I also appreciate it as potentially an attack on so-called tech geniuses and a, dare I say, disruption of the traditional murder mystery. But now that I’m thinking about it, the culprit was very similar to the one in the first film.
1 Like
Enjoyed this, and at 30 minutes really doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Delightful. Loads of fun sci-fi references as well.
6 Likes
8 Likes
Excellent news! There really should be far more DS9 content in the current run of series!
7 Likes
Section 31 needs Garak!
I guess they time travel?
6 Likes
Yes!
Good question… if you remember, Empress Georgiu is supposed to play a large part in that series, but we don’t know when she got sent back to by the Guardian. It just had to be closer to her actual time, so it could be closer to DS9/TNG time than to TOS time… When was section 31 founded? I don’t think there is an exact date of that yet… just vaguely in the 23rd century… so time travel could be involved for Dr. Bashir (and maybe Garak?!?)…
6 Likes
S31 has been around since the founding of the Federation. Enterprise had some secret shenanigans going on and while they didn’t call themselves S31, they did refer to the part of the federation charter (Starfleet Charter, Article 14, Section 31) that allows them to exist. So its fair to say they have been around since at least 2140. More still in the shadows then and then becoming more well known by the mid 23rd century when Control was around mucking things up. I am guessing based off that screw up the org went dark again and didn’t make themselves overtly known until the Dominion War.
If that article is to be believed (I take everything from that site with a huge grain of salt as they make up articles all the time just for clicks) I can easily see Julian post DW being brought in to clean the org up and make it something better. A Georgiou and Bashir “buddy cop” show I would love to see.
5 Likes
8 Likes
Coming this fall to Paramount +
He’s a genetically engineered Doctor who’s been pulled into running a secret spy org.
She’s a reformed space dictator from another reality.
Together they’re cleaning up the galaxy one case at a time…if they don’t kill each other first.
Get ready for adventure and laughs this fall on: Star Trek-S31!!!
3 Likes
I still hate that the writers pulled that nonsense backstory out of nowhere. It would be one thing if they’d conceived the character that way and dropped the big reveal a few seasons into the show, but as it was Bashir’s actions over the first several seasons didn’t make sense if he was secretly a genetically engineered superhuman.
I mean, there was even a whole episode about Bashir going on a sci-fi style deep dive into his own psyche to confront his insecurities on his 30th birthday… and we’re supposed to just accept that the huge lifelong secret that lies at the core of who he is as a human being never got a mention?
3 Likes
Eh, wasn’t the first time DS9 specifically retconned some of its own canon. Look at early Trill/Dax episodes that contradict later ones. Or Odo even. Or Rom being first a stereotypical no dimension Ferengi, then an idiot who can’t tie his own shoes, to a mechanical savant, to a union leader. I personally couldn’t stand that episode so I was fine with dropping that one from canon to support the new.
For me his early season overeagerness and creepy Dax stalking was all filled in as being a distraction for his hidden history. It was all a facade to keep the truth hidden. Even his pre-ganglionic fiber mix up was then on purpose to not be number one.
Yeah but those weren’t “retcons” so much as actual character development. Rom grew in confidence and skill as an engineer, a parent and an individual over the course of the series. Dropping a revelation like “Bashir was secretly a genetically engineered superhuman all along!” in the fifth season was less a natural progression of his character than a cheesy twist which hadn’t even been so much as hinted at in earlier episodes. It would be like belatedly learning that Geordi LaForge wasn’t really blind or that Dr. McCoy was really a robot.
3 Likes
I’ll give you the character development, but it was a complete ret-con when Rom went from bumbling idiot to mechanical genius.
Odo went two years just being the shapeshifter with the weakest of connection to the Gamma Quad to being the member of the big bad for the show. Dax’s early trill related stories were straight up retconned/ignored when it came to her later development.
I at first didn’t care for AugBashir but it grew on me and any contradictions didn’t bother me as the rest of his story was interesting and fun. Clearly YMMV
I don’t know… I’m current doing a rewatch, and not too long ago saw the episode where Nog requests a letter from Sisko to get into Starfleet academy… and he mentions his dad’s interest in fixing stuff and how good he is with his hands, and how unsuitable he was for traditional Ferrengi life as a result…so I’m inclined to agree with @Brainspore on that point.
Whether the Bashir stuff was a cheesey twist? Maybe…
3 Likes
Oh for sure, but that was well into the retcon at that point. Case in point Season 1 ep 5 “Babel”
QUARK: There’s an old Ferengi saying. Never ask when you can take. How did you figure it out?
ODO: You claimed Rom fixed your replicators.
QUARK: So?
ODO: Rom’s an idiot. He couldn’t fix a straw if it was bent.
QUARK: You’re right. Rom is an idiot. Remind me to get rid of him tomorrow.
That whole “Rom is an idiot” point stuck around for the longest time throughout s1 until they needed that to go somewhere and magically Rom knows how to fix everything in early s2. So unless he too has been really good at hiding his mechanical gifts for the longest time, it was a bit of a retcon. I can see hiding it from Quark would be easy, but Odo?
Don’t get me wrong, I love Rom. He’s one of my favorite DS9 characters and his arc from his mechanical gift retcon forward is wonderful but before that he was always played for the fool and your typical one dimensional Ferengi.
The show at least did try to come to terms with the retcon in S4E08 Little Green Men:
QUARK: What tipped you off?
ROM: When I engaged the impulse engines, I noticed the ship’s weight distribution was a little off. So the last time you went to waste extraction, I snuck back to the cargo bay and took a look around.
QUARK: When did you get so smart?
ROM: I’ve always been smart, brother. I’ve just lacked self-confidence.
Edit: sorry for the rant. My love of DS9 sometimes doesn’t let me shut up about it.
3 Likes
To be fair, that’s coming from Quark, who is notoriously dickish to his brother, and would never see him as competent, because he’s shit at business and Odo, who has no love lost for either of them (or for Nog)… Sometimes Odo can have a one-track mind which can blind him to nuance, especially when it comes to Quark, etc.
Think about how utterly dismissive Odo is of the pair of them, though. And how Rom would not be eager to share that, given how it can threaten his position with Quark…
Still, the best Rom stuff is the one where he forms a union!
I think if there is some ret-conning happening in the series (which I do agree happened), part of it came from the uncertainty after Roddenberry’s death (which opened up new avenues of storytelling). In a lot of ways, DS9 was the first real attempt at expanding the universe of Star Trek outside of the flagship of Star Fleet. TNG certainly projected into the future from TOS, but DS9 showed us just how much depth this future could have as a story-telling device. I doubt that they had bibles early on about many of these other peoples (although the would have had the earlier bibles for the earlier series), and had to build as they went. Hell, I realized not too long ago, that they had an episode early on where it made it seem like Sisko’s dad had been dead (I forget the context, comforting someone who had just lost or was about to lose their own father, I think). But of course, his Dad shows up later on (most famously in Far Beyond the Stars).
I think it’s with DS9 that we get a more coherent, interconnected universe or rather universes that we associate with Trek now… they had to make it up as they went along. They were the first series to go into any depth on the Mirror Universe after it’s introduction in TOS - at least I’m fairly certain it was not referenced in TNG, but correct me if I’m wrong… so it’s not a huge surprise that early on they were fumbling about a bit… One thing that impressed me about Ryan Britt’s book:
Was how he was able to show just how much changing and ret-conning there was to make star trek into the progressive icon that it is today. It was just a constant reflection on what it could be, over time, and that later series really ended up changing our perceptions of earlier ones. I’d argue that DS9 is the start of that…
4 Likes
Follow-up on Willow:
The series is pulling my leg in obvious (and various) ways, but it’s still watchable.
I’m not entirely sure the showrunners have an intended audience. The soundtrack, the recurring stylistic irony and the whole concept of creating a series based on a 1985 film with the lead character (and namesake) played by the same actor all seem to indicate it’s a series written for GenXers. The very thickly applied coming-of-age content and seems to be intended for a rather much younger audience.
To draw a forced comparison: it is a bit like a follow-up series on Interview with the Vampire with Cruise and/or Pitt, using Buffy as a bit of a template in matters of stylistic irony, but crossing it over (thickly) with the coming-of-age stuff from Twilight.
Disclaimer: while constructing that comparison, I realised that this quite probably exists. (But I haven’t watched it.)
ETA: spling nd some some redundant words but no grammr corrections.
1 Like
5 Likes
They really don’t make shows like this anymore. Do they?
2 Likes
“It’s the bit that goes over my head. I don’t understand. It’s like, so Chris Evans is wearing a jumper. It’s like he’s naked or at least naked from the sort of waist down, wearing a jumper. I’m like, “He’s just wearing a jumper.”
News in is like, “Chris Evans wears jumper” [But] sure, it’s a living. He does it very well. He wears it very beautifully.“
Jealousy is unbecoming, Daniel.
4 Likes
