From: scott.hollifield@the-matrix.com (Scott Hollifield) 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: DS9: EMISSARY REVIEW (1)
Date: 7 Jan 93 23:34:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The MATRIX BBS - Birmingham, AL - 205-323-2016
Reply-To: scott.hollifield@the-matrix.com (Scott Hollifield) 

Here follows yet another review for "Emissary".  I've been reviewing
TNG episodes regularly on Rime, ILink and U'ni for over a year now,
but this is my first real review on Usenet.























    When the concept for Deep Space Nine was first announced, I noticed
several audible (well, visible) groans.  A space station?  Instead of a
starship?  How can they have any action?  How can they visit new
planets?  How can they boldly go where no <person> has gone before if
they don't go anywhere?
    IT WON'T WORK!
    I nodded thoughtfully to myself the first time I heard these words
in conjuction with Star Trek.  It was in 1987, and the people saying
them were talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Fortunately,
over the last five years, both the quality of Star Trek and the
attitudes of Trekkies have generally improved.
    I've always maintained that the Enterprise is not what makes Star
Trek work.  I won't argue that it made the original series work; TOS
would have been quite dull without it.  But Star Trek in general has
always been powered by its principles, not its technology.  To use a
recursive analogy, the Enterprise may have been Star Trek's warp engine,
but the characters have always been the dilithium crystals.
    With Deep Space Nine, we're seeing a different model of engine, but
the crystals are still there.
    THE CHARACTERS:
    Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks).  The meticulous design of
Sisko's character is a bold stroke on several fronts.  First, he's the
first African-American to have the lead role on a show like this.
Second, he's a single parent.  Third, he dislikes the main character on
DS9's ultra-successful parent series.  (Can you imagine the reaction in
1987 if Picard were portrayed as having a grudge against James Kirk?)
Avery Brooks rises to the challenge admirably.  He's not completely
comfortable in the role yet  Some of his delivery is a little wooden,
which may be Brooks' idea of a rigidly-disciplined military man, but I
have a hunch he'll soften with time, the way all of TNG's characters
did.  His lack of intimacy with the character was made up for by
Presence, which the man has heaping gobs of.
    Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor).  This woman is, in my opinion, the
best thing, character-wise, DS9 has going for it.  Now I'm GLAD that
Michelle Forbes turned down the chance to do Ensign Ro on the new show;
Nana Visitor is twice the actor Forbes is (and, Ro-phile that I am,
that's saying something).  She struts through the episode snarling,
sniping, groaning, twitching and simmering.  Her scenes with Brooks are
the best example of one-on-one character interaction in the whole
show.  It was a touch of light brilliance to have her play a
non-Starfleet Bajoran; the fact that she wants nothing of the Federation
(initially anyway) adds a whole new dimension to the character, already
possessing of several above par.
    Dr. (Lt. j.g.) Julian Bashir (Siddig El Faddil).  This may surprise
some people, but I like this guy.  Mr. El Faddil met with recent acclaim
as an actor in Europe in the movie "A Dangerous Man", and as with
Patrick Stewart, I believe that we'll end up feeling grateful that he
chooses to use his talent for Star Trek. The character needs work --
he's going to have to evolve out of the wide-eyed Mr. Frontier mode, and
fairly soon -- but in his brief scenes, he manages to deliver a tangible
intensity, the potential of which I *hope* the writers are smart enough
to utilize.
    Lt. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell).  Well, as Deborah Bolen said, for an
actor, Terry Farrell is a very good model.  It was a good idea for the
producers to include a Trill, because I felt we didn't learn enough
about them in "The Host", but I'm concerned that the casting people
keyed in too heavily on the "find a beautiful woman to contrast this
supposed old man" angle.  In Starlog, Rick Berman says that Dax was hard
to cast, and that Farrell was the result of "a long and difficult
casting process", which I believe to be Berman's veiled confession that
they auditioned lots of models and just couldn't find any who were
better than Farrell.  That idea makes me a little more sympthetic and
perhaps optimistic; Farrell isn't a horrible actor, just maybe not
versatile enough to manage the character right now.  My concern here is
that Lt. Dax may end up as the Tasha Yar of DS9: a character with a rich
past and enormous potential, loused by unambitious writing and an actor
who wasn't up to the task.  Hopefully that won't be the case.
    Odo (Rene Auberjonois).  People who've only seen Auberjonois as the
whiny guy from "Benson" probably aren't aware how versatile an actor he
is.  He even reminds me a little of David Ogden Stiers (hmm, too bad
they couldn't get him for something!).  The character itself is just
right: a precarious balance of something we've seen before mixed with
just enough new elements to make him interesting.  Odo's obvious TNG
counterpart is Data -- except that the first season TNG writers made the
mistake of using Data as tiresome comedy relief every other scene.
Here, we *don't* have a character who doesn't know who he is, and is
waiting to search out the answers with a naive sense of child-like
wonder.  We have a character who doesn't know who he is, and is annoyed
as hell about it.  I also like the fact that Odo is kind of an adopted
Bajoran, and doesn't care for the Federation presence either.
    Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney).  Yes, everyone's been saying that
he's going to be the Scotty of DS9, and I'lll probably have to agree.
However, caution:  we haven't seen Keiko yet.  I hope that the writers
deliver on the promised marital strife.  Otherwise, he's definitely
getting to stretch his legs a little more here.
<continued in next message>
---
 . OLX 2.1 TD . One day I'm going to give it to that Bajoran tramp.. Troi
           
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