Star Trek: Deep
Space Nine
1993-9
**********
Pros: Great Cast, Good Practical Effects, Good Story Arcs
Cons: Poorly Integrated Supernatural Elements, Some Bad
Side Gimmicks, Lackluster Ending
For all
of Star Trek’s strengths, I find some
of the franchise’s themes a bit annoying, and I was sold on Rick Berman and
Michael Piller’s Deep Space Nine
because it was recognized as an aversion the “hopeful and optimistic” vision of
the future that I’m a bit skeptical of.
I’m more interested in drama, complex character/political
relations. DS9 was a precursor to Game of Thrones and other such shows in
that respect. There is some controversy
over whether or not Paramount ripped off a pitched idea from J. Michael
Straczyncki that would later become Babylon 5.
There are times when I don’t care which work ripped off another. One instance is when one is so demonstrably superior to the other, it’s moot. In
this case, it's because DS9 and B5 both do things very well in their own way.
The story
centers around the aftermath of a war of independence between the Bajorans (a
spiritual race of humanoids) and the Cardassians (slightly reptilian space
fascists). Having just won their freedom
from a brutal occupation, the Bajorans now have ownership of a Cardassian space
station, formerly known as Terek Nor. The
station takes on interstellar significance when a nearby wormhole to the Gamma
Quadrant (along with an accompanying threat).
The
Bajorans request the Federation’s assistance in overseeing the newly-Christened
Deep Space Nine. They send the franchise’s
first black protagonist, Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks). Sisko is a good man with a ferocious side,
and Brooks does a great job balancing the two character traits. I like the man who has a temper but always succeeds in controlling it and always fights the good fight; it gives him the ability to do what he has to when he has to (cough*Picard*cough). However, there are times when he hams it up
amusingly when the story gives him an excuse; it’s a shame he wasn’t cast as the
voice of Scar in the upcoming Lion King
remake (or Tony Todd, for that matter).
He also provides more narrative complexity with his relationship with
his son Jake (Cirroc Lofton), and his backstory involves the death of his wife (Felecia M. Bell) during
the Battle of Wolf 359 with the Borg (he later finds another love interest in the form of Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald)). As
a result, he helps spearhead the development of the Federation's first dedicated
warship, the USS Defiant, which makes
her premiere in this show. He’s a likable character, except for one point later on in which he goes
full SJW on a holodeck simulation of the 60’s that others are just having fun
with. One would think that wouldn’t be a
concern centuries after we’ve solved racism’s long-term effects.
The
main problem with the character is that he also turns out to be the reluctant
Emissary (Christ-figure) to the Prophets, a group of gods/4th-dimensional
wormhole aliens sacred to the Bajorans.
As the last sentence suggests, there seems to be a sort of have-it-both-ways
approach to trying to sneak supernatural elements into a staunchly secular franchise. It also gives credence to the idea that DS9
imitated B5, whose spirituality seems far less forced. This side plot eventually comes to a head in
which he must fight the Pah Wraiths (the devils in this religion) and ultimately
sacrifices himself/his presence in this dimension at the end of the series. It doesn't help that the Prophets also refer to him as "The Sisko" without a hint of mirth. What's even more disturbing is the revelation that the Prophets, in some dark perversion of the Immaculate Conception, apparently possessed some young woman in order to conceive him and then sent her off to die when she outlived her usefulness. Then again, some forms of Protestantism might as well believe that. |
| If I were Sisko, this would not be my reaction to this revelation. |
The show also has a solid supporting cast. An energetic Nana Visitor plays Major Kira Nerys, a Bajoran who acts as the second-in-command and struggles with her past as a guerilla during the occupation. Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois) is a changeling whose isolation from the other species manifests into an aumusingly sardonic attitude and a dedication toward enforcing law. He later faces internal conflict when his species is discovered to be an enemy. Quark (Armin Shimerman) is a Ferengi bar-owner who butts head with Odo and acts as the anthropomorphic soul of the station and its inhabitants. Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) is the ship's Chief Engineer, and is on the receiving end of all sorts of tragedies and tribulations when the writers decide to do another episode dedicated to making us feel sorry for him. Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) is the ingenious medical officer. Worf (Michael Dorn) joins the crew and acts as a love interest to Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell).
Jadzia is a Trill, a humanoid species who can bind with a symbiont that carries the memories of the all its previous hosts and turns each current one into a mixed personality. Her previous host Curzon (Frank Owen Smith) was a friend and mentor to Sisko (as well as a bit of a mimbo), which causes him to affectionately refer to Jadzia as "old man." It's an interesting dynamic and it's a hit in DS9's favor that B5 has a one-off episode that comes off like a half-assed rip-off of the Trill symbiosis. I'm not a big fan of the implication that Jadzia's post-fusion promiscuity is a sign of confidence, though. This may come off as iconoclastic (then again I never watched this show in earnest until I did a Netflix binge in the last few years), but I prefer Ezri (Nicole de Boer), who reluctantly took over the Dax symbiont after Jadzia's sudden, shocking death. She struggles with the joining that she wasn't ready for.
The Ferengi are another species given the limelight. In TNG they were not much more than straw conservatives reduced to a joke. In DS9 they're treated like actual people, some of whom rankle under the misogynistic status quo of their society. Even the males are under pressure to produce "profit." Quark's brother Rom (Max Grodenchik) is a technical genius treated like dirt until he finds work with the Bajorans. Rom's son Nog (Aaron Eisenberg), disillusioned by this, joins Starfleet. Quark, despite his own loyalty to Ferengi customs, stretches its rules by helping others to the point of provoking Ferengi enforcer Brunt (Jeffrey Combs). There are often episodes involving Quark's defiantly feminist mother Ishka (Andrea Martin/Cecily Adams) and the Ferengi leader Grand Nagus Zek (Wallace Shawn). The Ferengi episodes have good drama and worldbuilding, and I was surprised to find out that they're unpopular among fans.
The Bajorans have a religious structure similar to the Church, albeit with female priests (Vedek) and the apparent equivalent of a pope (Kai). Vedek Bereil (Philip Anglim), a love interest to Kira, was a character I found bland to the point where I inadvertently skipped the episode in which he was killed off. Kai Winn is a hypocritical conservative cleric and ultimately an agent of those pesky Pah Wraiths.
The Cardassians are a primary antagonist race. Unlike the Klingons, who are very creatively thought out society, they're basically space Nazis. Still, this does result in some of my favorite drama in the series. One of the primary antagonists is the dastardly but complex Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo), who sees himself as a guardian of the Bajorans despite his treatment of them. He also has a weakness for Bajoran women, and has to come to terms with his half-Bajoran daughter Tora (Cyia Batten, Tracy Middendorf, Melanie Smith), after considering murdering her, of course. The latter's death puts him over the deep end. He leaves the Cardassians and eventually becomes the Emissary for the Pah Wraiths. A Cardassian who's a great breakout character late in the series is Damar (Casey Biggs), who struggles under the Dominion's rule of Cardassia until he finally joins the good guys. The Cardassian dissidents are also a good source of drama, especially when characters like Kira learn that things are not as simple as they seemed. One of my favorite episodes deals with this. The Cardassians are also known for laying booby traps for occupying enemies, much to the chagrin of DS9's crew. This race does have a distinctive, dark style motif that the space station effectively conveys. Even there uniforms have a giant spike pointed directly at their own crotches, which I assume is to enforce military posture in the same way Chinese soldiers put pins in their collars pointing at their necks.
Among the
Cardassians is my favorite Star Trek
character: Elim Garak (Andrew J. Robinson).
A Cardassian spy posing as a humble civilian tailor, he strikes up a
tense friendship with Bashir based on the lack of any illusion of truthfulness
between them. He’s witty and complex,
and even in spite of his anti-heroism he has dramatic moments with loved ones
from his past, particularly his abusive father Tain (Paul Dooley). His loyalties are mysterious until the
Dominion takes over Cardassia, and then he’s tormented by having to fight his
own people even though he knows it’s the right thing to do. It’s a good subversion of the “category
traitor” trope that can be so toxic in politics nowadays. Robinson and Alaimo in particular do a great
job acting under prosthetics, which seems to be a lost art nowadays.
Eventually
the Cardassians give way to the Dominion, an empire from the Gamma Quadrant led
by the Changelings. I missed the drama
between the Cardassians and the Bajorans, and sometimes these looming threats’ serving
as the backdrop for political dramas are often only interesting as looming
threats (the Others from Game of Thrones,
for example). Fortunately, the Dominion
is interesting in its own right. The
Founders/Changelings engineered two races for service: The Vorta, a diplomatic
race, and the Jem’Hadar, a warrior race.
These two races have weakness and strengths that help them stay in their
place. In a prescient commentary of
identity politics, both peoples are inculcated with a strong racial identity,
so long as unquestioning loyalty to the founders is a part of that identity. Hell, they even attempt prevent the Vorta from "appropriating" food by engineering them to only be able to taste nuts. The Founders also arrogantly believe themselves
to be benevolent leaders, pretending to guide other races while having no
qualms about destroying them if they rise up.
They eventually ally with a few Alpha Quadrant races, most prominently
the Cardassians. The two most prominent
Dominion characters are a female Changeling (Salome Jens) and multiple Vorta
clones of Weyoun (Jeffrey Combs).
The Klingons
prove to be valuable allies against the Dominion, with arcs involving
Chancellor Gowron (Robert O’Reilly), Martok (J.G. Hetzler), and Alexander (Marc
Worden). Further illustrating the newfound
complexity of this series is the Maquis, a group of human rebels unsatisfied by
the Federation’s allegedly selling out their colonies in a deal with the Cardassians,
with Michael Eddington (Kenneth Marshall) acting as an operative. Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd) is a frequent
patron at Quark’s bar. Reflecting the
show’s occasional distraction by silly gimmicks is Vic Fontaine (James Darrin),
a holosuite AI who acts as a 60’s singer/club owner and has entire episodes dedicated
to him for reasons scientists are still attempting to ascertain. On the plus side, his club was the backdrop for a good arc episode about Nog, which even had the nerve to imply that Shane is a boring, overrated movie.
 |
| The world wasn't ready for this much truth. |
Other cast members include Rosalind Chao as Miles' wife Keiko, Chase Masterson, Iggy Pop, and others.
Visually
the show looks good. It mostly uses
great miniature effects for the ships, but later delves into mediocre CGI
(unlike B5’s so-bad-it’s-good CGI). Makeup
looks great but sometimes the costumes look like they were fashioned out of bus
seats.
Deep Space Nine is memorable for its complex
political and character arcs and it arguably broke ground in that arena. It took a break from the eventually-tiresome
monster-of-the-week story-telling that the idealistic depiction of the
Federation limited the franchise. Still,
there were some absurd distractions from this premise. The series finale, in which Sisko and Dukat eliminated
each other in a battle of terrible CGI in the name of ill-advised supernatural elements,
left something to be desired. It
featured a “Well I guess this is it” montage of the remaining characters which
wasn’t quite as creative as the card game at the end of “All Good Things.”
