DS9 1x01 Emissary
Um, thoughts on a rewatch done too late to contribute to ds9_rewatch. Oops.
-The shaky-cam through the opening sequences on the Saratoga is painful on sharper modern TVs...but I forgive much for that moment when the shuttlecraft launches and everything is smoothed out for about ten seconds in the pause before Ben sees the ship explode. That’s a great shot.
-The gray, gray, grayness of the Promenade in its first appearance gets progressively lighter and more colorful over the course of the pilot. One of the things that amuses me is when people complain about DS9 being visually dark. Which, yes, sometimes...but often and overall I think it is actually the most colorful of the modern Treks. It's not like the halls of Voyager are painted fuchsia.
-Awkward Picard-Sisko scene is still deliciously awkward. Picard knows Sisko’s background (or at least that he’s spent 3 years at Utopia Planitia), so I don’t know why he’s so shaken when Sisko introduces himself by announcing that he was at Wolf 359. It seems like that would be in his service record, no?
-In some ways, Sisko’s opening moves (letting Kira vent without feeling the need to comment too much on her experiences, arranging for Quark to stay, and winning over Odo by manipulating Quark in front of him) are too competent for someone who claims he’s investigating resigning to civilian work.
-In retrospect, it’s REALLY disturbing that Sisko is allowed to show up for this assignment not knowing who Opaka is (or, it seems, what a kai is).
-Love that Kai Opaka doesn’t care what Sisko saw in his first orb experience, just sends him on the mission to find the Celestial Temple and hands him the orb.
-Kira’s smackdown of Julian’s “frontier medicine” speech never fails to delight.
-Big thing I noticed for the first time: the very first group project Sisko gives the gang is conning the Cardassians to get Odo on their ship to sabotage their sensors and shields...not for any pressing defense-of-the-station need, but so that he and Dax can undertake an uninterrupted exploratory run to locate the probable source of the orbs. In other words, Sisko gets the disparate parts of his team working together for a mission that I have to believe would be totally unacceptable under Starfleet protocols in all types of ways. And he includes Quark in the scheme. It’s such a good starting op for them!
-Sisko knows that a random star system is in the Gamma Quadrant the minute they show up there. Okay. Do these people realize that there are a LOT of stars in the galaxy?
-Love Sisko referencing “what we leave behind” to explain loss in his linear existence to the Prophets. (To put it as spoilerlessly as possible, it’s a very apt touch in view of what he leaves behind in the finale.)
-The shaky-cam through the opening sequences on the Saratoga is painful on sharper modern TVs...but I forgive much for that moment when the shuttlecraft launches and everything is smoothed out for about ten seconds in the pause before Ben sees the ship explode. That’s a great shot.
-The gray, gray, grayness of the Promenade in its first appearance gets progressively lighter and more colorful over the course of the pilot. One of the things that amuses me is when people complain about DS9 being visually dark. Which, yes, sometimes...but often and overall I think it is actually the most colorful of the modern Treks. It's not like the halls of Voyager are painted fuchsia.
-Awkward Picard-Sisko scene is still deliciously awkward. Picard knows Sisko’s background (or at least that he’s spent 3 years at Utopia Planitia), so I don’t know why he’s so shaken when Sisko introduces himself by announcing that he was at Wolf 359. It seems like that would be in his service record, no?
-In some ways, Sisko’s opening moves (letting Kira vent without feeling the need to comment too much on her experiences, arranging for Quark to stay, and winning over Odo by manipulating Quark in front of him) are too competent for someone who claims he’s investigating resigning to civilian work.
-In retrospect, it’s REALLY disturbing that Sisko is allowed to show up for this assignment not knowing who Opaka is (or, it seems, what a kai is).
-Love that Kai Opaka doesn’t care what Sisko saw in his first orb experience, just sends him on the mission to find the Celestial Temple and hands him the orb.
-Kira’s smackdown of Julian’s “frontier medicine” speech never fails to delight.
-Big thing I noticed for the first time: the very first group project Sisko gives the gang is conning the Cardassians to get Odo on their ship to sabotage their sensors and shields...not for any pressing defense-of-the-station need, but so that he and Dax can undertake an uninterrupted exploratory run to locate the probable source of the orbs. In other words, Sisko gets the disparate parts of his team working together for a mission that I have to believe would be totally unacceptable under Starfleet protocols in all types of ways. And he includes Quark in the scheme. It’s such a good starting op for them!
-Sisko knows that a random star system is in the Gamma Quadrant the minute they show up there. Okay. Do these people realize that there are a LOT of stars in the galaxy?
-Love Sisko referencing “what we leave behind” to explain loss in his linear existence to the Prophets. (To put it as spoilerlessly as possible, it’s a very apt touch in view of what he leaves behind in the finale.)