KTR's reflections from another DS9 newbie

[thecursor]

Holodeck stories always suck ALWAYS.

[Asso]

ALWAYS AND ALWAYS!

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I grew tired of the holodeck back in TNG's first season. What were they thinking?

[thecursor]

I would like reinterate exactly what I said about Holodecks on a previous post:

Vic, the Doctor, everything. In fact holograms in general. You'd think that after the dozens of times that stupid machine malfunctioned and threatened the crew, Starfleet would have the bright idea to take the damn things off line. Further more, the fact that the holodecks have produced not one, not two, but an entire RACE of sentient holographic life forms is more then enough reason to turn the fucking thing off.

A holodeck combined with the insane terabyte a second processor of Star Trek computers means that device is now like a Genesis device on every ship. You make a dragon, give it a mobile emitter and turn the safety off and congrats, you've just intiated the apocalypse.

Right after the whole Moriarty thing, Picard should've said "Get that stupid thing off my ship." Then Voyager established that now Starfleet has a group of holo slaves in their mines means that pretty soon we'll have a revolt, then a war, then a race of balding doctors who speak in clipped, passive aggressive tones. This illustrates the entire unbelievable nature of Star Trek's Twenty Fourth Century: For a race of hoighty-toity atheist-commies with an A+ in physics, not a damn one of them have the sense that God (or Evolution) gave a dog.

Sorry for ranting it's just that Holodeck episodes send me into a blind rage. One time I woke up and three days later had no idea where I was, all because of the stupid Ds9 Baseball on the Holodeck episode. I was covered in blood and muttering: "Vulcans playing baseball, vulcans playing baseball" and if there was no Holodeck, then there would've been no reason to have that episode.

[Pitseleh]

I once read that if holodecks really existed, that'd mean the end of mankind. Why would anyone want to leave their holodeck ever again? You can create and have anything you want in there, so what's the point of living outside of it if you could create your personal paradise in there?

The holodeck is the devil, man! It will doom us all! But really, the simple fact that *the_abomination* took place there proves how frelled up that thing really is.

[Asso]

Brrrrrrrr!

[JadziaKathryn]

However, there is potential for an interesting story with holoslaves, yes?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

However, there is potential for an interesting story with holoslaves, yes?

Didn't they touch upon that in VOY?

[JadziaKathryn]

Not really. They sort of hinted at it, but never really addressed the issue. Last we saw, holoslaves were reading copies of the Doctor's controversial story, Photons Be Free!.

Now, I always thought that the Doctor had a bigger chip on his shoulder than he needed about that particular issue, but anyway, it's one of the reasons they might've done well to bring Voyager home and then spend a little time addressing them actually being home.

[thecursor]

I return to my thesis statement which is that for a race of genuises, nobody seems willing to turn off the magic fantasy machine after it nearly kills everyone a dozen times over and presents the possibility of creating new and hostile lifeforms born into slavery.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Three more episodes...


6-21 The Reckoning

This could've been a really good episode. It sure had the potential to once again expand on Bajoran legends, the Prophets and the role of the Emissary. Instead it was thoroughly squandered into some cheesy B-movie with possessed main characters battling it out in a lightning extravaganza. What a shame! And why did the non-corporeal beings need bodies in order to fight anyway?

In the end, the events in The Reckoning didn't mean much, if anything. Pitting the wormhole aliens against their outcast pah-wraiths could've told us a lot about their origins and history. Now we're still none the wiser. I suspect this storyline won't be revisited again, although it should, since "the reckoning" was stopped before it was decided who'd win.

Another thing that befuddled me in this episode was Kai Winn. In the past she's been a great obstacle for our characters but that started to change with last season's Rapture. She had come to accept Sisko's role as Emissary and that was a genuine and believable development for her character. But here she's inexplicably back in her old distrusting, manipulating and self-serving ways - and we don't get a satisfactory explanation for that. I suspect that this is for plot reasons - the writers intend a different role for her in the future. But it's still not consistent with the way she's changed.

Also, why did Winn act the way she did and stopped the fight? How did she know that the wormhole-caused disasters on Bajor would cease? If anything, the pissed off Prophets should be more likely to increase those disasters after a pre-mature abortion of the reckoning.

And I don't know, but if I'd been Jake, I'd be royally pissed of at dad for allowing me to be a part of a fight to the death and not do anything about it. And this just after Jake had told Sisko about his misgivings about daddy being a Bajoran religious figure! Having Sisko play Abraham to Jake's Isaac is not the kind of father-son relationship I've come to like and expect.

Sorry, but I reckon that a grade of 3+ is all I can conjure up for The Reckoning.



*****

6-22 Valiant

Valiant was a somewhat average episode, with some really strange basic conditions that made me lose my willing suspension of disbelief. As an action adventure with a crew of young people trying to destroy a Dominion ship it was all right. But I found it increasingly hard to believe that this ship manned entirely by cadets (after the adult officers had all too conveniently been killed) could have survived behind enemy lines for eight months. They might be the (in)famous Red Squad (Homefront/Paradise Lost), but come on…

Still, it does track with my less-than-favourable view of the Federation that they could manage to breed a crew of such fascistoid fanatics. But I find it hard that everybody would get onboard with Captain Cadet's mad scheme. And for that matter, why did Starfleet Academy send them off on a training mission in enemy territory in the first place, using a valued Defiant-class ship? It was also totally unbelievable that a ranking Captain on his deathbed would promote a mere cadet to acting Captain after all the officers had died, let alone make him continue the mission. As the only commissioned officer, Nog should really have been the one put in command. But I forget, this is the Commie generation and thus such behaviour could be explained by taking that fact into account.

But, as I said, as an action piece it was fine. It even had some good character moments. We had Nog getting sucked into the Red Squad euphoria and Jake had a nice moment with the girl cadet who longed for her home on the moon. The end was fitting too, with the ship destroyed and the mission failed.

I'll give Valiant a grade of 5- on my 10-graded scale.



*****

6-23 Profit and Lace

Quark in drag! That alone is enough to sum up the total horridness that is Profit and Lace, also known as the worst episode of DS9 ever made, and at this juncture who am I to object. There is absolutely nothing, nothing, redeeming about this piece of utter crap. It is 45 minuets of my life that I will never get back, and I will regret having seen it until the day I draw my last breath.

By now you'd have thought that the writers had realized that these Ferengi "humour" episodes are complete disasters. Yet they keep making them. What, didn't they bother to sample viewers' opinions during the run of the show? I'm truly flabbergasted that such a talented staff could make both excellence such as In the Pale Moonlight and this complete drivel.

While I really don't care one bit about Ferengi female emancipation, I do find it ironic that they had to resort to having Quark play a female after his mother was out of commission. To convince this Nilva guy that females have the lobes for business, these particular lobes are really not those of a female (hormone treatment notwithstanding) but of Quark's. And how could just Nilva's lone opinion change anything? Presumably there are hundreds of other members of the Ferengi Commerce Commission that just wouldn't take his word for it.

So Profit and Lace gets a non-grade of 0 (zero) from me. Bleech!

(-)

[thecursor]

Worst ever? You have yet to see how low DS9 can dive my man, for the best of the modern series it's still the show that gave us Vulcans playing baseball.

[CX]

Told ya to skip it...

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Worst ever? You have yet to see how low DS9 can dive my man, for the best of the modern series it's still the show that gave us Vulcans playing baseball.

Vulcans playing baseball... Dear God!

Told ya to skip it...

Well, I have this morbid curiosity. Besides, once I commit to doing something - like watching all of DS9 - I do just that, for better or worse.

[thecursor]

Vulcans playing baseball... Dear God!

For the sake of your soul man, skip it! I still get nightmares from that show! I wake up in a cold sweat, miles from where I used to be with no memory of why I have blood on my hands. That episode is so bad it can actually cause a psychotic break.