Featured Series
“On this station, you are the thin, beige line between order and chaos.”
-- Lwaxana Troi to Odo
Majel Barrett was the first lady of Star Trek. Though her name or her face might not be instantly recognizable, she appears in TNG, DS9, and Voyager as the voice of the Federation computer. She’s also integral to the mythology of the franchise, playing both Spock’s non-Kirk love, Nurse Chapel, and Counselor Deanna Troi’s mom, Lwaxana. It’s the latter role that has probably made the bigger impact on modern fans, and this week, she’s bringing the act to Deep Space Nine.
“Too many people dream of places they’ll never go, wish for things they’ll never have, instead of paying adequate attention to their real lives.”
-- Constable Odo
I’m going to level with you guys here. This is a tough one to write about. Not just because it’s bad, but because it’s bad in precisely the ways I’ve previously complained about in Season One’s other lowlights. It feels like a terrible episode of TNG. The characters have yet to come to life. It’s so very, very silly in that way only bad Star Trek can be. But, when picked apart, the episode actually does have some fascinating territory to cover.
“You know what the Cardassians were like. What weapons they had. We didn’t stand a chance against them!”
“How’d you beat ‘em then?”
--Kira and Mullibok
When people say they hate DS9, I’m pretty sure they’re talking about this episode. That’s not to say it’s bad; on the contrary, it has some nice character work for Nana Visitor’s Major Kira and a great guest turn by Brian Keith as cranky Bajoran farmer Mullibok. It just exemplifies everything that people complain about whenever DS9 comes up in conversation. It’s slow. They don’t go anywhere. Bajorans are annoying. Sometimes, I think that the people who dislike DS9 (also known as “The Factually Incorrect”) have only ever seen this episode. That would be like judging the entirety of TNG on “The Royale.”
“For all we know, you really were sent by the Prophets.”
“I was sent by Commander Sisko!”
- Dr. Bashir and Chief O’Brien
Roddenberry’s vision was of a future where all men are brothers. (Sorry, gay guys.) There would be no interpersonal conflict in the utopian Federation, which makes writing for Star Trek a unique challenge. Fortunately, the show happened to be about a bunch of maniacs piled into a starship zooming around space, looking for trouble. Yes, I realize I just made Captain Kirk sound like some kind of space greaser, but, in my defense, that’s exactly what he was. Kirk existed to punch half the things and have sex with the other half. If he had just been a fist attached to a penis, his job performance would not have suffered in the least.
This weekend belonged to Godzilla. I watched with rapt attention as he woke from hibernation, swam the Pacific Ocean, and battled the mighty, mating MOTU only to take a brief nap and then crash back under the waves, returning to the ocean depths from which he came.
What a stud, amirite? Sure, he knocks s--t over, but it’s all on the way to restore natural order to a world he arguably doesn’t have to care about. Some monsters just have altruistic motives to their city smashing, I guess. Whereas most others simply want to populate the earth and together crunch every skyline from here to Tokyo.
In that light, Godzilla has downright commendable character. I’d certainly buy the guy a drink.
“When you cease to fear death the rules of war change.”
-- Shel-la
The narrative of the first season of DS9, and it’s a point I’ve made over and over and will likely continue to make, is the writers trying to understand the kinds of stories they can tell within the format of the show. Eventually, they’ll learn that DS9 is the great paradox of Trek shows: to work within the format, they have to break that same format, and we’ll end up with some of the most bracing, fascinating, and, yes, dark storytelling the franchise has ever seen. With this first season, the writers are stumbling around, flirting with various elements that will grow to define the series, and many that will get mercifully abandoned. To their credit, they recognize when something is working and when something isn’t (Haven’t heard from Primmin lately, have we?), and developing the show in that direction. This week’s episode, “Battle Lines,” is nearly recognizable as the series I love.
“You think the whole galaxy is plotting around you, don’t you? Paranoia must run in your species, Odo. Maybe that’s why no one has ever seen another shapeshifter. They’re all hiding!” -- Quark
It’s pretty easy to see why Odo was the first breakout character of the show. It’s like they took a checklist of all the things guaranteed to connect with an audience and applied it to him. Loner with a mysterious past? Check. Only one of his kind? Check. Cool powers? Check. Gruff exterior masking a deep inner pain only curable with the love of a good woman? You better believe that’s a check. It’s a wonder that more people didn’t grow up nursing an impossible Odo crush or wander around conventions wearing Team Odo shirts. “Vortex,” the eleventh episode of the first season, once again turns the spotlight on our favorite grouchy ball of amber protoplasm, but instead of focusing solely on Odo’s preoccupation with justice, it tests that against the great unanswered question of his origin.
"I've been looking for an original sin
One with a twist and a bit of a spin
And, since I've done all the old ones
‘Till they've all been done in
No, I'm just looking
And, I'm gone with the wind
Endlessly searching for an Original Sin"
So sang Taylor Dayne in the theme to the ill-fated 1994 film adaption of The Shadow starring Alec Baldwin. The movie may have been a flop, but the song still rests comfortably in my iPod.
He's so "Lucky;" he's a star! I can't remember the first time I became aware of my cosplaying friend, Chris Riley. I think at some event here in L.A. It's a little presumptuous to say "friend," as I don't think we've actually met, but he is a kindred spirit nonetheless. With cosplaying at the height of popularity with shows like Heroes of Cosplay and Hollywood mega hits making every Tom, Dick, and Harry want to don a cowl, I thought it would be fun to check in with Chris Riley (a.k.a. Captain Lucky), and the following interview transpired.
“Never trust anyone who places your prosperity above their own.”
-- Grand Nagus Zek
The Ferengi were originally intended as TNG’s Klingons, the shadowy foil to the shiny, happy Federation. Introduced with some fanfare in “The Last Outpost,” the cannibalistic monsters of that episode, with their energy whips and Worf-beating prowess, are scarcely recognizable as the cheerfully greedy space capitalists that we know and presumably love. The Ferengi never worked as a convincing other (even their name, derived from the Arabic faranji, or “foreigner,” states this purpose for the race), but they do function as a fascinating and often hilarious counterpoint to Starfleet. They’re basically a bunch of hard-charging capitalist hustlers from the go-go ‘80s trying to exist in the middle of a post-scarcity utopian economy. The stories practically write themselves.