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Old February 10 2013, 03:59 AM   #32
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Re: 10 Reason ST:DS9 Misjudged

Andymator wrote: View Post

Perhaps you're confused... because that wasn't what I claimed at all. Lucky for me it's all right there in the thread's previous posts for you to go back and read rather than waste time re-iterating my points again.
Maybe then you should do a better job at making your point because I'm not the only one in this thread who took that as your meaning.

You can repeat that all you want, it doesn't make it true.[QUOTE]

Seriously? That's the road you are going down? Because the same thing can be said about your view. Is this the game you want to waste time playing?

DS9 dabbled in some very conservative serialization in rare instances, but consisted of a majority of stand alone stories and relied no more heavily on continuity than TNG.
Nonsense. By the very nature of it being a show that took place on a station which rotated in the same section of space meant it had no choice but to rely more heavily on continuity and on a semi-state of serialization. To claim that it didn't do so any more than TNG suggests you are in a state of denial; you are taking a position that no person who writes reviews or commentaries of the show ever takes.

Now of course through dictate from Paramount DS9 had to remain in theory an episodic show with its own number of self-contained storylines, something that would make it easier for any casual viewer to drop into any showing of DS9 and not be confused. But the thing is countless folks still complained about being confused when doing just that. DS9 was never as accessible a show as TNG and TOS because there was always so much more back story and the characters themselves could be different from season to season. Not to mention backdrops, relationships, alliances, political statuses are constantly in flux. For the first five or possibly six seasons it is almost as if TPTB did a reset at the beginning of the year. That makes it practically a requirement to rebroadcast the eps in order to not throw off more casual viewers. Otherwise you tune in one day and Kira and Sisko are at each others' throats and the next episode the two of them are having a sober conversation about faith in the Prophets. One episode the series regulars are all on DS9 the next they are scattered throughout the galaxy after The Federation was forced to abandon the station. One episode it is peace time in which the Federation is trying to help lead Bajor to a better future and the next the Federation's future is in jeopardy as the war with the Dominion is not going well. One episode Dukat is an ally to Sisko and his crew and the Klingons are the major threat, the next the Klingons are Sisko and his crew's most reliable allies and Dukat is now part of great threat to the Federation and the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.

I've never argued that Deep Space Nine was a truly serial show like BSG or even B5. But it has far more serial elements than TNG. First of all DS9 was a Trek show that first introduced a three-parter. It then brought to Trek a six-parter that was preceded by two episodes that led to that six parter and succeeding hour episode coming after that six-parter that immediately followed up and wrapped up all that occurred before (essentially making it a nine-part arc). And then there was a final ten hour wrap up that was truly serialized (the whole final season would have been serialized like that if Paramount had agreed). Once more....please tell me the examples of TNG coming close to doing anything like that.

DS9 was more likely to make use of continuity. That's why Sisko and Kira could spend the entire first season being at odds and distrustful of one another before coming to some kind of truce in the final episode of the season. Where is the TNG equivalent of that? During season five Odo can adjust to no longer having his shapeshifting abilities for about a 1/3 of a year before regaining them. On TNG that would all happened and been over in a span no longer than a two-parter. On DS9 Sisko's slow acceptance and growing comfort over his role as Emissary occurred year from year. What's the TNG equivalent? Unlike TNG which would introduce a galactic showdown in a season ender only to conclude it in the season opener of the following season, DS9 provided a conflict with the Klingons that lasted one entire season, a buildup of antagonism with the Dominion that brewed over the course of three years and an all-out galactic war involving Dominion that lasted two whole seasons. DS9 also had roughly 20 recurring characters on heavy rotation who were either forever affected by game-changing events in some cases or whose presence forever altered the path of individuals and empires in other cases. That is what you call continuity.

It seems like you're trying to convince me that DS9 is a good show... you really should go back and take your time reading my posts. I am a huge fan of DS9.
You know if you have to resort to condescending retorts you already lost the argument. Stick to your points if you have any. I know you are a fan of DS9. I can read after all. I wouldn't waste my time trying to convince anyone that DS9 is a good show anyway. That is something I stopped doing during the 90s. And besides liking or disliking the show is all subjective and therefore totally dependent on a person's tastes.

Please go back read what I actually was saying, instead of letting your kneejerk....
For God's sake take your own advice and reread your own posts. Because you were clearly arguing that DS9 was no more complex than TNG. Stop shifting the goal posts at every opportunity. That wastes both of our time.

I have not claimed that the TNG characters were more complex, just that there are plenty of conflicted characters on TNG, just as on DS9. Picard, Worf, O'Brien, Ro, etc...
How is Picard conflicted again? Oh, never mind. Look I’m not saying there aren't any conflicted characters on TNG. I'm saying there was very little conflict between them, that the number of conflicted characters were small compared to DS9 and that the conflicts that the TNG characters faced tended to be less of a focus of the writers.

What does that even mean? How on earth are you measuring A to C or A to M? This is nonsense. You're talking in vague descriptors and buzzwords...
In other words if you don't have a rebuttal simply redirect and act dumb while accusing the other guy of strawman arguments. Very well. You can't go around stating that A is no different than C and A is no different than M and then claim ignorance of why I'm going down that path in the first place by countering that uninformed theory. Nice try though.

As for your three actually specific citings...

- Captain Picard has his consciousness usurped and murders thousands of people in "The Best of Both Worlds II".
Goodness. That's so lame. Picard had no control of those events. He may feel guilty over it and the writers may milk the whole pathos of the situation in order to give Patrick Stewart more opportunities to impressively emote for the cameras, but in the end he didn't have free will. Ultimately it wasn't his fault otherwise he would have been booted out of Starfleet and TNG fans wouldn't have been so angry at Sisko for holding an unreasonable grudge against the man. Speaking of Sisko when he crosses the line he may do so under stress and he may expertly justify the ends, but he had free will when making taking such questionable actions. That's more risky than the TNG method of removing the blame from the protagonist's hands

- Data decides to kill a sentient man in "The Most Toys". He doesn't get to be sort-of somewhat partially responsible for that decision.

But Data doesn't kill Fajo so to some extent it is a safe copout. TPTB seemed more interested in showing that Data was capable of an almost human emotional reaction after witnessing Fajo murder the woman who was helping Data escape. Did something ever develop out of this? Did Data become more vengeful and more prone to violence after this incident? Was there any followup? No all around.

- In "Reunion" Worf kills one of two candidates for the leader of the klingon empire in retalliation for the murder of his mate.
Now that is a good example and one of the few in which a TNG main character did not respond in a way that we would expect TNG era Starfleet folks too respond. Kinda like that time in which Worf refused to give his blood to help a badly injured Romulan in need of an infusion to live. Or when Worf abandon his duty to Starfleet by resigning in order to fight alongside his brother on a Klingon ship. Oh, wait. Notice a pattern? Whenever TNG wanted someone to go rogue and actually act like a conflicted human being the writers used Worf. Because his being Klingon, despite being raised by human parents, allowed them to justify his actions to the audience. They needed an alien to present someone with recognizably flawed human characteristics. Funny how DS9 did that with its human characters as well as its alien ones.

This was fun and all but we appear to be going in circles and obviously will not see eye-to-eye. Peace. Live Long and Prosper and all that stuff.
You will be missed, Richard Biggs
1961 - too soon
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