Deep Space 9 Superior

[Freek]

I don't like the way the finale handles everything in such a short amount of time. It could've used an eight season. They could have done at least 4 or 5 episodes arc about the defeat of the dominion, instead of doing most of it in a short amount of time.

There was one battle, the dominion retreats and suddenly the federation and klingons can advance to Cardassia without problems. An Eighth' season could do a slow defeat and struggle for the Dominion and a more realistic surrender from the Founder, still deal with the departure of Sisko and Odo and maybe even allow them to return later in the season. Then the finale could have been a bit happier, at least as far as Sisko and Odo leaving their loved ones go.

It would have left more time for the character developement of Ezri, as well, who I was just beginning to accept as an alternative (not a replacement) of Jadzia.

[USS Defiant]

I don't like the way the finale handles everything in such a short amount of time. It could've used an eight season. They could have done at least 4 or 5 episodes arc about the defeat of the dominion, instead of doing most of it in a short amount of time.

As wonderful as the finale was, there were elements in What You Leave Behind that did seemed "rushed".

There was one battle, the dominion retreats and suddenly the federation and klingons can advance to Cardassia without problems. An Eighth' season could do a slow defeat and struggle for the Dominion and a more realistic surrender from the Founder, still deal with the departure of Sisko and Odo and maybe even allow them to return later in the season. Then the finale could have been a bit happier, at least as far as Sisko and Odo leaving their loved ones go.

It would have left more time for the character developement of Ezri, as well, who I was just beginning to accept as an alternative (not a replacement) of Jadzia.

I can't disagree Freek. And as you are new to this thread we have discussed many times the fact that there were plans for an 8th season of DS9. Maybe brother Fifth will re-explain the details of what exactly was purposed (there were 2 completely different ideas where to take the show iif an *th season went down).

[Freek]

I didn't know about plans for an 8th season, they could and should have pulled it off (Just the addicted fan speaking here)

I've been watching some of the recent interviews, apparently Terry Farell is now a fulltime... housewife. Most of the actors have plenty of grey hair now!

Here are a few... all from 2007 so not very recent, but recent enough.

Terry Farell (Jadzia Dax)
http://www.creationent.com/video/STL...ry_farrell.htm

Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys)
http://www.creationent.com/video/GSX...na_Visitor.htm

Colm Meaney (Miles O'brien)
http://www.creationent.com/video/GSXV07-Colm_Meany.htm

Bad interviewer and the speed is very slow.. but its good to see that the actors are still alive

[jelgate]

Ok, I'm back and I'm here to stay. @ all you trek ringers, I'm back and ready to pwn!

Do your worst.

[the Fifth Race]

I didn't know about plans for an 8th season, they could and should have pulled it off (Just the addicted fan speaking here)

It's true, there were plans for an 8th season. - I attended a Trek convention back in 2000 where Ronald D Moore talked about how Paramount Studio's came to him and the other writers half way through DS9's season 7 and asked if they could extend the Dominion War another season (both DS9 and VOY were doing well with ratings). By then the writers had long written and were already shooting the conclusion to DS9, so all the writers said no way to rewriting the end of the Dominion War. So Ronald D Moore went back to Paramount and purposed doing a season 8 where it start's 1 year after the end of the Dominion War and would mainly focus on post war Federation restructuring and exploring the Gamma Quadrant while meeting new races. The show still would have been based on Deep Space 9 itself with Kira taking over command of the station. Apparently Dr. Bashir, Quark, Ezri, Worf, Martok, Garak, Odo, Nog, Jake, Morn were all on board with coming back.

RDM also talked about a few different idea's for season 8 storylines, including .... Where a group of abandoned Jem'Hadar soldiers rebel against the Shape-Shifters and seek autonomy by asking for help from the Federation.... A new and very powerful race that tries to take-over the Gamma Quadrant after a huge power vacuum was left behind by the weakened Dominion forces.... He even talked about bringing Sisko back towards the end of the season 8 where he chooses to live a corporeal life now that Bajor is safe and sound. He then re-joins Starfleet and at the very end the series he takes his rightful place running the station with Kira at his side. All sound like great idea's to me.

I've been watching some of the recent interviews, apparently Terry Farell is now a fulltime... housewife. Most of the actors have plenty of grey hair now!

Here are a few... all from 2007 so not very recent, but recent enough.

Terry Farell (Jadzia Dax)
http://www.creationent.com/video/STL...ry_farrell.htm

Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys)
http://www.creationent.com/video/GSX...na_Visitor.htm

Colm Meaney (Miles O'brien)
http://www.creationent.com/video/GSXV07-Colm_Meany.htm

Bad interviewer and the speed is very slow.. but its good to see that the actors are still alive

Great stuff Freek and thanx for posting it. Feel free to post stuff like that anytime, I love it.

[Lieutenant Colonel Davis]

LOL, there were a few Trek ringers missing in action from the BoBWs quiz we just took. Anyway, it's good to see ya back brother Col. Davis.

I've just been dealing with a lot of things since my Uncles passing and I now have time to come here and post again.

[nx01a]

This is horribly late, but I've been away from a comp for 2 days. Sigh. Here goes...

Spoiler:

(Best of Both Worlds: Part I)
1) Juray 4, New Providence colony. A hole in the ground, the colony had been literally poop scooped up.

2) Wesley 'Mary Sue' Crusher, Data, Worf, Troi. 2 pair [Riker's hold card was a 2 of spades.]

3) 78%. Highly decentralized systems, such as multiple power generators.

4) Random phaser settings [thanks to Shelby/Data]. Varying shield nutation [thanks to Geordi].

5) [Guessing here] 6 dead, 32 unaccounted for. We lost a lot of good people down there.

6) Dr. Crusher, Data, Worf

7) Dr. Crusher. The mosquito's point of view: sting them in a tender spot, they'll stop a moment to stratch.

(Best of Both Worlds: Part II)
8) The Klingon Empire, though I doubt it. The Romulans, though I suspect they sat there cloaked laughing their ridged foreheads off next to the cloaked Klingons, who were also laughing their ridged foreheads off...

9) His face/a single tear falling from his right eye.

10) Whoopi! Ahem, Guinan. Let go of Picard, use original strategy to beat/kill him.

11) Miles 'Smiley' O'Brien, Troi.

12) Something simple, like disarm their weapons.

13) Prepare for warp power, set collision course with the Borg cube.

14) To beam back to the Enterprise.

15) "All of it... [pensive pause] ...including some brilliantly unorthodox strategy from a former first officer of mine."

NB: I am quite sad no mention was made of multi-modal reflection sorting. Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!

[the Fifth Race]

This is horribly late, but I've been away from a comp for 2 days. Sigh. Here goes...

Better late than never brother nx. I would have waited until Friday for you but I didn't notice your post until after I had posted the results, sorry my friend. Of course you kicked Quiz butt like you always do. Here's your results ...

Spoiler:

(Best of Both Worlds: Part I)
1) Juray 4, New Providence colony. A hole in the ground, the colony had been literally poop scooped up. **

2) Wesley 'Mary Sue' Crusher, Data, Worf, Troi. 2 pair [Riker's hold card was a 2 of spades.] *****

3) 78%. Highly decentralized systems, such as multiple power generators. **

4) Random phaser settings [thanks to Shelby/Data]. Varying shield nutation [thanks to Geordi]. **

5) [Guessing here] 6 dead, 32 unaccounted for. We lost a lot of good people down there.

6) Dr. Crusher, Data, Worf ***

7) Dr. Crusher. The mosquito's point of view: sting them in a tender spot, they'll stop a moment to stratch. **

(Best of Both Worlds: Part II)
8) The Klingon Empire, though I doubt it. The Romulans, though I suspect they sat there cloaked laughing their ridged foreheads off next to the cloaked Klingons, who were also laughing their ridged foreheads off... ** LOLOL I like the sarcasm brother nx!.

9) His face/a single tear falling from his right eye. *

10) Whoopi! Ahem, Guinan. Let go of Picard, use original strategy to beat/kill him. **

11) Miles 'Smiley' O'Brien, Troi. **

12) Something simple, like disarm their weapons. *

13) Prepare for warp power, set collision course with the Borg cube. *

14) To beam back to the Enterprise. *

15) "All of it... [pensive pause] ...including some brilliantly unorthodox strategy from a former first officer of mine." *

NB: I am quite sad no mention was made of multi-modal reflection sorting. Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaame! LOLOL, I will remember that for the next quiz

27/29 for nx01a -- Outstanding as always, you are a true "Trek Ringer" my friend. Your detailed answers were a pleasure to grade and your clever sarcasm had me smiling.

[USS Defiant]

DS9 Season III Episode Discussion
Episode #62 Visionary

During the Romulans' visit to DS9 for a briefing on the developments of the Dominion threat, a high dose of radiation subjects O'Brien to a series of unpredictable temporal displacements, causing him to periodically jump into the near future for short periods of time. While in the future, he witnesses curious events including his own death and worse.

O'Brien's first jump puts him near Quark's bar, approximately five hours in the future, where he witnesses himself talking to Quark about wrecked holosuites. After a brief moment, O'Brien is whisked back into the present. At first, Bashir thinks that O'Brien seeing himself may be some sort of hallucination, but when Dax discovers a quantum singularity orbiting the station at a regular interval, she concludes the residual radiation in O'Brien's body is acting like a "magnet," causing him to be pulled in and out of time. Dax and Bashir begin working on a way to remove the radiation traces from O'Brien's body to prevent any more time shifts.

However, when a subsequent jump turns O'Brien into a witness of his own death - shot by a mysterious phaser-armed booby-trapped device placed behind a panel in some remote corridor of the station - he uses information from the future to avert being killed. Odo opens an investigation to determine why someone would place this device behind the wall panel.

But after saving himself once, another time shift allows O'Brien to see that he dies on the operating table due to undetectable radiation effects. A rather bizarre and intriguing scene has O'Brien talking to a Bashir in the future who gives him information on how he can be saved in the past.

Much to O'Brien's annoyance, Quark labels the engineer a "fortuneteller." The label takes on a whole new meaning when O'Brien jumps forward into the middle of a station evacuation - just in time to see the entire station destroyed.

The sudden way the story drops us right in the middle of this evacuation conveys a confusion and disorder that allows us to experience O'Brien's own bewilderment. One second we're in ops as the crew discusses Odo's investigation. The next second we're in a Runabout with two O'Brien's fleeing the station as it explodes. The sight of DS9 being destroyed is fairly spectacular, if not somewhat disconcerting - some modelmakers put in a great deal of work on a destructible mock-up. The results are quite good. This gives the crew the task of figuring out what will cause the station's destruction and how to prevent it. With Sisko's approval, O'Brien figures a way of injecting himself with a specific amount of the radioactive substance in order to perform a controlled jump forward to just before when the station is to be destroyed.

This is just the beginning as O'Brien jumps forward in time to talk to his future self then witnesses a Romulan Warbird launching a surprise attack on the station. Miles from the past ends up switching places with Miles from the future, because past-Miles is so poisoned with radiation that experiencing another dose of temporal shifting would surely be deadly. Future-Miles instead goes back into the past with the crucial information. This is an interesting twist and a rather brave decision on the writers' part, which gives us some rather paradoxical food for thought. I'm glad they didn't let anything like restraint or plausibility get in the way of fresh storytelling.

In retrospect, the idea that the quantum singularity is really a cloaked Romulan ship makes a lot of sense. The fact is consistent with the establishment of Romulan power supplies given in TNG's "Timescape." That makes "Visionary" a mystery with a genuine audience-supplied clue.

The closing scene, where Sisko confronts the Romulans over their intentions of destroying the station and the wormhole because of their paranoia of Dominion invasion, is brilliant. I always like it when Sisko sports the no-nonsense attitude.

All in all, this is a great technobabble episode. Technobabble can never really be a story, but when it's used correctly and backed up with real storytelling, an episode like "Visionary" can be born. Sure, the concept is implausible. Sure, O'Brien's time jumps are admittedly way too convenient, placing him in the right place at precisely the right time. But the episode is, after all, called "Visionary."

What could've been an exercise in forgettable technobabble (Which VOY cornered the market on) instead proves to be a fascinating high-concept story and a good outing for O'Brien. I give Visionary a 8.1 rating, I really enjoyed re-watching this episode.

[Freek]

I'm not very fond of "miniature" explosions, because the explosion itself is also out of proportion, you can see all the small particles as if they were meters tall.

Great episode

[Weyoun]

I'm not very fond of "miniature" explosions, because the explosion itself is also out of proportion, you can see all the small particles as if they were meters tall.Great episode

I'm not either, which is what we got alot of on TNG and the first couple seasons of DS9. By the time DS9 was in its 4rth season the CGI and over-all special effects improved dramtically. They started using a combination of models and CGI which did smooth out alot of clunky looking model explosions.

[nx01a]

Better late than never brother nx. I would have waited until Friday for you but I didn't notice your post until after I had posted the results, sorry my friend. Of course you kicked Quiz butt like you always do. Here's your results ...
27/29 for nx01a -- Outstanding as always, you are a true "Trek Ringer" my friend. Your detailed answers were a pleasure to grade and your clever sarcasm had me smiling.

Tyvm. I love the episodes, though I completely forgot those lost.

I was shouting 'Romulans!!!' at the screen when I first saw Visionary. The minute I heard 'singularity', I thought about, duh, Timescape. Sigh. I felt vindicated as a fan to pick it up early. A bit like Anna Sheridan/Z'ha'dum.

The one and only time we see DS9 destroyed... Seriously, when that much antimatter explodes, I expect massive explosions, not a little thing that barely envelops the ship. We're talking a blast for miles around... Sigh. I never get that.

[Weyoun]

I know brothers Fifth Race, Starbase and USS Defiant have all talked and raved about the short lived Showtime Scifi series Jeremiah which was written by Michael J Straczynski and based loosely on the European Comic of the same name. They started showing episodes on the Scifi Channel and on local affiliates. I rented the first season DVD Box Set and loved it!, what a great show, I can see why Showtime matched it up with Stragate when it used ot be on Showtime.

I noticed the second season isn't available on DVD which are the episodes that the Scifi Channel have been showing recently, so I have been recording them on my Tivo. I am about 3 episodes in to the second season and it's only getting better. Sean Astin is introduced and plays the rather creepy Mr. Smith in season 2 and Markus played by the great Peter Stebbings (Malek the Tok'ra from SG) along with regulars Luke Perry and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

Great stuff and thank's for the recommendation, Jeremiah delivers and you can definetly see the Michael J Straczynski influence in the writing.

[the Fifth Race]

I was shouting 'Romulans!!!' at the screen when I first saw Visionary. The minute I heard 'singularity', I thought about, duh, Timescape. Sigh. I felt vindicated as a fan to pick it up early. A bit like Anna Sheridan/Z'ha'dum.

LOL, it's been awhile since I last watched Visionary (I'm re-watching it tonight). But I do remmeber enough of it, that it was one of the very few Timeline Trek episodes I like. It was a great character piece for O'Brien and Sisko was at his surly best.

The one and only time we see DS9 destroyed... Seriously, when that much antimatter explodes, I expect massive explosions, not a little thing that barely envelops the ship. We're talking a blast for miles around... Sigh. I never get that.

LOL, the CGI special effects were still primative at that time as you well know brother nx. Brother Weyoun hit the nail on the head when he stated that the special FX and CGI improved a lot on DS9 after season 4.

[Freek]

Yes, it was too bad that the most of the costs for production went up in the sets. costumes and make-up. That left very little for CGI effects, even in the series finale most of the explosion shots are recycled, and most ship shots and transport ships arriving are also recycled footage.

One that I remember most vividly was the episode where Kira, Bashir and Keiko returned in a damaged runabout, with one of the engines burning. A few episodes later, Sisko and I believe Odo return from Earth after Odo had discovered that Gowron was a changeling. The shot showing a shot up runabout was exactly the same.