I\u2019m a bit torn on this one. Deep Space 9 still has not gotten to suspend my disbelief while watching the show, and because of that I\u2019m constantly noticing and being annoyed by lots of little things that might be forgiven if I were to be drawn into the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Generally, these annoyances are due to poor planning, poor writing, and poor execution. DS9 has had a lot of that up to this point, and I\u2019ve been poking at it over and over. This episode is different. Not different as in \u201cgood,\u201d but maybe different as in, \u201coh, good, they are trying something else, and they really came out and swung for the fences this time, and oh, wow, did they face plant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Passenger<\/em> is a \u201cHeist\u201d or \u201cCaper\u201d episode. It isn\u2019t a perfectly straightforward heist episode, as it isn\u2019t told from the perspective of the criminals at all. It fits with the general Star Trek paradigm of the good guys trying to figure out what is going on, while the Heist episode is taking place in the background or off-camera. Maybe it is a reverse-heist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, it starts off in trouble, as nearly every episode has so far. Doc Bashir has to explain why the tricorder didn\u2019t give a correct reading on someone who was dead, and the doctor explains that tricorders work really well on living patients, but not so well on dead ones. Doc pulls the patient through, alive, using his own superior medical knowledge and training and not relying on the fickle technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This little bit seems like a throw-away line, background filler and maybe a little world building, while they work to rescue an individual and her unconscious prisoner from a disabled ship that is on fire. But even on an hour-length show (minus commercials), TV generally doesn\u2019t have time for completely frivolous throw-away lines, nor do they spend the money on writing and filming and editing and doing post-production on stuff that doesn\u2019t really matter. This betrays us in two ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From this first scene, we know that there is going to be some chicanery with determining who is alive or dead. Not the end of the world. We can live with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The far worse part of this throw-away line that isn\u2019t is that it also undermines your belief in the advanced technology of the Star Trek universe. That is neither here nor there as it relates to this particular episode, but it probably isn\u2019t a wise idea generally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rest of the episode proceeds reasonably well. I\u2019m never really drawn into it, I never suspend my disbelief, but they do work this one very well\u2014professionally, even. They juggle lots of little pieces that are all coming together for the big reveal. There are some reasonably rapid cuts. There are separate scenes from the criminal viewpoint, mostly dealing with Quark, that give us some insight and let us know things are serious and this guy really isn\u2019t to be messed with. Quark is reticent to participate, but he is also scared not to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The use of musical queues is good to try to help ramp up tension. Normally in Star Trek (TNG, DS9 so far, and the Original Series), they overdo the fake drama and the creepy music or the \u201cdun dun duh!\u201d queue as a cliffhanger right before commercial. Here, in The Passenger<\/em>, I felt they were a little better. I was appreciative of what they were trying to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is all for naught. The entire episode still is a boring train wreck, try though they might, because they are betrayed by the setting. Yes, Star Trek let them down this time. Maybe a great writer could have saved this episode. I\u2019m not sure. I\u2019m not a great writer, and I know I couldn\u2019t fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem with The Passenger, with this episode, is that because we\u2019re dealing with a setting in which the audience isn\u2019t intimately familiar with all the details, everything must be explained. I know we\u2019ve got Trek fans out there who can baffle with bull all about the technical designs of Jeffrey tubes in the warp nacelles (no idea what those are, actually, and I\u2019m not looking them up). But most of the audience (and even most of the extreme die-hard techies) don\u2019t have a good grasp on all the options that are available or what all the mystery tech does everywhere at all times. Usually, we get a \u201cStar Trek problem\u201d with some techno-babble, and then we get a \u201cStar Trek solution,\u201d also with technobabble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is impossible in a heist. If you have to stop every 45 seconds to talk out the whole thing of what you are doing so the audience can follow along, you lose the audience. If your default go-to is techno-babble, you have to ramp up the techno-babble, but then you have to explain it or show it or have someone else react to it, usually with other techno-babble. The characters can react well with this with good writing and direction, and Trek has a lot of experience making this sort of thing work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it doesn\u2019t work at all for a heist. The tension in the heist comes from not knowing how they are going to pull it off, then watching them work around disastrous failures in the \u201csimple\u201d plan, improvising, catching up on the timing, etc. In a heist, you know they\u2019ll succeed, or if they don\u2019t, it\u2019ll be a satisfying loss, and you enjoy the ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, you sit through explanation after explanation of techno-babble. What else can they do? How else can you make that work in Star Trek?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, you have to go even more simple than normal. Everything has to be intuitive. The tech of Trek can\u2019t be part of the plot of a heist episode. It has to just be background filler. And that\u2019s where everything breaks here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plot here has a MacGuffin that can be used to take over and hijack the consciousness of another body. It preserves consciousness after physical death and provides a neat host for him to continue living. It is a complicated piece of technobabble tech, and it ruins everything, even though the plot didn\u2019t involve someone faking their own death as I thought it would initially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They really do pull out all the stops trying to make it work. You\u2019ve got Federation security having a turf fight (maybe a scuffle, really) with Odo trying to secure the object of the heist. You have limited info on what the different parties are doing, although with a little more exposition than might be ideal as Odo explains himself to others, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless, they do give it the ol\u2019 college try. I can respect that. They stepped up to the plate, they took a big slice, and they hit a pop-up to deep center. They were out on the fly ball, retiring the inning in one tragic failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But man, they swung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t like Doctor Bashir. He just isn\u2019t doing it for me. He is as two-dimensional as Dax but without the complicated backstory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often the doctor is the best role on a Trek show. McCoy was fantastic, always, and a great foil to Spock. The hologram doctor in Voyager was a hoot. I remember him and always loved him. Doctor Phlox in Enterprise is an excellent character and one of the most enjoyable and engaging of any character in the Trek universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even Doctor Crusher I liked. She did a very good job. I remember Doctor Polanski (spelling?) less on TNG, but she was always good, competent, warm enough, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doctor Bashir just isn\u2019t doing it for me. He doesn\u2019t have enough character background to like or work with. Perhaps I don\u2019t particularly care for the gentleman who plays him, or maybe he just hasn\u2019t found the character yet. But for me, he doesn\u2019t have the spark, the charisma, the panache, or whatever it is that he needs to find to work. He\u2019s supposed to be a handsome, debonair, dashing womanizer, and yet he just keeps coming out flat for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doctor Bashir needed to carry this episode, and he didn\u2019t. He sets up the premise at the start, and it is he that gets possessed by the alien with the personality-saver-MacGuffin, and no one really cared. The new personality threatened to kill the doctor to pressure Sisko into giving in and Sisko didn\u2019t even hesitate to call his bluff. There was no, \u201close the doctor? Wait, oh no!\u201d moment. Just a \u201cgo ahead, you\u2019ll die too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m torn between rating this one a D and a C+. Giving credit for trying to stretch and risk is always good and worthwhile, but we\u2019re talking about a show that is thirty years old at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have not talked about my rating scale, so maybe this is the time to do that. Everyone is already familiar with the A, B, C, etc., grading scale that I\u2019m using. But what does it all equate to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, a C is purely average. It is watchable, but not great. Odds are that any given alternative that happens to be available to you is better quality or more enjoyable. In the world of streaming your favorites, a C is a death knell. Certainly, you could better spend your entertainment time elsewhere at a moment\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the rest, you can always look at it like a five-star rating, where an A is five stars. We have additional gradients with the +\/-, but it is basically the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An \u201cF\u201d is a straight fail. Skip it and move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A \u201cD\u201d has terrible, massive issues, and is not worth your time unless you truly need to, for some reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A \u201cC\u201d is watchable, but not very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A \u201cB\u201d is better than average. In the modern paradigm, almost any show at least 10 years old will be better than average over modern shows, so this is not a high bar to clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An \u201cA\u201d is excellent entertainment. It is highly enjoyable and offers a lot of ongoing enjoyment with repeat viewings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Calibrating my scale is difficult for this, as I tend to watch mostly sitcoms for television shows. I don\u2019t do well with \u201cfake drama\u201d and reality TV absolutely kills my interest with it. However, in no particular order, here are several shows to help calibrate my scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mandalorian \u2013 Solid B with a lot of B-. It has some pieces that are a little higher or lower. It is pretty good, not great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Firefly \u2013 the worst episode of Firefly was The Train Job, and I would probably rate that a B+. Everything else was all A work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n M*A*S*H \u2013 one of my favorite shows, it does humor, drama, nostalgia, feel-good, introspection, and sorrow. It is also a wildly mixed bag, with several episodes being in the Cs, but overall the show was quite exceptional. I would give the show at least an A-, if not higher. For me, M*A*S*H has the most A+ rated episodes of any show I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Office \u2013 overall a pretty good show with more than its fair share of stinker episodes, I\u2019d probably give The Office a C+\/B-.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How I Met Your Mother \u2013 A-. It was dragged down by the last season, particularly the final couple of episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the Earth to the Moon \u2013 A+ HBO docu-drama on the Apollo Program by Tom Hanks, post-Apollo 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m a bit torn on this one. Deep Space 9 still has not gotten to suspend my disbelief while watching the show, and because of that I\u2019m constantly noticing and being annoyed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26017,"featured_media":1946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,2,21,33,20],"tags":[28,27,24,29,32,31,30],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deep-space-9","category-reviews","category-sci-fi","category-star-trek","category-tv","tag-deep-space-9","tag-ds9","tag-reviews","tag-sci-fi","tag-star-trek","tag-television","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26017"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/assend.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Problem<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Other Thoughts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nFinal Grade: D<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n