- Pronouns
- he/him
Discuss this article by @Thande here.
A new blog editor will hopefully be appointed soon, in the mean time I am filling in.
A new blog editor will hopefully be appointed soon, in the mean time I am filling in.
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Alternate History in Star Trek Part 22: The Glory Days of Deep Space Nine
- Thread starter Gary Oswald
- Start date
Vote of thanks to Gary for volunteering his time in the meantime.
The warrior Klingons who yell a lot about loving challenges attacking Cardassia as soon as it's not a wannabe-expansionist junta and are easier to beat up is a grand touch.
- Location
- NYC (né Falkirk)
- Pronouns
- he/him
There's a comparison to be made with the retoolings DS9 went through during its earlier seasons and how such things would be handled in the modern day. In DS9 these were either gradually introduced or just inserted into what was already going on; whereas today you almost expect it'd be entirely scorched earth tactics. You could argue that even in the 1990s DS9 was already an aberration considering how Voyager handled its retoolings.
If "The Way of the Warrior", as a feature length episode, was ranked amongst the Star Trek films of the 1990s it's easily one to the top three.
One could argue the answer to the Farrand problem about Sisko that early on Bajor is considered a backwater despite its prospects for Federation membership, and by the time it does become the key to the quadrant Sisko is the only one of command rank that's also a Bajor Guy. It's a unique situation for us to see a commander in too compared with what's come before and later. We've seen Kirk and Picard make decisions on the fly that have huge implications; Janeway did this so often it'd be weird to think otherwise. Sisko falls somewhere between Kirk/Picard and Janeway in terms of situation so I ask where is the peculiarity? Maybe Starfleet has a bit more in common with the European and US armies of the 19th century when it comes to making decisions on the frontiers than we'd like to admit. Also, some folk just plain don't things when Sisko specifically does them.
Also, that's not strictly speaking a plot hole. Let's not throw that phrase around at any old thing like we're ScreenRant.
Good point about the prescient nature of the Klingons in DS9 and the post-Soviet Russians in the real world. When reading this my brain substituted Martok's false accusations of Changeling infiltration of the Detapa Council with the false accusations of Nazi infiltration of the Ukranian government. The hypocrisy in both situations is comparable too.
If we're going to say "Our Man Bashir" does all the same Austin Powers jokes we might at least have the decency to say that the DS9 episode preceded the first film in that series by two years.
On the point of Klingon Birds-of-Prey being used by others as often as the Klingons themselves, first of all can add the Romulans in "The Enterprise Incident" to the list of examples. Secondly, I'm wondering now if the Bird-of-Prey is the 23rd century starship equivalent of the AK-47 and its derivatives. I imagine Klingon designs do lend themselves to low production costs and reliability so they'd have that in common as well as the Klingons originally being stand-ins for the Soviets. Maybe the writers missed a trick in not having Klingon advisors providing ships and materiel to the Maquis.
Bashir's somewhat tragic backstory accidentally being brilliant at tying together various aspects of his character and what little we know of his history is a real moment of serendipity. Equally interesting in that episode is Bashir's father, which is the wonderful concept of what does someone who is a bit of a failure look like in the 24th century?
Weyoun's fascination with the doctor's experiments at the end of "In the Cards" doesn't strike me at all as odd. He specifically says he has an interest in "creative genetics" which is both a bit broader as well as tying into his own cloning nature. That episode in general I wouldn't call any odder than many other standalone, low-stakes episodes. It's a nice breather in between all the big events because this is an episodic show at heart, however much it may have developed into a hybrid between episode and serialised.
In general, I think there's a lot of things that didn't happen or almost didn't happen this season that would like to have heard more of in the article. Like the original plans for "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" to be the season ending cliffhanger and the prospect of Vulcan potentially leaving the Federation as a plotline. Then there's the Maquis storyline being tied up the way it was in season five because the writers realised they had far too many plotlines going into the final seasons and they decided to wrap up the one they adopted from Voyager as quickly as possible. As much as DS9 might have been retooled already by season 4, there was still a lot that could have happened differently.
If "The Way of the Warrior", as a feature length episode, was ranked amongst the Star Trek films of the 1990s it's easily one to the top three.
One could argue the answer to the Farrand problem about Sisko that early on Bajor is considered a backwater despite its prospects for Federation membership, and by the time it does become the key to the quadrant Sisko is the only one of command rank that's also a Bajor Guy. It's a unique situation for us to see a commander in too compared with what's come before and later. We've seen Kirk and Picard make decisions on the fly that have huge implications; Janeway did this so often it'd be weird to think otherwise. Sisko falls somewhere between Kirk/Picard and Janeway in terms of situation so I ask where is the peculiarity? Maybe Starfleet has a bit more in common with the European and US armies of the 19th century when it comes to making decisions on the frontiers than we'd like to admit. Also, some folk just plain don't things when Sisko specifically does them.
Also, that's not strictly speaking a plot hole. Let's not throw that phrase around at any old thing like we're ScreenRant.
Good point about the prescient nature of the Klingons in DS9 and the post-Soviet Russians in the real world. When reading this my brain substituted Martok's false accusations of Changeling infiltration of the Detapa Council with the false accusations of Nazi infiltration of the Ukranian government. The hypocrisy in both situations is comparable too.
If we're going to say "Our Man Bashir" does all the same Austin Powers jokes we might at least have the decency to say that the DS9 episode preceded the first film in that series by two years.
On the point of Klingon Birds-of-Prey being used by others as often as the Klingons themselves, first of all can add the Romulans in "The Enterprise Incident" to the list of examples. Secondly, I'm wondering now if the Bird-of-Prey is the 23rd century starship equivalent of the AK-47 and its derivatives. I imagine Klingon designs do lend themselves to low production costs and reliability so they'd have that in common as well as the Klingons originally being stand-ins for the Soviets. Maybe the writers missed a trick in not having Klingon advisors providing ships and materiel to the Maquis.
Bashir's somewhat tragic backstory accidentally being brilliant at tying together various aspects of his character and what little we know of his history is a real moment of serendipity. Equally interesting in that episode is Bashir's father, which is the wonderful concept of what does someone who is a bit of a failure look like in the 24th century?
Weyoun's fascination with the doctor's experiments at the end of "In the Cards" doesn't strike me at all as odd. He specifically says he has an interest in "creative genetics" which is both a bit broader as well as tying into his own cloning nature. That episode in general I wouldn't call any odder than many other standalone, low-stakes episodes. It's a nice breather in between all the big events because this is an episodic show at heart, however much it may have developed into a hybrid between episode and serialised.
In general, I think there's a lot of things that didn't happen or almost didn't happen this season that would like to have heard more of in the article. Like the original plans for "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" to be the season ending cliffhanger and the prospect of Vulcan potentially leaving the Federation as a plotline. Then there's the Maquis storyline being tied up the way it was in season five because the writers realised they had far too many plotlines going into the final seasons and they decided to wrap up the one they adopted from Voyager as quickly as possible. As much as DS9 might have been retooled already by season 4, there was still a lot that could have happened differently.
- Location
- Derbyshire
I suspect the 'War on Terror' esque plot was influenced by Oklahoma City and the 1993 World Trade Centre bomb.
@RyanF Aye, fair point about overusing the term 'plot hole', I normally agree with that perspective so not sure why I phrased it that way at the time.
On 'Our Man Bashir', I just meant it came from the same 90s era of 'Bond parody-cum-reexamination' as Austin Powers (like, indeed, GoldenEye itself drawing on 'is this still relevant' sentiments) but point taken. Do not want to sound like one of those reviewers who thinks "Cause and Effect" is a ripoff of "Groundhog Day"
Mind you, because of my oft-mentioned annoyance about the delay in Star Trek arriving on our shores in this era, I often think episodes came out significantly later than they did.
Very true about "The Way of the Warrior" being on par with the films, especially the epic 'geopolitical' scale of it which arguably rarely happens in the films (except Nemesis I suppose and a few hints in Insurrection?) in favour of self-contained or Earth-in-peril stories.
On 'Our Man Bashir', I just meant it came from the same 90s era of 'Bond parody-cum-reexamination' as Austin Powers (like, indeed, GoldenEye itself drawing on 'is this still relevant' sentiments) but point taken. Do not want to sound like one of those reviewers who thinks "Cause and Effect" is a ripoff of "Groundhog Day"
Mind you, because of my oft-mentioned annoyance about the delay in Star Trek arriving on our shores in this era, I often think episodes came out significantly later than they did.Very true about "The Way of the Warrior" being on par with the films, especially the epic 'geopolitical' scale of it which arguably rarely happens in the films (except Nemesis I suppose and a few hints in Insurrection?) in favour of self-contained or Earth-in-peril stories.
Yeah, most examples of 'seemingly too prophetic War on Terror stuff' in 90s fiction in general can be explained away by that, especially the 1993 incident.
Tovarich
a sinking dumpling. He/Him.
- Location
- Norwich North, UK
- Location
- Baselland
The title of the episode is a reference to the 1966 movie Our Man Flint, which was a much earlier parody of the Bond movies. And also featured villains who were using weather control as a weapon.