Star Trek DS9: More of Season Four

Continuing to trudge through the fourth season…

• Shades of TNG! It's holo-wackiness when the doctor becomes "Our Man Bashir". We do learn that breaking into someone else's holosuite is illegal--since when? Anyway, the whole episode is a Bond parody, all the way down to women's names with sexual innuendo (Mona Luvsitt?) Coupled with the holosuite problems is a transporter accident that puts the senior crew's images into Bashir's fantasy. Nana Visitor does her best Natasha Fatale impression (you know, "moose and squirrel"?), and Sisko makes quite the Bond villain as "Dr. Noah". Overall, it's a goofy episode.
• Things get a bit more serious in a two-parter starting with "Homefront". A Changeling terrorist attack on Earth turns Starfleet paranoid enough to declare martial law (keep in mind this episode aired years prior to 9/11). They also put Sisko in charge of Starfleet security--adding blood screenings and phaser sweeps. Odo helps out despite a natural hesitancy from the Ferderation. A number of subplots were added as "episode helper" in order to make it a two-parter, including one with Sisko's father (Brock Peters, also played a Starfleet admiral in two Trek movies).  The first part ends with the Changelings disrupting Earth's power grid, and martial law going into effect.
• "Paradise Lost" continues the story with Starfleet's "Red Squad" (an elite group of cadets) who fall under Sisko's suspicion. It turns out they were responsible for the power outage, and that Starfleet Command put them up to it. Admiral Leyton (Robert Foxworth) plans to overthrow the government in order to "protect Earth", so Sisko has to find evidence to take them down. Colm Meaney gets a juicy cameo as a Changeling to irritate and scare Sisko. After various machinations on both sides, a lot of speechifying, and a ship battle, the good guys win the day.
• Kira, Odo, and a Bajoran minister are in a triangle--although Kira doesn't know it--in "Crossfire". The whole "Odo's unrequited love" storyline is annoying--either tell her or forget it! Even Quark has Odo figured out--he's in the "friend zone". At one point, Worf and Odo compare notes on how to establish order on the station and in their lives--they are more alike than they thought. Odo's shapeshifting power seems to have improved--he somehow stops a falling elevator by becoming a metal brace. The whole episode has a vibe a la "The Bodyguard".

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Script: Impossible

As I previously mentioned, I'm catching up on old TV shows this summer via MeTV. One of those shows is Mission: Impossible, and I had a question about a specific episode.

• The concept--a shadowy government organization sends orders to agent Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) via a small tape recorder, which "self-destructs in 10 seconds" via a lot of smoke. He's always reminded that, if he or any of his team is captured or killed, the "secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions". The missions usually involve tricking a foreign leader or breaking into a foreign facility.
• Jim then hand picks a team for the mission. Fortunately in terms of the show's budget, he almost always picks the same people--Barney the engineer (Greg Morris), Willy the muscle (Peter Lupus), Rollin the actor (Martin Landau) and Cinnamon the girl (Barbara Bain). After Laudau and Bain left the show (later to co-star on Space:1999), Paris (Leonard Nimoy, fresh from Star Trek) and various guest actresses stepped in.
• The missions involve technical gadgets, putting on a performance, split second timing, and generally stupid foreign leaders. They never mentioned actual countries--it was always generic Eastern Europeans and South Americans.
• The scripts were normally very clever--they wrapped up the plot (and the bad guys) in a neat bow by the end of each episode. That brings me to my question:
  • In the episode "The Numbers Game" (aired in October of 1969), the mission was to trick an exiled dictator into giving up a hidden fortune by making him think a nuclear war was underway.
  • The "Impossible Missions" team breaks into his bunker, gets him down there, convinces him of the war, and that they can get him the medicine he needs to live in exchange for his fortune.
  • At the end of episode, the other bad guys come down in the elevator (the dictator thinks they are dead), so what does the team do? They jam the elevator to trap them, and then--just walk off camera and toward the tunnel they made. The bad guys--one of which still has a gun--just stare at them as they leave.
  • The bad guys are trapped--unless the just follow our heroes off camera. Instead, they just stand they slack-jawed. It's as if the writer got to the last page and said--"screw it".
  • The question--how did such a sloppy ending get made on what was an otherwise intelligent show?

That's just my thoughts--I may have more M:I entries as I work through the rest of the series.

It's a Family Affair

During the summer, I take the time normally spent watching new shows and catch up on old programming--which digital channel MeTV makes it very easy to do.  I've been DVRing Family Affair (weekdays at 7a eastern) and bingeing on groups of episodes as they pile up. My thoughts overall--

• First off, the show can be summed up as TREACLE! I sometimes feel like I need an insulin shot after watching.
• The concept--swinging bachelor/world trotting engineer Bill Davis (Brian Keith) finds himself with 3 kids after his his brother and sister-in-law are killed in an accident. Teenager Cissy (Kathy Garver) and twin kids Buffy (Anissa Jones) and Jody (Johnny Whitaker) live with "Unca Bill" in his NYC penthouse, along with "gentlemen's gentlemen" Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot), who takes care of the kids when Bill is off on an engineering job (which is often).
• Why is Bill gone so often? Because Brian Keith had a contract where he would only film his part two months a year, so he could do other projects. This is similar to the deal made with Fred MacMurray on My Three Sons--also produced by Don Fedderson. The rest of the cast shot their scenes around him.
• The actors playing the kids are terrible at their jobs. The twins have virtually no expressions when they speak, and Cissy is little better--when Kathy Garver smiles, her face looks like a baby. That matches the mental age of all three kids--dense as rocks.
• The saving grace is Sebastian Cabot as French. How Bill found and hired him is only hinted at (at least so far in my viewing), but thank goodness he did. HIs storylines are far more interesting than the others, and he runs rings around the others in terms of acting. The show really suffers when he leaves from time to time for either health reasons or other work. It's a shame this show basically pigeonholed him for the rest of the his life.
• When French does leave in the first season, his brother (also called Mr. French, and played by John Williams) drops in. It's a lazy plot device and a way to avoid altering scripts.
• Bill has a long line of beautiful dates traipsing through the penthouse, although usually limited to single episodes. He's too busy taking care of the kids, or off on a job.
• Almost all episodes involve a misunderstanding, usually from the kids. If somebody just spoke up, there wouldn't be a series.
• Once in a while, the treacle is broken up with gruesome details--French's first girlfriend was lost in the London Blitz, Bill's buddy in the Korean War was killed just a few feet from him--that kind of thing. It's rather jarring when it happens.
• The show's budget was rather limited. While the penthouse set is sweet, other scenes look ridiculous--"exterior" shots are clearly in a studio, with astroturf standing in for grass.
• Anissa Jones was apparently forced by the producers to look like she was 6 years old throughout the series, to the point of taping down her breasts as she matured in any public appearances. No wonder she ended up as she did...
• Buffy's doll "Mrs. Beasley" was so popular, Mattel sold the doll for years.
• Family Affair drinking game--take a drink when:
  • Unca Bill says "see" at the end of a line, as if he's Edward G. Robinson
  • When the kids say "whatever that is" in reference to a long word mentioned by an adult
  • When Mrs. Beasley appears (not just mentioned)
  • Cissy looks confused
  • Mr. French mentions "Winnie the Pooh" or "gentlemen's gentlemen"
  • Unca Bill has a new girlfriend
  • You see astroturf in an "outside" scene
• Believe it or not, the show was nominated for 8 Emmys, and a Golden Globe (it never won).
• Things did not go well for the cast post-cancellaton. Jones committed suicide in 1976, and Cabot died of a stroke a year later. In 1997, after the death of his daughter to cancer, Keith also committed suicide.
• The CW tried a remake of the show with Tim Curry as French--it did not last long.

Overall, I would recommend this show when you're doing chores around the house or working on a project. It doesn't take a lot of concentration to keep up with it.

Star Trek DS9: Season Four Continues

Moving on…

• Dax has to deal with one of her past hosts (again) in "Rejoined". In this case, it's another Trill that used to be Dax's wife. Unfortunately, there's a a Trill taboo about their later hosts getting back together--it's a whole "don't ask, don't tell" thing. There's a also the point that they are both now female--after they throw technobabble and sweet nothings at each other, it results in one of television's first same-sex kisses. This is what Trek does best--cloak current issues in sci-fi trappings. Meanwhile, I've noticed that Worf isn't getting a lot to do on the show--he had a bigger part on TNG.
• The Defiant is attacked by the Jem'Hadar in "Starship Down". They are forced to go into the atmosphere of a planet, which means plenty of CGI. It basically becomes a submarine drama. At one point, Dax and Kira move to another station on the bridge--since the stations are just touch displays on glass, why not just reconfigure the one you're in front of?  In a later attack, the bridge is cut off from the rest of the ship, and so engineering (O'Brien) thinks they are dead. I'm not so sure I would assume that. The episode provides a number of character moments, as they say what could be their last words.
• Ugh--another Quark episode! He and the other Ferengis become "Little Green Men" after they end up on 1947 Earth. Darn that time travel! We get to hear Ferengi language minus the universal translator--it's all gibberish to the "Earthlings". It's the same for the Ferengis. Quark, of course, sees it as a great chance to make a fortune. There's a lot of social commentary throughout the episode--nuclear weapons, the danger of cigarettes, and what's allowed under "national security". There's a cute reference to "Hangar 18"--where aliens supposedly are stored. The US Army General is played by Charles Napier--who also played one of the "space hippies" in the TOS episode "The Way to Eden".
• Worf finally gets something to do in "The Sword of Kahless". Get ready for endless discussions about honor and Klingon history! John Colicos drops by as ex-Commander Kor--his fourth Trek appearance over three series (TOS, The Animated Series, and DS9). He gets Worf and Dax to follow him on a quest for the famed weapon. Colicos provides a Shatner-level show of scenery chewing throughout. There's a whole "Indiana Jones" thing going on as they figure out traps and fight off bad guys. It then turns into "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" with each of them fighting for the Bat'leth, which apparently has the ability to influence minds (?!?). In the end, they beam it into space.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Star Trek DS9: Starting Season Four

After a bit of a break, we're back to Deep Space Nine...

•  …and we start with the two-parter, "The Way of the Warrior". They sped up the opening theme--it was a big slow--and added more CGI. It's Klingon "Fleet Week" at the station, and Sisko needs some help--from a certain Starfleet Klingon looking for work. Worf (Michael Dorn) ioins the series with this episode, and much of the action surrounds him. The Klingon Empire attacks Cardassia, using an insurrection there and the previous Dominion war as an excuse--and breaks off diplomatic relations with the Federation. It's more honor and duty hoopla, and Barney Google aka Gowron (Robert O'Reilly) drops by. There's a big battle with the Defiant, Cardassians, and the Klingons--and it seems the station got yet another set of weapons upgrades. There's even hand to hand combat on the station--looks like Call of Duty--I don't think Gene Roddenberry would have approved. In the end, the Klingons and the Federation are essentially at war.
• After all the action (and expense) of the last episode, we go to a character story--"The Visitor"--starring Benjamin and Jake. The elder Sisko gets pulled out of technobabble phase, and Jake lives the rest of his life without him with rare exceptions when Ben drops in and out of his life, each time only for a few minutes. The older Jake (Tony Todd), now dying, is visited by a young writer who wants to know why he stopped writing. We get an alternate future where a) DS9 is handed off to the Klingons; b) Jake moves to Earth and marries a Bajoran girl; c) she leaves him due to his obsession to find Ben; and d) Captain Nog (?!?!) and the crew (with lots of old-age makeup) return with the Defiant to save Ben. More technobabble and a suicide later, this history is erased, Ben is saved, and all is back to normal. It's widely considered to be one of the finest episodes of DS9--not sure if I would agree, it seems a bit maudlin.
• Bashir gets a chance to shine in "Hippocratic Oath". He and O'Brien are captured by a Jem'Hadar group, and our doctor ends up running drug rehab for them. There's a whole "Bridge over the River Kwai" vibe to it--Bashir is torn between his job to heal and his orders to fight the Dominion, while O'Brien has no interest in helping them. There's also a B-story with Worf falling into old Security Chief habits, which means he butts heads with Odo.
• We get two views of Love, Federation Style in "Indiscretion". Kira and Gul Dukat look for survivors of a prisoner ship--he's there to find and apparently kill his daughter, who the result of a tryst with a Bajoran. There's a lot of dialogue between them--looks like they needed to save more money on the show. There's an obscure race--the Breen--who appear to have the same outfit as Princess Leia while she was rescuing Han. Meanwhile, Sisko is getting cold feet as Kasidy Yates pushes him to move their relationship forward. Mindy noted that it was lucky that the only two African-Americans in the Federation found each other.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

More Arrested Development

Let's cover the remaining new episodes of Arrested Development--

• Now this is more like it! The first six Netflix episodes were rather depressing, but then Gob Bluth arrived! Why is Will Arnett not a movie star? He shines as the disgraced magician (sorry--illusionist). We also get--STEVE HOLT! Plus an Entourage parody and the return of "Forget-me-now".
• It seems as though the disparate storylines are coming together as we move through the episodes, especially the "Cinco de Quattro" scene.
• I really didn't see the changes to Lindsay coming--going from a life of squatting to running for Congress. Seems like the "Teflon" nature of the characters is kicking in.
• Then again, Tobias' lot in life drops throughout the run. He gets opportunities to change things for the better, but then awkwardly screws it ip.
• We got a commentary on modern reality shows when Lucille becomes the leader of "The Real Asian Prison Housewives of the Orange County White Collar Prison System" (TRAPHOTOCWCPS). Jessica Walter really gets a chance to shine here.
• Things get weird (and on AD, that's saying something) when Gob and Tony Wonder (Ben Stiller) alternately take revenge and fall in love, with the help of face masks of each other.
• Maeby becomes the cement of the series--her episode ties together and resolves multiple storylines. We also learn how George Michael becomes George Maharis, who then brings us "FaceBlock", the world's first anti-social/anti-piracy/wood block app.
• We finally get around to Buster Bluth in the next to last episode. Back in the army, he becomes the first injured drone jockey, before finding Love--Congressman Herbert Love's wife. We actually get a moment of pathos in the middle of the insanity.
• The season's run ends with George Michael nee Maharis, and a confrontation with his father. I have to say I was nonplussed by the ending--many points were not resolved, and the tacked on arrest of Buster for the murder of Lucille II was just a way to say "see you in season five". I wouldn't consider that to be a certainty.

Overall, I would recommend the new season of the show--just be sure to keep your expectations grounded (which the Internet clearly did NOT do).

Arrested Development is available on Netflix.

Arrested Development?

Before we were burned too many times by FOX TV to invest time in any new show, Mindy and I adored Arrested Development. We cheered the Bluth family, and did our best to evangelize the show before it was buried by the network (in a two hour block against a Winter Olympics opening ceremony, no less). Despite various rumors, I never thought it would come back before Netflix made the big announcement--new episodes, to premiere simultaneously!

We spent the last few days bingeing on our AD DVD's in order to fully catch up (6-8 episodes a day) before digging into the new Netflix episodes. In retrospect, that might have been a mistake--the original episodes are far better. I suppose you can't go home again. So far, we've made it through 6 of the 15 new episodes, and it's not promising.

• First off, I keep getting the same feeling I have when watching "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"--the characters are only supposed to be 18 months older, but 10 actual years had elapsed since the original series. The Bluths have the same problem--it's hard to see them in a scene that supposedly occurs on the same day as the final episode.
• Speaking of looks, Portia de Rossi swears she had no plastic surgery, but it's hard to reconcile that with Lindsey's face on the new shows. Perhaps it's a joke--that she's made up to look like Lindsey had botched surgery in the interim? 
• While there are some flashes of brilliance (Cinco de Quatro, C.W. Swappigan's barter restaurant, Kristen Wiig and Seth Rogen as young Lucille and George), the whole thing doesn't hold together.  Creator Mitch Hurwitz mentioned in an interview that, at one point, he wanted to do a a kind of "hyperlinked" show, where you could watch it in whatever order you wanted, and the final product still has that sense. It's disjointed.
• While the show was always mean and featured some unlikeable characters, there's a much darker take here. Michael, in particular, at least tried to do the right thing before, but that's no longer the case. What he puts George Michael through is painful to watch.
• In the earlier shows, the characters seemed to have a "Teflon" quality--terrible things happened (mostly self-inflicted), but things turned out OK in the end. Now, the cast has gone to what Community would call "the darkest timeline".
• They are really packing in the stunt casting, aren't they? I'm sure everyone wanted in Hollywood wanted a role, but we're spending more time IMDBing some guy in the background--"isn't he from…?"--than watching the main action.
• Ron Howard (until now just an unseen narrator) got most of an episode to himself playing a studio mogul.  That wore thin fairly quickly--Opie was never a great actor.
• However, I can't get enough of young Barry Zuckerkorn--played by Henry Winkler's son Max.
• Most obscure reference so far--the cheap Fantastic Four movie from the 1990's (it actually happened, although Roger Corman produced it, not Ron Howard).

Hopefully, the remaining episodes will turn things around.  Arrested Development is available on Netflix.  

Star Trek DS9: Season Three Wraps Up

Let's finish up the third season...

• Sisko, having nothing better to do, builds a ship with his son in "Explorers". He apparently also had time to grow a goatee. Many internet geeks complained that the "solar sail" ship they build is impossible--the sail needs to be hundreds of times the size shown for it to actually work. There's a "building the ship" montage designed to fill time in this "day in the life" episode. Jake announces he's been accepted for a literary scholarship, but unfortunately wants to wait a year (rats!), They manage to get the ship to Cardassian space, where they are treated to an (impossible in space) fireworks display. The B-story is about Julian and an old female schoolmate at the academy--she was the valedictorian. There's a great scene with a drunk O'Brien and Bashir singing together as the doctor commisserates. Turns out the other doctor, the CMO on a Starfleet ship, would rather have Bashir's job.
• Blech! Another Quark-heavy episode in "Family Business". The Ferengi is being audited--which is even worse in their society than in ours. HIs mother (Andrea Martin) is being charged with "earning profit"--illegal for a female. Andrea sounds like Edna Boil from SCTV. His old home reminds me of "The Hobbit"--lots of small circular doorways. The B-story is about Jake fixing up his old man with freighter captain Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald). Turns out they're both into baseball.
• While the rest of the crew play darts (don't they have work to do?), Kira runs a special mission for Kai Wynn in "Shakaar". Kira's old resistance cell are now farmers, and they're holding onto macguffin devices Wynn needs to secure her position in the government. Louise Fletcher continues her mustache-twirling ways as the Kai--she tries to play against all sides and fails miserably. Of course, Kira gets way too deep into the situation as always--she spends weeks as a fugitive before turning the resistance leader into a politician. As for the B-story, the dart game is rather goofy--it really went nowhere.
• Dax has a visit with past hosts in "Facets". It's a Trill ritual that involves loaning the other host's memories to others, with the rest of the cast as guinea pigs. They all get to play a new character--it's rather like audition monologues for genre actors! For no reason, they include the murderous host in the ceremony, hosted by Sisko--Avery Brooks gives him a whole Hannibal vibe. Host Curzon (hosted by Odo) decides to hang around--oops! The whole concept makes no sense--why is she asking questions of her previous hosts, when she should already have their memories. Leeta (Chase Masterson), a Dabo girl, has apparently become part of the inner circle with little explanation--I guess they needed another female role on the show. There's a B-story with Nog training for his Starfleet academy entrance tests. As usual, Nog is goofy but earnest.
• All this dart playing, ship building, and mind-swapping have paid off--Commander Sisko is made a Captain in "The Adversary". His first mission involves the Defiant, a planet in crisis, and an ambassador (Lawrence Pressman, a Trek veteran) who's not really an ambassador. It turns out a Changeling is on the Defiant, and it's trying to start a war by taking over the ship. No one can trust another, since any of them (or anything on the ship) could be the Changeling. It's time for the ol' Self-Destruct sequence! We also get the "who's the real Odo?" sequence. There's a Changeling fight and a whispered secret to Odo--"we are everywhere"--which takes us to the end of Season Three.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

It's Pilot Season at Amazon

In the brave new world of internet television, Amazon has decided to go the traditional route with "pilots" of new original programming, many with big stars and proven creative talent. We watched several of them (they're available here)--my quick reviews…

• "Alpha House" stars John Goodman as a US Senator living with other congressman in the same house and the shenanigans that ensue. Like many of the Amazon shows, "internet TV" translates into "how many swear words can we jam into each minute?". Washington becomes a big frat house (which may be depressingly close to the truth), and writer Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) lays it on with a trowel. Try "House of Cards" instead.
• "Betas" is all about hipster software developers--if you're not currently working on an iPhone app, most of the references will go over your head. Unfortunately, the show morphs into the standard "geeky guy wants the girl" plot. I suggest you spend a better time with Angry Birds.
• "Browsers" (apparently, "Gamma Time" was taken) follows several interns at an internet site. Inexplicably, the kids break into song--it's Glee meets The Daily Beast! Bebe Neuwirth plays the boss--I wouldn't say her portrayal is broad, but perhaps she could wear an "I'm Arriana Huffington" sandwich board to help the audience out.
• "Onion News Empire" is a slickly produced Newsroom parody with Jeffrey Tambor in the main anchor role. While it's very funny, the show seems very limited--not sure where they take it from here. Check out the mothership instead.
• "Those Who Can't" is a sitcom that perpetuates the whole "teachers are idiots, kids are in control" concept. We couldn't take more than a few minutes before moving on.
• A bright spot is "Dark Minions", an animated show starring the voices of Kripke (John Ross Bowie) and Stuart (Kevin Sussman) from the Big Bang Theory. They play slackers who end up as, well, minions in a galactic empire that is only slightly more organized than the rebellion fighting them. The only problem with the pilot is the lack of full animation--they couldn't afford it for the pilot, but I would definitely watch this show.

We skipped "Supanatural" and Zombieland, as well as the kid's shows. You can try them out for yourself at Amazon Video. 

Star Trek DS9: Season Three Rolls On

Time jumps, old age makeup, alternate universes, and military intrigue...

• O'Brien becomes a "Visionary" after a radiation accident lets him jump into the future. Romulans are on the station checking out intelligence reports on the Dominion (part of the trade for borrowing cloaking tech to the Defiant), and he sees the destruction of DS9, only a few hours away.  The time jump storyline is rather complicated, but the producers pull it off well. Our heroes keep trying to stop Miles' events from happening with no luck. Of course, there's a technobabble explanation for whole thing. We also get a great sequence with the station exploding--no CGI, it's a real model blowing up, per the Memory Alpha site.
• Bashir starts hearing "Distant Voices" after he is attacked by an alien junkie. The station is mostly deserted and trashed--he only finds Quark and Garak. He starts rapidly aging (a favorite Trek trick). He finally finds most of the staff, bickering with each other. A damaged communication system starts emitting the crew's voices--it turns out he's in a coma, and the "others" with him are actually different aspects of his subconscious. The alien takes out each of them, removing a bit of Bashir's mind when he does so. In the end, he repairs the ship and stops the alien--all in his mind--to save himself. This is really a tour de force for Siddig.
• Speaking of favorite Trek tricks--we return to the Mirror Mirror universe "Through the Looking Glass". Mirror O'Brien kidnaps Sisko and takes him back--he's needed to replace the now dead Mirror Sisko to complete a rebellion mission, Unfortunately, the mission is to convince Mirror Jennifer Sisko (who's was killed by the Borg in the normal universe) to stop work on a Macguffin device--or kill her. There's a lot of overacting, especially from Mirror Kira. We also meet Mirror Dax, who's Sisko's mistress. Vulcan Tuvok (Tim Russ) from Voyager also guest stars. Our Sisko seems to have no trouble slipping into the pirate role--even remembering all the details of his alternate. There's a very Star Wars-ian chase through Terek Nor (DS9), then the self-destruct gambit is used for our heroes to escape. You can tell the cast loves these episodes. Frankly, I think this storyline is better than the main series.
• Another two-parter begins with "Improbable Cause". There's an attempted assassination of Garak, and Odo is on the case. The attack is tracked back to the Romulans, who have apparently hired new tailors--the huge shoulder pads are gone. A Cardassian "deep throat" provides more backstory, and Odo confronts Garak. There's a whole "Obsidian Order" angle involved. A trip to track down Garak's mentor Enabran Tain (Paul Dooley) ends in their capture by the Romulans, who are working with the Cardassians to take out the Dominion. Garak sells out Odo to Tain, and we're onto part two--"The Die is Cast". The Cardassian/Romulan fleet move to DS9 and the wormhole while Tain and Garak talk over old times. Starfleet, of course, wants DS9 to stay out of it, and Sisko, of course, ignores it. There's a power play between Garak and Tain as the former's loyalties are tested regarding Odo's torture, and a technobabble device that stops Odo from changing his shape used to provide the torture. In the end, the Jem'Hadar trap and destroy the Cardassian/Romulan fleet--the Romulan commander is actually a Founder. Odo and Garak use the confusion to escape, with the Defiant giving them a hand. Apparently, this story was made into a two-parter at the last minute--and it shows. There's a lot of dialogue designed to stretch out the story rather than advance it.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Star Trek DS9: Even More of Season Three

The cast is in peril, as well as the station, in this next group of episodes.

• Let's spin the Wheel of Character Death in "Life Support".  The winner--or loser--is Vedek Bereil, who's advising the Kai on Cardassian negotiations when a shuttle accident almost kills him. The episode turns into "Medical Center", with Bashir standing in for Chad Everett. More and more experimental procedures are tried to save Bereil's life, to the point of replacing his brain with positronic implants. In the end, there's just too much to replace, and Bashir refuses to go further. There's also a B-story with Nog and Jake--I hate the Nog character.  I also noticed yet another Kira hairstyle--she's the Troi of DS9.
• Now let's put a main character in peril--Kira--in "Heart of Stone". She and Odo are on a shuttle run and run into a Maquis battle--she ends up in a cave stuck in a crystal that threatens to envelop her (seems kind of goofy). There's even more technobabble than usual in this episode. Odo works furiously to save his friend, and when it seems all is lost, finally admits his love for her. Of course, it turns out "Kira" is just a Changeling, trying to find out why Odo wouldn't join them--the real Kira is fine. Meanwhile--Nog's back (ugh!) and he wants to go to Starfleet Academy. He's afraid he will end up like his father, shilling for Quark.
• Could a Bajoran warning of doom be DS9's "Destiny"? A rogue Vedek arrives, stating that a joint Bajoran/Cardassian scientific mission is part of an apocalyptic prophecy. Sisko and Kira ignore it until the parallels start to spook the Bajoran officer. She tries to convince Sisko to scrap the mission, and he starts to believe the prophecy too. It turns out the Obsidian Order is involved, and Sisko aka "The Emissary" has to save the day.The B-story involves one of the Cardassian scientists (Tracy Scoggins) and O'Brien butting heads on engineering--then she starts to hit on him.
• Blech--another Ferengi-centric episode! Did anyone think their antics were funny? Grand Nagus Zek (Wallace Shawn) has a "Prophet Motive", and it involves a rewrite of the "Rules of Acquisition" and a missing Bajoran Orb. Quark is forced to move in with Rom--can two Ferengi share quarters without driving each other crazy? The B-story is about Bashir and a Federation medical award. Overall--this is a terrible episode. According to the Memory Alpha site, the plotline came from an unpurchased Taxi spec script, which explains a lot.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Star Trek DS9: More of Season Three

Guest stars and time jumps in this log entry--

• Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) drops by the station in "Defiant"--or is he? Nope--it's his transported-created clone Thomas Riker, now working for the Maquis. He plays William to get Kira to give him access to the Defiant, swipes it, and starts attacking the Cardassian empire. Why didn't the security systems recognize the difference? Sure, William and Thomas have the same DNA, but when Thomas went AWOL, wouldn't the systems be updated with this info, track William, and see if another William showed up? Thomas doesn't have the full beard--just a goatee (making him the evil Riker, per TV rules). There's also a silly subplot about Gul Dukat worrying about his son's birthday. In the end, Thomas surrenders to save others.
• Love is in the air--unfortunately, it's a disease--in "Fascination". The episode is set against a Bajoran "Gratitude Festival"--seems like a lot of new-age nonsense. The aforementioned disease brings suppressed desires to the surface--Jake's got a crush on Kira, while her main squeeze Bereil wants to be with Dax, and she in turn wants to be with Sisko. Also, Miles and Keiko are feuding (she's back from a Bajoran mission). It's all due to the presence of Lwaxana Troi--so it's a problem for Odo as well. When did this show become a soap opera? I also noticed that the crew each have one set of "off duty" clothes--you see them over and over. Why wouldn't they just replicate different clothes each time? Finally, just how far is DS9 from Bajor--why can't Miles just shoot over there to see his wife?
• It's yet another two-parter: "Past Tense". Dax, Sisko, and Bashir have a bad transporter trip--and end up on Earth in 2024. While Kira and O'Brien spout technobabble, Sisko provides exposition about this era, where the homeless are pushed into gulags, and the rich enjoy the good life (of course). Actually, based on current trends, I wouldn't be surprised if this is what the real 2024 will look like. Dax has a better time of it--a rich plutocrat takes a liking to her, and she seems to easily lie about herself. Sisko also knows that a major riot is about to happen. We hear about a "Starfleet Temporal Displacement" policy--rather like the Prime Directive for non-interference, but for the time stream. When the leader of the upcoming riot is killed defending Sisko (played by Brook's stunt double), our hero has to step into that role in order to allow Starfleet and the Federation to exist in the future. (The Defiant, with Kira, O'Brien, and Odo inside, is protected from the nonexistence of the Federation due to a technobabble bubble.) Dax and O'Brien beam back to 1930 (to the same point Kirk and Spock went in "City on the Edge of Forever", per the Memory Alpha site), 1960 (where they meet some hippies), and 2048 before they figure out the right time to rescue  their comrades. This is a "big message" story.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Bob: I'm Getting Re-Married in the Morning

This episode features Cynthia Stevenson as Bob's daughter Tricia. She has a plan to throw her parents a surprise second wedding for their 25th anniversary--but realizes it's time and isn't ready. She really goes berserk in the episode--it's hilarious. At one point, they are in a convenience store when a stick-up happens--she grabs the gun and throws it out the door, then yells at them to get back in the car. Stevenson went on to her own series, "Hope and Glory", and has been working on various shows since. There's also a number of references on how to best reach the Wisconsin Dells (The Kennedy Expressway or the Old Milwaukee Road)--an argument I've heard from my wife and in-laws. There's a scene where hungry wedding guests begin cutting off pieces of wedding cake from the bottom, leaving each of them with a disk of cake in their hands. 

The Complete Series DVD is available on Amazon.

Star Trek DS9: Season Three Continues

We get a number of genre TV tropes in this batch of episodes...

• Is Kira a deep cover operative?  In "Second Skin", our Bajoran liaison/renegade learns that she had been leaving a double life--with the other as a Cardassian spy. They gave her false memories to perform her role in the Bajoran underground, and have now brought her back to the fold and "restored" her Cardassian features. There's even a doting father (Lawrence Pressman), trying to convince her. They show her the corpse of the real Kira--kept on ice?  Seems like a real waste of resources, just in case you would need it. Meanwhile, our heroes and Garak go on a mission to save her--they keep doing the stealth thing in the Defiant, making their way across Cardassian space. It turns out the Obsidian Order was after the father--he was the suspect. This "double life" story has been used several times on the various Trek series.
• Quark buys some ship wreckage--and winds up with a Jem'Hadar orphaned baby--in the appropriately named "The Abandoned". The baby is growing at an accelerated rate--needed to move the story along and a staple of genre television. Meanwhile, Kira is uncharacteristically perky and upbeat at one point when trying to get into Odo's quarters. Speaking of the shapeshifter, he the only one able to stop the now-teenage Jem'Hadar, who appears to know he is a Founder. Odo is assigned to care for the child--the episode turns into a lesson on racial tolerance. There's also a B-story about Jake and a Dabo girl--with Sisko trying to break it up.
• O'Brien trips an old security program in "Civil Defense". It decides the station's crew are renegade Bajorans, and locks down an ore processor, trapping O'Brien, Sisko, and Jake. It also starts locking down other systems on the station. Gul Dukat's pre-recorded messages keep playing, telling the rebels to surrender. When they manage to escape, the whole station shuts down in retaliation. Ooo and Quark are stuck in the security room and Bashir, Kira, and Dax and stuck in Ops. It's the ultimate "bottle" show. The "trapped cast" storyline is a constant of genre TV.  The real Dukat finally shows up to save the day--and ends up getting trapped on the station as well. Sisko and Co. manage to stop the station from self-destruction.
• It's Brigadoon in SPAACE in "Meridian". The Defiant is exploring the Gamma Quadrant--and a planet suddenly pops into existence. It shifts between dimensions. The planet and inhabitants become energy when they go to the other dimension, but come back into existence when they return. Of course, Dax falls in love with one of the inhabitants--I would think she is too logical to do that. They figure out how to stabilize the planet--but not before it shifts again and won't return for 60 years. The B-story is about a alien (Jeffrey Combs) smitten with Kira--he pays Quark to make a holosuite starring our Bajoran. The problem--he doesn't have a scan of Kira, and stoops to his normal underhanded ways to get it. Combs will return in other roles on DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Bob: The Man Who Killed Mad Dog

From Newhart's early 90's TV series "Bob" (see my previous entries). I had expected to do more entries on this, but I wan't as impressed with the series as I remembered it. 

This episode references the infamous Senate hearings on the comic book industry, which came out of a hysteria generated by psychologist/flim-flam man Dr. Fredric Wertham and his book "Seduction of the Innocent". Comic books were almost made illegal (Wertham was convinced they were destroying America's youth). They were only saved when the comic industry implemented "The Comics Code Authority"--you can hear more about it in Episode 140 of the How I got My Wife to Read Comics podcast. Bob was traumatized by his run in with his version of the Senate hearings--he shows films of the event, with Bob in glasses, a wig and goatee. He has a chance run-in with his accuser who's now an old man yet manages to bamboozle Bob again.

The Complete Series DVD is available on Amazon.

Star Trek DS9: Onto Season Three

The third season begins…

• …with the two-parter "The Search". In a misguided attempt to improve the show, Sisko returns to the station with an experimental ship, the Defiant. It was built to fight the Borg but then mothballed. The Feds managed to get the Romulans to loan them a clocking device--and an officer to go along with it. Now the cast can run more conventional Trek ship missions--they start with a search for the "Founders" in the Gamma Quadrant, and hopefully defuse the whole Jem'Hadar issue. Sisko bullies Quark into joining them, but then he almost immediately decides to return--the whole script seems like it was written by a committee. Odo makes quite a fuss when a new security officer arrives, but I don't see why--if I was Starfleet, I would be nervous about Odo too. He starts to obsess about a nebula--as if he had a homing instinct. During a battle, he grabs Kira and a shuttecraft. They find a rogue planet with a lake of goo--it's others of Odo's race, and they greet him warmly.
• Part Two begins with Sisko and Bashir on another shuttle--they abandoned the Defiant. Dax and O'Brien manage to find them, and learns that the Dominion and the Federation are writing up a peace treaty back on the station. Meanwhile, Odo is trying to understand his new race, and is getting frustrated. He then gets some "Changeling" history from one of the others, and we get some "Changeling After Dark" action. Back on the station, the Federation is making plans for an alliance with the Dominion, the Jem'Hadar are running roughshod over the station, and the Dominion are taking over the Bajoran sector--and the wormhole. Sisko and the crew are being reassigned--so they go rogue and destroy the wormhole. Odo and Kira finds the crew all safe and sound--the whole thing was just a simulation. It turns out the Changelings are the Dominion! Odo rejects them and joins our heroes back at the station.
• Quark's wackiness meets Klingon mumbo-jumbo in "The House of Quark". The Ferengi accidentally kills a Klingon at the bar, and ends up in an arranged marriage. Googly-eyed Klingon leader Gowron (Robert O'Reilly) guest stars, as does Mary Kay Place as the scheming widow. Meanwhile, Keiko loses the teacher gig (families are moving off the station due to the Dominion), and Miles wants to cheer her up. The solution is a botanist job on Bajor, which also provides an excuse for Rosalind Chao appearing so rarely on the show (only 19 episodes all together).  Seems like they needed a cheap episode to counter the costs of the two-parter.
• Dax's history catches up to her in "Equilibrium". Dax's normally serene character gets a chance to be hostile and confrontative in this episode. She also has some hallucinations that reminded Mindy of a Doctor Who episode involving masks. The whole thing turns into a medical drama--will Jadzia lose her symbiont? We do get to see the Trill home world and hear more of her back story. Trills (the symbioses, not the hosts) apparently breed in weird underground pools. The whole thing turns out to be a Trill conspiracy involving a murder and a botched joining. The fix is to send Jadzia into the weird pool to "absorb" a lost host.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Star Trek DS9: Closing Out Season Two

Let's wrap up the second season of Deep Space Nine--

• It's a trip to a parallel universe for Kira and Bashir in "Crossover". They dropped into the "Mirror, Mirror" universe from TOS--you know, where Spock had the goatee. Mirror Kira is in charge of the Terek Nor station, where the "Terrans" are slaves. Nana Visitor wears a black catsuit and overacts at a Shatnerian level. Speaking of him, our Kira learns how James T. Kirk got Spock to preach reforms--and got the Empire overthrown by the Bajoran/Klingon/Cardassian alliance for his efforts. It's strange how everyone in the Mirror universe knows about the Kirk incident--seems like they would have kept it a secret. Garak is Kira's lieutenant, Sisko is a collaborator, Quark is still a bartender (but got caught for helping the Terrans), O'Brien is a simple maintenance man, and Odo is a slave overseer. Mirror Sisko helps them back to the normal universe. We'll see this universe again several times in the series.
• Kira gets another big role when her boyfriend Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim) needs her help in "The Collaborator". He's about to be named Kai, but he's accused of being--well, a collaborator with the Cardassians. There's a lot of Bajoran mumbo-jumbo, dream sequences, and political machinations. Louise Fletcher as Vedek Wynn is like a viper--always scheming. Bereil is no saint either--he sacrificed a group of Bajorans to save many more (the needs of the many…)--or did he? Turns out he was covering up for the recently deceased Kai Opaka. He steps down, and Wynn is the winner.
• Miles' wartime past catches up to him in "Tribunal". While on vacation (who needs a vacation in the 24th century?), Miles gets nabbed by the Cardassians and is tortured--all because an old buddy (John Beck) uses him as a patsy to help the Maquis. Rosalind Chao gets the biggest role she's had for quite a while. We learn a lot about Cardassian justice--trials are pre-determined, in order to be "efficient". Odo steps in to save him--he still has clearance from the Cardassian occupation. It turns out that his "buddy" was a Cardassian spy, and they use that to spring Miles.
• Finally, it's the season finale--"The Jem'Hadar". They are the soldier class of the mysterious Dominion, and they nab Sisko and Quark while on a (misadvised) trip with Jake and Nog to the Gamma Quadrant. Like all multipart episodes, there's a lot of fluff. Quark worming his way onto the trip. The arguments around the campfire. A mysterious telepath. The annoying Nog character in general. There's also a recurring character--Morn--a silent alien barfly at Quark's--with a recurring joke that he will eventually speak. I assume the name of the character is a take on Cheer's Norm. Back at the station--the Jem'Hadar arrives, telling them Sisko is being held for questioning, and to stay on their side of the wormhole--they wiped out a Bajoran settlement there just to make the point. Replacement Captain Keogh (TV veteran Alan Oppenheimer) arrives to take command. There's a space battle, Sisko's rescue, and the destruction of a Galaxy-class ship. TIme to get ready for the big battle--dunn-dunn-dunn…

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Star Trek DS9: Season Two in the Homestretch

Ka'Plah!

• It's Klingon old home week in "Blood Oath". Three Klingons from the original series--Kor (John Colicos), Kang (Michael Ansara), and Koloth (William Campbell) meet at the station to plan for a final mission. Dax accompanies them, since she knew them in one of her former lives. The big question--how did these three change from the swarthy aliens of TOS to the bumpy-heads of TNG and the movies?
• We get another two-parter in "The Maquis". There's political intrigue, sneaky aliens, long boring dialogue, and an uneasy alliance between Sisko and Gul Dukat. He gets kidnapped, so Sisko takes Kira and Bashir to save him--it doesn't go well. The finale is a showdown in space. This is the first appearance of the Maquis terrorists, as well as the "Badlands" which will later be the site of the Voyager premiere. Bernie Casey guest stars as an old Starfleet buddy of Sisko's, and Bertila Damas as a mysterious Vulcan woman.
• Tailor/spy Garak is under the weather--or is it an addiction?--in "The Wire" (not the one in Baltimore). It's "Lost Weekend"--in SPAACE! Garak trashes the infirmary--why didn't Bashir have him under restraints, like anyone going through withdrawal? Bashir and Garak finally have it out, and we learn more about Garak's backstory. Paul Dooley guest stars as a Cardassian intelligence officer. In a subplot, Dax needs some help with a sick plant, and we get a McCoy callback from Bashir--"I'm a doctor, not a botanist". 

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Star Trek DS9: Past the Halfway Point on Season Two

Making progress...

• O'Brien (who's getting a LOT of screen time lately) and Sisko find that "Paradise" isn't what it's all cracked up to be. The episode is similar to TOS's "This Side of Paradise"--except this time it's megalomania rather than weird plant spores.There's also a prison/slavery motif. 
• Dax and Odo team up to investigate missing persons at a remote colony in "Shadowplay". The missing villagers turn out to be variables in a really big holodeck. There's not much to the storyline, so they add subplots with O'Brien teaching Jake life lessons, Kira and Bareil bickering and canoodling, and Bashir keeping an eye on Quark. The little girl in the episode (Noley Thornton) also played a guest role on TNG (in "Imaginary Friend").
• Dax tutors a Trill trainee in "Playing God". There's an appearance by a "Cardassian Vole" (what looks like an ugly puppet)--they are infesting the station. How do they get up there in the first place? While we do learn some more about Dax's backstory, she is saddled with a goofy story about "subspace seaweed". The trainee is played by Geoffrey Blake, who's spent the last 20 years in minor and guest roles.
• Quark gambles on love in "Profit and Loss". I think the producers finally realized they were making Quark the comedy relief on the show, so this episode gives him a bit more texture.  Mary Crosby aka the answer to "Who Killed J.R.?" plays the love interest under badly done Cardassian make-up. The episode ends up as a Casablanca knockoff--"look, you're getting on that cloaked ship..."

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.

Star Trek DS9: Even More of Season Two

Continuing on...

• There's a con artist on the station (Chris Sarandon), and when he meets Quark, they become "Rivals". There's also a goofy "future sport" sequence with O'Brien and Bashir. Really, nothing major happens in this episode--just a "day in the life" of the station and a bizarre device that is never explained.
• Odo finds out more about his origin in "The Alternate". We don't find out how Odo can shapeshift into objects and animals perfectly, but can't figure out human ears. James Sloyan--you've heard his voice on Lexus commercials--guests as the scientist who worked on Odo originally, and he wants Odo back. This episode is filled with technobabble, and we get some 90's-style CGI to show Odo's transformations.
• Bashir and O'Brien star in "Armageddon Game"--message coming in! They're helping an alien race get rid of biological weapons, and terrorists show up to wreck the party. I noticed that people on the station spend a lot of time ordering and eating food in the Promenade--don't they have work to do? Keiko gets a great scene when she thinks Miles is dead, and the boys bond while they are hiding out.
• O'Brien gets a second chance to shine in "Whispers". Is everyone on the station against him, or is he dangerously paranoid? Of course not--"O'Brien" is a replicant, assigned to stop peace negotiations. The real O'Brien is fine. We get a lot of narration from "Miles" throughout. At one point, O'Brien asks the station's computer if there are any telepathic communications--how would the computer know?

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (and all the Trek series) is available on Netflix.