Odo-Quark, Quark-Rom and Dax-Kira are nicely re-established.
The Circle is probably my favourite episode of the quartet, just – although they were all of a high quality. It has a ho-hum opening, but the brilliant scene where everyone comes to say goodbye to Kira and cross-talk reached a whole new level, with Bashir being confused – let’s put it down to him coming into the room halfway – and Odo being Really Upset at Kira leaving the station and her way of taking it. All I’m saying here is that Kira matters to Odo. Anyway, her Hot Vedek turns up and invites her to his monastery (the more I think about it, the more inaccurate that seems as a title). The Hot Vedek is hot, but the actor isn’t a patch on Visitor and Fletcher (Winn). The Prophets give Kira a confusing message on Bajor.
Meanwhile, the Circle increases in power, and even Quark is moved to help fight against them. Sisko tries to find out what’s really going on – intrigue! For the Cardassians are secretly providing the Circle with weapons because they want the Federation gone so that they can control the Wormhole. Sisko’s boss is called Admiral Chakotay – any relation? His new first officer is a bit dithery, but well-meaning. (This episode made me go and research what the Prime Directive is. It is not what I thought it was. It is more like ‘when the writers find non-interference to be handy or remember it’s a fundamental principle of the Federation's.’)
Kira is magnificent in this episode. I love how it examines her devoutness at a point in her life where she’s looking for direction. The romance with her Hot Vedek is kicking off. She’s tortured, but it merely makes her willing to take action. Winn is her poison-laced honey-dripping self, willing to make a deal in order to be Kai (spoiler: I automatically typed Kai Winn twice and had to delete it). The idea of a newly liberated people turning to civil war has, again, accumulated resonance there days. I really liked the Sisko-Kira and, obviously, the Quark-Odo moments.
In The Siege, Sisko and several officers remain behind, hidden in the station, as the Bajoran military comes up to claim it for Bajor. They are, basically, living their boyhood dreams until it gets serious, for having shown some flickers of leadership potential, Li Nalis (who doesn’t mean as much to the audience as he does to Bajor) dies heroically to save Sisko.
In my favourite strand, Kira and Dax fly to Bajor to try to bring the proof of Cardassian involvement to the politicians’ attention, meaning we have ladies bantering while showing competence (although after being forced into a crash landing, they need the Hot Vedek’s help). By the end of the episode, quite a lot about Kira’s vision makes sense and the visual of Dax as a Bajoran Vedek comes true. (Farscape made more of this taking advantage of alien iconography – I will always remember Aeryn dressed up in Scorpius’s suit, but there was that episode where everyone was different races too.)
What I love is that there are so many Bajoran agendas going on here. Winn gets away with it because she didn’t commit to Minister Jarrow’s cause in public. Keiko also gets a moment to grumble at O’Brian choosing Sisko/Starfleet over their family, while Molly is cute.
Invasive Procedures is more of a stand-alone. A convenient plasma storm (I don’t recall if the station is prone to them, I’ll have to keep an eye out) means the station is down to a skeleton crew aka the regular cast minus Jake. Thanks to Quark’s greed, the crew is overpowered by four invaders. Two are Klingon mercs (I think one was played by the actor who would go on to play Tuvok) one i a lady with a traditional Star Trek hairstyle, who had a tough enough upbringing to be able to overpower Kira (!!!) and John Glover, which was a nice surprise.
He was playing a Trill who really, really wanted a symbiont. Never mind that transferring Dax into him would kill Jadzia. We never know why he was rejected as a host, but possibly the lack of a moral compass or psychological issues... The operation was remarkably bloodless, but watching Jadzia wake up so alone without Dax was heartrending. Glover was well able to play up the before and after.
Sisko has to manipulate the new being who carries memories of their friendships and The Hairstyle who is feeling like she’s lost her love to do the right thing and Quark manages to redeem himself enough that Kira and Odo don’t throttle him.
There are a few rough edges, like how easily Quark distracts Odo and yet another time when they fail to use the transporter. But it does have poignancy, delving more into what it means to be a Trill, joined or not. At the end, Jadzia Dax, externally a young woman, has even more memories to carry.
So, a consistently good and promising start to the season, I thought.
