I didn't mean for it to be this long. Sorry
[quote name='dothog'] in some ways I think that core is more deserving of feature films or new material than the TNG crew were. They have lots of fun pairs that play well off each other and make it so easy to explore multiple sides of an issue effortlessly. So many good performances, and such good writing for those characters.[/QUOTE]
I think that DS9 would be perfect for TV movies or miniseries, but a big budget Hollywood thing? Not a good fit. It would encourage the kind of stories that don't play to DS9's strengths.
I'm actually going to disagree with you a little in order to agree with you more strongly. I wish DS9 had gone wholly into the war and cut out the "Let's visit Ezri's family!" or "Let's play baseball!" sidetracks. I think the way it was done didn't work well because the war often felt like it was on pause. There were weekly reminders "There's a war on!", but mostly it seemed like business as usual with bottle shows that had no influence on or from the war.
This had the strange effect of making the war seem everlasting and tiresome, and yet rarely threatening. Babylon 5 and BSG used their wars to create climates of doom, shock, or peril. DS9's war seemed to morph into whatever they needed it to be for plot purposes. There's no way you can do that and still feel tension. If you have to tell us each week there's a war on, you've already failed; we should see it and feel it without having to be told.
I think DS9 was overall stronger because of the overarching storyline and the war plot. What I think fell down was the integration of the characters
into this storyline. They got the characters down, and I don't want to slight that, but they didn't have start and end points for them, and they didn't think of ways for the characters to really be influenced by the long term arcs. Unlike Babylon 5, where the characters shaped events and the events shaped the characters, DS9's were far more insulated from change.
Let's use Kira as an example. She should have had a powerful arc, from her origin as a terrorist to some kind of redemption, either as an instrumental force in getting Bajor in to the Federation or keeping them out (doesn't matter which). She doesn't have to be Leader of Bajor (though now that I think about it, Kai would be an interesting twist), but she needed to go
somewhere other than first officer of the station, which is effectively where she started out and ended the series.
Instead, Kira's big development is her relationship with Odo. While I was in favor of that, it's not
enough, and it gets back to Trek's inability to do right by their female characters (who all end up mothers, girlfriends, or otherwise limited by traditional gender roles in ways that the guys never are).
Or Garak. Once you get past "What is Garak hiding?" you have to ask "Where is Garak going?" Apparently the writers didn't know because what they came up with -- let's abandon him on a ruined Cardassia and call it a day -- was probably not on anyone's list of what they expected or hoped for him.
You could go through all the characters. Sure, they grew. But can you point to the way that the war changed them? How events transformed them in ways you never expected? Odo is really the
only one. You could also make a good case for Nog, though he was a secondary character. Ironic, in a way, that he changed much more than most of the primary characters.
[I guess I should address Worf here. Worf/Jazdia certainly did change him, but casting forced the issues here. At the end of the series, is Worf really changed by Jazdia or Ezri? Did the war change him in any substantive way? He becomes an ambassador which means...what, exactly? It's pretty telling that he pops into TNG:Nemesis without a word. Is change that is effectively invisible really change?]
And then there's Sisko. I go back and forth with him, because while I think I see what they were
trying to do, I often feel like they had only a vague idea of what he was destined to do, filled the rest with mysticism, and didn't bother making sense of any it. When I look at his progression through the series, I thought he was going to much more interesting places than where he ended up, and that's mainly because they had little idea how to handle him or the Plot Device Prophets.
I think this is the result of the short-term thinking curse of Trek. They never think beyond the season they're in and write the cliffhanger before having any clue how they're going to resolve it. Rather than have a plan for the characters, they put in some 'hooks' they can use later that will work in a variety of situations. The problem has always been the willingness to make substantive change -- to build on those hooks -- and then follow up on those changes.
And this gets back to your point -- bottle shows versus long arcs. Certainly bottle shows are something that Trek does
very well, and any "best of" list is going to contain many of them. I certainly wouldn't want to trade away my favorites just because they're self-contained.
But I think the solution is finding a way to work these into longer storylines. "In the Pale Moonlight" is a great example. Everything important is contained solely in that episode, but it builds on the current setting and point in time. It may have even begun as a bottle show, but integrating it into the war strengthened both the episode and the arc. More of that kind of show would have made DS9 riveting and you really would have felt and cared about the war. (Even that one, though...what were the consequences for Garak and Sisko. Yeah, right, thought so....)
This takes commitment and planning, though, and a willingness to go for broke. DS9 had already pushed the conservative Trek envelope, so it's not a surprise that there was pushback and compromise. Unfortunately, the compromise resembled one of the more destructive TNG inventions: the A/B storyline.
This was responsible for many godawful episodes. The idea was to have an A storyline and a B storyline. In theory, you could draw strong parallels between them or have interweaving plotlines or themes, and a handful of episodes did this well. In practice, you had two stories that both got shortchanged because they were either underdeveloped or undeserving ideas. Too often, two stupid ideas that had nothing to do with one another got slapped together and called an episode. Riker's father visits; meanwhile, Worf deals with Klingon nonsense. Geordi tests a new transporter technology; meanwhile, Worf deals with Alexander nonsense. Most of these episodes with "meanwhiles" were either sunk by one of the plots or sucked completely.
This was DS9's Dominion War. Rather than take episode ideas and have them factor into the war or have the war factor into them, too many plots were completely insulated and any character moments were separate (and then typically forgotten). Dax uses a past host to solve a murder. Molly of the Jungle. Jake and Nog join the U.S.S. Lord of the Flies. Let's shrink the ship! "The Sound of Her Voice"
When the A and the B are not integrated well, both of them suffer because neither one gets fully developed. I won't pretend: it's hard to do. You have to be willing to plot out changes and make them happen and resist the great Reset Button. But it's worth it. I hope the next Trek has its eye on the horizon and away from too much self-containment. If you try and do arc stories halfway, it comes out half-assed.
ers