Deep Space 9 Superior

[nx01a]

To each his/her own.
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Distant Voices... one of the very few DS9 episodes I haven't seen. Must rectify.

[jelgate]

Your not missing much. Distant Voices is not high on my scale of good DS9 episodes.

[marielabbott]

Ahhh you have to at least check it out. I am too not happy with cancellation of Atlantis but I understand why it was done. As much as I might not want to like SGU I will happily tune in to the premiere episode.

I do wish Stargate well, but I'm afraid my disappointment will keep me away from Universe. Probably the only thing that would get me to try and watch it at this point is overwhelming positive reaction from people on the threads I frequent.

Sanctuary... a TW/DW feel? Perish the thought! I mean that in a good way. What do YOU mean by 'feel'?
It's a bit like TW in that they investigate monsters and have a basement full of containment cells, but they try and save the monsters, not blow them away.

Clea Duvall's in a new tv series?!?!?! MUST watch Virtuality! Must can!

Yeah, that's what the brief previews Sci-Fi is currently running make the show look like. The monsters need to be saved, to have a sanctuary.

I've not heard of Clea Duvall, I don't think...should I have? Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, late of the cancelled New Amsterdam, is the mission commander. He seems like a good actor.

[Starbase]

Distant Voices... one of the very few DS9 episodes I haven't seen. Must rectify.

Definetly worth watching especially since you haven't seen it yet. See my short review below.

If Sanctuary is half as good as Dr. Who and Torchwood then I will be a happy camper.

DS9 Season III Episode Discussion
Episode #63 Distant Voices

This was another high-concept show from the mind of Joe Menosky. Here Bashir has to find someway to repair his brain, and at the same time keep a monster from destroying it.

Just like every Menosky script so far, this episode is very heavy in symbolism. It also gives Bashir some more character development.

Siddig El Fadil gave a great performance in a challenging role. I would Distant Voices a solid 7.5 rating.

[Trek_Girl42]

If Sanctuary turns out like Doctor Who then I am turning off the TV.

If Amanda Tapping has that horrendous accent I'm turning off the tv.....if I bother turning it on in the first place. (is it even airing here?) Saw the first couple original eps online, wasn't particularly impressed. Though I do like the theme music.

I do wish Stargate well, but I'm afraid my disappointment will keep me away from Universe. Probably the only thing that would get me to try and watch it at this point is overwhelming positive reaction from people on the threads I frequent.

Yeah, that's what the brief previews Sci-Fi is currently running make the show look like. The monsters need to be saved, to have a sanctuary.

I've not heard of Clea Duvall, I don't think...should I have? Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, late of the cancelled New Amsterdam, is the mission commander. He seems like a good actor.

I know what you mean, I'll be watching Universe, but I don't particularly care about it. Maybe after 300 eps I've had enough Stargate? I don't know. But I do not want to see endless Stargate space battles. The ones in Stargate recently tend to leave me yawning- if I want to see a space battle I'll stick in a BSG DVD.

Clea Duvall was one of the leads in Ron Moore's brilliant short-lived HBO series Carnivale. She also played invisible girl in Buffy season one, and the FBI agent who partnered with Matt on the first season of Heroes, and she's been in tons of movies. You'll probably recognize her from something.

DS9 Season III Episode Discussion
Episode #63 Distant Voices

"Distant Voices" is strange, atypical, offbeat and often quite interesting. What more could you expect from a Joe Menosky concept? He's the guy who brought us TNG's -- "Darmok," "Masks" and "Emergence," as well as DS9's -- "Dramatis Personae" and "Rivals." Sometimes Menosky concepts can be terrific stories, like the dramatic "Darmok." Sometimes they can be bizarre works which seem to beam in from other galaxies, like the laughably horrendous "Masks."

"Distant Voices" is a mixed bag. It has some good moments, and it keeps one intrigued. But there just isn't enough substance from scripters Behr and Wolfe to keep Menosky's concept moving along. Perhaps the concept alone can't sustain an entire hour.

The concept: A telepathic attack by a Lethean criminal leaves Dr. Bashir dying in a coma. The story is told from inside Bashir's mind. Each facet of his personality is represented by one of his DS9 comrades. In order to survive, he must use the different parts of his personality to repair a dead Deep Space Nine. (The station, of course, represents Bashir's own mind.)

The episode begins in a cloud of mystery as Bashir apparently wakes up from the Lethean's attack to find the station dark and empty. As Bashir roams the station, he finds his fellow DS9 officers, though the crew and civilians are all missing. Quark sits cowering behind his bar while the Lethean tears up his establishment. Bashir runs into Garak while looking for Odo. Bashir finds Dax, Kira, Odo and O'Brien arguing in the wardroom on how to stop the Lethean. Through all this, Bashir goes through an accelerating aging process.

In this opening act, the cloud of mystery successfully begs attention. Aside from the senior officers, why is there no one on the station? What is the Lethean up to? Why are all the station's systems down? Why does Bashir suddenly have grey hair? But when Menosky's concept is revealed--that this is all a very wild hallucination Bashir is having--the episode begins looking for what next to do with the concept, with only limited success.

Like "Emergence," TNG's inept attempt at highbrow symbolism (also written by Menosky), "Distant Voices" begins throwing a number of symbols at us, hoping that we genuinely care. The Lethean represents Bashir's inner struggle with elements of his past. If he loses this struggle, he will die in the coma. So the plot takes Bashir on a mission to get to Ops and repair the station. Symbolically, if he can repair the station and destroy the Lethean, he will survive the coma.

The story's apparent intention is to combine all these symbols in order to (1) show each DS9 character turned into a single personality trait, (2) set each scene with a creative, surreal visual and (3) milk Bashir's inner struggle for character development.

This all works to a point. The cast's personality manipulations are interesting, but hardly astonishing given the premise. The fresh visuals grab attention, even if they are a bit gimmicky. And this is really the only episode so far this season that spotlights Bashir.

Unfortunately, this episode takes too long to get where it ends up, and where it ends up is relatively underwhelming. One problem is that the climax hangs on Bashir confronting himself (represented by the Lethean), which reveals character backstory we've already heard before. (That old pre-ganglionic fiber thing again, eh?)

Another, perhaps bigger problem with this story is that it presses the symbolism factor on us by trying to explain every symbol in some concrete manner. Explaining every piece of what the station stands for in Bashir's mind is an excessive step the writers take that doesn't give the audience enough credit. It's almost like they're condescending. Symbolism is a device that requires subtlety--and subtlety is definitely not present here. Consequently, the episode's symbol angle falls apart, just as it did in "Emergence." Maybe the problem is that Joe Menosky is so far out there on some of these ideas that no one is really ready for it, including the writing staff.

Hey, I like original ideas. And "Distant Voices" has an original concept with sporadically interesting moments. But there's just not enough meat here. I give it a 7.4 rating.

Wow. I can't remember this episode at all. Would have thought it would be something I could recall, being bizarre and all.

[marielabbott]

Clea Duvall was one of the leads in Ron Moore's brilliant short-lived HBO series Carnivale. She also played invisible girl in Buffy season one, and the FBI agent who partnered with Matt on the first season of Heroes, and she's been in tons of movies. You'll probably recognize her from something.

Ah, thanks. I remember her character from Heroes, I know who she is now. Cool, I think she'll be a plus for the show.

[Pitry]

Distant Voices... it was nice, but I thought ti was a little bit too much "by the book". But it was good character development for Bashir - he's one fo these characters that despite having a great premise and a wonderful actor sort of fell into a "same old same old" feeling, especialy in later seasons. Having Bashior deal with his birthday that way was quite refreshing.

I have top admit that while watching the episode, especially the scene Bashir is stuck in a corridor and all the lights are turning off, I thought it would be a wonderful way to kill of a regular character - pull off an episode like that and end it with them dying. Completely unexpected.

[the Fifth Race]

If Amanda Tapping has that horrendous accent I'm turning off the tv.....if I bother turning it on in the first place. (is it even airing here?) Saw the first couple original eps online, wasn't particularly impressed. Though I do like the theme music.

LOL, that accent of her's is God aweful. It's funny how one small detail like a lousy accent can skew your whole concept of something towards the negative. I'm such a sucker for anything scifi I will gladly tune in for the premiere and record the rest of the entire season on Tivo. And hopefully it won't be a waste of space.

I know what you mean, I'll be watching Universe, but I don't particularly care about it. Maybe after 300 eps I've had enough Stargate? I don't know. But I do not want to see endless Stargate space battles. The ones in Stargate recently tend to leave me yawning- if I want to see a space battle I'll stick in a BSG DVD.

You have to bring a lot more to the table than just fancy space battles for todays scifi fan. We have seen it all before and are not swayed by flashing lights and over the top CGI anymore.

I know what you mean about the space battles from Atlantis. The effects themselves are excellent but they lack any sort of emotion or symbolism that we get spoiled with when watching shows like BSG, DS9, VOY and Stargate seasons 5-10. Most of the special fx from said mentioned shows have an emotional pull to them. When you watched a space battle from DS9 or the new BSG it tells a story within the storyline, it's not just there as eye candy, which IMHO is the pinnacle of good special fx.

[the Fifth Race]

Distant Voices... it was nice, but I thought ti was a little bit too much "by the book". But it was good character development for Bashir - he's one fo these characters that despite having a great premise and a wonderful actor sort of fell into a "same old same old" feeling, especialy in later seasons. Having Bashior deal with his birthday that way was quite refreshing.

I have top admit that while watching the episode, especially the scene Bashir is stuck in a corridor and all the lights are turning off, I thought it would be a wonderful way to kill of a regular character - pull off an episode like that and end it with them dying. Completely unexpected.

I do remember this episode vaguely (which isn't really a good thing considering I re-watched season III of DS9 about 4 months ago). I am going to have to re-watch it this evening before I speak about it.

I do remember it being a good character piece for Bashir. I will look for that scene where he is stuck in the corridor, I'm curious to see if what you felt is what I might feel.

[Pitry]

LOL, that accent of her's is God aweful. It's funny how one small detail like a lousy accent can skew your whole concept of something towards the negative. I'm such a sucker for anything scifi I will gladly tune in for the premiere and record the rest of the entire season on Tivo. And hopefully it won't be a waste of space.
You have to bring a lot more to the table than just fancy space battles for todays scifi fan. We have seen it all before and are not swayed by flashing lights and over the top CGI anymore.

Exactly. It's abit like the reason I like humour in my science fiction - I'm not that old, but I've been watching and readinf science fiction for the vast majority of my life and seen it all. Expecting me to accept the OMG WE're DOOOMED! as a horrible life-and-death situation is udnerstandable, but it should be done with a smile, because the mere "it's the end as we know it" premise isn't enough, usually. The same for CGI and explosions. they're everywhere these days - not even just science fiction. Granted, some shows have them more than others and some do it better - I enjoyed the first half of Heroes' first season, for example, but I still think their CGI of New York's destruction was incredibly bad.... but it's not enough to hold my interest, no matter how good it is.

And oh, AT's accent in Sanctuary. I know what you two mean, it was pretty bad, wasn't it... I hope she changed it.

[Chevron Atlantis]

Not a fan of ds9, but I am a fan of TNG, I also like Picard and Date also . Counselor Troy worst character in ST, she practically did nothing.

[Franklyn Blaze]

Not a fan of ds9

Blasphemer! You know what thread this is right?

All kidding aside, just read some of it. You will see why most of us enjoy DS9 immensely, some more than others. I like reading the ep discussions myself. I wouldn't visit the forums so much if it weren't for this thread.

[Trek_Girl42]

I know what you mean about the space battles from Atlantis. The effects themselves are excellent but they lack any sort of emotion or symbolism that we get spoiled with when watching shows like BSG, DS9, VOY and Stargate seasons 5-10. Most of the special fx from said mentioned shows have an emotional pull to them. When you watched a space battle from DS9 or the new BSG it tells a story within the storyline, it's not just there as eye candy, which IMHO is the pinnacle of good special fx.

EMOTIONAL CGI. Yes! Only two shows have ever done that for me: BSG and DS9. I've found that nothing else on tv has come remotely close to conveying emotion through CGI, there are certain battles in DS9 (I might be getting ep names wrong here....."Sacrifice of Angels" I think is the one that stands out? And there are others but they blur as to which eps they are.....it's been so long since I saw them!) and BSG (Exodus II and The Hub are the big ones, but there are so many others) that had my eyes prickling. That is awesome. Amazing. It's huge props to whoever puts it together- I know it's Gary Hutzel for BSG, anyone know who was in charge of CGI for DS9? And no other show has been able to do that for me. It's amazing. But since seeing these two shows, just "pretty" doesn't cut it anymore, it's really not good enough, there has to be emotion and an emotional connection to it and it's proven that the technology is there for these gorgeous sequences, you can do it on television budget now, but it really does come from a lot of pieces falling into place- the best space battles tend to come from the best character-driven, and overall well-written scripts. And then on top of that you have to have some pretty frakkin' creative people behind the CGI to pick just right angles that convey the emotion of the script- there was this fantastic Ron Moore BSG commentary (though he's mentioned this several times) where he was talking about this, how for some of these eps, the people sitting behind those computers creating those images are like writers of the next draft of the script- they have to be storytellers too, which I think is the absolute most wonderful approach you could possibley have to CGI- how does each frame carry the emotional impact of the story forward, where are we in the action, what image, no matter how small or how grand is the one that ties in to carry the narrative etc. It's too easy to just go for the "really cool" stuff. Which is great and all, but is the viewer is just a viewer and not an emotional participant in the action, whatever the intended emotion to draw is, what's the point? We've seen it all on tv before.

Adding in a random example, in teh BSG miniseries, at the beginning there's the whole "nothing but the rain" comment between Starbuck and Adama as she's running through the ship, near the end in the CGI battle there's all this debris hitting her cockpit and the line is repeated in a fantastic moment- apparently is was GARY HUTZEL who came up with that, to bring that round full circle. Now that is storytelling through CGI- finding those really cool shots/moments that tie into the context of the story. And then you can have all your fancy fun lets-drool-at-the-stuff-blowing-up.


I'm going to veer even further from the topic and mention that I've been watching Twin Peaks over the last several months (I've only got one episode left, probably to watch tomorrow ), and the thing that strikes me is how well it's able to convey fear and horror in places making the show genuinely scary. There's not a lot of CGI, what there is is very basic, but there's something about it all that makes it very creepy/frightening/horrifying- I've never been genuinely creeped out so much by something on tv before ("Blink" is my only point of reference but that type of "scaryness" is so far removed from Twin Peaks that I can't really use it as a comparison), but Twin Peaks just creates this unsettleing atmosphere that does get downright scary in places and I know that so much of it comes from the way they're using the camera and the angles they're using on certain characters, but my untrained eye can't really figure it out except in the most obvious of places. I feel this desire to go back and watch the series from the beginning just to try and figure out how they do this. Because I can't. But I don't have time to do so, sadly.

Anyway, I find the whole subject fascinating, the idea of how on television and film all of these people are the storytellers and what an amazing difference camera angles and the mentality behind the CGI makes. So, to bring it back to Stargate, that's something that I want to see more thought into for another series. Don't just make it a space battle, make it an EVENT for the characters and therefore the viewer, you know, show us some stakes, something that matters and get in the THICK of the battle. Rather than just watching the pretty from an uninspired angle.

Bah, that's a mixed up post, went back and re-wrote stuff in the middle.

BTW, did anyone check out the new Alan Ball HBO Vampire series "True Blood" last night? I'm *cough* working on getting it, curious as to what any of you thought if you've seen it.

Edit: crap, I wrote a lot.

[Trek_Girl42]

Exactly. It's abit like the reason I like humour in my science fiction - I'm not that old, but I've been watching and readinf science fiction for the vast majority of my life and seen it all. Expecting me to accept the OMG WE're DOOOMED! as a horrible life-and-death situation is udnerstandable, but it should be done with a smile, because the mere "it's the end as we know it" premise isn't enough, usually. The same for CGI and explosions. they're everywhere these days - not even just science fiction. Granted, some shows have them more than others and some do it better - I enjoyed the first half of Heroes' first season, for example, but I still think their CGI of New York's destruction was incredibly bad.... but it's not enough to hold my interest, no matter how good it is.

And oh, AT's accent in Sanctuary. I know what you two mean, it was pretty bad, wasn't it... I hope she changed it.

Indeed. A really horrible accent can throw me off a show completely, no matter how good the rest might or might not be. Not asking for absolute perfection, but there are so many actors on tv who do amazing jobs with fake accents- James Marsters, Anna Friel, Alexis Denisof and Hugh Laurie being the ones that first come to my mind.

Not all of them are always perfect(well, Hugh Laurie's is), but they ARE good on the ears, which would be what really counts. AT's (for me) was like listening to nails on a chalkboard, it was just so far off the mark, which turned me off the show. Even though there was no way I'd pay to watch something on the internet anyway, call me old-fashioned.

[Pitry]

Hugh Laurie is a god.