[3.4/10] Giving this another shot in light of the revival, but yeesh, this is rough. I originally gave this a 1/10, and while I'm content to upgrade it to "bad" on rewatch it's still pretty awful. Kyle McLachlan is a revelation, but he's really the only thing this episode has going for it. The dialogue and the acting are all so so bad. And my god, the score. It couldn't be cheesier if David Lynch were literally smashing the audience's faces into a vat of queso while it played. The murder mystery is convoluted right out of the gate, and the cryptic hints here and there come off forced rather than mysterious. Everyone is an exaggerated archetype, and none of the characters are compelling short of Agent Cooper (with the sheriff, Ed, and his paramour being serviceable but no great shakes). The young actors in particular are uniformly terrible (what is with the two punk kids barking at Blue Steel in the other cell) and the whole thing is just hokey as hell. There's also scores of blunt exposition and informed attributes that go over like a lead balloon.
But the worst part is that it's also a slog, with interminable, poorly-paced scenes and dull interludes. If ever there were a show that could do with some better editing, this is it. Hard to see, even on a rewatch, why this show is so lauded.
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@andrewbloom While I completely get that this show can feel impenetrable and too odd for many to enjoy, there are some important things to keep in mind. First, this came out in 1990. There was nothing else like it on television in a world that expected TV to be (mostly) low quality and episodic, with simple stories that were resolved in 1 hour. Second, the cheesiness is entirely on purpose. Lynch is imitating and mocking the over-the-top melodrama of the soap operas of the time, and the entire point is to highlight how fake and "off" the facade people present can be. He often wants his actors to give seemingly bad performances to create a sense of disconnect. The long takes and odd pacing are another Lynch trademark. You can watch by letting everything wash over you and just enjoy the ride, or you can take his invitation to become an active participant and work on the mystery alongside Agent Cooper.
If you didn't really enjoy the pilot, it's unlikely that you'll enjoy the rest of the series. The tone changes quite a lot, though, especially with the film Fire Walk With Me, which is a deeply disturbing psychological horror. The new 2017 series is different again and far, far more abstract (and so far, utterly wonderful).
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.
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.
Actions have consequences...with his coworkers, and with the inmates they interview. This is going to be a very hard lesson for Holden. Recent events knocked him down a peg. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
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@jensequel Agreed. I can't help but feel that Holden had this coming and it's vital to his ability to progress within the unit.
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
-33-"Can I make the call now?"
Holy shit! This show went dark.
What a way to start this episode.
Always appreaciate those Scenes in which we actall see how they do their stuff, in this case forge a gunfight.
So beatifull made…
Nacho is in a lot of Trouble and who is the source of it?"No more than a week."
Gustavo Fring, again. He creates chaos so he can climb the ladder to the top.
Genius. Who is his tool? The Cousins. Again.
Or should I say for the first time?
His talk with Juan Bolsa is another example how good Gus is.
Always just a little push in the right direction.
He can built an empire. He is made for that.
The Little smile of Gus...
Again: He is not the Gus we know from "Breaking Bad" yet.
He wouldn't have smiled there, not one bit.As he walked into the School, I got goosebumps, then I saw "Chemistry" and I thought:
Is he in Walts School? But it was even better!
As soon as I heard someone sing...
Gale is back! (Run Gale! Run!)
His love to chemistry is one of a kind.
I have to say, I believe him when he says he can make better than 67%!And now to Jimmy.
Eight minutes? More like Eighty minutes^^
Clever way to get this guy out of his office.
But who did he got for the Job?
Ira from Vamonos Pest! Nice cameo.For the letter from Chuck I only have one Thing to say:
The fact that Kim has Tears in her eyes and is so moved by his words and Jimmy had no emotions whatsoever, says it all.
Or does it?
The last conversation with Chuck was so cruel and These words sound off.
Did Chuck wrote the letter only to relieve his soul?
Guess Jimmy made up his mind. The rest is open to Interpretation.loading replies
@mrblonde I got the feeling that the letter had been written a while earlier, before Chuck and Jimmy's more recent relationship. It also seems to me that Kim is feeling tremendously guilty and it's going to reach a breaking point.
Looking forward to hearing what has happened to Barb, I assume it's something more than simply being kept in the upside down.
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@brydo666 She's dead as far as we know, at least that's definitely what we saw back in season 1.
[2.8/10] Woof. After having such a rough time with the first season of the show, I blanched a bit at the suggestion that the second season was a step down. “How much further could it go off the rails?” I wondered. How could it conceivably recede from the already paltry levels it had already hit. Well, there’s my answer -- ninety minutes of television that is 90% shlock.
But, as I always try to do when talking about something I don’t particularly care for, let’s start out talking about what’s good about this one. Full disclosure, the opening scene with the senile old room service guy doddering around while Cooper lays bleeding on the floor initially annoyed the hell out of me. The scene drags and drags and is almost excruciating in its duration. But I take that to be the point, and somewhere around the second time the guy returned just to give a thumbs up, it elicited a chuckle for the sheer rake gag-esque audacity of the scene, so that’s something.
We also get the who, if not necessarily the why, of the central mystery of the show. Cooper lays out the details of what he’s pieced together, and the episode reveals, or at least seems to reveal, that Bob, the guy from Cooper’s dream and Mrs. Palmer’s vision, beat up Ronette and seemingly killed Laura. Some of the scene veers into cheese, as nearly everything here does, but the quick, spliced together clips of that grisly final scene are legitimately chilling, and add a level of fright and severity that the show has had trouble establishing outside of myna bird mimics thus far.
There’s also some nice material involving Ed and Nadine. I’ll admit, I’ve come around on this portion of Twin Peaks, which I initially found bothersome. Ed offers a sad and exaggerated but believable tale. He and Norma were longtime sweethearts; he thought Norma ran off with Hank (where presumably there’s more to the story), and Nadine was there for him in a time of need. Ed was impulsive and distraught and married her, but she was so happy and so gracious and so devoted to him (never even blaming him for accidentally shooting out her eye) that he didn’t have the heart to leave her. It’s a little melodramatic, but it’s a good performance from Ed, and the look of wistfulness in Norma’s mind when she sees the husband and wife together adds another layer of pathos to the whole thing.
That said, the theme for this episode seems to be two-fold: 1. Baffling transformation and 2. Doing a collection of really stupid stuff.
The latter assessment may sound harsh, but I don’t know how else to explain some of what seems to be trying to pass for comedy or texture throughout this episode. While the senile room service guy has a certain anti-humor charm to it, the similar attempts at weird or wooly humor are painfully bad. The numerous, extended shots of Deputy Andy’s odd little walk and wobble were dumb as all get out. Leland breaking into a little jig and Ben and Jerry following him was a baffling effort at charm. And the “hospital food is terrible” recurring gags are the hackiest kind of easy crap. I think the show means to be funny here, but it never quite makes it above moronic.
And that’s not the only place where “Giant” be with you makes no sense (in a bad, rather than merely surreal, way). When Ben chases Audrey around the bed, why in the world doesn’t he recognize his daughter’s voice, or the other features besides her face? The whole bit is creepy (which is, in fairness, what I think Lynch & Frost were going for) but it feels like a cheap way to avoid the reckoning the show set up in the prior episode.
That’s not the only nonsensical parent-child scene in the episode. Major Briggs tells his son Bobby about a dream he had where they embraced as family in a wonderful house some time in the future. It’s meant to play as some kind of reconciliation or corner-turning moment for the pair, but it plays as ridiculous as all get out. Much of that can be pinned on the horrible acting from Bobby Briggs, who seems be trying to communicate being sincerely touched, but mugs and renders the reaction implausible.
Then there’s the strange transformations in the episode. Leland Palmer’s hair turns white after he returns from strangling Jacques Renault. So...there’s that. But he’s also happy now, singing songs and passing out during them. I’ll admit, there’s something funny about Ray Wise playing so chipper (and it’s a nice change from his awful cry-dancing routine), but it’s so exaggerated and over the top that it’s hard to take anything from it beyond mild bemusement.
The same cannot be said for Donna’s transformation here, as she seems to be attempting to step into Laura’s persona. Between taking Laura’s glasses, her meals on wheels route, and toying with Bobby, we get an entire change in her personality without the slightest hint as to why or how. Maybe the glasses are cursed or the ghost of Laura is possessing her or some crap like that? It’s weak sauce from Lara Flynn Boyle, and a direction for the character that feels entirely unmotivated.
Oh yeah, and then there’s a soothsaying giant. While this struck me as odd, it’s of a piece with the “people who seem like they’re from an old circus’s freak show give Cooper vaguely-worded prophecy” shtick from the first season. It didn’t do much for me (and certainly didn’t feel as formally audacious as Cooper’s first dream), but it didn’t really bother me either.
In total though, “May the Giant Be With You” may be a new low for Twin Peaks, which had already been scraping the bottom of the barrel for a while by this point. Plodding pacing, more awful dialogue and acting (with Pete joining Bobby as a particularly bad offender on that score), dumb attempts at comedy, and nonsensical character choices. This was a slog, but hey, at least we have Alfred back to voice my thoughts on the ridiculous of this all in-universe. Yeesh.
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@andrewbloom Yeah, it's weird. The opening scene feels almost like David Lynch is saying, "come on. I dare you to keep watching."
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
Nicely done CBS. Deftly blended in some characters (1 this episode) and iconography from TOS to squelch the discord from the nattering, canon fascist nabobs, and pique the curiosity of the undecided, while still remaining PRE-TOS and advancing the original "Discovery" premise. Well played..., well played indeed.
Of course the "purists" will be quick to point out everything wrong with this episode, just as they have all along, insisting that this is a show we shouldn't enjoy because it's not Trekie enough, or TOO futuristic for the timeline, or too politically correct, or too violent, or too gay, when perhaps the real problem is with those whose cranial contents simply haven't evolved enough to grasp the actual depth and awesomeness of the show.
Star Trek has ALWAYS been about "going BOLDLY where no man has gone before" yet, sadly, there are those who desperately try to squeeze it into the confines of what THEY say is correct, and would have the writer and producers restricted to the same tried, true, and BORING stories that were fed to the masses starting almost 50 years ago. Now imagine if they were allowed to restrict technology, or commerce, or just about any facet of life to where it was 5 decades ago. I for one like and embrace the changes that have occurred both IRL and on our screens of all various shapes and sizes. Just as I am willing to give each new generation of Star Trek writers the benefit of the doubt, and the chance to not just copy and paste, but to stretch the limits of possibility and imagination, and take us on new adventures, and to new frontiers.
If that gets some purists canonical panties in a wedgie, well, so be it. But I for one am willing to suspend disbelief, buckle up, lower my shields and enjoy the ride.
As for the episode itself, several nice head fakes, when those familiar with TOS would be expecting certain things to occur but... gotcha!
Kudos to Sonequa Martin-Green for continuing to evolve her portrayal of Michael Burnham, and showing some emotions when appropriate. To the always delightful Mary Wiseman, who, as newly minted officer trainee Tilly is "incandescent" as ever and never fails to make me smile when she's on screen. Anthony Rapp's Staments, is of course going through the stages of grief, and, had me worried for a moment, but, it looks like something new is about to bring him out of his funk. Doug Jones Saru, was, well... Saru, and, believe me when I say, I mean that as a GOOD thing. Anson Mount pulled his weight as Captain Pike, doing a yeoman's job of restraint when stepping into such an iconic (if short lived) role. And the addition of Tig Notaro's deadpan wit and whip-smart timing (as well as her characters apparent next level engineering chops) might have her hanging out in the Montgomery Scott wing of the Discovery, we shall see.Overall a really good season premier, and, from the looks of the upcoming clips, it's gonna be fun.
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@paladin5150 Well said. I particularly liked that the episode finally made the bridge crew feel important and have personalities.
I'm not proud of this, but I'm downgrading this one a bit ratings-wise because Ewoks. I have a hard time deriving enjoyment out of Ewok shenanigans anymore. But hey, these are aimed at kids so some teddy bear capering is to be expected. For some mild adventure, it's perfectly fine, though I don't know if we ever really needed to learn the origin story of Leia's dress from RotJ, and I'm not sure why they couldn't get the actress who voiced young Leia in Rebels.
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@andrewbloom I would imagine because an older, more mature voice was required for Leia at this point. In Rebels she's meant to be 13 or 14 years old, in this story she's an adult. That, or they couldn't afford her :p
Creative and enjoyable, with a pleasantly weird alternate-universe/time-shift aspect that never becomes too complicated to follow. It leaves you with the odd feeling of having seen the Voyager crew die, but never really being sure if they were our original crew, or whether that even matters. The exact same thing happens to Harry that happens to O'Brien in DS9's 'Visionary', in that we are left with a version of the character who isn't exactly our own one.
It was also good to see the Vidiians back to being pretty decent bad guys again. There was something chilling about the way they just assessed unconscious people by which organs they could harvest from them. Janeway was a bit of a badass in regards to the solution to getting rid of them.
Having the duplicate Janeways standing so close to each other during their scenes made it look like they were about to kiss, and really made me aware of how shows had to work within the 4:3 aspect ratio back then. I felt a bit more let down that the two versions of Kes didn't really interact with each other at all.
I got quite wrapped up in the ordeal of Ensign Wildman finally having her baby, which certainly ran through a gamut of emotions! Chakotay was as useless as ever, and I noticed that Voyager didn't require his authorisation to concur with setting the self-destruct - I guess Janeway changed that because she knows he'd just mess it up.
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@dgw I can't remember what I did yesterday, let alone the contents of a review I wrote months ago! :p
There's nothing particularly bad about this episode, it's just so very forgettable. It's a great showcase for Dax and Terry Farrell finally gets to show us the slightly more fun side of her which will become a trademark of her personality. I like Trill culture so it's nice to get some info about how it all works, but the whole relationship between Jadzia and Arjin is quite dull and just feels half hearted.
Odo has a great mini disagreement with Kira and makes his points beautifully, the voles on the station are a humourous background story and the Klingon chef is always welcome back.
But the whole thing with the tiny universe is just uninteresting and feels without any real stakes. They just end up putting it back where they found it, but isn't it still going to pose a risk there once it continues to expand?
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@dgw Yep, I considered that afterwards. I think the issue is that the episodes doesn't explain it too well.
Ugh. Where to start? I'm embarrassed to admit that, as a teenager, this was one of my favourite episodes when it first aired. I though the concept of being trapped inside a board game was really cool. And yes, the idea still is pretty great, but when it's executed like this it just makes you want to turn away in shame.
The concept of the episode isn't the problem, it's the poor writing and absolutely horrendous acting involved, from both guest stars and the main cast. Alexander Siddig again comes off the worst here, I can only assume that it's a mixture of him following direction and having very little experience. Falow is way too over the top, and the Wadi in general are a stupid design in all aspects. The less said about the hopscotch scene the better, you can almost feel the embarrassment the cast members were experiencing.
The only ones who come off well here are Quark and Odo. Odo gets a fantastic scene with Lt. Primmin (we won't be seeing him again), mocking him about Starfleet procedures. Quark has a funny grovelling scene in which Armin Shimmerman doesn't hold back chewing up the scenery. And the writing of the episode itself isn't a total loss, the opening scene with Sisko and Jake is just a beautiful father/son piece.
To make matters worse, the episode drags. The final sections in the cave just seem to go on endlessly. This is a really weak moment for the show, but for all that I think I still prefer it to the terrible previous episode ('The Passenger'). There's at least an element of silly fun to be found, but for God's sake don't show this to anyone you want to introduce to the show or sci-fi TV in general.
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@andrewbloom Me too, but it's always in Avery Brook's high-pitched singsong voice!
Ugh. Where to start? I'm embarrassed to admit that, as a teenager, this was one of my favourite episodes when it first aired. I though the concept of being trapped inside a board game was really cool. And yes, the idea still is pretty great, but when it's executed like this it just makes you want to turn away in shame.
The concept of the episode isn't the problem, it's the poor writing and absolutely horrendous acting involved, from both guest stars and the main cast. Alexander Siddig again comes off the worst here, I can only assume that it's a mixture of him following direction and having very little experience. Falow is way too over the top, and the Wadi in general are a stupid design in all aspects. The less said about the hopscotch scene the better, you can almost feel the embarrassment the cast members were experiencing.
The only ones who come off well here are Quark and Odo. Odo gets a fantastic scene with Lt. Primmin (we won't be seeing him again), mocking him about Starfleet procedures. Quark has a funny grovelling scene in which Armin Shimmerman doesn't hold back chewing up the scenery. And the writing of the episode itself isn't a total loss, the opening scene with Sisko and Jake is just a beautiful father/son piece.
To make matters worse, the episode drags. The final sections in the cave just seem to go on endlessly. This is a really weak moment for the show, but for all that I think I still prefer it to the terrible previous episode ('The Passenger'). There's at least an element of silly fun to be found, but for God's sake don't show this to anyone you want to introduce to the show or sci-fi TV in general.
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@dgw We all have a dark section of our past that we try to forget...
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
And speaking of the Dark Side: is that Ventress Holocron ? The voice is hears, is it not ?loading replies
@finfan The voice isn't Ventress specifically, but it is the same voice actress.
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.
