Pre-amble. I like some sci-fi. Star Wars, the occasional cape comic (which I'd say is more modern fantasy, but whatever), Blade Runner was pretty cool just cause it was pretty, various video games that take place in sci-fi universes, etc. Compared to Dala, who has bookshelves from guys like Ben Bova, Peter F. Hamilton, sci-fi short story anthologies, and who knows what else, or my bud who is really on a cyber punk kick right now, I'm a fucking peasant. A few years back, I gave the OG Star Trek a shot because it was on Netflix and why not? I watched all of the first season and gave up shortly into Season 2 because by that point, it got boring. He's been telling me for years to give DS9 a shot because it touches on various themes and after it gets going, it really gets going. He did warn me that it does suffer from Season One Syndrome and boy howdy, does he seem to be right about that.
But onto this episode. Straight to the story.
The DS9 crew comes into contact and makes a friend with a mysterious alien. Mysterious alien is being extremely cryptic about his past. The mystery about who he is, what he wants, and what he's doing is not driven by subtly or any mechanism that makes the viewer genuinely curious, but instead driven by a character that is deliberately opaque because that's the only way the writers can seem to create a sense of mystery. Mix in the show's protaganist who befriends said alien, is forced to communicate cultural differences that also force an air of awkwardness onto the viewer. Towards the end, the mystery of the alien comes to light not through any detective work of the protagonist, but by the introduction of more of the mysterious alien's race who basically explain everything in the span of a few minutes. Their introduction and the whole explanation for the mystery brings about what could be some very interesting moral dilemmas that never get explored. Finally, we have the episode's protagonist act irrationally and against his own self interest to help his new alien friend, everything works out in the end, with the exception of the moral dilemmas being completely ignored.
Now, I'm not a writer or a critique or anything of the sort, and I love schlock (Kaiju films, western TV shows, and comics people), but seriously, fuck everything about all of what I just wrote. There's no subtlety or nuance that shows the writer respects me as a viewer. I understand that the writers are trying to make a story that fits into the time constraints of a single episode. Fine. But either make the story a multi-part story so it can unfold more naturally or write a story that can unfold naturally in the length of time that you're alloted. None of this chopped up shit.
You know what I love about Westerns? Same thing is true for Usagi Yojimbo comics by the way. Near the very beginning, the viewer is given all of the information needed. You know who the good guys are, who the bad guys are, and the conflict that is going to exist between them. The anticipation doesn't come from trying to figure things out, the anticipation comes from trying to see how things unfold and how our protagonists are gonna see things through.
I've seen bits and pieces of the various Star Trek Shows. Every now and again I'll watch Stargate because it's the only thing on TV that's worth watching at the moment. I've sat through episodes of Battle Star Galactica (the new one, not the disco chrome one), Farscape, and weird random shit I don't know the names of. Literally, over half the episodes I see do shit like this and it's so fucking annoying.
If your plots depend on being deliberately opaque or being resolved through hand waving and shit, I'm not being entertained because I don't feel like I'm being a willing participant because I have a genuine interest in the resolution of the episode. I feel like I'm being an unwilling participant because I wasted the first 20 minutes trying to see how everything adds up that I become so invested that I might as well spend the next 25 minutes seeing how they'll awkwardly be resolved.
I don't care if it is schlock. I still want some damn sophistication here.
Untrue for:
- The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
- High Plains Drifter
- High Noon
- Tombstone
- Unforgiven
- Pale Rider
I mean, you can slag on Star Trek all you want but you don't get to argue against it comparatively by making shit up about Westerns. Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek as "Wagon Train in space" and that's exactly what it is. Deep Space Nine is Bonanza in Space. The tropes you're bitching about aren't related to sci fi or anything about sci fi, they're related to poor writing and an unsettled production team, which your friend explicitly warned you about.
The moral dilemma you're griping about is directly confronted: How do you respond to an ethical situation that does not match your ethics? It's the precursor to every single tedious tawdry female genital mutilation storyline we've been dragged through for the past ten years (lookin' at you, Call the Midwife). The "hand waving" you're bitching about is called a "reveal" and it happens at the midpoint. That's so structurally conventional it might as well be in the style guide.
You do this thing where you see something that makes you uncomfortable and then you refuse to confront it and you spin around and slag an entire genre because it's easier than confronting the thing that makes you uncomfortable. Knowing you, your beef with "sci fi" is that in this particular episode you vehemently disagree with the choices of the characters and you refuse to confront the issue presented because you do not see it as a choice.
For the record: Season 1 of DS9 is shit. Season 2 has some moments of brilliance. Season 3 is really good for about half of it, then it descends into shit. Season 4 and beyond are a waste of time. But I'll say this:
If you do not have the fortitude to explore moral ambiguity, thought experiements and social metaphor, stay the fuck away from science fiction. Science fiction, done correctly, is fable, is a substitution game whereby sensitive cultural issues can be examined in an environment where they are less raw. Star Trek leveraged this substitution in culture-changing ways.
Kaiju films? Those are about the predation of Japanese culture and society by Western imperialism. They are the loser's lament for the end of the Meiji Restoration. They are morally simplistic because that which is old is good and that which is new is bad and the exploration of anything - society, culture, science, knowledge - leads to catastrophe. They are Confucianism as entertainment with dudes in rubber suits.
But if you're gonna come, come correct.