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From: sfdebris
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  • I also like that Chuck pointed out the 'group think' mentality of the Great Link; you see that a lot whenever you read a news article these days, no matter what the subject is.

  • With the Prophets we're never quite sure what they are or what their connection is to Bajor. Here's two ideas- 1) The Prophets (and the Pah-wraiths) once lived on Bajor and are the 'first evolution' of sentient life on that world and have evolved into non-corporeal beings, 2) The Prophets are descended from the Bajorans as we know them today, and since they live outside of linear time, can interact with their ancestors as they do.

  • The problem with the Prophets was that they were never really developed. When Sisko first discovered the wormhole, the Prophets didn't even know about the existence of linear time. They had no idea that the Bajorans worshiped them. They went from wanting to explore linear existence to actively interfering with the universe with no transition in between.

  • Another excellent review.  I hope you get my comments because I really enjoy the reviews and I want you to know it!

  • Since there are some shared writers I find it interesting that DS9's prophets are so much more effectively used, defined and set up so that when they did finally act it fit with the story as opposed to how New Battlestar's "God" wasn't set up, never made sense, never had his relationship to human nor cylon defined whatsoever and did turn into a Deus Ex Machina, one of many reasons New Battlestar was such a complete mess.

    I just think that's interesting is all.

  • Comment removed

  • So Ziyal is the big surprise death that had everyone reeling? Maybe it's just me, but I don't really feel anything about that. I never felt like she was a main character. I mean, I get why it devastates Dukat, but, to me, she was always just a plot device, not a true character in her own right. She existed to tell us about other characters (mainly Dukat).

  • @trlkly yeah, i felt the same way. she was far too poorly developed for me to really care about her. she was just a generic 'innocent' character, so killing her off was a cheap and easy attempt to pull at the viewer's heartstrings.

  • @Fintin

    I don't think you were meant to be invested in her specifically, her importance was as an accessory to Dukat and specifically his lone anchor. People often complain about his new arc that comes after this point but personally I can buy it, because Dukat died when she died. The guy we see in the future is subsequently and believably an entirely new and even more fucked up creature.

  • I am a hardened atheist, simi-anti-theist and skeptic but I do not see a problem with the use of religion religion and "gods" in DS9, I don't even see a problem with the prophets taking out the Dominion ships. It all worked within universe and was internally consistent.

    The use of religion and gods in a scifi story, even in Star Trek isn't bad, it is how they are used and they are used very well in DS9.

  • @thenamelessone83

    It must be noted that Star Trek has always had "god-like" beings exist within the universe. Trelane, The Organians, and even Q might be considered "gods" in a way. However Trek had always treated them as powerful aliens. The Prophets, however, are treated both as aliens (by the Starfleet crew) and gods by the Bajorans and, now, Sisko.

  • @shuboy05 Thats why I put "gods" in quotation marks.

    The prophets never really demonstrated them selfs to be god like. Yes they have demonstrated themselves to be powerful inside the wormhole but never really showed themselves to be that powerful outside of it. Going by power displayed Trelane, The Organians, and Q are far more powerful than the prophets.

    Th Bajorans are understandable. Their civilization grew up with the prophets and religions die hard.

  • I bet that one of the main reasons for the deus ex machina ending was due to executive meddling. Ron Moore has said that Rick Berman was never for the Dominion War and wanted it to be wrapped up in just 3 or 4 episodes. The writers had to fight really hard for the Dominion War and they lied to the studio execs about how long the war would last. I would not be surprised if they wrote that ending to trick Rick into thinking that the war would be over.

  • My summary of this story arc:

    1. Mine the wormhole.

    2. ???

    3. Prophet!

    :P

  • I didn't like the resolution at first because it made the rest of the story arc seem kind of pointless, why not just ask the prophets in the beginning?

  • i think my biggest disappointment with this story arc, and indeed with the last few seasons of ds9, is that bajor is pretty much left on the backburner. obviously keeping it out of the fighting made total sense, but it's a shame we never got to see any of the effects of the dominion occupation on bajor itself during this arc, particularly as putting some focus on that world would have allowed opportunities to better prepare the prophet ex machina ending.

  • @Fintin (i do like that ending, but i think a lot of the criticism is well deserved)

    incidentally, does it bug anyone else that throughout the last two seasons kira continues to help the war effort despite the fact that she's a military officer of a world that has a nonaggression pact with the dominion? again, just because bajor wasn't part of the fighting doesn't mean the politics of that world are isolated from the war. i would have loved if bajor continued to play a big role in the series.

  • Hmm....I can watch your videos with IE9 but not with Firefox 8...

  • I disliked the deus ex machina ending (god did it). I just pretend that mine field stayed up and all the ships were destroyed that way.

  • @DimmedDiamond

    Deus ex machina means "God in a Machine."

    Where in the wormhole is there a machine?

  • @sfs2040 it's referring to the machine the Greeks used in plays to drop an actor playing a god onto the set, so the machine is the special affects (sort of).

  • Nice MTG reference at @11:43

  • So what's the Hannibal movie with Alexander Siddig?

  • @jliller

    Hannibal: Rome's Worst Nightmare (2006).

    What's even funnier is that Siddig plays Hannibal.

  • It's always great to see Evil Janeway.

  • @Bogdin7 Every time we see Janeway she is evil Janeway.

  • Well I can accept the point that the resolution was fairly logical and consistent with what had previously happened in the show. The problem with that is that it doesn't stop it being awful. I felt cheated when I first watched it and I still do.

  • @RichardJAllen Just pretend the mine field stayed up and the ships were destroyed that way.

  • Yeah how realistic is it that ONLY Sisko and the Defiant got through all those lines? Every time I see it I think "that HAS to be some big plot hole device! ALL of those ships and ONLY Sisko and Company got through? That can't be right..."

    But hey, whatever! I likd the episode :P

  • The one thing I disliked about this episode, was that the Klingons helped the Federation. As heartless as it may be, with the Federation keeping the Dominion occupied, they had the perfect opportunity to make a run at the station. I guess you can say "its not very honorable to abandon you allies". But the whole point of the operation was to retake Deep Space Nine, and the simple fact of the matter is that it was sheer dumb luck that Dominion reinforcements were stopped.

  • The Dominion War is the best story arc in all of Star Trek.

    A pity that we're going to have to start the ridiculous Dukat/Pah-Wraith arc now. That idea was like a cancerous tumor in the pure flesh of DS9.

  • @Nyarlathoteplol

    I can understand why the writers did that. If Dukat was going to be the Lex Luthor to Sisko's Superman, the writers had to make him more of an opposite to Sisko. So if Sisko represents the Prophets, Dukat would represent their evil counterparts. Though I would have liked this development appear sooner since it did feel like it came from left field.

  • When can we expect to see the mentioned Dominion War video?

  • @thunderphoenix440 he uploaded them both today. check the last link in the description.

  • For the last 2 months I have managed to watch the entire DS-9 series and I found it much better than I remember. I really hated the Prophets when I was a kid, but like them more now exactly for all the reasons mentioned in the video. It's not like they weren't around through the whole series, I don't think there is an episode that goes by without the word Prophet (or in the case of Quark, Profit) being mentioned.

  • I liked that the bulk of the action was bottled up in these six episodes. The next time you see a major battle is in the season six finale. When you think about it, most wars consist of constant skirmishing highlighted by the occassional major operation by one side or the other.

  • This is the worst episode of DS9 that isn't about Risa or gender-bending Quark. There's no excuse for that ending and the rest of the show never really recovered. The show peaked in its fifth season

  • I loved the way it ended. It really highlighted the differences between Sisko and Dukat: Sisko is open to there being more things on heaven and earth than his philosophers have dreamed of; Dukat's arrogance and cynicism lead him to believe that no force is so great that he can't best it--indeed, that the only god worth acknowledging is himself. I confess I never thought of the Gods of Bajor defeat the false gods of the Dominion angle, but I've often considered the Gods of Bajor vanquishing

  • Dukat's god. I only wish this had happened closer to the end of the series so they wouldn't've had time to reboot Dukat in Season 7 and turn him into a complete bastardization of himself.

    As for Dukat having no chance of saving Cardassia from Dominion subjugation, I seem to remember hearing about a scene in one of these episodes that was written but never filmed in which he outlines his plan to Damar. My guess is that, based on his experiences with the Maquis and the Bajoran resistance, he

  • knows how much trouble a great power can have with guerrillas who refuse to stay conquered. Maybe the plan was to let occupied humans and Klingons bleed the Jem'Hadar white, then stab the Dominion in the back. The Dominion is driven out of the Alpha Quadrant and Cardassia is the only remaining great power with its military and political apparatus intact, and on Earth and Qonos, they're beholden to Dukat. Maybe that's why he tries to distract Weyoun when the latter seems to be getting serious

  • about holding onto the prize they expect to win.

  • @aperson22222

    In a way, Sisko represents Christ while Dukat is set up as the Antichrist. Which might be why I wasn't surprised that Dukat later turns to the Pah-Wraiths.

  • It's set to private, how am I supposed to watch!

  • Sisko lecturing the Prophets in an Eldritch version of Ops. Brilliant.

  • Sometimes deus ex machina endings work. And here is one of them. Very often God or a god-like entity stepping in to save the day seems cheap and lazy on the writers' part, but it really felt like Sisko had to earn the help of the Prophets here. To me, it didn't seem cheap or lazy at all, but a logical outcome. Excellent review as always, Chuck!

  • Oh hey, you included the clip. CHECK OUT THE BATTLE SCENE ON MY CHANNEL /shameless plug

    Also, it's pronounced like "Can I"

  • @BloodiestMargie I watched a documentary on the battle to verify pronunciation, and all the experts but one said "Canny," so that's what I went with.

  • @sfdebris What I don't see is, why was Dukat using that tactic when he had the numerical advantage?

  • @aperson22222 I guess you could argue that the decision was not a tactical one but an egotistical one. If Dukat keeps his ships back chances are that the battle will be drawn out until the Dominion reinforcements come through and completely overrun the Federation fleet. But for Dukat that is not enough because he wants to be the one that defeats Sisko (his rival) and the Federation.

  • @aperson22222 (continued) By defeating the federation with the encirclement maneuver, Dukat gets to claim credit for personally defeating Sisko and the Federation despite the fact that victory still could have been achieved without moving his ships at all.

  • @sfdebris On Modern Marvels, the treasury guy called it the in-tag-lee-o press. It's an-tall-e-o. Just saying that some "experts" might not know the correct pronunciation. I believe Margie is correct.

  • @sfdebris Damn English.

  • Alexander Siddig played Hannibal Barca in the BBC tv movie "Hannibal: Rome's Worst Nightmare"

  • Personally, I liked the ending. I thought it worked naturally. The moment Sisko gave the order to enter the Wormhole, I knew the Prophets would get involved. Actually, since the Wormhole is their home anyway, I knew it was only a matter of time before the Prophets would be caled upon to stop the Dominion anyway.

  • @sfs2040 Yep, it makes perfect sense in the context of the show. You'd have to have skipped every other episode of DS9 not to get that I think.

  • In my opinion, the end of this episode should have been the last we saw of Dukat. His story was over, and all his appearance after this seem really superfluous. Still, this is one of my favorite episodes (the battle of eye candy played a big part, why weren't the space battle scenes that good on Voyager or Enterprise or the later movies?).

  • @thunderphoenix440 They were pretty awesome in Enterprise's 3rd season. They were even Emmy nominated for their special effects in two episodes: The Council and Countdown, iirc.

  • I can see the video....I wonder why everyone else can't?

  • Just an update: I'm not able to upload replacement videos at this time, there seems to be a problem with that. I will be checking in regularly today to flip them back to public if they go private again, and once the upload problem is sorted I will re-upload both videos to hopefully ensure this doesn't happen.

    I have also spoken with the webhosting company, and they are still working on the problem that causes my website to be unavailable. Hopefully it won't cause further problems.

  • I was disappointed with the deus ex machina ending of this episode, overall I thought it was good, except for Dukat being captured and the ships being disintegrated.

  • you bastard. i was taking a drink from my mug when you got to the ben sisko's muthfuckin' pimp hand bit. now there's tea everywhere.

  • Comment removed

  • After watching Dukat's daughter and others phasered the one thing I could never understand, although I'm sure there's a tech manual explanation for, is how does a phaser kill you slowly? Being vaporized or stunned I can see.

  • @Mappy1964

    If the phaser in question uses a lethal amount of energy but not enough to vaporize the target.

  • It's automatically switching it back, so I'm manually switching it back to public. I'm attempting a re-upload for a more permanent solution.

  • @sfdebris thnx for your time to switch the private thingy off :)

  • @sfdebris pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease change your channel design back to the old one, the new one suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck­s

  • @sfdebris Don't worry, we won't mace you in the face at wal-mart for an x-box or a minor delay for a video. I can't speak for nerf-guns or shopping carts =/

  • change the channel back

  • sf debris,can you please tell me what the final score is you gave for this episode

  • @elcap22 He gave it an 8 out of 10.

  • also some brute force refreshing seems to help playing the video. or SF changed something in the mean time.

  • website is down + follow up is private again ( i know your trying i'm just reporting the problem ).

    also i might not be the webhost it might be the websites code ( not sure how made is running that site ) but it might just be horribly broken code( as the website seems to give a IIS crash msg), any change for you to give people like me some info on what your running as a setup

  • @deathZor42 Like you said, bruteforcing Refresh fixes the problem. Also the follow up works fine for me, maybe a country issue? Don't know. I think he adresses the issue with the website recently; it usually happens when a new video comes out and the website is overloaded with accesses. As said above, massrefreshing gets you around that.

  • @RotalHenricsson well that could still be related to bad coding ( or etleast bad resource management ) but without having a look at the code and hosting setup i could not tell you whats going on ( in order to make a proper determination i need more data that only SFdebris can provide really ). it could be hosting or coding or a combination of both.

  • @deathZor42 I spoke with tech support, the problem was on their end, it should be working fine now and they claim it won't happen again. We'll see.

  • Seems like a windows box problem to me ( you might consider alternatives to windows ), etleast the host thinks there messing up, also might be good for you to find a new or better host not sure what your paying now but looking at the prices ( of the company netcraft say owns you ip range ) its a litle bit much i would say ( specially for the stability your getting )

  • And your website is misbehaving... again. Man, if I didn't need to eat this month I'd totally send you some of my Monopoly money... errr... I mean worthless Icelandic Kronur.

  • Private lock :(

  • now if i do a google search for the site i can get to the opionated reveiws

  • blip says they are private and your site comes up as unaviable

  • Yep. Private problem again.

  • It says the video is private at blip.

  • first

    

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