Comment Stream

Re: DS9 S5: Let He Who Is Without Sin...

@Elnis, Worfelhoff! LOL!

Re: DS9 S7: What You Leave Behind

Paroxysmal sobbing. That is all I have to say. DS9 and TNG. They should be the watermarks by which all other Trek is measured. Especially DS9, though I may only be saying that because my eyes are still bloodshot from recent lacrimations. But DAMN, if they didn't know just when and how to manipulate my sentimental little black heart. "What You Leave Behind". What a fucking perfect title.

I guess the only place left to go from here is BSG. I've had a weird love-hate thing with that series since I finished watching it after its first run. That is, I loved it unashamedly... until season 4. Quite a few years have passed and I like to think I've matured somewhat since then. I hope this will therefore be a slightly newer experience... aided by Jammer's astute analyses as well, of course. :)

Re: DS9 S7: Field of Fire

I'm really not sure what the purpose of recasting Joran Dax from an effeminate late-20s creep to a 50-something Mitt Romney/Hannibal Lecter type was, but it didn't improve my impression of Nicole de Boer's Ezri Dax ONE. LITTLE. BIT. All this episode accomplished was to force me to compare Ms. de Boer to Jodie Foster and, if that was the intent, it was a really, really, REALLY bad idea. I'd bet serious money that Jodie Foster has had ingrown toenails excised that were more talented actors than Nicole de Boer.

Re: DS9 S7: It's Only a Paper Moon

I was thinking after I watched this episode that if you told me in season 1 that Aron Eisenberg would, in season 7, cause tears to well up in my eyes, I would have laughed in your face and said you were nuts. I'm not laughing now. It's funny that Jammer says pretty much the same thing in this review. I leery of the Vic Fontaine character at first but a combination of smart writing and an astoundingly charismatic performance from James Darren has put those fears to rest. I find the idea that Nog found solace and healing in Vic's company to be very believable and at least some of that is because of James Darren. Hm, crazy. *shakes head*

Re: DS9 S7: Take Me Out to the Holosuite

@Nancy, if you browse comments via Jammer's comment browser page you can indeed "bump" a thread. I'm not saying whether it's a good or bad thing, just that it's possible. ;)

I also enjoyed this episode but I'm one of those annoying people who doesn't feel that a frivolous episode here and there detracts from the overall series. As long as it's enjoyable on its own terms, it's worth the 45 minutes.

Re: DS9 S7: Afterimage

@JimmyDee, I'd say the crying scene is completely in line with the rest of her performance. She was pretty consistent with the whole "After School Special actress" routine.

Re: DS9 S6: Tears of the Prophets

OUTSTANDING review, Jammer. As with all of your good reviews, you articulate most of the things I appreciate about an episode as well as call out the flaws that bothered me. And, as with all of your absolute BEST reviews, such as this one, you elucidate the strengths and weaknesses that escaped me when I watched the episode myself for the first (or second) time. Sometimes I feel the need to watch an episode again after I've read one of your analyses. This is one of those times. Your site has made my re-watching of the various Trek series feel fresh again, and for that, speaking as a full-on Trek nerd since childhood, I thank you SINCERELY. Now... ON TO SEASON 7!

Re: DS9 S6: The Sound of Her Voice

The premise had potential and I think in the final episode that potential remained more or less intact right up until the pointless twist ending. I don't mind talky episodes if the talk is good and has some meat to it (the talk was fair to good here and had just enough meat that it wasn't completely pointless, IMO) and there's some sort of emotional payoff in the end. There was no payoff here and I blame the stupid twist. It's not that Captain Cusack died. I could accept that. I fully expected it. It's that when they found her, she was a desiccated corpse that had been lying there for 3 years. WHY? It completely undermined any emotional impact the scene should have had. And for what?! What a damn shame.

Re: DS9 S4: The Quickening

@Jack, Dax was referring to the fact that she had to translate Bashir's medical jargon for the locals. She does it several times during the episode.

Re: DS9 S6: Profit and Lace

I can only assume that everyone up above arguing over which is the worst episode of Star Trek is forgetting about TNG's "Shades of Gray". You remember. The clip show? Yes, yes, all those episodes you mentioned were bad to one degree or another. But at least there was SOME amount of effort put into their production. "Shades of Gray" is an episode that's so bad, it almost doesn't even count. It's like the writers suddenly realized they were short an episode, so they scribbled something on a napkin over lunch one day. And I refuse to believe that it took more than a single afternoon to shoot and edit. It wasn't bad because the writers and/or the actors and/or the director failed at their respective jobs. It was bad because no one even tried. It was LAZY and CHEAP, and that's just unforgivable, IMO.

Re: DS9 S6: The Reckoning

I don't find Kai Winn's vacillations unrealistic. She seemed from the beginning to be someone who is torn between her faith (which is obviously not now and maybe never was as pure and unshakable as she professes it to be) and her ambition for power and/or greatness. It's not hard to imagine, as she's sitting on Bajor realizing more and more she's been relegated to second banana status and might remain so until the end of her reign, that the ambitious side of her is taking over. She's trying to assert herself because she's realizing that she may end up hardly more than a footnote in the Bajoran history books.

Re: DS9 S6: One Little Ship

I'm glad Jammer lightened up on these fluff episodes. I guess once DS9 proved it had some teeth, the occasional silly episode didn't seem so threatening. I always have to remind myself that Jammer wrote these reviews as the series aired in first run whereas many of the people reading and commenting on them now a decade and a half later have seen the series in its entirety before, some of us multiple times.

Re: DS9 S6: Far Beyond the Stars

Regarding Brooks' "overacted" breakdown scene. Be sure to watch the episode in a high enough resolution that you can see the REAL tears running down the actor's face. I think it was an amazing piece of work and the fact that Brooks was not at least NOMINATED for an acting Emmy is indicative of another type of prejudice commonly found in the entertainment industry: the one about science fiction being taken seriously. Although that too is hinted at in this episode.

Re: DS9 S6: The Magnificent Ferengi

I had to pause the episode after Leck shot Moogie in the holosuite simulation because I was laughing so hard. For a split second I thought he was finally going to score one for the team because he was the assassin of the group, the only real killer present. Yep, he's a killer all right. But no less inept than everyone else. Pure. Gold.

Re: DS9 S3: Fascination

@Grumpy, Actually, I think it was for exactly the same reasons. I just didn't bother to articulate it as well as you. Well stated, sir.

Re: VOY S2: Meld

"Tuvok really seems to be a poor excuse for a Vulcan compared to the few others seen."

Shut yo mouth, son! Tim Russ' depiction of Tuvok is, in my opinion, the second best rendition of the Vulcan archetype after Leonard Nimoy himself. Voyager was surely a severely flawed series in many ways, but I've never heard anyone accuse Tim Russ' Tuvok as one of the major contributing factors. Until now.

Re: DS9 S5: Children of Time

@William B, I agree that it's difficult to suss out the moral implication because there's really no real-world situation to compare it to. I guess that's part of the beauty of science fiction. It compels you to think about things in a way that you otherwise never would or even COULD. Anyway, I can kind of see your point. It's bad enough to end someone's life. Wiping out their entire existence from birth to death might be a whole new level of immorality.

Re: DS9 S6: A Time to Stand

Jake's brief scene where he's trying to get an interview with Weyoun further proves that Cirroc Lofton's acting has vastly improved since the series began. There's nothing spectacular acting-wise in the scene, it's just really effective and believable. I wasn't especially fond of Lofton in the early seasons, but he's grown on me. A lot.

That's the only (very, very minor) thing I missed in this review. Everything else was covered and Jammer's analysis was completely spot on.

Re: DS9 S5: In the Cards

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful episode and a spot on review from Jammer.

@musicaddict365 That was a Roger Maris baseball card in "The Most Toys", not Willie Mays. That would have been great though, if the card in this episode was the very same one from Fajo's collection. They wouldn't have had to acknowledge it in the dialog or anything. Just a sly little wink to the fans. Too bad.

Re: DS9 S5: Children of Time

^Oh, and that goes for the Dax symbiont, too!

Re: DS9 S5: Children of Time

The question I want answered is why everyone thinks that preventing the colony from coming into existence is tantamount to murdering all of the people in it? It's not as if they lived a life and then were killed. They were never born. All of their progenitors live on... +1, i.e., Kira. Put another way: alternate timeline Odo was still alive when the Defiant arrived. Did he "die" after the colony was prevented from being founded? No, of course he didn't. And neither did anyone else.

Re: DS9 S5: Business as Usual

The issue of currency in the Federation is actually a confusing one. On one hand, Federation credits were mentioned more than once in TOS and even a couple of times on TNG and DS9. On the other hand, characters from both eras have stated that the Federation doesn't use money (for example, Kirk to Gillian in The Voyage Home, Picard to Lily in First Contact).

Re: DS9 S5: By Inferno's Light

@Jay
"The wormhole is still "there" even when it's closed. And I doubt a supernova explosion and shockwave would leave it unaffected."

This is a science fantasy television show where the laws of physics are bent, broken or completely ignored altogether whenever and wherever the plot needs them to be. You can't say "I doubt a supernova explosion and shockwave would leave it unaffected" because there are no scientific principles either in the real world (where wormholes may or may not exist, but if they do, they are NOTHING like any wormholes depicted in Star Trek) or in the background technobabble lore of the show. The wormhole would have been fine BECAUSE Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe say so, and when it comes to Trek Science, it is whatever the writers say it is. The only time you can cry foul is when the technobabble contradicts itself and, let's face it, that happens ALL THE TIME on Star Trek.

Re: DS9 S5: Let He Who Is Without Sin...

The quote at the top of the page is the best thing about the episode. I chuckled. After that I was expecting an enjoyable fluff/comedy ep but once they get to Risa the whole thing just dives right off a cliff. And that's even before Pat Robertson shows up and puritan Worf decides to join his cult. Really? REALLY? Seriously, how the hell did this episode make it off the page and into production? How the hell did it make it ONTO the page in the first place? What were they thinking?

Re: DS9 S5: Trials and Tribble-ations

Anyone analyzing the plot or even the characters in this episode is wasting their time. This was a love letter to TOS and to Trekkies of every generation, nothing more, nothing less. I suspect Dax's uncharacteristic behavior is because she's playing the role of the Trekkie, here. "ZOMG, IT'S KIRK!" I thought it was cute.

According to Memory Alpha, it was briefly considered to make this episode the season 5 premiere, partly so it could air on the actual 30th Anniversary but ALSO to set it apart from the season proper and the series as a whole. In other words, it would have made this a stand alone episode that could be considered apocryphal. Obviously that's not what happened but it's further proof that this episode was intended NOT to be taken seriously for anything other than what it is: a buttload of fun. 4 stars.