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#DS91sttime: Season 4, Episode 14, “Return to Grace”

March 19, 2014 in #DS91sttime, General Topics

A man on multiple missions. Season 4, Ep 14, "Return to Grace"

A man on multiple missions. Season 4, Ep 14, “Return to Grace”

You know what I find myself saying often when I watch Deep Space Nine? That it’s time for Mark Alaimo to come back for another great performance. Seriously, in any talk of this show’s finest actors, Alaimo just has to be in consideration. Gul Dukat is perhaps the most nuanced of the Trek villains, even more multidimensional than the legendary Khan.

So we can forgive yet another premise that sees Kira thrust into a mission with the wayward Cardassian commander. This happens all the time, sure, but taking issue with it would be a bit like complaining about another helping of fudge in your ice cream. Alaimo raises the bar for everyone else on the show when he’s present, Nana Visitor plays off his character fantastically, and…well, isn’t that all that matters? Read the rest of this entry →

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#DS91sttime: Season 4, Episode 5, “Indiscretion”

September 13, 2013 in #DS91sttime, General Topics

There are some actors and actresses that can pull your attention completely to the screen and hold it there. Mark Alaimo is one such actor, and in my book is not just one of the best performers in Deep Space Nine, but across the entire Trek universe as well. It’s the range of emotion he gives his character; the sense that Dukat is forever in conflict with the society he’s a part of–at once a willing participant and a victim of its savage power struggles and strange mores. He is a man of duplicity, as human as any of us beneath his alien skin. Read the rest of this entry →

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#DS91sttime: Season 4, Episode 1 & 2, “The Way of the Warrior”

August 16, 2013 in #DS91sttime, General Topics

I spent a lot of time thinking how to express the excellence of Deep Space Nine‘s feature-length fourth-season opening episode, “The Way of the Warrior”, and the word that keeps fighting its way to the surface is Qapla’ (that’s Klingon for “success”). Its not that the Klingons own this episode, it’s that their arrival and its subsequent consequences force the crew to cooperate in a way that is compelling and gripping. You can’t watch this thing without being engrossed–it almost approaches First Contact with its thick air of escalating tension.

Pause on that for a moment: this is a season premiere of a syndicated Trek spinoff, and it warrants positive comparisons with First Contact. Read the rest of this entry →

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#DS91sttime: Season 3, Episode 22, “Explorers”

July 3, 2013 in #DS91sttime, General Topics

I didn’t go into “Explorers” expecting to find one of the show’s best episodes yet. This was supposed to fall apart from the very beginning. After all, how exciting or plausible, really, is Ben Sisko suddenly deciding to prove a Bajoran space exploration theory by hand-building a primitive solar-sail ship and setting off toward Cardassian territory?

The lightship from S3, Episode 22: "Explorers"

The lightship from S3, Episode 22: “Explorers”

And indeed, throughout the episode, the realist in me was picking things apart. We know that the rate of acceleration for one of these vessels–if ever built–would probably be glacial, since they’re using the force exerted by photons against their “sails” to accelerate. We know that Sisko setting off in a defenseless ship on the eve of a galactic war smacks of stupidity at worst, and almost criminal recklessness at best. We don’t see how the arrival of one of Bashir’s former classmates is supposed to provide an entire B plot.

Doesn’t matter.
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