How would you rank this recent batch of nine episodes I've watched as part of #TrekRewatch5?
🔴 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume"
🟣 "Rise"
🟣 "Favorite Son"
🔴 "A Simple Investigation"
🔴 "Business as Usual"
🟣 "Before and After"
🔴 "Ties of Blood and Water"
🔴 "Ferengi Love Songs"
🟣 "Real Life"
"Children of Time" builds a classically #StarTrek sci-fi premise with a potent ethical dilemma and deploys it to explore #DS9's character-focused strengths. It's a great showcase for the cast, and some of these developments power story elements for the rest of the series.
Score: 4.5/5
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"Distant Origin" is expertly produced and a complete original from a stylistic perspective. The science-fiction overlay of the examination of doctrine takes familiar material and imbues it with fascinating new textures. This is #StarTrek storytelling at its very best.
Score: 5.0/5
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"Soldiers of the Empire" is an insightful window into the inner workings of Klingon vessels, and a strong showcase for the growing and fascinating Worf/Martok connection. It's an entertaining and briskly paced adventure with a distinctive perspective driving its story.
Score: 4.0/5
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"Real Life" is a feat of confident direction, as it navigates in and out of wildly varying tones mimicking classic television tropes. This inventive concept allows for a human, emotionally resonant exploration of family dynamics. It's extremely well executed in every way.
Score: 4.5/5
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"Ferengi Love Songs" is an insufferable Ferengi comedy, pairing Ishka and Zek for a farcical romance, once again testing Quark's views (and ours) on Ferengi societal norms. The actors do their very best to deliver laughs, but I think this comedic angle misses the mark.
Score: 1.0/5
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“Ties of Blood and Water” is highly dramatic material, as it adeptly navigates challenging and heavy themes. The interesting flashback structure adds to the heft, while connecting Kira’s emotional investment in a satisfying way. Not for the faint of heart, but well done.
Score: 3.5/5
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"Before and After" uses its innovative premise to showcase and explore Kes' most distinctively unique characteristics. This is easily the show's most effective episodic use of the character, driven by very strong work from Jennifer Lien. Well paced and propulsive sci-fi.
Score: 4.0/5
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"Business as Usual" feels like a throwback in the way that it handles Quark, by boxing him into very dicey ethical terrain. It does end up servicing the character well, as it underlines the gradual changes we've seen take root over the last few seasons. Solid all around.
Score: 3.0/5
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"A Simple Investigation" continues #DS9's recurring pattern of film-noir inspired Odo-centric stories. Rene Auberjonois and Dey Young have convincing chemistry, always keeping the episode aligned with its tonal aim. Not the most innovative, but it's modestly successful.
Score: 2.5/5
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"Favorite Son" has the kernel of an interesting science fiction idea and begins with promise on that basis. However, as the story unfolds, it becomes less interesting, and ends up not feeling like an especially valuable exploration of Harry's character. Quite a misfire.
Score: 0.5/5
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"Rise" is driven by reliably good work from Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips, showcasing one of #Voyager's most interesting character pairings. However, it struggles mightily on the guest casting front, and with its general execution. One of the show's clunkier productions.
Score: 1.5/5
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"Doctor Bashir, I Presume" covers big ideas, rooted in the #StarTrek canon, and makes an ambitious choice to re-contextualize a major regular character. Both the A and B stories are critical to the big picture and full of character beats. Mixed results on the comedy here.
Score: 3.5/5
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How would you rank this recent batch of ten episodes I've watched as part of #TrekRewatch5?
🟣 "Fair Trade"
🟣 "Alter Ego"
🔴 "The Begotten"
🟣 "Coda"
🔴 "For the Uniform"
🟣 "Blood Fever"
🔴 "In Purgatory's Shadow"
🟣 "Unity"
🔴 "By Inferno's Light"
🟣 "Darkling"
"Darkling" leans heavily into gothic horror tones to very mixed results. There are a few stylish and creepy moments, but Robert Picardo is uncharacteristically off-key which keeps the episode from finding a successful groove. The potential of the premise doesn't pay off.
Score: 1.0/5
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"By Inferno's Light" continues to build on the many great elements of "In Purgatory's Shadow", laying down foundational shifts in the series' overarching story. It also gives Michael Dorn & Andrew Robinson some of their very best material. Absolutely essential #StarTrek.
Score: 5.0/5
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"Unity" is a landmark episode with #Voyager's formal introduction to the Borg. There are foreshadowing elements for what's to come, and I appreciate the unexpected and unorthodox use of the Borg as a concept. It's eery and unsettling, while focused on exploring big ideas.
Score: 3.5/5
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"In Purgatory's Shadow" is a hefty, densely packed, incredibly important #DS9 entry. The pairing of Garak & Worf is surprisingly well fitted and the prison drama elements are especially well achieved. High drama, loads of tension and monumental in terms of overall impact.
Score: 5.0/5
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"Blood Fever" mixes various big picture elements with #VGR's own specific character dynamics to create a memorably impactful episode of the series. Like #TOS' "Amok Time", the sensitive and intense performances from all involved really sell its extreme conceptual aspects.
Score: 4.5/5
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"For the Uniform" is #DS9's take on a tried and true #StarTrek motif; pushing a captain to the brink with an obsessive, personal score to settle. Avery Brooks' intensely heightened performance and a dynamic directorial approach combine to make this a full-scale classic.
Score: 5.0/5
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"Coda" gives Kate Mulgrew emotionally charged material and there are extremely impactful scenes in the mix here. It's disorienting and impressionistic, but avoids falling into traps which could make this off-putting or impenetrable. An undervalued showcase for Janeway.
Score: 3.0/5
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"The Begotten" presents two nicely aligned stories, which both feel integrated and essential to the big picture of the series. The Odo/Mora half follows a well trodden path, but Rene Auberjonois & James Sloyan's performances deliver the goods and nicely carry the episode.
Score: 3.0/5
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"Alter Ego" doesn't work on every single level and feels a bit flaky in the early going. When the story pivots to Tuvok's point of view, and once it lands its final twist, it packs a punch. There's a message and real life implications explored years ahead of its time.
Score: 3.0/5
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"Fair Trade" gives Neelix a story which remembers and capitalizes on his shady and complicated pre-Voyager lifestyle, nicely charting his development. Ethan Phillips' performance captures the impact of desperate, good-faith and well intentioned bad decisions compounding.
Score: 3.0/5
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How would you rank this recent batch of ten episodes I've watched as part of #TrekRewatch5?
🔴 "Let He Who Is Without Sin"
🟣 "Future's End, Part II"
🔴 "Things Past"
🟣 "Warlord"
⚪ "Star Trek: First Contact"
🔴 "The Ascent"
🟣 "The Q and the Grey"
🟣 "Macrocosm"
🔴 "Rapture"
🔴 "The Darkness and the Light"
1996 contained 17 weeks with two episodes of #StarTrek airing side by side. This included episodes from #DeepSpaceNine Seasons 4-5 and #Voyager Seasons 2-3.
According to my #TrekRewatch5 scoring system, #DS9 won 10 weeks to #VGR's 7.
"The Darkness and the Light" smartly applies horror/thriller vibes, quite notably placing a very pregnant Kira in the drivers seat for a story with those tones. It's taut with credible tension and concludes with a disturbingly memorable sequence. Grim, but well handled.
Score: 3.0/5
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"Rapture" is part quiet character study, and part important big picture tone setter for #DS9's broad story threads. There are decisions made here which echo out to the end of the series. It's also an essential entry surrounding Sisko's relationship to being the Emissary.
Score: 4.5/5
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"Macrocosm" fully commits to a horror/action tone, giving Janeway some memorably heroic moments, which Kate Mulgrew delivers with ease. It's also structurally distinctive, using wisely placed flashbacks to withhold the reveal of key story elements, amping up the tension.
Score: 3.5/5
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"The Q and the Grey" introduces some interesting ideas and continues #VGR's effort to expand our understanding of the Q Continuum. Unfortunately, the execution of those ideas leave much to be desired. There are a few comedic hits in the early going, but they are fleeting.
Score: 2.0/5
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