DS9 Review: "Emissary" 1x01

"No! It is not linear."

"This pre season 4 northern migration of your hair. What is this?"



Synopsis.


The Federation assists a strife torn world on the frontier of the universe (about 90 light years from Earth if that Star Trek star chart book is to be taken at face value.) devastated by decades of alien occupation, and they discover something that could change the face of the universe for ever (and I ain't talking about broadband; internal combustion or Justin Beiber.)


Review.


This is the pilot episode of Deep Space Nine, so for a kicker we need to have some scenes to provide back story for who the main protagonist is, and so we relive the fateful battle of Wolf 359, (3 years earlier in story chronology. None of the battle was actually seen in the episode originally showing the events leading to it. I presume they ran out of both cash and time.) which was Starfleets final stand against the Borg invasion. I say battle, it was a massacre, all those 39 ships were destroyed and the Borg were stopped only by an eleventh hour fluke. Well watch the "Best of Both Worlds" for more detail on that. Back to this story however, we see Ben Sisko an officer on the USS Saratoga glaring at Locutus (an assimilated Captain Picard from "The Next Generation") on the viewscreen as Locutus informs them of their impending doom. The Saratoga gets smashed up in about nine seconds and with the call to abandon ship Sisko attempts to rescue his wife and son from their burning; collapsed quarters. Now this raises a question for me. Why were civilians on this ship at all? In "Both Worlds" Admiral "God off Star Trek V" Hanson said the stand at Wolf was actually planned and not just some last ditch attempt to save Earth, so it's not like the Saratoga wasn't just rushed into a desperate last stand. Why then were the civilians not all evacuated to a starbase or something? Sisko manages to save [his boy] Jake, but his wife Jennifer has been crushed to death by falling debris. He is forced to leave her body (Brooks excellently portrays just how awful a fate that must be for a loved one to be put in) in the wrecked ship as he watches the ship get blown to bits. He now has nothing left of his wife, not even a memorial spot to place a flower. Tragic. Avery Brooks is a very talented physical actor, and his face says a zillion times more than any dialogue would when he watches the Saratoga blow.


Three years later Sisko and Jake are en route to his new assignment, and thank god that; unlike many Trek protagonists, Jake and Ben get on well as father and son. This Oedipus thing was one of the less desirable tropes of Trek, but more on this in a later review. It was truly too bad they never really capitalised on the Jake / Ben relation more than they did. Jake was an earlier Travis off Enterprise for being overlooked by the writers. As I said Ben is to be the chief administrative CO on Deep Space Nine, a grotty looking station orbiting the recently liberated and strife torn world of Bajor. Being captain of the Enterprise it aint. Sisko clearly doesn't want the job, and Jake points out that it sounds like the shittest place in the universe to be a teenage kid. Sisko has to lie and point out the tenuous benefits of living on DS9. This scene is a bit like a Dad bullshitting the line to his kids that a caravanning holiday in the former Soviet Union is as equally exciting a vacation as a fortnight at Disneyworld. "Hey son, Space Mountain isn't even real. Baikonar has real rockets! They even have grazing reindeer on the Steppe! And we all know who uses reindeer don't we!" Hypothetical Dad isn't selling it and Sisko isn't either.


Deep Space Nine, a former Cardassian mining station in orbit of Bajor (which make sense, as there is a shitload of ore in the vacuum of space.) is the ugliest thing ever. A postmodernist hat stand. It looks like a steampunk airport cum service station inside. I never took to the look of the station, for one thing I like the more realistic look of Babylon 5, which seems more plausible for a space station design. The place has been trashed as a good bye present by the retreating Cardassian occupying forces. It's a mess, and a ghost town in the making. Chief O'Brien, an engineer from the Enterprise D assigned to the station as Chief of Operations and Major Kira Nerys, a highly strung and vocal Bajoran national (mmm. Sounds like Ro Laren? Should do. Michelle Forbes was supposed to take this role but declined. That is ironically why the writers set the show on Bajor.) compounds the pessimism of their state. The planet is in a dreadful state after 40 to 60 years (depends on who wrote the script). It's mined out, trashed (though it looks surprisingly green and healthy. Should it not resemble the Narn homeworld a bit more?) and the new provisional government is weak and divided, and riven with hostile factions. The planet will likely end up with a civil war in the near future. They then see local lawman Odo (nicknamed constable, after his love of English romantic painters), whose made of the gunge stuff inside Jaffa cakes - nab some alien weirdo and a Ferengi boy for looting. Sisko spots a chance to stop the exodus of vendors when he discovers the boy is the nephew of the owner of the bar, Quark. He'll get Nog (the boy) out of a prison sentence if he stays and becomes a "community leader", Kira points out this is unwise as Quark is about as trustworthy as Bernie Madoff.

"Look, it's an Frenchmans God given right to drink Earl Grey in front of a backdrop of an unrealistic looking planet!"


The next scene is a controversial one amongst fans. Sisko meets Picard, and it ends up in a heated confrontation. It is a classic case of a good bad idea. Sisko holds animosity towards Picard as he believes that Picard as Locutus is responsible for Jennifers death. Now this is not a bad call because it is unrealistic (it isn't). Nor was it badly acted (the opposite) or even a lousy scene (it wasn't). It doesn't work because we side with Picard, not our protagonist. Which is a bit of a bummer if we are supposed to like him. Unlike Sisko we are privy about Picards direct role in the affair, how he was consumed by guilt. How it came close to breaking him. We can understand Siskos anger, but not condone it. Here was this guy who was well liked on the predecessor show, who went through hell over the Borg thing, and this unknown guy is being like this. That is why, perhaps looking good on paper -it was a bad call.

Sisko chews the fat with Kira, who tells him that she sees the Federation as little better than the Cardassians and rather ironically from an Earth point of view - that it is the Bajoran religion that can really unite her people. The Kai (a kind of Bajoran pope) is a recluse and sees no-one, but she has the power - to quote HeMan -to unify her warring flock. Obi Wan Kenobi than shows up and starts acting in an ethereal intense manner that fictional religious folk seem to do on telly. Seems Kai Opaka wants an audience with Sisko, she takes his pagh ( a Bajoran version of the force), which unlike taking his temperature or his tax return details involves grabbing someones ear. I believe the original idea was for a Bajoran to tickle a persons toes or something. She says he will be the emissary to the prophets, Bajors gods, who live in the celestial temple (which sounds like a Vegas casino) and send orbs (or tears of the prophets) to guide the Bajorans, all but one of which was pinched by the Cardasssians during the occupation. Sisko looks at the orb and has a flashback to when he met Jennifer by kicking sand in her face on a beach. Sisko is euphoric and starts acting like a lovestruck kid, but Jennifer (Felicia M Bell pulls this off very well) initially just thinks he's a weirdo (in her eyes he's still just a stranger), but is won over by Sisko who is surprisingly a bit of a ladies man. The vision ends and the Kai implores Sisko to discover the location of the celestial temple before the Cardassians figure it out.


Jadzia Dax and Julian Bashir arrive now, the former is a 28 year old women who has a 300 year old slug in her (no really) and Dr Bashir who is a cocksure and green newly qualified starfleet doctor. He tries (and fails) to get a date with Jadzia (this'll be a running thing over the years). Sisko says he has to put her [Dax] to work, which just sounds like he's her pimp. No to work in locating this celestial temple to shut that barmy pope lady up. We discover Dax and Sisko are old buddies, but that was when the Dax slug had a male body (Curzon). Now he has to accept his old friend can now be eligible to model knickers in a John Lewis catalogue. Bashir however puts his foot in it with Kira, when he patronisingly describes how Starfleets finest new doctor passed up all the good shit to be assigned to Bajor as it is a frontier wilderness. Kiras putdown over his human chauvinism is one of the many incidences of DS9 overturning some of the "excesses" of the previous shows.


Dax discovers the location of the celestial temple, and again I have to ask. How has it remained undiscovered for so long? This is the Bajoran equivalent of finding the pearly gates for heavens sake! (no pun intended) They should have pulled out all the stops to find it. Dax says that there are numerous incidents around an area of ionic interference. Anecdotes from 200 years ago (so Bajor has had spaceflight for a while) about the heavens opening in that location. Why didn't the Cardies (who seem keen to hoard the orbs) send some of their ships to scan the area with a fine toothed comb? Now call me silly, but concentrate the search and try focusing on that area, you may be onto something. If on Earth we had a legend about a god hole to heaven, and that people in London had reported seeing a big god hand around Tottenham Court Road, a London bus ended up driving on clouds when it was just on the North Circular, and a beefeater reported seeing an angel come out of a grid in Wapping, you could imagine the religious authorities would be all over the Greater London Area, and they'd have likely have found it.


Gul Dukat (more about him in later reviews), the former Cardassian military governer (or prefect) of the Bajor makes his first appearence about now. Dukat would become one of the most popular characters on the show. It is hard to imagine now that Marc Alaimo was actually not originally cast for the role, but the guy who was didn't end up taking the role. It just wouldn't have be the same show! Dukat implies that he wants his old job and station back and reminds Sisko that Starfleet is a long way away. All delivered with that well mannered villainy he will become to be famous for.

They need a way to get Dukat's ship off their backs so Odo sneaks on board by shapeshifting as a sack (wouldn't we all?) disables the sensors and Dax and Sisko do what someone should have done umpteen years ago discover the celestial temple, in fact an artificial wormhole to the distant Gamma Quadrant on the other side of the galaxy. It is the only stable wormhole ever discovered. Coming back to Bajor they get stranded on a "planet" where an orb zaps them both and Dax gets sent back to DS9, Sisko makes contact with the beings who built the thing. As it is in the eons old superbeings guide to etiquette, they of course speak in a vague and cryptic manner. Did no one in the olden days in space ever get the concept of getting straight to the fucking point? They do not exist in linear time as we do, experiencing existence at one moment at a time like we do. They see past; present and future as essentially the same thing. This does beg the question of why they are shocked that Sisko has shown up, wouldn't that be like us being shocked that it is Sunday when it was Saturday the day before? Chief O'Brien moves DS9 to the mouth of the wormhole by some made up science I can't be bothered to explain so they can stake a claim to it on Bajors behalf. Sisko tries to explain to the aliens how this linear existence thing works by effectively using baseball as an analogy. But they are confused as to why Sisko doesn't apply the logic of living in the moment and learning from past experience. He keeps returning to one period, Jennifers death. Now this is another subversion of Trekkian trope that DS9 likes to lob on screen. The superbeings judging the human condition and viewing us as a bunch of gibbering fools with the intrinsic value of dog turds is old hat for Trek (essentially all four pilot episodes baring Enterprise worked on this theme.). Usually our hero valliantly explains the noble creature that resides under the shabby superficial skin so well that the aliens and (supposedly) the audience all learn an important lesson that shows us so much about our values and beliefs. This is twisted here. Sisko bangs on about exploration and learning new stuff being the bedrock values of Homo Generoddenberryius, but he blatantly doesn't apply those values in practice. He may be on the frontier, but the spouse he lost on the Saratoga is always there with him. He never left Wolf 359 ever in those 3 years. He breaks down admitting he can't move on, and Jennifers death continues to haunt him. Avery Brooks has been criticised for his acting style, but he gives an intense and physical performance which suits him best, and is on display here. This poor man has been so worn down with guilt and grief. The prophets show that he has to move on or he will never leave the rut he is in. There is a nice scene at the end when the prophet who has taken on Jakes form nods slightly at him. Some of Jennifer remains in him, and with that a reason to carry on. Very nice touch that.

Whilst all this is happening, the Cardassians threaten to blow the station up as Dukats vessel is trapped in the wormhole (the prophets blocked it when they entered). The station has no weapons and the crews desperate attempts to bluff their way out of a shooting war dry up. The Cardies are about to blow them sky high when in the old style of artistic timing Sisko returns from the wormhole, Dukats disabled warship in tow. The Cardassians return home and Picard and Sisko shake hands, Picard commending him for staying on after all. If Sisko can move on from his wifes death, perhaps Bajor can move on from the decades of brutal servitude. Perhaps Sisko and the Bajorans are somehow in the same boat and can help each other. We finish with a bold new day for Bajor and DS9.

"Sir now we're back and out of danger. Is this a good time to mention our insurance clause from "Compare the Market" doesn't cover act's of God? Thought not.

Mistakes and Questions.

The prophets claim their existence is disrupted when anything passes through the wormhole, but later they are OK about it being used as a gateway to the Gamma Quadrant. Isn't this a bit like letting the authorities build an 8 lane expressway through your front room?

There is some discrepancy about how long the occupation lasted (The quoted duration would vary throughout the series.) Kira says the Cardassians arrived at Bajor 60 years ago. Others say the occupation was 50, even as low as 40 on occasions. Perhaps the Cardassians did a sort of Trojan horse thing and gradually annexed the planet.

Bettys thought for the day.

The prophets of course do appear to have some concept of linear time. They are both surprised at Sisko's arrival and Dukat's ship entering the wormhole, which would be odd for a species that sees past present and future as essentially the same thing. It reminds me of a great line in Phil Farands Nitpickers guide book about how the encounter should have gone:

"About time you got here Sisko. Your wife's dead, get over it. You can use the wormhole. We love baseball too. Now leave!"

Summary.

Emissary is a fine pilot episode. The strongest first episode up to the date it aired. It is striking how well constructed it is in spite of the huge amounts of exposition and backstory it had to accommodate into this two parter. It sets the ball rolling and introduces a new; multilayered and darker approach to Trek than we have had in the past. It is a nicely nuanced piece, with Siskos personal tragedy overshadowing his own life, and this being interlinked with the Cardassian occupation overshadowing the nature of Bajors identity and future. If it suffers, it comes from the layman perhaps being overwhelmed at times about all the new stuff that has to be taken on board (it is surprising how much gets crammed into a DS9 episode.), and a few scenes of laboured acting and dialogue (understandable given the casting problems at the time.) This is an excellent start, and on first viewing I couldn't wait to see more, and that is what a pilot episode should set out to acheive.

Rating. 8 / 10.

Next Time. It's Al Quieda in space, and Kira learns that not everything can be solved by shooting Cardassians in the face. And to think Allo Allo made being in a resistance movement look like a right jolly adventure!