From: rahayden@news.weeg.uiowa.edu (R Andrew Hayden)
Subject: DSN:  Premiere Thoughts
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 06:01:17 GMT


Well, the premiere was shown tonight so I've finally seen what everyone
was talking about:

First, characters:  (please bare with me if I am at a loss for some of the
names or spell them wrong).


Commander Sisko:  Excellent.  The scenes with the time-critters seemed too
forced and happened too quickly, though, but as a Federation commander he
seems very in control and as an actor he showed great ability.

Jake:  Groan.  Not another kid.  At least this isn't a wesley wonderbrat
but, I don't know.  It seems that as father and son they are not on the
best of terms, yet in every scene they are all lovey-dovey.  Blech.  Let's
show REAL families and real generation conflicts.

Quark:  DS9's answer to the comic relief of Worf. :-)  This character
has wonderful potential and I immediately liked him.

Quark Jr:  (the son of the brother).  Heh, lets get him and Jake into
trouble, like stealing a runabout..........

Odo:  I had trouble picturing "Clayton" for this role, but found myself
surprised at being able to see him as a walking bowl of Jell-o. 
Unfortunately, they glossed over much of him too quickly and I hope it is
resolved in future episodes.  The 'morphing' was excellent, of course.

Kira: (the Bajoran 1st officer).  Wonderful.  I would have liked Ro to be
there, and you can see where Ro was originally designed for this role. 
Kira is headstrong and a fighter, but she os going to have to learn that
sometime you also have to protect eh civilians onboard too.

Dak:  (what is it, the science officer?)  Dak has a good potential as a
supportive main character (just like any second-stringer on TNG).  As long
as we don't dwell too much on her past lives or the slug, it should be a
fun addition to the crew.

Dr. Whats-his-name-with-the-accent:  Definately _NOT_ a Dr. Chrusher or
McCoy, but adding a wet-behind-the-ears to a "frontier" station whith
bunches of different aliens coming through should give him the challenge
he is looking for.

O'Brien:  Ok, what is his role?  I got the impression it was "tactical",
but then security (but that is Odo's job), so what exactly does he do? 
And I still want to know what his rank is, dammit :-)  But otherwise I
think the addition of O'Brien to DS9 is at least a familiar face.  I do
wish that more of the TNG crew was there to say goodbye when he beamed
away.  Having Troi give him a peck on the cheek would have been a nice
touch (or imagine Worf coming up to him, and the suddenly giving him a
huge bearhug :-)

------------------------------------

Music:

Everyone has been saying that the music sucks.  I don't quite agree with
THAT analysis, but i do thing it could use some help.  It also needs a
voiceover of some kind in the intro, if anything to at least carry on the
tradition.

The reason I accept a lot of the music is that it fits with the theme of
DS9.  Here we are, a space station in the middle of a potential war-zone
1500km from a wormhole to the virtual unknown.  The music of quite ominous
and fitting.

-------------------------------------

Plot:

Needed help, and was, as usual, far too rushed.  Sisko was able to "get a
grip" too quickly while talking to the time critters.  As a matter of
fact, the time critters seemed silly to me.  I'd rather have the wormhole
just there, then Dak and Sisko cross over, then the cardassian scout ship
come through and then they work together to have to come back so some such
thing.  In addition, while I don't ressent the use of religion, it seemed
so forced and brisk that I was left wondering "huh?" about the whole
thing.  I mean, what _were_ these orb things and this temple and whatever.

Too many things glossed over, in the usual Star Trek style.

-------------------------------------------

Future:

Great potential with some good writing.  I can see a great number of
stories with not only the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict always on the back
burner, but with every race adn their uncle using DS9 (dumb name, though)
as a waypoint to the gamma quadrant.

-------------------------

Major Gripe:

Scene repititon.  ARRRGH!!!!!!

I know it costs too much to make different scenes for things that happen
all the time, but when the runabout repeated the same takeoff scene a
second time, I groan.  When we watched the wormhole open and a ship come
out (or go in) for the 5th time, the retched.  

The problem with the wormhole is not that it is repeated over and over
again, but that it is not a symetrical event, so you immediately realize
you've seen it before. 

-------------------------

Rating:

Plot:    5 (to many things glossed over)
Acting:  7 (some was too forced for my taste)
SPFX:    10 (excellent, plain and simple)

------------------------------------


Oh well, that's all.  This is, of course, all in my own
not-quite-so-very-humble-opinion.




-- 
]> And a rock feels no pain            + Robert Hayden                     <]
]> And an island never cries           +                                   <]
]>            -----                    +    rahayden@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu  <]
]>      Question Authority             +    aq650@slc4.INS.CWRU.Edu        <]
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