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S6E5, “Favor the Bold” & S6E6, “Sacrifice of Angels” (Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler)Morn!

The war arc has been going on for a few episodes now, and like a bored football commentator extolling the team to just chuck it deep already, the troops are getting restless. Perhaps O’Brien’s moody “let’s just fight everybody” lamentations reflect what the showrunners are saying behind the scenes. Keeping up an arc like this seems amazingly complicated compared to mostly self-contained episodes, and perhaps it’s wearing everyone down. Contrary to a lot of extended Trek stories, usually only as ambitious as two-parters, I think this has gone on the right amount of time to fill out this story. Let’s wrap it up.

So what’s going on now?

  • Sisko comes up with an attack plan that leaves Earth super vulnerable but he’s totally confident the Dominion won’t exploit this. Sisko’s overconfidence has never gotten us into trouble before, so let’s roll with this plan.
  • Odo wants to go to staff meetings again but the female changeling is all “Blow it off, let’s do more linking” and so he does. I likened this to seduction last episode but it’s really more like drug addiction. Odo keeps thinking he wants to get clean but he’s got a bad influence in his life telling him they thought he was cool.
  • The Cardassians have figured out how to get rid of the minefield so they don’t care about Rom anymore and are probably just going to kill him, because that’s what they do. Actually what they would do is to have already killed him but this is a family show. It also sets up a need for Leeta, Quark, et. al., to bust him out.
  • Nog is promoted to Ensign. O’Brien: “I didn’t realize that things were going so bad.”
  • Morn is departing the station to attend his mother’s birthday party.

The impending destruction of the minefield sparks things forward. Kira needs to alert Sisko but they are watched too closely to do much of anything. This sets up maybe the best moment in the entire series, Kira placing her finger on the ribbon Morn is tying around his mother’s present in to set up a quid pro quo. Next time we see Sisko, he lets the bosses know he’s received an encrypted message from the courier he’s known and trusted for years. You glorious Morn, you did it! With the intelligence about the minefield, the Feds know they need to move or their numerical disadvantage will go from challenging to insurmountable.

With things set up in part 1, part 2 is mostly space battles, and we’ve already seen Dukat vs. Sisko. To break this down PTI style:

Wilbon: Tony. Ya boy Dukat faces Sisko in their annual showdown. Who ya got?

Kornheiser: I haven’t stayed awake through an entire episode of Deep Space Nineteen since I had hair, but everything I read in the paper written by guys even older than me says Dukat has all the advantages. I think he’s due. (Points vigorously at camera) Dukat!

Wilbon: I’ve been covering this show a long time, Tony, and when you’re owned, you’re owned. Which makes me think Sisko. But I’m going way off the board and saying Weyoun turns the tables and takes them both down.

Kornheiser: Next show, as usual, we’ll revisit these predictions and re-examine any faulty logic if we’re wrong. Good night Canada!

I wish they did cover DS9 on the perfect post-work brain-stupor entertainment nugget that is PTI. Naturally they would never foresee the thing that we all know is coming, which is a Sisko victory. Is it realistic just how bad a tactician Dukat continues to be? Of course his strategy is to completely overplay his perceived advantage to allow for Sisko to exploit him, without similarly exploiting Sisko’s weakness, which Sisko has already factored into his entire strategy. But as bad as Dukat’s plan is, it isn’t even the most overplayed hand in this episode. The female changeling figures it’s time to have Kira arrested and executed, why not. Certainly Odo is beyond the point of caring about the solids now that he’s had a few days of changeling orgy drugs…but of course he isn’t. Well, she isn’t the first to underestimate our blob’s obstinacy.

There’s a great deal of space lasers and ships blowing up to round out the episode until things are sewn up with the inevitable Sisko victory (and winning his bet against Martok that he’d be first to set foot on the station again—the house wins again). Everyone contributes. Even Quark shoots a couple guys in the skirmish, but it was self defense and he’s more shocked than anything. But we can assume he’ll snag the footage and keep it in his back pocket for the next time Brunt gets too salty with him. Rom disables the station weapons, allowing the Defiant to get into the wormhole and head off a potential Dominion invasion.

I’m not sure how much I like the ending here. Basically Sisko calls in a favor from the prophet/aliens/whatever to help him out. “Help” ends up meaning the obliteration of the entire Jem’Hadar fleet that’s about to pass through. They say something mysterious about Sisko having to pay for this eventually, and it will have something to do with his place on Bajor, which he just happened to talk longingly about earlier in the show. So I’m sure we’ll find out what that’s all about. But anyway, no more fleet, and I mean, damn. They just blip out thousands of dudes like it was nothing. Are they a bunch of Qs, or Supermans, so powerful that they are actually boring as characters? It makes sense within the rules of the show. Aliens with nigh-magical power exist. They must like Sisko a lot, or value other lives even less than the female changeling. But still, not the most satisfying ending to this extended series.

Meanwhile it’s the worst day at the office ever for Dukat. But at least he has Ziyal to help retain his last precious thread of sanity—oh, nope, Damar zaps her. It’s not totally clear why he does it. Maybe he’s tired of seeing her compromise Dukat and thinks it’s best for the Cardassians, maybe it’s revenge for Kira whaling on him. But it utterly breaks Dukat. I actually felt sad for the guy, so it’s an effective scene. This is in no small part to Marc Alaimo’s performance. I feel like DS9 is lucky to have him and Andrew Robinson as the primary Cardassian characters, they have been consistently terrific. Anyway Dukat is hauled off to the Federation version of Arkham Asylum and I’m sure we’ll be seeing some TOS-style sweaty insane ranting from him sooner or later.

So, whew, we made it through this whole arc. It largely worked and I hope we get a few more longer stories over the last couple of seasons. I hope we haven’t seen the last of Dukat, or Weyoun for that matter, though it seems unlikely they’ll get to milk any further scenes together. A lot has now changed, but we also have some open questions about Sisko’s Bajoran retirement plans, Kira and Odo, and whether or not Morn’s mom had a good birthday.

Overall: The series as a whole was very good, maybe not quite perfect, but important for the show. For this pair of shows plus the arc as a whole, it’s a strong 4 out of 5.

S6E7, “You are Cordially Invited” (Ronald D. Moore)

Essentially a perfect DS9 episode. Almost every major character has something to do, we learn a ton about Klingon culture, O’Brien suffers, and Morn is prominently involved. Ultimately it’s the culmination of the Worf and Dax wedding build-up and plays out about like it would have to, with Worf’s suffocating traditionalism pushing Dax past her breaking point, forcing them to find a more stable equilibrium. There’s a lot going on so I guess I’ll just comment on various characters and moments:

  • Everyone assumes the Klingon version of a bachelor party will be some kind of next-level debauchery. As it turns out, it’s next-level suffering, including days of fasting and pain. This is just so Klingon. It lines up with everything I think we’ve learned about them in TNG and DS9. I love how our expectations are subverted along with O’Brien, Bashir, and even Alexander, and everyone they tell, with a wink and a nod, like, too bad you’ll be missing out on this four-day Klingon rager. Then they get there only to be told the food is just to tempt them and they’ll spend days in sweltering heat undergoing various trials. At least they get to beat the hell out of Worf once he’s married.
    • Interesting that Alexander can’t even say his name in Klingon. So we are to understand he’s not speaking Klingon regularly? He’s just leaning on the universal translator? Interesting. Why does he want to be part of this culture again? Anyway, he continues to be generally a doofus, knocking stuff over and generating a lot of searing glares from his dad. I’m curious if we’ll see much more of him, as we’re told he’s about to ship out again. I do like him and I think there are more Worf/Alexander stories to mine.
  • Quark admits to Jake he has feelings for Dax, but, as he says, “there’s no profit in jealousy.” I’m guessing this won’t actually go anywhere, especially now that she’s married to someone who could literally rip him in half. (Actually Dax could probably rip him in half too.) But it lends some depth to their friendship, I thought it was a good touch.
  • I’ve started really liking Martok. I like the actor too, love some little touches like him trying to figure out what to make of Sisko’s baseball.
  • Martok’s wife Sirella is a trip. I was terrified of her. She maybe could have used a bit more depth, unceasingly vinegary characters are boring to me. (Looking at you, Ensign Ro.) In the end she’s cool but her acceptance of Dax comes off-screen, which was too bad. I felt like I was waiting for a scene where Dax pushes back enough that Sirella lets on that’s exactly what she wants, rather than someone overly compliant.
    • I love the bit where Worf says he should go talk to her to defend Dax, and Martok says it’s not a great idea because she doesn’t really like Worf either.
  • Kira and Odo make up, but it’s also off-screen. They are discovered in Dax’s closet, apparently being up all night talking together. We are going to get more about this, yes? Otherwise, this is kinda important for us not to know anything.

Interesting how much happens off-screen that is of interest. Memory Alpha throws out a few more details they cut. I rarely say this, but this could have been a two-parter.

Morn watch: He is back, gets a greeting kiss from someone on the promenade. Later he enjoys Dax’s party. A lot. He picks himself up off her floor the next day, along with Atoa. They have evidently shared some times.

Overall: Highly enjoyable DS9. 5 out of 5.

S6E8, “Resurrection” (Michael Taylor)

Back in “Through the Looking Glass” and “Shattered Mirror” they tried out the idea of tapping the alternate universe for backup versions of people we’ve lost in this one. One guy we didn’t necessarily need to replace, however, was the ever-wooden Vedek Bareil. For Kira’s sake, or the needs of the larger Bajoran community, I mean, yeah. But as a selfish TV viewer who demands interesting characters for the series, [thumbs down accompanied by Bronx cheer]. Bareil was forced upon us as a recurring character we were supposed to like before we really tapped into Garak or Dukat or Martok and I kind of still resent it. If we want a recurring Bajoran leader who is also a Kira love interest, that’s what we’ve got Shakaar for. But they ditched him to bring back this guy.

So all that said: here, we find some redemption. I guess though not really for the real Bareil, who is nothing like his parallel counterpart. But absolutely for actor Philip Anglim, who in my useless opinion elevates himself admirably. I thought he was great as parallel Bareil, charismatic and inscrutable. He’s kind of an impoverished person’s Harrison Ford in mannerism, actually. Maybe the Bareil character was just too much of a dullard.

I don’t know that the plot here is great, however. I don’t really buy that Kira would get dunked on quite so quickly or this badly. She and Sisko can have a nice long talk about this one later on, he can certainly tell her how easy it is to forget this is just a replica, not the real thing. I really liked how this got explored with the Sisko/parallel Jennifer story, and it remains a fascinatingly weird SF idea. But I’m not sure what “Resurrection” really does with it that seems believable or that we haven’t already covered. I had a little trouble with some of the plot holes—they detect Bareil showing up but not Evil Kira? Most security measures on the station point to it being pretty difficult to have intruders no matter how they get there, and especially not if they are zapping in from the parallel universe with an alien device. Though I did think it was a very good episode for Nana Visitor, getting to tackle both of her characters, sometimes in alternating scenes. With simple body language and mannerisms she is two utterly different people.

Overall: So, just an OK one to me. I guess they figure they need to cover all the bases on people who died and whether or not we’re going to try to pull off a full-on replacement. But I kind of think they can never really do this or we are risking some soap opera territory. I’d guess we’re done with these kinds of stories. 3 out of 5.

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Recently started a Harry Potter series re-read. I’ve only ever read them one time and saw only the first few movies. I liked the series fine but never got super obsessive. I mean, who would waste that much time on any fictional series. When it was new I was a bit older than the target demographic and wasn’t even aware of it until somewhere around the fourth movie, only then going back and catching up on the books. From there I read the remaining books as they came out, but never bothered watching any more of the movies. Generally I am much more of a reader than a movie watcher. So my thing with movies based on books is that I think, “I don’t want to see the movie until I’ve read the book.” Eventually I read the book. Then I’m like, “Well now why would I bother with the movie?”

Anyway as it is now 2018 in my spacetime reality, it’s been 10-15 years since I’ve read any of the books. And I had forgotten basically everything. Like I could tell you it had something to do with magic, and there was someone named Ron, but it got awful fuzzy beyond that. I remembered the four magical houses. Someone was named Sirius Black, and he was either a murderer or Harry’s uncle or secretly Voldemort, or maybe all three, unless I was thinking of someone else. I play a fair amount of Sporcle and naturally it has about a billion HP quizzes. One of the most played ones on the site is to name the Top 200 HP characters by appearances. I don’t know that I could have named more than ten.

What I’m saying is memory is a funny thing. I remember countless random moments and facts from being alive for 40+ years but somehow not more than a few shreds from a few thousand concentrated pages of reading. Actually maybe that’s a little unfair. Names and plot details were lost, but a lot of the generalities were not. I had rated them all on Goodreads and could sorta remember my justifications for each. I suppose the lack of clarity about these books comes down to what makes memory work or not—keeping it fresh and relevant, building neural connections, applying learned information so it becomes knowledge. I didn’t do any of that with HP. I read it once, and moved on. Though I liked it I didn’t feel the need to re-read, to watch all the movies, to make it into part of my existence. (Though I did go to a Halloween party as Draco Malfoy once, a choice made because I have blond-ish hair and damn if it didn’t look good slicked back. Plus I found a cheap green tie.)

Anyway so it set up something interesting, both in terms of getting to re-live a famous literary series and as a memory experiment. My wife also read them all just once, on a similar timeline, so as I have made it a few books deep into the series, her current brain is the equivalent to my past brain. I can ask her what she remembers about, say, Peter Pettigrew as though I am accessing what I knew a month ago before I started this project. I don’t have to trust my faulty memory, which has since been overwritten by the experience of re-reading.

In addition to the re-reading I decided I might also try to watch all the movies, though I do not guarantee I will complete that part, because, as discussed, I tend to lose interest in the movies once I’ve read the books. To date I’ve re-read the first three books and watched the first three movies:

Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone

  • Before reading thoughts
    • Very little memory of the story. I didn’t remember what the deal was with the stone at all or how (or even if) Harry ended up facing Voldemort again, but I thought it had done a masterful job introducing the Potterverse. No one had thought about a sorting hat or every flavor jellybeans before. Now everyone has taken multiple online house sorting quizzes and no one fully trusts jellybeans anymore. Admittedly the larger ideas weren’t especially new: wizards, dragons, magic schools, the hero with a thousand faces. But she still had a unique vision for her world that was established here.
  • Book reaction on Goodreads
    • I guess in the end I was surprised to not be surprised. Most of the events felt familiar, even if I didn’t remember precise details. Maybe the biggest takeaway was a newfound appreciation for Rowling’s writing. I had been carrying around a bit of smarmy attitude towards her as something of a simplistic narrative writer, and maybe that’s true, but damn she can hook you in. “Another adverb!” I’d gasp exasperatingly, and then realize I’d lost another hour to the book.
  • Film reaction
    • Less confident than the first book, and very, very careful not to change anything. So kind of a pointless watch, really. A classic “the book was better” kind of translation where they just kind of blast through the plot points without any depth, because that’s what these kinds of movies do. Like, the miraculous last-minute Gryffindor house cup win wasn’t developed well at all and felt like a total fix. You don’t even save that much time versus a relatively short book. I did enjoy Robbie Coltrane’s delightful Hagrid and Alan Rickman’s simmering Snape. They take such ownership of the roles I can’t read the books without picturing them. The kids are so young though there’s not much in the way of performance there.

Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

  • Before reading thoughts
    • I had perhaps that poorest memory of this story, mostly just recalling a disappointing ending. I didn’t even know why it was going to be disappointing. I had no idea what else was from this particular book. Was this the one with Dobby? What’s his deal again? I’d rated it four stars out of five I think because it was still a good, snappy story, but lacking the breakthroughs of the first book.
  • Book reaction on Goodreads
    • Yes it’s the one with Dobby but oh yeah that’s his deal. There are lots of things like this actually: it’s the one with Moaning Myrtle, with the polyjuice potion where Harry and Ron infiltrate the Slytherin rooms as Crabbe and Goyle, with Tom Riddle. I definitely underrated the book as a whole even if the ending is rather weak. Four stars still felt right.
  • Film reaction
    • More confident but that’s a mixed blessing. Way more polished in look and feel, which is good, but much more willing to take liberties with the story. Not only another classic “the book was better” but doubling down on movie-friendly parts like Quidditch, expanding any opportunity for effects and action, while shoehorning in substantive tracts of narrative through forced dialogue. Maybe you can’t win with a series this popular, where not only such a high percentage of viewers will have read the book, but will have strong opinions about it. If you make it different they’re mad, if you make it the same it’s a waste of time.

Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

  • Before reading thoughts
    • I remembered this one being my favorite. But again, wasn’t sure about a lot of details. Just knew it had a really clever ending, something to do with time shifting. And it was the one with Sirius Black. Whoever that was.
  • Book reaction on Goodreads
    • I wasn’t disappointed. If anything it was better than I remember: a much more complete book that does everything a good sequel should. And now I remember what’s up with Black and several other major series characters. I think from here out is where I really won’t know what to expect from the books.
  • Film reaction
    • This one has a change of directors and with it, a more unique look. A bit more dark and dingy, but a livelier style. And as the most visually ambitious, it’s also the most willing to cheat on the story details. Some of the artistic touches are great, like the whomping willow changing each season. But it also crams even more plot into quick dialogue exchanges before setting up the next action sequence. The ending also feels a bit clunky and underdeveloped compared to the super tight version in the book. I mean, it’s fine, but still doesn’t sell me on it being necessary to watch the movies at all.

 

So I’ll definitely move on with the books (I’m about halfway through Goblet of Fire now) but not promising I’ll keep up with the movies. Overall they’ve felt a little silly to watch so recently after the books. What you should really do is watch each movie right before starting the following book as a kind of “PREVIOUSLY…ON HARRY POTTER” prep.

To be continued.