I think the Dominion was always intended to be depicted as a multi-species empire as diverse as the Federation but practical and storytelling realities meant we only really got to see three (and most of the time, just 2) species on the regular.
Given the Founder's paranoia about solids, I'm not sure that any species that hasn't been engineered for ultimate loyalty to the founders in some way would really be allowed to roam around Dominion space too much.
The... Karemma? The species Quark struck a deal with for tulaberry wine were a subject species of the Dominion and they seemed pretty free to do whatever. Like trade with the Ferengi.
There was this one listening post or whatever it was the Vorta used to give orders and through which they sent reports, but beyond that there appeared to be little direct control. Keep your head down, don't make a fuss, follow the occasional orders, and you too may be allowed to trade with an Alpha Quadrant power.
Another good one! It felt kind of weird though, like the whole sphere thing was out of left field, or that they're just stalling catching up to Spock. Nevertheless, a good, solid Star Trek premise. I'm also really glad Tig Notaro is back, having her appear just the once felt like such a waste.
Another good one! It felt kind of weird though, like the whole sphere thing was out of left field, or that they're just stalling catching up to Spock. Nevertheless, a good, solid Star Trek premise. I'm also really glad Tig Notaro is back, having her appear just the once felt like such a waste.
Yeah episode 4 was such a step up in quality over episode 3, which suuucked. I really hope that they don't have the Klingons in any scenes for the rest of the season.
I wasn't convinced for even a second that they would really kill off Saru. Isn't his species bred for harvesting? You would think that he would have figured out what was really happening to him.
And you had one job Tilly! Stop being eaten by the giant (humongous) fungus blob. Yet she gets eaten not once, but twice! :P
I think the Dominion was always intended to be depicted as a multi-species empire as diverse as the Federation but practical and storytelling realities meant we only really got to see three (and most of the time, just 2) species on the regular.
Given the Founder's paranoia about solids, I'm not sure that any species that hasn't been engineered for ultimate loyalty to the founders in some way would really be allowed to roam around Dominion space too much.
The... Karemma? The species Quark struck a deal with for tulaberry wine were a subject species of the Dominion and they seemed pretty free to do whatever. Like trade with the Ferengi.
There was this one listening post or whatever it was the Vorta used to give orders and through which they sent reports, but beyond that there appeared to be little direct control. Keep your head down, don't make a fuss, follow the occasional orders, and you too may be allowed to trade with an Alpha Quadrant power.
I think that was less "members are autonomous so long as they're loyal" than "be our catspaws to gain intelligence on our next target, disobey and we'll sterilize your homeworld if we're feeling generous."
Everyone on Reddit is predicting for the rest of the season
The predator species is actually just Kelpians that have gone through fear puberty because without the ganglia they don't really have empathy anymore (except for Saru of course). I think that makes the most sense as an explanation, maybe we can have an identity twist every season.
Everyone on Reddit is predicting for the rest of the season
The predator species is actually just Kelpians that have gone through fear puberty because without the ganglia they don't really have empathy anymore (except for Saru of course). I think that makes the most sense as an explanation, maybe we can have an identity twist every season.
haha yes I said something like this to my husband: he lost his threat ganglia and he’s going to do seven mega hitlers ala the krogans
Another good one! It felt kind of weird though, like the whole sphere thing was out of left field, or that they're just stalling catching up to Spock. Nevertheless, a good, solid Star Trek premise. I'm also really glad Tig Notaro is back, having her appear just the once felt like such a waste.
I'm so not feeling this season. I absolutely love Pike and
number one in the new uniform was just amazing
but it all seems... Disjointed, too packed together. This last episode felt like they wanted a 'regular' episode, but the overarching SUPER IMPORTANT plot made it so it again had no time to breathe at all.
Continuing my season 1 run of DS9, the Wadi showed up from the Gamma quadrant. Another race that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Founders, although they did give Odo a weird look. They also had pretty advance technology. Quark groveling was the highlight of the episode.
I'm enjoying this season of Discovery better with it's monster-of-the-week with a loose thread better than i liked the first season. First season felt like two writers taking turns writing absurd-ass cliffhangers for the other writer to fix.
okay just watching the second part now and I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
It turns out I do a pretty passable Constable Odo and one time I questioned my husband in the kitchen regarding the case of the missing last piece of pizza and he got all twitterpated about it it was cute I just wanted y'all to know about it.
I really like that part of Bashir's background, because it explains a lot of his character up until that point, and really informs some of his relationships and decisions in the future.
Season 1 episode 10, Odo get's called a changeling. Another planet near the wormhole who has "stories" about shape-shifters but doesn't seem to know about the Founders.
I really like that part of Bashir's background, because it explains a lot of his character up until that point, and really informs some of his relationships and decisions in the future.
It also leads to two really fascinating episodes
Oh and I just remembered one of my fav episodes of him is when he's stuck on a planet trying to cure the (genetically modified) Jem Hadar ...
I wonder at what point they told Siddig that part of the characters back story
I really like that part of Bashir's background, because it explains a lot of his character up until that point, and really informs some of his relationships and decisions in the future.
It also leads to two really fascinating episodes
Oh and I just remembered one of my fav episodes of him is when he's stuck on a planet trying to cure the (genetically modified) Jem Hadar ...
I wonder at what point they told Siddig that part of the characters back story
He didn't know until he got the script for that episode because that's when they thought of it :rotate:
Everyone on Reddit is predicting for the rest of the season
The predator species is actually just Kelpians that have gone through fear puberty because without the ganglia they don't really have empathy anymore (except for Saru of course). I think that makes the most sense as an explanation, maybe we can have an identity twist every season.
haha yes I said something like this to my husband: he lost his threat ganglia and he’s going to do seven mega hitlers ala the krogans
So I wasn't the only one who thought that ending came off as a bit sinister?
I hope they don't ruin Saru's character, but if they could do something with him losing his natural empathy and then fighting to still be a good person/maintain his ideals that could be a great arc.
I really like that part of Bashir's background, because it explains a lot of his character up until that point, and really informs some of his relationships and decisions in the future.
It also leads to two really fascinating episodes
Oh and I just remembered one of my fav episodes of him is when he's stuck on a planet trying to cure the (genetically modified) Jem Hadar ...
I wonder at what point they told Siddig that part of the characters back story
He didn't know until he got the script for that episode because that's when they thought of it :rotate:
I really like that part of Bashir's background, because it explains a lot of his character up until that point, and really informs some of his relationships and decisions in the future.
It also leads to two really fascinating episodes
Oh and I just remembered one of my fav episodes of him is when he's stuck on a planet trying to cure the (genetically modified) Jem Hadar ...
I wonder at what point they told Siddig that part of the characters back story
He didn't know until he got the script for that episode because that's when they thought of it :rotate:
Another good one! It felt kind of weird though, like the whole sphere thing was out of left field, or that they're just stalling catching up to Spock. Nevertheless, a good, solid Star Trek premise. I'm also really glad Tig Notaro is back, having her appear just the once felt like such a waste.
I'm so not feeling this season. I absolutely love Pike and
number one in the new uniform was just amazing
but it all seems... Disjointed, too packed together. This last episode felt like they wanted a 'regular' episode, but the overarching SUPER IMPORTANT plot made it so it again had no time to breathe at all.
They're still finding their legs, I'm actually surprised that I love the characters this much only a couple seasons into it. This may be a played-out defense, but remember how bad the first two seasons of TNG were? The fact that I really want to see more of pretty much everyone except maybe the Klingons gives me hope that this series will get there as long as it continues to spend time focusing on characters like Saru and Tilly and Stamets, and every time the show has fleshed out some of the bridge crew/side characters they've turned out great. While the plots could benefit from a ton more nuance, and I wish that they could pace out the drama a little better rather than everything surrounding Michael having to be constant emotional trauma all the time, the fact that I get excited about seeing more of any particular character is a good sign.
Also Pike makes me happy. I like that he's the "fun captain".
It does come off a bit as undermining everything we know so far about his character as a brilliant scientist! I mean the discussion of the morals of genetic modification is interesting. I wonder if it would have worked better if it had been introduced at the start - he's new on the station and clearly brilliant, pretty soon, it comes out that he was genetically modified but his dad did a couple years in prison to atone and save Julian's career. Julian expresses gratitude for his father's sacrifice and in a vulnerable moment admits his confidence and outgoing nature sometimes is a cover for his insecurity because of his own origins. The crew react in different ways but eventually all accept it like O'Brien does in this s5 episode.
Then it can inform all the later episodes like the Jem Hadar one I mentioned.
So It Goes on
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
I didn't think it changed much about his character beyond how far he has to stand from the dart board.
He basically stops acting like a goof and gets more serious for the rest of the series.
Which I always felt was kind of weird, because it retcons his initial goofy behavior as him putting on an appearance. But not completely? Because he still acts like a goof every now and again afterwards, just more subdued (he still willingly cosplays as James Bond FFS ). It's just odd to go back to the first episode and watch him go "Aww yeah! Frontier medicine in the boonies!" and know that he's essentially hamming it up so people don't think he's a super genius.
Still, the actor and the show managed to make it work.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
RE: Bashir. From an AV Club interview with Siddig a few years ago
AS: Rick Berman, who was the executive producer on Star Trek, saw A Dangerous Man, and he had really eclectic tastes, because that was by no means a commercial movie, but that’s what he chose to watch on whatever night Masterpiece Theatre was happening, or whatever the hell it was shown on in America.
AVC: Great Performances.
AS: Great Performances, there you go. [Laughs.] But, yeah, he watched it, and he gave me the role of the captain, actually. And then he realized that at the age of 26, or whatever I was, I was way too young to be the captain of his new show, and he made up a role for me on the spot. So I was incredibly lucky. This doctor who was gonna be called Amoros, who was gonna be from Central America, ended up being me.
AVC: So what are your thoughts on Bashir’s character arc over the run of the show? Were you happy with it or frustrated by it?
AS: I think I was really happy. I mean, we had a devious plan: we wanted to build a character that we knew wouldn’t go down well in ’90s American culture. This was a time when, you know, 90210 and Melrose Place were all the rage. These were the shows that everyone was watching, and they celebrated the mediocrity of the perfect youngster, the beautiful young Adonis, and it was all about ready-made, cookie-cutter characters, as far as I was concerned. And I do remember a conversation with the execs on Deep Space Nine. We had some really good writers. It was a really good room for writers in those days. Ron Moore, Rene Echevarria, Ira Behr, Michael Piller… A lot of these guys have gone on to do stuff. And there were others, those are just the ones off the top of my head.
But they said, “Well, what if we do a character that we know isn’t going to go down very well? You know, he’s going to be pretty unpopular. He’s going to be not the perfect article. He’s going to be pretty un-heroic. An antihero, if you like. And then we change it up and see if the public follow us and see if everyone comes with us.” And there was a moment when we did an episode where I emulated James Bond on the holodeck… and that was the point, obviously, where we decided—well, they decided it. I wasn’t part of the decision about when to change me, but I was part of the devious plan as far as the aim of the arc of the character. But they decided that that was how they were going to do it, so they did it, and—weirdly, as if by magic and nearly overnight—my character started to improve in the polls. [Laughs.] And I suddenly became one of the favorite several characters, actually, as opposed to easily the least favorite. The studio tried to fire me every year for the first three years. Rick Berman had to say, “Over my dead body,” because he had a plan. So there was kind of a weird social experiment that went on in that show, and I was really lucky to be part of it. So I can only say that I really enjoyed that.
AVC: How did you feel about the whole “enhancements” story aspect?
AS: Oh, well, I felt a little fucked over with that. [Laughs.] I thought that was a bit cynical. I got the sense that, by the end of the run, there were other Star Trek shows that were coming out which were more popular, pulling ahead of us. Deep Space Nine, you have to understand, in its time was not performing as well as the studio wanted it to or needed it to. And that was down to the fact that it was built on what was, at the time, a very wobbly foundation of long character arcs. These weren’t shows that were over in one episode and moved on to the next planet, dealt with that, and moved on again. These things went on forever, and people had to tune in again and again and again to find out what happened to these characters. That was unheard of at the time. And I think that now, because it’s more fashionable, Deep Space Nine has become a lot more popular and a lot more interesting to a lot more people.
So when that thing came along about enhancing me, I felt they were really trying—cynically—to make me more like Data, so that I would be more popular still, and I felt betrayed. It wasn’t part of our plan! So I just ignored it. And whenever the lines came up, I just screwed them up. It wasn’t that I didn’t deliver them, but the lines that referred to that, I just messed up. The actor has that power. At the end of the day, they have a veto, and that veto is expressed in just making the line rubbish, just losing it. So I’d say the line, because that’s my job and I’m paid to do that, but I said it in a way that hopefully it drifted off and no one really noticed it.
The fun bit is I think Siddiq's decision made the character better. It turned it into something that was part of his background and who he was, but wasn't the centrepoint of his identity. It didn't erase what came before, but added to it.
I really enjoyed SFDebris's take on the Our Man Bashir holodeck episode if you watch it knowing the genetic enhancements plot points from later on. He plays the character and gets to use his full capabilities as part of the escapism rather than having things go more smoothly because he is in a holodeck fantasy.
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The... Karemma? The species Quark struck a deal with for tulaberry wine were a subject species of the Dominion and they seemed pretty free to do whatever. Like trade with the Ferengi.
There was this one listening post or whatever it was the Vorta used to give orders and through which they sent reports, but beyond that there appeared to be little direct control. Keep your head down, don't make a fuss, follow the occasional orders, and you too may be allowed to trade with an Alpha Quadrant power.
And you had one job Tilly! Stop being eaten by the giant (humongous) fungus blob. Yet she gets eaten not once, but twice! :P
I think that was less "members are autonomous so long as they're loyal" than "be our catspaws to gain intelligence on our next target, disobey and we'll sterilize your homeworld if we're feeling generous."
I'm so not feeling this season. I absolutely love Pike and
Gul Dukat is there so I'm sure everything will go okay though
Garak's storyline on the first part of this two parter was gud
Doesn't seem quite right, does it?
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
okay just watching the second part now and I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE
I really want a cat named Quark just so I have an excuse to growl "Quaaaaark..." at a rule-breaker
Bashir's parents are adorbs
What does it add to his character, I guess maybe if it comes up again? But I doubt it's going to have any permanent effect on any of his relationships
It also leads to two really fascinating episodes
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Oh and I just remembered one of my fav episodes of him is when he's stuck on a planet trying to cure the (genetically modified) Jem Hadar ...
I wonder at what point they told Siddig that part of the characters back story
So I wasn't the only one who thought that ending came off as a bit sinister?
Lol. Lame.
If I recall he was not a fan of it.
They're still finding their legs, I'm actually surprised that I love the characters this much only a couple seasons into it. This may be a played-out defense, but remember how bad the first two seasons of TNG were? The fact that I really want to see more of pretty much everyone except maybe the Klingons gives me hope that this series will get there as long as it continues to spend time focusing on characters like Saru and Tilly and Stamets, and every time the show has fleshed out some of the bridge crew/side characters they've turned out great. While the plots could benefit from a ton more nuance, and I wish that they could pace out the drama a little better rather than everything surrounding Michael having to be constant emotional trauma all the time, the fact that I get excited about seeing more of any particular character is a good sign.
Also Pike makes me happy. I like that he's the "fun captain".
Then it can inform all the later episodes like the Jem Hadar one I mentioned.
Which I always felt was kind of weird, because it retcons his initial goofy behavior as him putting on an appearance. But not completely? Because he still acts like a goof every now and again afterwards, just more subdued (he still willingly cosplays as James Bond FFS
Still, the actor and the show managed to make it work.
"I just ignored it"
I really enjoyed SFDebris's take on the Our Man Bashir holodeck episode if you watch it knowing the genetic enhancements plot points from later on. He plays the character and gets to use his full capabilities as part of the escapism rather than having things go more smoothly because he is in a holodeck fantasy.
I've heard he can be a real demon though
Just the pits, ya know?