From: wombat@eng.umd.edu (Jose Gonzalez)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: CRITICAL COMMENTS: "A Man Alone"
Date: 25 Jan 1993 04:25:02 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: coke.eng.umd.edu
Originator: wombat@coke.eng.umd.edu


***Spoilers***



If Deep Space Nine's first season episodes are going to be it's worst,
this is going to be one *heck* of a show.   



"A Man Alone" is probably the best of the first three episodes, and if they
keep improving on themselves like this, I'm going to have to use a 20
point scale to grade these things. (-:


Comments:

- Anybody else guess that it was Ibudan's clone the minute they mentioned
DNA?  Raise your hand now. (-:  While figuring out the mystery may bother
some people, there's a certain sense of pride in having your guess turn 
out to be right.  So anything that serves my ego *can't* be bad, can it? (:
The clone solution certainly made sense, and I'm sure that not everybody
guessed it.  The real test of a mystery-oriented show is if the show holds
up on repeated viewings.  "AMA" does.

- I'm *really* beginning to love the Odo-Quark interaction.  It's a
not-so-classic love-hate relationship that is proving to be even more 
entertaining than Spock and Bones' similar relationship.   
 
- The humor in the show is a lot more apparent than in TNG, which is
welcome.  There were numerous examples here.  My favorite was Odo's little
speech about relationships and compromise that ends with, "So here you were
looking forward to spending a nice evening watching the caronet (sp?) 
matches, and instead you end up spending an agonizing evening listening to
Klingon Opera."  Rene's (I'll never learn how to spell his last name (:) 
dry delivery is perfect for the character, and serves as a nice contrast
to Quark's more overt and obvious way of saying things.  

- About the only character who has yet to be fleshed out much is Dax,
and this episode only furthered that a *little*.  I think Farrel is 
having a bit of trouble getting a real firm grasp on her character,(as is
Brooks, but I'll save those comments for my review of "Babel"), due at
least in part because the writers haven't really given her a lot to go on yet.
We may have to wait until "Dax" to really get in-depth.  Also, I'm beginning
to wonder exactly what her role on the station is, as Bashir was doing 
the work that I would assume would be associated with the science officer.  

- The direction by Paul Lynch was excellent here.  A couple things stood
out for me.  First, Lynch created a real sense of business around the
station with the way he would pool the camera back from one scene and then
zoom it over to another conversation without simply cutting over.  Second,
the scene where Odo sits down at Quark's and everyone gets up and leaves
was subtle and effective.  (So subtle, in fact, that I didn't notice it
on the first viewing.)  El Faddil does a nice job with his facial expressions
to demonstrate real concern for his fellow officer.  

- The Keiko as teacher subplot, while it was nothing special, was a nice
sidebar.  And while I really don't have much desire to see her teaching a 
class, it's nice to know she's doing something where she can feel useful.

- The only parts I didn't think were particulary good were the Jake and
Nog scenes.  They just seem rather pointless, even if they made sense.
Oh, well, not *everything* is going to work right away.


That's about it, a simple review for a simple, but very effective episode.

Grade: 9.5


Season 1 so far:

"Emissary"       8.5
"Past Prologue"  9.0
"A Man Alone"    9.5
                -----
Average:         9.0 

Next Week:


What's that?  I'm not quite catching that.  Babel, eh?  We'll see.....


-- 
Jose Gonzalez