What are you watching this show on? Saw it years ago, would love to watch it again.
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@greatscott04 I've got the DVD set :thumbsup:
Review by LeftHandedGuitarist
I get emotional every time. Deep Space Nine ends with a beautiful farewell that manages to cover a lot of bases. It wraps up the Dominion War and gives - mostly - satisfying farewells for these characters. This show had by far the characters with the most depth and development in the franchise. There is no room for arguing that fact at all. They felt real. They had faults and they had arcs and evolved throughout the show.
So, it's a real shame that this is the final on-screen appearance for all of them bar Worf. If there was any Trek show that deserved a continuation in film format it was this one. The stories developed here were so rich, and even though this episode wraps things up it still leaves enough open questions and paths for exploration (with one MASSIVE cliffhanger in particular).
This episode itself is strong though certainly not without problems. The pacing is mostly good, but every time we cut to Kai Winn and Dukat on their pah-wraith search it really spoils the momentum. I've now learned (thanks to online forums that didn't exist for me back in the day) that a lot of people were not fans of any of this storyline. I can kind of understand why, even though it never bothered me too much. I really like the mythos that was slowly built up around the Bajoran religion, and certainly when I was younger I couldn't see the way elements became shoehorned in. The pah-wraiths amount to little more than hand-waving magic when you really look at them and they had the effect of turning both Winn and Dukat into pantomime villains.
I don't really accept the way that Winn changed her entire religious beliefs so readily, even though she tries to justify it. I also don't quite understand most of Dukat's motivations after he loses his daughter in season 6. If we are supposed to believe that he's just gone a bit insane then it could have been portrayed better. The whole showdown is over and done with far too quickly and it all gets a bit Star Wars (which I adore, but Star Wars is fantasy-based whereas Star Trek is science fiction/technology based). It doesn't fit. And we get a fast wrap up where Sisko and Dukat just fall into the fire which is... silly, to be polite.
The rest of the episode makes up for this, though. The final battle of the Dominion War is a visual feast and a gripping rollercoaster. The space battle is a tremendous accomplishment for 1990s television standards, but the best part is the Kira/Garak/Damar resistance storyline. Those three characters have such rich histories of conflict to mine that putting them together leads to nothing but joy on screen. The death of Damar does feel like a gut punch even though we've spent so much time hating him for his actions over the course of the past few seasons. It's a shame that his murder of Ziyal is never directly addressed by Kira or Garak. The love-to-hate-him character Weyoun gets a satisfying send off, and the war is ended with a moment of compassion and understanding when Odo offers to give himself up to save everyone.
The individual character bookends are also greatly satisfying, and often bittersweet. Odo leaves, O'Brien leaves, Worf leaves. Odo's decision feel natural even though he leaves hurt people in his wake, but Miles' is much more unexpected and actually the more emotional for me. The O'Brien/Bashir bromance was among my favourite parts of this show, so the video collage of their past moments is heartbreaking for me. Worf's departure is a bit stranger, since we will see him again in Star Trek: Nemesis and it doesn't acknowledge his decisions here at all. Additionally, I will be forever disappointed that there are no flashback to Jadzia due to licensing reasons.
In happier endings, Julian and Ezri are finally together and I like it. It was all a bit forced but I'm just happy at the thought of them together. Nog gets promoted to Lieutenant (take that, Harry Kim), Kira is in charge of the station and Quark gets to keep running the bar while Rom has become Grand Nagus!
That leaves the saddest ending of all: the Siskos. In particular, I think Jake gets the short straw. His dad is gone but just within reach. Benjamin has not only left his son behind, but his pregnant wife. It's a bold ending that leaves you wanting to know more, and extremely bittersweet. Ben and Jake were the heart and soul of this show from the very beginning and I think it's appropriate that it finishes on a shot of Jake thinking about his dad while being comforted.
I said in my review of 'Emissary' that DS9 was my favourite TV show of all time. This rewatch has solidified that statement for me. The characters here are mismatched, broken people who grow and evolve into true friends and take us on that journey with them. It has also really struck me how much DS9 continues to stand up to today's modern TV landscape, while the other Trek shows feel very much liked dated products of their time. Here we have a tale of terrorism, religion, war and through all that a thread of hope and idealism.
I absolutely can't leave it here, and I'm going to be delving into the "relaunch" novels that pick up where the show ended and continue the journey. It's not official canon and could easily be overwritten at any time (especially given the announcement of all the new Trek heading our way on TV), but that doesn't take away from these new stories at all, and given the "black sheep" nature of DS9 in the franchise I have a feeling that these stories are probably the best I can hope for. There's also the upcoming documentary What We Left Behind to look forward to, and maybe one day we'll get a nice HD upgrade for the show.
See you again down the road, DS9.
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@pcq You're welcome, I enjoyed writing them! Thanks for reading.
Devlin Medical Technologies, huh? Cute little inside nod to one of the co-writers on Stargate's original film.
This episode contains one of the most conspicuous incorrect card swipes in the whole franchise. Rodney tries the card multiple times, and the fact that it doesn't work is a plot point. The obvious reason is that he's swiping it backwards.
Meanwhile, still trying to figure out why Amanda Tapping joined the main cast only to keep skipping episodes. So far this season, she's appeared in just 6 of the 9 episodes—and many of those featured her character in just a few short scenes. I would guess that the producers probably wanted to add a tie-in with SG-1 after its non-renewal to capture any audience that wasn't already watching Atlantis, but if that had been the reason I started watching this show after SG-1 ended then I'd be none too pleased with her repeated absences. It seems too early for her work on Sanctuary to be interfering with Tapping's appearances here (it didn't premiere until nearly a year later, in October 2008), but maybe the production lead time was greater than I'd expect.
Wallace was almost redeemable until he almost turned kidnapping into murder. I felt that the character crossed a line in that moment. If he hadn't injected Jeannie with the defective nanites, sacrificing himself so Todd the Wraith could finish reprogramming the nanites would have been a much more powerful gesture. As written, Wallace's death and Sheppard's "contribution" to it fell more than a little flat, like "of course that's the solution, duh".
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@dgw I also find myself wondering why Carter is featuring so little in these episodes, especially here where her scientific knowledge would have been a great help to Rodney. Plus, she's just awesome so more of her is good.
Why do you guys have EPISODE 2 listed... WAY before EPISODE 1 aired? They aired 1 and 2 back to back.
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@djelite It was a double episode combined.
Why does Rodney talk about "finding the ZPM" in the underground city? Why does draining the city's power by firing up the star drive work? Surely this weapon-chair is just like the others and has its own ZPM at one of the points on its base to the right of the seat.
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@dgw Firing up the stardrive draining the power was established a couple of episodes previously. The weapon chair was clearly different from others (it was in the central "throne room" for a start), and didn't have a ZPM slot.
I don't believe the "If Earth could have sent help, they would have" argument. The only way to open a gate connection from SGC to the Pegasus galaxy was with a ZPM, and there are no more on Earth. They have no way to send help.
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@dgw Hence the word "if" :p
i.e. they couldn't send help!
In this case, even Netflix failed me: According to IMDB trivia, the Stargate wikia, GateWorld, and a blog post by producer Joseph Mallozzi… this was originally a longer episode (63 minutes vs. 43 minutes, excluding commercials), and was cut down for syndication. Twenty minutes is a lot of material to cut, even if part of it was a "last week on Stargate SG-1 segment—and the list of omitted scenes in the shortened version is damning (see SG wikia).
Fans were right to be mad at MGM for issuing those early DVDs with the shortened version. Without even having seen the original cut, the syndicated version still feels like it's missing something. I'm mad that Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, and Vudu all have the shortened version despite later DVD releases of the show coming with the longer original cut. (Google Play might have the full version, but it's doubtful. Can't tell because it doesn't show episode runtimes in the store.)
My next step will be to request the Season 8 DVDs via interlibrary loan, just so I can watch this episode as it was intended.
GateWorld: https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s8/threads/#production
Wikia: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Threads#Notes
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0709210/trivia?item=tr0671344
Joseph Mallozzi's post: https://josephmallozzi.com/2011/06/04/june-4-2011-a-sneak-peek-at-the-standing-sets-for-transporter-the-series-they-eyes-dont-have-it-the-stargate-sg-1-season-8-wrap-up/loading replies
@dgw Yep, stick with physical media for the best versions of things :thumbsup:
I don't get it, when the remote didn't work, and it wouldn't spark, all Pop needed was a spark, right? Oh wait, wasn't that a God damn lighter he had in his hand? Yes, yes it was, so why no freaking BOOM!?
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@thenightwolf No, that wouldn't have done anything. C4 doesn't work like that, it needs a detonator to set it off.
How did Ford, who was leaning over the DHD, get shifted by momentum when the entire cockpit was submerged before the drive pod touched the gate? He would have been dematerialised energy.
Also, love the discrete units/only in one piece rule that suddenly applies to gate travel when SG-1 has shown dozens of cases of something being cut off by the gate. Usually staff weapons.
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@tyrannic_puppy I think this rule has been consistent throughout SG-1, at least to my memory. The jumper would have been cut in half too had the 'gate shut down.
Absolutely superb, and a fantastic follow up the equally great 'Touchstone' from season 2. This episode takes you on a ride and manages to make you question whether your really knew O'Neill at all. I loved it when Stargate went full intrigue because the characters were set up well enough to take it to all sorts of unexpected places.
And again, this uses the shows history to build a new story from existing parts, which is so cool. We go right back to Tollana from a few episodes back and use their "no technology" stance to take us down a completely different path. Maybourne and his secrets that were laid in 'Touchstone' begin to be revealed and Jack is even able to use the events of '100 Days' as a reason to help him with his plans.
It manages to keep O'Neill's intentions pretty well hidden, even going as far as to potentially hurt his friendship with Daniel in quite a harsh scene. One thing that always stuck out to me was that in his conversation with Carter about "now I'm acting like myself", his performance really brought me back to the original Kurt Russell version from the movie. Nice.
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@dgw I think it was played with enough ambiguity to raise some questions.
The way this episode brings together a bunch of characters from different previous episodes feels so rewarding. That's the thing that used to always make Stargate stand out so much for me compared to much of the Star Trek shows, the sense of continuity and consequences. It's great to see Ska'ara again (I wish the show had used him more) and the return of the Nox with Lya. Plus, we get to see the cool new Tollan homeworld which looks suspiciously like a university campus! It works, though.
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@dgw Stargate would throw in call backs to the smallest little things from previous episodes. I always loved it, the characters grew and learned and talked about what they had been through before, and it added so much more meaning.
A fantastic show of acting from Michael Shanks who manages to convey the different personalities very well. I was especially affected by his portrayal of the young boy and found it quite emotional. I think that Doctor Frasier gets some great stuff to do here too. I wish she had been given a more prominent role a lot of the time.
I will say that the episode is a little inconsistent, or at the least confusing with some of the more technical information given. The final solution is kind of glossed over. We are told that separating the personalities isn't possible (and the excellent water jug demonstration really helps us understand the issues), but in the end it turns out yes, the ship can fix it after all.
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@tyrannic_puppy That makes sense, I probably wasn't paying close enough attention when it was explained. I think you're about to overtake me with your episode viewings!
This one fails to be quite engaging enough to make me care about Shan'auc and her crusade despite a strong guest appearance from Musetta Vander. It's all very lifeless and flat. They really wanted to separate Teal'c from all memories of his wife, didn't they? But it does end well and sets up some intriguing future stories.
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@tyrannic_puppy That's a good point - but don't forget that Teal'c is near 100 years old! His father's death may have happened many decades ago.
Daniel's back!! I'm kind of sad that we never got a full season of Jonas and Daniel together, could you imagine the absolute chaotic dumbass energy they would have had together??
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@psychicrox I agree! It's a shame that Jonas had to leave so that Daniel could stay.
Review by LeftHandedGuitarist
Stargate did clipshow episodes, a money-saving measure that was an unfortunate necessity for many American television shows at that time. They are never fun to watch. This franchise did at least try to make the episodes as interesting as it could, though. In fact, the Stargate clipshows could sometimes be some of the more important ones for pushing the overall story forward. 'Politics' definitely falls under that description, making it a necessary watch.
Outside of the clips, the episode is actually fantastic. The introduction of Senator Kinsey gives us a really loathsome villain who is a lot of fun to watch, especially with all the verbal sparring that accompanies him. The SGC become ever more desperate as they attempt to defend the Stargate program to a person who has already made up his mind. It's a one-room episode that works really well, and the introduction of more political elements to the show opens things up for some good future conflicts.
But, I just can't excuse the use of all the clips from previous episodes. They are also taken from a number of the more awkward episodes, making them even less appealing. Well, at least we can be thankful that they didn't use anything from 'Hathor', I guess.
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@dgw Haha. I think that Stargate generally handled its clipshows far better than Star Trek did, (although to be fair there is technically only one though you could also include 'The Menagerie'), but Trek did tend to excel at bottle episodes, yes.
I can't take much more of Chakotay's akoo-chee-moya bullshit.
This feels like it's all been done before, and from the moment Chakotay first "wakes up", you're expecting him to still be in the dream. His entire plan relied on being able to see Earth's moon - that's pretty dumb since he's lost in the Delta Quadrant.
Extremely weak aliens, too.Tuvok sure shows a lot of emotion (mostly embarrassment) for a Vulcan, and I'm disappointed that Janeway again shows her lack of leadership ability by plunging headfirst into a lethal situation (the warp core breach) with no regard for the consequences.
In what world is being kissed by Seven of Nine considered a nightmare? Harry is weird.
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@finfan Haha, well that's good! Because reading them back I'm feeling bad about how critical I was.
Quite unimpressed with this one. I make fun of Voyager for using the reset button, but this episode ACTUALLY RESETS EVERYTHING AT THE END. It makes it all rather pointless, as none of it ever happens. Which is a shame, because the Janeway/Paris pairing was working quite well, and they had a lot things to teach each other. I feel more on Tom's side in that the Prime Directive should never apply when an entire planet is going to be wiped out (this was touched on not long ago in the TNG episode 'Homeward').
A thinly veiled criticism of nuclear power is all fine and well, though no real points are made other than "it's too dangerous". The alien civilisation they encounter (did they even both to not make them look human this time?) all wear the terrible same clothes, and the forced friendship story between Tom and the little boy was quite horrible to watch.
Kes's weird telepathic abilities are quite cool, but since everything resets I guess she doesn't remember anything about what it all means.
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@finfan Fair warning, I get super harsh with my reviews for this series. In retrospect, I was a bit too hard on it overall.
Badgey is the greatest character in the history of Star Trek and you cannot change my mind.
I also instantly recognised JG Hertzler's voice! Nice.loading replies
@odetospot He was the alien captain on the viewscreen!
That was DS9.
THEY WENT TO DS9.
This is all I've wanted for the past 21 years.loading replies
@andrewbloom Mariner's flashback to when she was on the USS Quito.
An easy watch and pretty entertaining, but it felt very basic for me. It's like it was made for people who have never played video games. It focused on all the obvious culprits and had a pixelated bleep-bloop aesthetic that bears no relation to what games have become. Fair enough, this is focusing on the '80s to early '90s, but there's something almost insulting about doing that. And having the focus be on only America and Japan felt like a missed opportunity (it was called the Sega Mega Drive, you monsters! ;) ).
One thing I did like was the personal stories that cropped up throughout. Although, I don't know why there was so much focus on people who won gaming tournaments, were three necessary? (In fact, eSports as a whole felt completely inappropriate to what the series was about). In particular, the story of the creation of the first console to use cartridges was lovely. The representation of various minorities in gaming, their stories buried in history, was also very welcome.
As someone who grew up as a PC gamer in love with adventure games, I was delighted to see Roberta Williams and her husband were featured, but also sad that there was no dive into King's Quest or how the genre grew and evolved into the '90s.
This is good introduction to the history of gaming, but it only scratches the surface. Mostly it succeeded in making me nostalgic for older games.
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@felixcrow The best game documentaries are all being made on YouTube. There is professional quality stuff being put out by channels like Noclip, Game Maker's Toolkit, Gaming Historian, Writing On Games and Joseph Anderson.
There are also older series you can find like All Your History Are Belong To Us, GameTrailer's Restrospectives and Gamespot's "The Point"
Shout by FinFan
I wanted to give this a chance since I loved TCW and Rebels. So even after the first episode turned out to be awful I tried to be positive and open minded. I wasn't even deterred by the rather low rating of 65 %. But when I saw 4,9 on imdb with roughly 25 % giving this a 1 I gave up. I always tell people to form their own opinion but it is hard to believe this is from the same people that did the previous shows.
Maybe I watch some episodes on the side but in general I think I'm done with this.Now, after I wrote this I read that Filoni created this but wasn't the show-runner and instead had other people run this. And suddenly all falls into place. This was the missing piece of information.
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@finfan I went into it with high hopes (the concept sounded great, I was imagining it would be like Top Gun in space) and kind of enjoyed the opening episodes, but it fell apart not long after that. I got all the way through both seasons but it's really not worth watching.
[7.5/10] Another very entertaining episode. For one, I like the futuristic riff on the concept of scientific management on a Starfleet vessel. Having everyone rigorously timed in their work, in the hopes of increasing efficiency, is a good setup, especially when the payoff is everyone working frantically and far less getting done than when there was “buffer time.”
Speaking of which, I love the homages to classic bits of Trek here, chief among them Scotty telling Geordi that he’ll never be thought of as a miracle worker if he tells his captain how long a project will actually take. It’s the origin of buffer time! Likewise, homages to the “great bird of the galaxy” and Miles O’Brien (arguably the most notable ascended member of the lower decks!) were both fantastic. There’s also a lot of TOS-style fun with Mariner and her first officer down on the planet of the week, from Commander Ransom’s hands-clasped punches to his efforts to speechify his way out of the problem to the famous Original Series fight music playing. There’s a lot of little treats for longtime fans here.
But I also enjoy the overall theme and how it plays with Star Trek conventions, chiefly that following protocols to the letter isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That is, dare I say, one of the core ideas of Star Trek, given how many times Kirk and Picard and scads of others have disobeyed orders or broken from the usual norms when they felt the situation calls on it. It’s fun to see that channeled into a more comedic mode here, at the same time the show uses it for a touch of character development and thematic ballast.
For Boimler, it means getting a moment to thrive when a straight arrow like his succeeds brilliantly in the new framework. But it also means helping the respect-hungry captain realize that her crew does better with discretion, than by dutifully following every protocol until their overtaxed and underperforming.
Mariner’s adventures with Commander Ransom on the surface work in the same vein. Mariner’s resentment for Ransom on the basis that all he does is talk, while she has scars from doing the dirty work of Starfleet to actually get the job does, is a good emotional throughline for that stretch. The show’s teasing some romance for them, which is interesting given their seeming disparate views but surprising common ground. Ransom looks like he’s fitting the Kirk/Riker/Zapp Brannigan mold so positioning him as the counterpart to a begrudgingly respectful Mariner is an interesting move. It makes for a different but no less potent take on the “Do protocols help or hurt?” theme.
Last but not least, I got a kick out of the crystal-worshipping aliens of the week, Their spear-throwing, corridor-vandalizing jag was an amusing dose of our heroes running into quasi-primitive societies. The show included plenty of fun crystal gags to lighten things up.
Overall, another winner. Three-for-three on the year! Very impressive for a Star Trek show’s first season.
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@andrewbloom Yeah, I think it's unheard of for a Trek show to be this good out of the gate! Three episodes in and Lower Decks has proven for me that it can work a full-on comedy framework into Star Trek and make it all pretty seamless.
Good tough start to follow last season's cliffhanger.
I do wish that the Stormtroopers weren't always portrayed as hosing great splays of blasterfire and still utterly unable to hit any actual target (at least come up with some reasons why these professionally trained too-accurate-for-sand-people soldiers still miss every single shot).
But other than all that, good stuff. And wondering if we're gonna see more hints of A New Hope comin'.
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@thogek Yes, the fact that stormtroopers can't hit ANYTHING is infuriating and silly by this point!
It's great to the these early stages of the rebellion and how they are coming together pretty much stealing their equipment from the Empire. Very cool to see Thrawn. I'd much rather have him then a new Inquisitor.
But I really can't come to terms with Ezra. While he showed some progress at times in the second season he's reverting back to being the arrogant know-it-all each time. And his excuses afterwards are getting old. Plus his path is too similar to Anakins. But while he at least had redeemed himself in my eyes through the Clone Wars series I don't see myself comig to like Ezra. I simply don't care if he dies or reverts to the Dark Side.
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@finfan The voice isn't Ventress specifically, but it is the same voice actress.
Parts of this took me right back to playing TIE Fighter.
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@finfan Yes, I did! I go back to those games fairly often. They still hold up and play really well (especially with a joystick). They run perfectly on Win 10 (I have the original boxed versions on disc, but I also bought them through GOG.com where they just install and run without any issues).
Looking forward to playing Squadrons now, which looks like it's borrowing a lot from the X-Wing games.
I think Ahsoka knows who Vader is. At least she suspects. If he can sense her she should sense him.
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@finfan I get the feeling she was lying. She sensed it was him but she didn't want to believe it.
How do I begin to sum up 'The Visitor'? It's not only one of the finest episodes in all of Star Trek, it's one of the best pieces of television ever made. Every time I see it, I end up in tears. But it's not an overly sentimental tearjerker, it's subtle and honest in its storytelling. It's delightfully simple and self-contained, making it something that you can watch even if you've never seen any of DS9 before.
I think what clicks for me always is the performances. Everything that makes Avery Brooks my favourite Star Trek captain is displayed here, not only because of his performance but because of what he allowed Captain Sisko to be. He's a family man and a father before he is a Starfleet officer, and he's never afraid to show his vulnerable and caring side. Duty is important to him, but it's with the simple things in life that his heart really lies.
To complement that, Cirroc Lofton as Jake is probably the best he's ever been so far. The moment where his father first comes back and asks how he's doing, and instead of being able to reply he just starts to cry sums up so much of their close father/son relationship. Jake really needs his dad, even relies on him and there's a really deep love between them, undoubtedly solidified more since he lost his mother. We can see that without his dad, Jake turns completely away from the life he could have and shuts the doors to so many other people and paths. My favourite moment is actually the last time Sisko appears and he just watches old Jake sleeping with such a lovely expression on his face.
Then there's Tony Todd playing the older Jake who also is magnificent. While the old-age makeup effects still look kind of terrible (always a problem, they looked terrible back in the 1990s too), the performances are fortunately able to come through. He also has a great chemistry with the young lady playing Melanie.
Maybe there's a bit too much technobabble at moments, butI love this episode and it will make you want to go and see your dad.
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@arthurzey It's a powerful episode! Thanks for reading my review.
I love this list, thanks for making it. Will you be keeping it updated with the new Clone Wars season 7 episodes?
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@ruben_vw_ Looks like Clone Wars season 7 has a different chronological order to how it's being released! The official episode guide has some mention of this in the trivia: https://www.starwars.com/series/clone-wars/deal-no-deal-episode-guide
There's some potential here, but it has some work to do. First impressions are everything and this didn't make a great one. Mostly, for a comedy it wasn't funny at all, but the cast and situation are interesting enough to keep me watching for now.
The best moment was easily the reveal about the captain. I hope the characters aren't going to be jerks all the time (everyone seems to hate what they're doing) because it's a lot to take.
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@misnomer Hype is a dangerous thing - Picard feels very different to DIS, but it's also nothing like TNG. It's very much its own thing and its made some surprising choices. I am really enjoying it, but the fact that it's turned away from old Trek is part of the appeal for me.
If you want a good sci-fi sitcom then nothing beats Red Dwarf, but I expect you already know that!
There's some potential here, but it has some work to do. First impressions are everything and this didn't make a great one. Mostly, for a comedy it wasn't funny at all, but the cast and situation are interesting enough to keep me watching for now.
The best moment was easily the reveal about the captain. I hope the characters aren't going to be jerks all the time (everyone seems to hate what they're doing) because it's a lot to take.
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@misnomer I'm now 4 episodes in, and for me it hasn't improved much. Based on other comments I'm in the minority, but I just don't like the characters and it's not making me laugh. Hugh Laurie and Lenora Crichlow are the only bright spots.
Get on Picard, it's fantastic!
