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Easy -- "Emissary".
Like, okay, it took me a bunch of attempts to finally get all the way through DS9. So I've watched "Emissary" a whole bunch of times, and on each round, I'm newly impressed by how confident it is.
Yes, it's slow. (My parents' main criticism, in the '90s and also now.) It really takes its time setting up the setting and characters, and trusts the audience to pay attention and wait for everything to unfold.
And it trusts the audience to pay attention to and empathise with characters who are complicated and not necessarily likeable. Sisko is traumatised by Jennifer's death, and holds Picard responsible for events which took place while he was assimilated, an event which was explicitly compared to rape at the time.
(That the writers give Sisko this moment: amazing. That some fans genuinely think he is speaking truth to power: context is important, guys. The scene is amazing because it's complicated.)
Meanwhile, Kira is walking around like she thinks she's the main character (I'm up to the early DS9 episodes in the podcast The Greatest Generation, and the recurring bit where they wonder if Nana Visitor even realises she's not the protagonist gives me life); Bashir and Quark are creeps; Dax is a cipher; O'Brien is the familiar everyman but not the POV character -- okay, not all of these complexities were intentional, but they somehow work.
"Baseball is a metaphor for all humanoid existence" is very American, but that's fitting for the most UScentric Trek bar ENT, and "You live in this place" is one of the most apt metaphors for PTSD around. I hate every single thing about Sisko and the Prophets in season 7, not least because it squanders this wonderful beginning.
(With each successive rewatch, I'm more and more uncomfortable that the Bajoran messiah is not only not Bajoran, but the senior representative of one of the great imperialist powers of the galaxy. But then, there's a reason DS9 is not my favourite Trek: it comes slo close to interrogating the assumptions that underpin Star Trek, and then ... doesn't. Anyway, #justiceforKaiWinn)
( The rest of the days. )
Like, okay, it took me a bunch of attempts to finally get all the way through DS9. So I've watched "Emissary" a whole bunch of times, and on each round, I'm newly impressed by how confident it is.
Yes, it's slow. (My parents' main criticism, in the '90s and also now.) It really takes its time setting up the setting and characters, and trusts the audience to pay attention and wait for everything to unfold.
And it trusts the audience to pay attention to and empathise with characters who are complicated and not necessarily likeable. Sisko is traumatised by Jennifer's death, and holds Picard responsible for events which took place while he was assimilated, an event which was explicitly compared to rape at the time.
(That the writers give Sisko this moment: amazing. That some fans genuinely think he is speaking truth to power: context is important, guys. The scene is amazing because it's complicated.)
Meanwhile, Kira is walking around like she thinks she's the main character (I'm up to the early DS9 episodes in the podcast The Greatest Generation, and the recurring bit where they wonder if Nana Visitor even realises she's not the protagonist gives me life); Bashir and Quark are creeps; Dax is a cipher; O'Brien is the familiar everyman but not the POV character -- okay, not all of these complexities were intentional, but they somehow work.
"Baseball is a metaphor for all humanoid existence" is very American, but that's fitting for the most UScentric Trek bar ENT, and "You live in this place" is one of the most apt metaphors for PTSD around. I hate every single thing about Sisko and the Prophets in season 7, not least because it squanders this wonderful beginning.
(With each successive rewatch, I'm more and more uncomfortable that the Bajoran messiah is not only not Bajoran, but the senior representative of one of the great imperialist powers of the galaxy. But then, there's a reason DS9 is not my favourite Trek: it comes slo close to interrogating the assumptions that underpin Star Trek, and then ... doesn't. Anyway, #justiceforKaiWinn)
( The rest of the days. )
