From: ph9991_manfr@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Monday Night Review - "Past Prologue" SPOILERS!
Date: 11 Jan 93 21:39:21 -0600
Organization: University of Wisconsin - River Falls


And now, not at all live, from Ellsworth and River Falls, Wisconsin
comes the Monday Night Review!!!!


SPOILERS AHEAD for "Past Prologue"


BEWARE! Terrorists may strike at any time. 


Well, well, well.  We're two for two! 
Suffice it to say I liked this episode a l.  Let's get straight to business
and into the grading sections:

Story and Script:  Each excellent.  The "I want to destroy the wormhole"
	bit probably would have worked on me even better if I hadn't seen
	the trailers for last week, but what can you do?
	This is essentially a character drama with a chase thrown in at
	the end, and in such a story, juicy lines and good conflicts are
	essential.  This episode had plenty of both.  
	Kira is the key character in the regular cast, and she indeed has
	some interesting demons in her soul.  A possible background in
	terrorism among them.  
	The stormy yet smooth relationship between her and Sisko is going
	to be very fun to watch in the future.  One of the best bits is her
	going over Sisko's head, and then his threatening to give Kira's
	to her on a plate.  
	And then we have the gentler, kindred spirit kind of relationship
	between her and Odo which surprised me a little.  Odo is clearly
	the "wise" character, but he's not exactly a saint.  A nice twist
	on the Spock and Data precedents.  Make him weird, but a little nasty.
	Neat.
	The terrorists' activities are kept suitably dark for exactly the
	right amount of time, and then leaked to us slowly, and to keep us
	from guessing too much of what he's up to, we have the wonderful
	interplay between Dr Bashir and plain, simple Garrick.
	Bashir is fast becoming a favorite of mine.  Nervous when presented
	with the unexpected, but when he knows that the ground he's on is
	stable, he's really rather strong.  
	Guessing Garrick's direction (something I'm still a little unfocussed
	on) was another good pasttime in the story, and if that wasn't 
	enough to stop us guessing the end....
	Lursa and Beytor show up.  
	As it turns out, they are really very much in the background here,
	but until they leave we don't know that, giving us a third mystery
	plot to sort out.
	By themselves, any one of these three plotlines are easy to decipher,
	but mixed together and stirred well, they create a very tasty soup.
	One other juicy line:
	"We have strict regulations here.  You can either leave your weapons
	or leave the station.  It's your choice."
	"Who are you?"
	"I'm the one who's giving you the choice."

Direction:  Very nice.  The scenes in the Promenade were directed almost
	perfectly to let us know that something was brewing, but to keep
	it unclear exactly what it was.  Mind you, the script's having 
	all three of the plot threads intersecting there has a little
	something to do with it.  
	Odo's office scene with Kira also gave me smiles.  The scripting
	is excellent here, again, but some crafty camerawork never hurts.
	Blocking tricks help too, such as when Odo turns in his chair as
	he tells Sisko that someone wants to talk with him.  
	The look of this series is still in flux, and it's nice to see
	that at least one director is pushing for a lot more close-ups
	and also getting characters in each other's faces.  The proxemics
	are much closer on DS9 it seems than on the Enterprise-D.

Acting:  Impeccable.  Kira, Odo, Sisko, the terrorist, Bashir, plain Garrick,
	Lursa, Beytor, and O'Brien all did bang-up jobs.  Kira and Odo
	were the most fascinating, however.  Kira's divided loyalties 	
	were played with the right blend of anger at others and inner
	conflict that she expresses to Odo and the terrorist.  
	
Special FX:  The usual brilliance.  Getting to see yet another Odo
	shape-shift so soon makes me wonder if that technique has come
	down in price lately.

Music:  A *little* better.  It seemed to punctuate the scenes a little
	more effectively than last time, but it's still too bland.
	And I have a feeling that this isn't going to be changing anytime
	soon.  

Scale of 1 to 10:  9.5  
Wait.  Amend that.  Make that a 10.  I just remembered that surprise in
the opening title sequence.  That deserves a .5.

Steven.K.Manfred
(p@~;z(doYy