#DS9 IS AN ALL WATCH SHOW EXCEPTION

[catboyelimgarak]

Being the only one in my friendgroup watching Trek. On one hand I get to amuse/torment them with my Trek knowledge. On the other hand, no one to go to Trek cons with :’)

[asidewalksymphony]

I've been slowly watching DS9 over the past few months, and obviously, I've already been spoiled for some things. I already know that Judzia and Juilen die at some point. But I don't know how.

That's some weird tension trying to watch a show, but in the back of your head, the entire time the knowledge that the character will die, but not knowing when or how, is simmering. The entire time, you're just wondering when the bomb will go off. You know it's there. You know it's counting down. But you don't know how long is left on the goddamn timer.

[rizz-penguin]

maybe its just me not having much exposure to this fandom but why is the little voyager subfandom so TINY

voyager is the BEST star trek show that ive watched (ive watched tos, tng, ds9, and snw) and the characters are beautiful and i literally love all of them (except for seska).

and still there's so much more fanart and fun fandom stuff for ds9 or tng.

and it makes me mad.

[thoughts-i-have-had-in-passing]

The Spock Universes Theory of Star Trek

Recently I made a very quick, late-night reply to a post in which I mentioned my ‘Spock Universes’ theory which to my surprise ended up being somewhat popular with the people, and so I have decided to give it its own post.

The theory is simple. Every time Spock is played by someone different on screen you are watching a different universe’s timeline.

Why does this work? First off it is canon that there are different universes. For one, the Animated Series was disavowed by Gene Roddenberry as not canon, which by extension means it had to have taken place in another universe, but we also have the mirror universe  which continues to exist even when we occasionally wish it didn’t. So Star Trek was doing a multiverse from almost the very beginning. So what is the easiest way to tell them apart?

Spock.

Spock is the key to the whole multiverse. Behold:

TOS: Nimoy Spock, Prime universe

TAS: Voiced by Nimoy but disavowed by Roddenberry, ‘Animated Prime’ universe in which everything that happened in Prime Universe also happened here, but everything that happened here did not automatically happen in Prime.

Star Trek Movies I through VI: Nimoy Spock, Prime universe

TNG: Nimoy Spock appeared in Unification Parts 1 and 2, therefore TNG is in Prime universe

Star Trek: Generations: No Spock. NOT PRIME UNIVERSE.

The evidence: In the TNG episode Relics the crew discover Scotty, played by James Doohan, trapped in a transporter buffer on an infinite loop. This is considered god-tier engineering by Geordie, who did not believe it was possible despite 70 years of advancements in the engineering space (more on that in the SNW section).

Scotty makes a comment that he thought Kirk got the original Enterprise out of mothballs to come looking for him, and was saddened to find out this was not the case. In Generations, Scotty is present when Kirk get pulled into the Nexus and everyone think he is dead. In Prime universe Scotty was not there or he would not have made this assumption, however there is one person who has to be there in order to determine if the universe is Prime: Nimoy Spock.

Who was originally supposed to be there according to the original script? Nimoy Spock.

Who forced a change to the universe by not showing up? Nimoy Spock.

In Prime universe Spock was there instead of Scotty, who had not delayed his retirement to see off the Enterprise B and instead was already on his way to the Norpin colony when Kirk was ‘killed’ the news reached the colony but not the ship, which because it never made it meant Scotty never knew Kirk was gone.

It is important to note that everything else happened the exact same way, except Lursa and B’Etor got hold of a much better ship solely because I said so.

DS9: In the episode Trials and Tribble-ations, the crew was thrown back in time to the days of the original Enterprise, in which Nimoy Spock appeared, even without the various TNG crossovers it’s still Prime universe

Voyager: No Spock, but pilot episode crossed over with DS9, and the character of Barkley crossed over from TNG on more than one occasion. In addition, in the episode Flashback there was an appearance by Captain Sulu, played by George Takei, who was last seen playing his character opposite Nimoy’s Spock. Most likely Prime universe

Enterprise: Predates the Spock schism and therefore theoretically belongs to all universes. It has been referenced in several of the newer series in various ways, however there is a continuity issue in regards to the Klingons, which may mean that the event which lead to Spock being played by someone other than Nimoy happen even further back in the timeline, with the majority of changes being negligible by the time of Enterprise other than the Klingon ridge thing, which Discovery and SNW do not follow

‘Kelvin’ movies: Two Spocks. Nimoy Spock is specifically stated to come from the future Prime universe and the events featuring Quinto Spock are now a new, branched timeline. Further proof for the theory.

Discovery: Peck Spock, new timeline. Other notable changes include the style and advancement of technology and the fact that the Klingons appear to have solved their forehead ridge-flattening troubles, plus added extra for good luck.*

SNW: Peck Spock, crossover with Discovery. Peck universe. This also means that major continuity changes like the Gorn being both known and evil monsters are due to the different universe. In addition, Dr. M’Benga hides his daughter in a transporter buffer to slow down her illness. As previously mentioned, this was god-tier engineering when Prime Scotty did it in 2294, however in this universe technology is more advanced as no one bats an eye at the doctor’s technical prowess when they find out what he did.

Prodigy: Nimoy Spock facsimile which uses Nimoy voice recordings, Prime universe

Picard: No Spock, pick your poison. Basically because there is no Spock this could be Prime or it could be the same universe as Generations. Clearly there are a lot of similarities between Prime and Generations universe, but as the ending shown in All Good Things is not the one we see in Picard, it’s possible, likely even, that we have crossed universes again. I blame Q.

Lower Decks: Somehow exists in a universe where all shows are simultaneously canon, including TAS, probably due to some weird phenomena  

*Challenges to the theory and how it has adapted.

It was pointed out to me that Michael Burnham watches a recording of old Spock once she goes to the future, and that this recording was of Nimoy Spock, and so I have had to alter my theory slightly.

The Spock Checkpoint can only be done when Spock is a young man. This is because once Spock approaches old age, regardless of who has been playing him, he begin to morph into Nimoy Spock. As Mr. Nimoy himself claimed in his second autobiography: I am Spock.

Dude wasn’t kidding.

Personally I find that this theory helps me deal with the more extreme continuity issues that NuTrek has brought to the show. It's easy to pretend that Turnabout Intruder's claim that women can't be captains never actually happened, harder to believe that everyone met the Gorn except Kirk, and that somehow they demonsterfied in about five to ten years, or that a doctor could rig a transporter as well as a master engineer with technology forty years more advanced. Spock theory has calmed my mind and soothed my soul so I can better enjoy Trek. I hope if you felt the same way then it can do the same for you.

Thank you for reading my waffle.

[mickstart]

GOD I know I say this all the time but I genuinely ADORE how much time ds9 makes for inconsequential to the plot but character developing moments where the staff are just bickering and gossiping and bonding it makes the tense plot moments hit so much harder when they come half an hour after you saw everyone gathered around to watch Kira taste test a decaf coffee and spit it out in disgust while everyone rags on quark for making such a dogshit coffee. Like I CARE when they're in danger because they feel so real to me in a way other trek characters absolutely do not except MAYBE a handful from the other shows because they just don't give them the Time for these little moments.

[ireallyamabear]

now out of all the trek pilots i'd have to say the overall best is Emissary (DS9) - the emotional gut punch in the cold open alone! Avery Brooks truly is an exceptional leading man. All the characters are introduced so seamlessly, the set up for the worldbuilding and new challenges is great, Dukat shows up and cunts around already - who wouldn't want to keep watching.

Best plot set up must go to Voyager: a ship lost on the other side of the galaxy? they're really cooking now. And there are different sides that have to get along? Shame that they didn't really do anything big with the Maquis in subsequent episodes. But you also really get that Chakotay is like "O.O" about Janeway. As we all were.

Best character set up is probably Lower Decks. I'm showing my whole preferential ass here, but Mariner and Boimler are such a good pair from the get go (also closely followed by the TOS The Man Trap, you get what Kirk and McCoy are about in that first scene - but no Spock in sight so it has to go to Lower Decks). Best SciFi story in itself: has to be both The Cage and The Man Trap. Both manage to seamlessly blop you into this world of a space faring community, set up an intriguing mystery, with a satisfying ending. Well, the Man Trap takes it because it doesn't have the weird "oh she's ugly...i'm outta here" thing that Pike pulls.

Best franchise expending set up: Has to be Enterprise. That is controversial I guess, but I do love the step back into the early history and the Asshole Vulcans. The problem with the whole series is that it only comes out in like season 4 that these are Asshole Vulcans for a reason and different to the Vulcans in later Trek - so i get that people think it's bad characterization. No. Shoutout to Discovery in that category as well - the cold open with the Klingons is so good, but they do fumble the tension in the first episode a bit I think. Prime!Georgiou is delightful, though.

Best theme song: Enterprise. Fight me.

Best aliens: Again, DS9 and the Cardassians/Bajoran conflict is so juicy and good.

Funniest: Lower Decks, but it's meant to be. Otherwise I'd say Voyager? I'll be tracking this a bit. Voyager is actually really funny now that I think about it.

Most meh pilot: Strange New worlds. I actually remembered it better .. but man it's kind of boring. Maybe if pike hadnt shaved his beard.

Worst: I was like "oh the TNG pilot is really not good." the whole time but then i remembered that Picard is also here. Damn. Jean Luc, you kind of suck. Farpoint station is bad because it's so stilted, there's no emotional investment in the characters and the pacing is bad; the first episode of Picard is bad because it's Exposition!! the episode. but they really exploded Dhaj, didnt they.

all in all. that's a lot of television

[forecast0ctopus]

Just wanted to pop in and say that your art is so cool!! It's so-- SHAPES!! And I especially like how you draw McCoy, he's a favorite of mine and he has such a specific set of facial features that seems so hard to simplify, and yet you manage so well! And there's something I really love about your poses and compositions too, they're so very dynamic and/or evocative even when characters are just standing. Aaa so much to say--

I also saw your last ask, and as someone who was also intimidated by the sheer amount of content there is like you, just know that if you get invested you kinda just forget about it. I got into TNG first and that series alone looked like an enormous task to finish. Before I knew it I finished it and went on to watch DS9, and I already can't wait to see more. In general my tip is to go with the flow and see it as a hobby rather than something to achieve, because nobody is forcing you to watch EVERYTHING there is. You get there when you'll get there, y'know! It's a show about silly space people, have fun with it! (but with all the fan art you're drawing, I'm sure you already are hehe)

ANYWAY SORRY FOR THE BARRAGE OF TEXT THIS AIN'T EVEN AN ASK BUT UHHH BUH-BYE

THANKS i just. like shapes and points and lines.. i just think they’re neat…… i really like drawing mccoy hes got such a specific posture haha i will definitely be posting. more of him lmao

im on tng s2 right now and i definitely never push myself to watch things i don’t want to watch (except angel (1999) because. i like spike) but i do take my time with watching things so itll be a good while until i’m on the next series.. it did take me uhhh years to finally finish tos but the dam really broke on that in december so. here we are

bones time

[animentality]

I once saw a bsg fan bemoan the lack of a bsg fandom on Tumblr but I can tell you why that fandom is dead in the water.

it's because Battlestar Galactica utterly failed at creating a world you'd want to return to.

look at deep space nine, a 25 year old TV show that still has a wildly active fandom here and even on Twitter.

and why is that?

because ds9 was edgy too, but underneath that, there was a world that you could miss. there were characters who grew and changed like real people. they felt like your family, they were each other's family, and who doesn't visit their found family/friends at least occasionally?

re watching ds9 is like seeing old friends you haven't spoken to in a while, but when you hang out, it's like no time has passed. it's like returning to the house you grew up in, and smiling as you see the old photographs and the lines where your parents scratched your height into the wall.

but bsg? christ.

it's like returning to an abandoned meth lab.

it spent literally its entire run trying to SHOCK you.

instead of world building or creating any form of culture aboard the fleet, it upped the ante every week, and never gave you time to breathe.

worse than that, it would zoom through some of its more interesting ideas in favor of trying to get your blood pumping with some new shit immediately.

it never let you dwell on characters, or let them have genuine growth, because the next week, they'd want to do something even CRAZIER, and then that character would have to act a certain way, to make sure the melodrama keeps people engaged.

shows like that never last, because when you re watch them, there's like... nothing.

the world was destroyed- ok, then why don't we see the culture of the surviving humans?

everyone lives on different ships!! you could've shown us those ships developing their own cultures???

but no, we're stuck on the warship, full of officers, except we don't even get episodes dedicated to just, daily life on Battlestar.

it's just, oh baltar gets away with yet another war crime. how interesting.

it's also not remembered that well because...

mass murder and gang rape and endless torture of all the characters- oh it's so exciting... that you don't really want to go back to the stress.

you get tired of it, man. you can't throw high octane plots at people every day for five years... and then expect them to even remember half of that shit when they return to it, years later.

why would you even want to?

it's not like any of it was planned either.

it's not like, a show where it's exciting all the time, yes, but it's worth re watching to pick up on all the hints of the later story.

those kinds of shows last. you know. where the creators knew the ending and the hints were always there and you love the melodrama because you know where it's going, and it's still interesting to consider, years later. to really chew on deep and insightful characters, and think about their entire stories.

but bsg?

nothing was fucking planned.

you re watch bsg and you see just how much of it NEVER PAYS OFF.

they ram so many plots down your throat, and 90% of them get retconned out or totally re written.

And that's also why people don't remember bsg that well.

So much shit happens that they just don't know what the hell happened.

the pacing is awful, the world building is non existent, it's a melodrama so dedicated to melodrama that it totally ignores what it was doing with the characters the week before...

and that's why it's dead in the water.

the characters were the best part about it and they get so butchered by the end, they hardly matter.

[kosher-martian]

So, I'm thinking of finally watching the NuTrek shows (I've already watched 3 seasons of Lower Decks). Without spoiling anything, can someone please tell me if they are worth watching?

I tried to watch Discovery when it came out, but the mean-spirited characters, dystopian vibes the show gave off, and the real lack of any attempt to make it feel pre-TOS really turned me off the show.

The other Trekkies in my office have said Strange New Worlds is actually good to great, but the opinions on Picard are all over the place. I just don't want another generic dystopian / dystopian-esque SciFi show. DS9 and Enterprise Season 3 came close, but avoided giving off dystopian vibes for the most part.

We live in a dystopia, I really don't want to watch one on TV (there are exceptions, but this is my general rule). I feel like Lower Decks really gets Trekkies like me. I wish it was a little less silly, but I love their attention to detail.

I'm all in for middle of the season, monster of the week Trek. I don't need serialization (though I'm not opposed to it). I don't need the "prestige TV" window dressing (I hate it actually).

Reset buttons at the end of every episode? Fine. The same stock footage shots of the ship used time and time again? Fine. Aliens that are just people with a crinkled nose or weird forehead? Great! Strange disembodied space guy who is using the ship as a plaything and is defeated by reversing the amplitude of the deflector waves? Sounds plausible to me!

Can anyone tell me if the NuTrek shows (Discovery, Picard, and Strang New Worlds) are worth it? I know Lower Decks crosses over with Strange New Worlds and I feel like I can't watch the newest Lower Decks season without watching the crossover.

Help a Trekkie out, please!

[thegeminisage]

star trek update time. monday we watched ds9's "in purgatory's shadow" (ohio edition), "by inferno's light" (ohio edition), and "doctor bashir, i presume" (ohio edition), which did blow my tits clean off, and then last night we watched voy's "unity" and "darkling" (south carolina editions, sadly).

in purgatory's shadow (ds9) (ohio edition):

kira and odo's little moment at the beginning of this episode 🥺 he was soooo embarrassed to be caught attempting to try and learn how to snag a spouse but she didn't judge even a little. girl, break up with your stupid ass boyfriend. odo is right here

i really loved bashir pointing the phaser at garak when he figured garak was lying. i was like oh damn he knows him so well and i love when this twink has had enough and becomes a little evil BUT THEN IT LITERALLY WASN'T HIM! what an incredible plot twist. we literally had to pause the episode and work out the timelines to see how long we had been living with changeling bashir. it was sooo good and i wasn't expecting it at all. mwah

jadzia and worf are so good. her personality being settled into like, comic relief makes for such a good match to his whole straight man aura. obviously she taunts him with his klingon operas. please.

also lol "at the first sign of betrayal i will kill him" <3

i do NOT like whatever they are doing with garak and ziyal. first of all, he's gay. secondly, she is like at LEAST 20 years younger than him. i want to trust them but after jake dating all those older women i am so suspicious

the backpedaling they're doing on fun and friendly former facist dukat is insane. not to say i'm not enjoying it. also, i like when he threatened kira and she was like "pffft whatever" like what a blow to his fucking ego. get his ass

VERY cool to see martok again - totally unexpected

our last wonderful surprise of this ep was tain being garak's DAD- it makes so much sense and puts so much into perspective, and, hi, JULIAN WAS IN THE ROOM DURING THIS. garak could have asked him to leave and he would have. garak could have told tain he was there. but he didn't, because he wanted the moral support, and because he wanted julian to know something true about him. AUUUGHGHGH

like, we haven't had NEARLY enough garashir since s2, but this was SUCH a good moment, even though it feels like they're trying to backpedal on that too. what a series of plot twists for this ep 10/10

by inferno's light (ds9) (ohio edition):

dukat's betrayal here i like vaguely saw coming, but jesus christ lol. he is back to FULL villain status...such a change from his little fireworks show for sisko and jake

garak's claustrophobia <3 absolutely loooved this especially since julian had to go in and get him. bangs tankard on table MORE GARASHIR! there literally has NOT been enough. i would love to know more about tzenketh but i know they will never ever tell us but wow <3

i am SO tired of seeing worf lose fights this episode was fucking great. not only did he not lose any fights except under an extremely unfair circumstances he totally kicked ass even while injured. FINALLY. even that jem'hadar guy was like i can kill him but i can't defeat him so i give up. SOOOO true finally let's respect my boy worf. why don't you bitches call him a pussy NOW

anyway, the little moment worf and garak had at the end of this episode...mwah. put them on the fuck chart

extremely excited to see gowran in this episode. he and his freaky eyes are so special to me

"this station was built by cardassia" "that's funny i thought it was built by bajoran slave labor" I LOVE WHEN SISKO IS FUN AND FERAL.

also i know the circumstances were extenuating but i cannot BELIEVE julian just fucking murdered that jem'hadar <3

watching little fake julian run around was so distressing...i kept yelling when he came on screen because nobody KNEWWWW he even fooled US! what a cool twist, again

overall these two episodes were incredibly good even though the strong action-y episodes are usually not ds9's forte. absolutely baller content for everyone except ziyal. i will at least take comfort in the fact that garak looked very uncomfortable to be hugged

doctor bashir, i presume (ds9) (ohio edition):

AGAIN. THIS ONE BLEW MY TITS CLEAN OFF

i'm mad garak wasn't in it. AUGHGHGH

okay, my main beef with this one was pacing...i thought they resolved the problem extremely quickly after the cat was out of the bag, and it's because they spent so much time on the doctor and leeta and rom. which would have been a GREAT b-plot for any other episode, i LOVE leeta and rom and i was cheering for him the whole time, but even though the EMH (sorta) cameo was very welcome, i do not welcome it at the expense of time taken from one of the most pivotal episodes for julian bashir probably in this whole series, especially when i have the sneaking suspicion that it won't be brought up again

and i did LIKE the resolution of this episode, his parents paying for what they'd done, but it didn't feel like he got to sit with it for long enough, and it certainly felt like we skipped over a few pivotal moments - the scene where he found out his best friend knows could have been EXTREMELY meaty. is he afraid of judgement? is he angry? is he worried miles will be angry? etc. but we just kind of breezed right on by it. like, i loved the way miles sat and let him get it out of his system in a fun inverse of julian talking him down from suicide but we could have had SOOO much more

anyway side from that i love. I LOVE. holy shit

like, i can't even talk about the episode itself, just this entire concept. like, they did essentially kill their kid. they made him the way he is, a new kid, and then hated him for the way he is. SPOCK CORE. and then to find that out as a teenager...

like, you know he had to google "does being genetically enhanced make me a bad person" and then of course what google spits out is "did you know about khan noonien singh and would you like to?" and he was like Oh No

like, he went into MEDICINE. and i know he had other reasons and all but he went into MEDICINE because that's the most harmless you can possibly be. he's using all his ill-gotten brainpower to HEAL PEOPLE because his first reaction was to not want to be khan...2! you can enhance genetics but just like o'brien said that can't grow compassion, which is what makes julian who he is

I WISH GARAK HAD BEEN THERE.

anyway, i will continue to think about dr bashir for a very long time and he definitely just rose a couple of notches in my character ranking

unity (voy):

i actually liked this one a lot. i love borg eps and i'm fascinated by a post-borg life lived by these people

that said, this lady gave off SUCH evil vibes that even after the truth was revealed and she and chakotay fucked i kept waiting for her to stab him in the back. which only kind of happened i guess

also, :( that chakotay is out here running around on janeway. SAD

i did love the borg meld scene though. it was incredibly scary. and i was TWIRLING MY HAIR when he got possessed or whatever the fuck

it was also so fun that he spent half of this episode dazed and stumbling around because of his little head injury. excellent material overall

oh yeah and i KNEW that corpse was gonna wake back up. i think it's so terrifying that when you're borg, even if you die, you aren't done. you can be revived because nothing kills you, not even the vacuum of space. that is easily the most horrifying part of it all

i also really liked chakotay and janeway's moment at the end. like, she was distrustful the entire time and he was too trusting, as he tends to sometimes be, and then at the end she was like aw but they weren't so bad and he was like [thousand yard stare of guy who has fucked 2! women who later betrayed him and has now been radicalized against the borg]

like i'm not saying it wasn't 99% consensual with riley or seska but i AM saying that he was hopped up on the borg meld when he fucked riley and later riley was willing to use chakotay's body for her own means when push came to shove and i'm saying that seska knew full well the whole time it was happening that it was under completely false pretenses and she stole his dna without his consent to make a baby he also didn't consent to, even if it turned out she fucked up and got that kaxon baby instead. like, chakotay better be careful or he's gonna start fitting into captain kirk's niche

darkling (voy):

this one fucking sucked so bad

like, sure, yes, emh evil now. does he have to keep creepy-touching all the women

also, WHAT? we get ONE LINE about kes and neelix breaking up and he's not even IN this episode? why did they even break them up??? just because they wrre planning on having her leave soon????? absolutely baffling

i don't think evil emh was very compelling...i am glad he got to act or whatever, but i didn't even get the usual "battle of the selves" that we often wind up with when we do these kind of tropes. it was just...a malfunction, and eventually it was corrected

also, what a BAFFLING b-plot. if you measure each of kes's years (except the first, i suppose) as a decade in human beings, we can assume she's in her thirties now, so she just...breaks up with her boyfriend to smooch the hot alien guy she met a few days ago and then maybe wants to run off with him? in her THIRTIES?

i DID like the EMH quoting the oath at the end, but without any sort of battle of the selves or real emotional investment in what he did when he was evil, it feels kind of wasted on this episode. it's a fine concept, but the execution falls soooo flat

NEXT TIME: voy's "rise" and "favorite son."

[stargatesimp]

Whats your opinion on the ‘lost human colonies’ episodes like voyagers the 37s, or enterprise North star. I personally love these episodes seeing little pockets of humanity thriving separate from earth in the show. Though i would kill for a call back to meet whatever aliens kidnapped the various people fir them lol

That’s a great question! I remember the 37’s episode pretty dang well, and I’m in the middle of an enterprise rewatch (and watching all my favorite episodes of other ones like DS9 and Voyager) but I don’t remember the North Star very well.

I’m a big fan. I LOVE seeing the crews we know and love interacting with a whole separate society of humans. And how different a lot of them can be. It shows how so many different environments breed such different people. And how the crews sometimes have such a difficulty understanding or dealing with it. Or LOVING it. They have to explore a deeper part of themselves and what they are capable of.

And so many fun moments in those episodes too.

Like Tom geeking out about an old car.

Everyone (except poor clueless Harry) being like “AMELIA EARHART?? And just. Everything there with her was awesome.

(And absolutely agree on wanting some kind of callback!)

I remember in DS9 the whole EMP crashed ship society episode with Miles and Sisko too. That one is crazy. And a good example of them having a VERY hard time (poor Sisko in the heat box) dealing with it. I loveeee seeing the crews deal with more “primitive” versions of themselves. Seeing how much they’ve evolved, but also how much they’ve lost too.

[leohttbriar]

I would have loved to see Jadzia central episodes after she got together with Worf, and ones that's didn't focus on their relationship only. There was so much more to her before and then it seemed like being very immersed in everything Klingon was one of her very few traits.

yes--I absolutely agree. probably not the first to say it. she becomes this quirky, hot sidekick/girlfriend in season 5. how they wrote worf and dax getting together was cute and "screwball comedy" but they sort of tried to keep up that energy but not as successfully (screwball banter is cute only when both parties are getting jabs in equally, and dax seems to just smile like worf is being cute when he accuses her being ridiculous all the time)(like i said, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't)(it's just when it doesn't, worf comes across as annoying and dax comes off as Not a person). she's around quite a bit, offering her quips and support and playing her role in other people's journey's...

but episodes that are about her and depend on some issue she has within herself are not present after the romance. not like "rejoined" or the episode where she's being accused of murder bc of curzon. of course, of the episodes that are about her in previous seasons, all of them except "rejoined," arguably, are about her struggling with some past self. while i think the character can go beyond that simple sci-fi-what-if design (like, for example, i think spock goes beyond the alien-conceit in most of the spock-centric episodes), i found myself missing even that watching everything after she and worf get together. if they had even drawn out that romance and showed her genuinely trying to get worf's attention for more than one or two episodes, that would've been more interesting then what ended up happening.

i also sort of get that ds9 isn't so much the "new world" part of star trek as the "new civilization"---that is, it's mostly focused on ongoing diplomacy and war plots with the same handful of richly made-up peoples. but they managed in previous seasons to still write episodes about discovery and scientific work. in season 5, scientific work all seems to be focused on julian, due to the exigency of his role, rather than dax, or both of them. like, within the typical star trek roles to play, the science officer drives the fun discovery and new-weird-stuff plots. instead of episodes about any of that in season 5, though, there's a lot of quark and odo and sisko and julian and worf all juggling their various definitions of identity. (miraculously, dax never seems to waver in that regard. with kira, it's debateable.) which. fine. it was all interesting.

i do think that the show still manages to show dax as someone particular and complex--the writing just doesn't genuinely explore any of it after writing the worf/dax relationship. the moments she does have in episodes not about her are for the most part very good and very interesting and she provides context and wisdom and motive in the way her role dictates. but the fact that i think her character is so fascinating and has so many rich options for sci-fi storytelling only makes the absence of stories focused or driven by her all the more frustrating to me. there's only so many episodes about odo's feelings i can retain interest in.

maybe give jadzia a planet to explore with a bunch of geode formations that emit a protein that causes mutations within biological creatures to cease which somehow causes changelings to crystallize while the protein is in their system and jadzia has to fight on behalf of the planet to just exist so it's not turned into a super-weapon against the dominion and this turns into a struggle with basically her and julian against everyone (they're the most idealistic) and causes real tension between kira and dax for the first time ever and sisko has to say something about how life is sacred and resources are sacred and one has to choose and then dax does something that can't be taken back and the creatures give her a small geode/collection-of-geode-creatures in thanks and she carries it around like she carries all her past-selves.

(which would then justify the way worf constantly seems to characterize her as impulsive and impractical or whatever. bc she did this one dramatic thing that no one can now forget about her. and she just takes it bc she would do it again. and the audience just doesn't know who to agree with.)(but that would make her person with deep conviction and interiority and some perhaps truly un-likeable traits. instead of the hot, smirky-quirky jester that gets men 18-24 to tune the fuck in once a week.)

[biblioflyer]

Discovery's character drama logic

Occasionally trips to Reddit are actually informative. Credit to MalleusManus of the Daystrom Institute subreddit for unpacking this in a way that finally gelled. I'm kind of kicking myself for not seeing it sooner. I always understood Discovery was more of a character drama than an adventure show. Yet the piece I was missing, the piece I think a lot of Trekkies are missing is that Discovery has always been a character drama first. Whereas most previous Treks were mystery/procedural/"competency porn" first.

The specific mix of characters involved rarely actually mattered (except in DS9) and you could lift the outline of the story and transplant it into more or less any Trek series or even an entirely different anthology series like Twilight Zone or Dark Mirror and only need to fudge some of the details. That isn't to say that the individual characters and their quirks didn't make us love them, but the characters were never the point of TOS & TNG except when it was a showcase episode written specifically to do a bit of character development. The point of the characters was to have the plot happen to them, to wax philosophic about the particulars of the ethical or conceptual conundrum, and then solve the problem. The problem, once resolved, largely leaves them and their fundamental conditions unchanged.

DS9 is what happens when you ditch the anthology style storytelling but are still largely plot driven rather than character driven as a first priority. The writers of DS9 had grand visions of things they wanted to happen to both the setting and characters, but the characters still evolved rather slowly.

Discovery started from the perspective of what sorts of situations it wanted to put specific characters in in order to have them react in a very particular kind of way, what sort of emotions they wanted to see emoted, and what mindset the showrunners wanted the characters to have when it was all said and done. The relationships between characters are what ultimately matters and the particulars of the plot and worldbuilding come after that.

I would have liked more attention to the particulars of setting and plot, but recognizing that Discovery's plots are the character journeys not the puzzle of the week, I definitely understand it differently now and why its always been a little tedious. Namely because I've never liked any of the characters all that much. I don't really dislike any of them, but other than Saru, I can't honestly say I have any favorites. Ariam, for obvious reasons, and Owo because of her past as a luddite I was always curious to learn more about....only to have the first one die in her first and only point of view episode and the other to only talk about her life outside of Starfleet when she needs to manifest a special talent related to her history to save the crew.

But again, its an insight that was on the tip of my proverbial tongue and I couldn't quite articulate it before. I finally get what I don't like about Discovery and why in a way this is more than just "bad show bad." It has never really worked for me precisely because the central focus isn't really why I watch Trek and what it was trying to make me feel, it didn't succeed at.

I'm still sorry to see it go, because I think it was starting to think bigger and try to situate itself better within the Star Trek storytelling tradition, its themes, and rhythms and it just got cut down as the ugly ducking was showing swan like tendencies.

[enbycrip]

The OH and I are actually managing to watch S2 of SNW and I think The Cloak of War might actually be the finest ep of any series of ST ever except maybe a few of the DS9 ones.

Not only is it Star Trek does MASH *perfectly*,

Not only does it manage to actually square the circle between “war is utterly fucking terrible and we should be willing to make ourselves fucking vulnerable to avoid it” and “but there are indeed circumstances where all that will mean is throwing innocents under the bus and we actually have the duty to stand up if we have the capacity”;

Not *only* is it a couple of fucking *superlative* performances that Babs Olusanmonkun and Jess Bush, especially Babs, deserve Emmies for,

But it actually properly leans into one of the most essential lessons that pretty much every viewer watching this show really does need to know - seeking personal redemption *is*, in fact, a worthy thing to do, and something we should all strive for and seek to encourage, but an *essential* part of doing that is to respect the needs of other people you have harmed more than your own wishes. Your wish and need for redemption *never* trumps the harm you did to others, and you *never* have the right to demand that they do emotional - or other - labour for your redemption.

This applies whether you are a war criminal - hopefully *not* many people reading this - or someone who did racist things before you realised they were racist - pretty much every white person reading this. Genuine redemption means putting the needs of others before yourself and learning to live with your own guilt and your own faults, not demanding that people more marginalised than you who were hurt by your actions forgive you.

[captainhattersvoyagerstuff]

Caretaker Part 1

Okay, so I just finished Caretaker, the 2 part season premiere of Voyager. It's been a while, so there's stuff I forgot was there. Some of it was good. Some of it was, omg. But let's see if I can post my review, which is a series of notes I made while watching. I hope for more discussion later.

That thingy you're running into means you're screwed, Chakotay

Star Wars Crawl

Okay we start out with words on a screen. There’s this group of federation citizens called the Maquis who didn’t agree with Starfleet’s moronic treaty that are fighting the Cardassians and some say they are heroes and the Federation says they are outlaws.  Yay I saw the Maquis on Ds9!  I can’t wait to see more of them. (cough)

Scene 1: Maqui Ship. Chakotay and Maquis crew trying to outrun Cardassians.  Yay!  Chakotay is a really assertive leader here.  I’m excited. We have a coherent tetryan beam.  I hate those incoherent ones.

Wave hits them and light and we have Voyager credits.  Good theme song. Love the orchestra.

Scene 2: Federation penal colony.  In New Zealand?

That's right, bitches, I'm here.

Janeway shows up at the penal colony to find Tom Paris who could maybe find the Maquis cause he served with them before they kicked him out just like Starfleet did.

I'm really tough. I don't have Daddy issues.

She tells Tom he is an observer and he whines about being a good pilot. Except for the pilot error that got three people killed, oh nevermind. Just wait five minutes, Tom.

Scene 3 Tom is annoying on the shuttle to Voyager

Okay I have a question. Tom is wearing a Starfleet uniform. Why do observers still wear a uniform?  Don’t you need to earn that?

Also: Pretty Betazoid Ensign Stadi (don't get used to her) informs Tom that Voyager has bio-nueral gel packs.  They are so much more efficient.  Unless there is cheese on board.

Scene 4 Harry is nearly conned for first time on space station ds9. Harry's theory: get con artists off your back by buying everything. Tom saves him cause he's as big of a con as Quark.

Oh, hey, is that Quark from Ds9 that other show you should watch?

Scene 5 Tom and Harry meet the Doctor

The Doc is super bitchy to them. I met he's gonna make stuff hard for Tom.

Scene 6 Janeway talks to fiancee

His name is Mark Johnson. Really. Unknown Truth: Tuvok's real last name is Smith. Anyway, the show has a few minutes to tell us who Mark is and why Janeway loves him. So they talk about her dog.

Nice knowin' ya, Mark

Janeway's dog is named Molly. She is expecting puppies. She likes her doggy bed. I am officially more invested in her dog now.

Scene 7 Junior High mess hall

Doctor and First Officer Cavitt, two of the most nondescript white guys ever (doctor isn't even named), gossip with Harry about what Tom did cause it's junior high and oh no these guys don't like Tom what will he do?

Scene 8 Wonder why it's called the Badlands

Plasma storms, more coherent beams, stuff is fine. What could go wrong? What's that bright light?

Scene 9 Voyager go boom

This is going to take FOREVER to fix!

Ship is transported 75,000 light years to the Delta Quadrant and they hit the breaks kinda hard. The ship is all messed up. So is Janeway's hair.

Where is my HAIRSPRAY?

A couple of shots later:

Seriously? It's hair magic!

Turns out that all command officers (including that pesky doctor and first officer) except Janeway and the entire medical staff are dead. What kind of bad karma does Janeway have? They get scanned and beamed off the ship.

Gonna stop here for a break so it's not so long. Stay tuned next time for Farmville and the evil corn on the cob lady.

[azazelsazaleas]

I finished watching through DS9 a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to do a rundown of my thoughts on it. Here goes:

- Oh my god that was fantastic. I really wish it’s given it a fair shake back when it was on the air; I was a dumb teenager who resented it for not being TNG and was going through a weird self-loathing phase where I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was the massive nerd that I am. This seriously lived up to the hype. I may have to do a TNG rewatch because this might just have upstaged it as my favorite 90s Trek.

- Andrew Robinson should’ve been made a full cast member. Ditto Max Grodenchik and Aaron Eisenberg.

- Damar’s transmission at the end of The Changing Face of Evil lives rent-free in my head. I cheered out loud at that.

- One thing the show did fantastically that a lot of other SF/fantasy properties don’t quite get right is that it lands a pitch-perfect balance of “these characters are major, important figures in the larger multinational conflict” and “this conflict is absolutely massive and not everything revolves around the same small group of people.” The fact that Sisko, Worf, Kira, Odo, et al are so important is entirely plausible and it never feels like the writers are trying to gratuitously bring everything back to them.

- That said, I kind of love that Admiral Ross’s leadership approach during the Dominion War eventually consists of doing whatever the hell Sisko tells him to do.

- God, the acting was incredible. Andrew Robinson, Armin Shimerman, Nana Visitor, Marc Alaimo, and Louise Fletcher were real standouts, but everyone was just so damned good.

- Actually, I really need to give special mention to Shimerman. The man went above and beyond to make Quark be something more than a joke character, despite how obvious it was that basically the entire production team wanted him to just be cartoonish comic relief. He worked harder to flesh out his character and show his race as a race of *people* (not just caricatures) than just about any actor playing an alien on Star Trek before him except for maybe Nimoy. Give the man a goddamn Emmy. Don’t believe me? Go rewatch the iconic root beer scene from The Way of the Warrior.

That said: I do have a few criticisms:

- Pretty much all of the (canon) romantic subplots were just…yikes. The only major exception I can think of Sisko/Yates, where they actually seemed to have a healthy dynamic, fall legitimately in love with each other, and generally treat each other like adults in a serious relationship, not bickering teenagers.

- Seriously, Worf/Jadzia got so hard to watch and then the fallout with Ezri was just ugggghhhhhhhhh stop please for the love of god

- Why did the writers need to try to romantically pair off all the female characters? Just, why?

- Kira had more sexual tension with that Romulan lady in half an episode than she did with any of her bucket-of-paint boyfriends over the course of seven years.

- I totally get the behind-the-seasons reasons why things panned out the way they did, but (hot take) I think Dax’s whole arc would’ve worked better if they had killed Jadzia off after the first season or two and brought in Ezri earlier. Jadzia was fun, but she was just too perfect to get many interesting stories and her relationship with Worf felt too much like manufactured drama. Having a trill who didn’t want to be joined, agreed to in a life or death emergency situation, and now has to reckon not only with taking on this symbiotic relationship with no preparation whatsoever but also succeeding this beloved person in the eyes of her loved ones is such a better setup for a character and it’s a pity we didn’t get to see that play out properly.

- Sisko deserved a better conclusion to his story. Give the man his damned house on Bajor and let him raise his kid with Kasidy. He’s more than earned it.

- Next time I rewatch the series, I’m skipping the mirror universe episodes and the ones with the genetically enhanced walking-90s-neurodivergent-stereotypes.

Other random thoughts:

- Dukat’s storyline should’ve ended with him getting killed at the end of Waltz. Either by Sisko, or by deluding himself so thoroughly that he does something suicidal. The pah-wraiths subplot felt like a lazy afterthought (except for the episode where he pretends to be Bajoran and starts fucking Kai Winn) and as much as I liked watching Marc Alaimo act, his story arc was basically over at the end of Sacrifice of Angels….which, incidentally is when Damar actually starts to get interesting.

- I loved the O’Brien must suffer episodes but I thought Hard Time was kind of overrated. Mostly for the plot line with the cellmate; I think I’m a little burned out on seeing stories that have a moral of “deep inside us is a line between humanity and savagery and when pushed to the limit, even the best of us would turn to murder.” It’s been done to death, and it’s really not truthful, at least for many people.

- I think I may have a little bit of a crush on Major Kira. It would never work out if I met someone like that in real life, though. I’m a laid-back, atheist, creative type; she’s a deeply devout former insurgent. Given certain real-life crushes I’ve had recently; maybe I’m just into strong women with big, expressive eyes who wear their hearts on their sleeve and have a spine made of fuckin’ steel. I have no idea what this says about me.

- MORN

- Favorite Episodes: In the Pale Moonlight, The Visitor, Improbable Cause/The Die is Cast, In Purgatory’s Shadow/By Inferno’s Light, In the Cards, Duet, The Wire, Civil Defense, The Magnificent Ferengi, basically the entire Dominion War arc.