![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assend.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ds9-station.jpg\")
<\/a>\n
Season 1, Episode 1 and 2, pilot \u201cEmissary\u201d<\/p>\n
Star date something or other. Do those numbers actually mean anything cohesive and coordinated, or are they just random, made up numbers? Regardless, it has been almost 30 years since this show first aired. That is hard to believe.<\/p>\n
DS9 has a pretty decent intro. The shots of the station actually remind me a great deal of the video game Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance, with the Azzameen home base. That has some very fond memories for me.<\/p>\n It is nice to see that Star Trek is trying something different, too. Rather than a ship exploring places, a more-or-less stationary station should have a different feel, and the look of the show is definitely trying to be more \u201cindustrial.\u201d The sets, however, are very spartan. Not a lot of detail, not a lot of props or atmosphere. Very utilitarian. I guess that is how TNG was too.<\/p>\n Emissary actually starts off very rough. Everything comes across as very \u201890s for sure, and very low budget. There\u2019s a lot of forced acting, over-acting, and bad acting. We\u2019ve got the cliched \u201cdamaged metal bits and bots\u201d that appears to be cardboard and styrofoam, looks like bad modern art, has no discernable utility or function, and is poorly portrayed by the actors to be heavy while the directors force the characters to interact. And wow, do the characters seemingly not want to interact. Things, and characters, start off pretty wooden.<\/p>\n And yikes, the woke tropes. We\u2019ve got the obligatory black captain, because it was time for some diversity breaking the glass ceiling in Trek. We\u2019ve got the strong female lead, and the other strong female lead, and the conniving, swindling space-minority with the big nose, and big forehead, and big ears.<\/p>\n We also have what I would imagine are Star Trek trope staples. We\u2019ve got a MacGuffin, an ancient religious artifact, called an \u201corb\u201d by everyone on the show. It appears neither ancient nor orb-shaped. It looks like an hourglass was bedazzled (props if you get that 80s throwback reference) with glowy rhinestones, and then the hourglass itself was removed leaving just the rhinestones.<\/p>\n Of course the ancient artifact isn\u2019t going to look ancient! This is Star Trek! It has to be glow-y and space-y! They have to blow the effects budget on stuff like this, with high-dollar CG effects, to justify the lack of spending on the set pieces!<\/p>\n We have the pretty young female, the secondary strong woman character, who has a backstory of actually being an old man who wasn\u2019t an old man, but was a space cockroach instead, and just lived in the old man\u2019s body, but it wore out or something. Now the space cockroach is a pretty, young, female thing who flirts with the handsome young doctor and doesn\u2019t tell him that she\u2019s a trap, even though the commanding officer knows and makes a joke about it. I\u2019m sure this will never be mentioned again.<\/p>\n We have another character who is a shape shifter, and his backstory is not knowing who he is or who his people are, and pretending to be one of \u201cthem,\u201d referring to the B\u2019jorans (Bajorans?), I think. He has the ability to perfectly mimic their racial facial features of an accordion-nose, but inexplicably doesn\u2019t, because reasons.<\/p>\n They must have realized they were losing steam. We have two space-boobs sightings to keep the audience engaged. The camera makes it a point to move from a silly rubber stack of post-it-notes pretending to be a musical instrument (while being struck by two cucumbers, no less) and pan across a stacked, trim blond woman rocking some bounty under a TNG-style Star Fleet pantsuit.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t a fluke, because then the camera makes sure to linger on some serious space underboob as an unnamed alien extra, wearing a space bodysuit with a mesh bodice and satin stretched tight across her nipples, jiggles down some stairs and into a close-up of, yes, underboob. There\u2019s nothing like a little objectification to go along with our enlightened principles and our other strong, female characters. Hey, sex sells.<\/p>\n Emissary is off to a fairly rough, cringe-filled start. I get why the acting is so lackluster. The actors didn\u2019t have a lot to work with on the writing.<\/p>\n Things do get better. There are several nice scenes where Commander Sisko1<\/a> bargains for his, and all of humanity\u2019s, life with mystical alien beings who created or are the early orb-that-isn\u2019t MacGuffin. The stock Star Trek secondary bad guys, the Kardashians2<\/a>, are going to blow up Deep Space 9. But they get bluffed out by the first strong female lead, assisted ably by engineering chief Miles O\u2019Brien3<\/a>. That actor has a long and storied history of looking industrious and intelligent standing behind a counter while pretending to touch non-existent buttons, and he does a great job here. It isn\u2019t his best acting work either, but he\u2019s a solid addition to the cast, and I rather like him. I remember him from TNG.<\/p>\n The strong female lead with the nose is likeable. She has some nice scenes, if a touch overly-dramatic, where she confronts the Cardassians. There are some shaky-cam pyrotechnics where crew accidentally crush the \u201cmetal\u201d bulkheads as they fall into them, but things end well and on a reasonably high note. It is all wrapped up by the end just like TV shows used to do. Final grade: C-<\/strong><\/p>\n Maybe a C-minus-minus. If this pilot was any worse, I wouldn\u2019t be watching any more. If I weren\u2019t doing this as a project, and instead just stumbled upon this via Amazon Prime, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d have made it through this pilot, nor would I continue on with the series. But we are!<\/p>\n 1. I don\u2019t know how I know how to spell his name. It must have come through memory somewhere. Otherwise, I\u2019d be spelling it \u201cCisco.\u201d<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
Overall, it was enjoyable enough. It made it on TV for seven seasons, so it has to get better. It can\u2019t get any worse, or it wouldn\u2019t have made it through the first season. I would not recommend this particular episode to anyone else, however. My wife refused to sit through it with me.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/em>
2. I know the real name here. I made an unfunny joke. Sue me.
<\/span><\/em>
3. I have no idea how I easily remember Miles O\u2019Brien. Probably from exposure to TNG.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n