Deep Space Nine seasons 5&6
When we return to Deep Space Nine in season 5, the Klingons are once again the enemy, the Dominion is a vague threat on this side of the Bajoran Wormhole, and Gul Dukat is an icky ally. However, the Prophets, those time-agnostic aliens living inside the Wormhole, start talking more to Sisko. Jake is a reporter now while Nog is a Starfleet officer. By season’s end, the Dominion owns Cardassia, though the Cardassians see them more as allies. Sisko mines the wormhole, and leaves a baseball to taunt Gul Dukat. Begun the Dominion War has.
Season 6 sees the Federation newly reunited with the Klingons and adding the Romulans. Worf and Dax marry. And Iggy Pop plays a Vorta. By the end of the season, Jadzia is dead (but not the Dax symbiont, which makes Dax the Trek’s Doctor Who.) Gul Dukat loses his daughter, goes nuts, and flees to become a pagh wraith fanatic.
Like TNG, DS9 peaks in these seasons. One of the standout episodes is “In the Pale Moonlight,” where Avery Brooks seems to break the fourth wall as Sisko records a personal log. Sisko has to cross a lot of lines he hates himself for, prodded by Garak’s gray morality. Additionally, Sisko is front and center as Benny Russell, the black pulp scifi writer in the 1950s attempting to publish a story called Deep Space Nine. The rest of the cast is great playing humans, but Brooks’s performance is stellar, made all the more impressive when you realize he directed. This run of episodes features shows directed by Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn, and Alexander Siddig (as Siddig El Faddil, having changed his stage name for acting roles), in addition to Levar Burton.
JG Hertzler, a Trek guest star stalwart, becomes a recurring character as Martok, both the Changeling imposter and the real Martok. Additionally, Chase Masterson and Penny Johnson expand their roles as their characters, Leeta and Kassidy, either marry (in Nog’s case with Leeta) or formalize their relationships with lead characters.
Jeffrey Combs is terrific as not one (The various clones of the Vorta Weyoun), not two (Ferengi liquidator Brunt “FCA!”), but three (a racist 1950s cop alongside Marc Alaimo in “Far Beyond the Stars”), making him Trek’s star utility player long before his turn as Shran in Enterprise. (Also, he was considered to play Pike’s original doctor, Boyce, when Strange New Worlds went into development before producers opted to fill out M’Benga’s backstory.)
Two additions as recurring characters are Bobby Darren as Rat Pack hologram Vic Fontaine and Barry Jenner’s Admiral Ross. Vic seems to be the DS9’s writing staff playing with the sentient hologram concept. He knows he’s a hologram. He also becomes part of the family as he tries to shepherd Odo through his unrequited love for Kira and guide Worf through his grief over Jadzia. Ross is Sisko’s boss and, while he’ll cross a few lines of his own, is not the stereotypical “badmiral,” a trope that’s getting really old. He’s a good commander for Sisko,
While Voyager had a major cast change with Seven of Nine replacing Kes for various reasons, not the least of which Kes’s short lifespan, the departure of Terry Farrell marks one of the most unprofessional cast changes on the part of executive producer Rick Berman. With DS9 slated to wind down in Season 7, Farrell asked if Dax could become a recurring character. It would allow her to transition from Trek to another show (ultimately Ted Danson’s Becker.) Instead, when Farrell did not bow to pressure to reup, Berman fired her and had Jadzia killed off. Those kind of producer shenanigans should have ended when Maurice Hurley was fired after TNG’s season 2. (Hurley, let’s be honest, is an embarrassment to Trek’s legacy and should be forgotten. Unless you plan to buy Gates McFadden a Maurice Hurley dartboard. Pretty sure Wil Wheaton and Patrick Stewart have given that gift.)
First Contact
You can argue over whether First Contact or The Wrath of Khan is better. That argument will never end, and for good reason. Nick Meyer saved the movies after The Motion Picture failed to impress (but succeeded in earning.) In order to take advantage of the big screen, Picard is brought into conflict with the Borg once more aboard the Enterprise E.
The Borg return after seven years. Starfleet wants Picard to stay out of it as he, as the former Locutus, might be compromised. When the battle goes badly, as it inevitably will, Picard disobeys orders, assumes command of the fleet, and destroys the cube. Seems he can hear them. However, a sphere escapes the ship and generates a time field. They are going back to stop First Contact, the day Zefram Cochrane made his first warp flight. Cochrane, played by the magnificent James Cromwell, is not the hero portrayed in the history books. Watching this chronologically, our first sight of him is not in TOS’s “Metamorphosis,” where a 150+ Cochrane has been de-aged to his mid-30s, but an elderly Cochrane in Enterprise‘s “Broken Bow,” an older, wiser man who had already said, “Be a man, and let history make its own choice.” But it’s not even the dignified engineer who becomes equal parts Einstein and Chuck Yeager. No, this man’s a drunk who wants to deal with the aftermath of World War III by making millions off warp and retiring to an island full of naked women. “That’s Zefram Cochrane,” he informs Riker. “That’s his dream.”
The Enterprise crew must get the Phoenix back online for its historic flight, and there’s time pressure. Cochrane has to be at warp the same moment a Vulcan scout ship passes through Sol System. But Picard has to go back to the ship to fight the Borg. Seems destroying the sphere wasn’t enough (and gives Enterprise a plausible excuse for a Borg story later on.) The big reveal is Alice Kriege’s Borg Queen. “I am the Borg,” she announces, meaning the Collective’s entire consciousness rests with her. She is equal parts Eldritch goddess and seductress, tempting Data with human flesh and taunting Picard. Only when Data, the new Locutus, reveals to her “Resistance is futile” (and that emotion chip is up and running for full dramatic effect) does she realize humanity ain’t going quietly into the night.
Meanwhile, Cochrane, far from being the flyboy presented in 1968 on the original series, is terrified to see the stars shifting rapidly. He is a man of our time. In fact, according to the official chronologies, he’s alive at this moment, possibly reading this blog. (That brings my total readership to 7. I should do a giveaway!) It ends with the Enterprise crew discreetly watching a Vulcan ship land in Montana and Zefram Cochrane’s historic handshake, equal parts awe-inspiring and mundane. To the Vulcan’s “Live long and prosper” greeting, Cochrane, tongue-tied, manages, “Thanks.” And therein is also the dawn of Enterprise, wherein the Vulcans are very formal and edgy about the newer species getting warp drive while humans are the Leroy Jenkinses of the universe. Wait’ll they meet the space Vikings from QonoS.
First Contact had a lot going for it: A big reveal about the nature of the Borg, Picard’s warts in the form of a lust for revenge (understandable, but not desirable), a setting close enough to the 1996 release to be familiar, and Jonathan Frakes directing. The story was tight, blew over any plotholes, and had the feel of a Nicholas Meyer-directed or assisted film. (Shatner says Meyer was sorely missed on ST V, and it shows.) Props have to go to James Cromwell and Alfre Woodward as Cochrane and Liliy Sloan, two fish out of water who have to deal with the “bionic zombies from the future.” Most of all, even with the dark storyline, First Contact made room for humor. When Trek is on with that, it’s on.
Voyager Seasons 3-4
Voyager finally hit its stride with Season 3. At this point, everyone was getting a storyline. Of course, there were a handful of episodes we could do without. “Threshold” is the poster child for these, where Paris and Janeway transform into salamanders and have little hatchlings. It’s as controversial as “Tuvix,” but not in a good way. “Tuvix” left people debating Tuvix’s right to exist at the expense of Tuvok and Neelix. Prodigy later pokes fun at this when Vice Admiral Janeway, telepathically swapped with D’al, says she’s been transformed into a salamander. Compared to that, telepathic swapping is easy to deal with.
Voyager season 3, however, ran smack into two problems, both centered around its pair of Delta Quadrant characters. For Neelix, it would be how useful a Talaxian would be deeper into the Delta Quadrant, especially with a couple of jumps shaving over a decade off the trip. Given Neelix’s background, just how much of the quadrant could he have covered? There are still, at this point, unknown parts of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, where the Federation and its neighbors live. Neelix, especially in Season 4, gets more to do with less reliance on “I know the area.” The jokes about his cooking are fewer, and by the end of Season 4, he’s training with Tuvok as a security officer, as well as serving as Voyager‘s unofficial ambassador.
The real problem is Kes. Kes is established early on as having a lifespan of only eight years. Meaning, given the seven-year life span of most legacy Trek, she would be an old lady when she reaches the Alpha Quadrant or even likely die in the final season. When we meet her, she is the Ocampan equivalent of a barely legal teen, on the cusp of turning two. Some have questioned whether it’s appropriate for Neelix, obviously the equivalent of a human in his late thirties or into his forties, to be in a relationship with a woman who will never live past a decade. I’ve always found that to be a stupid question since the rules for Kes are different that the rules for, say, T’Pol, who is in her sixties when she appears on Enterprise. Although Strange New Worlds puts to bed (almost literally) the idea that Vulcans really don’t mature until they are in their thirties or forties, the option was there. But Kes is already an adult when we meet her, so already, the human rules just went out the window.
But the character would likely die of old age before the show ended without some sort of alien handwavium to make her immortal. In short, the creators wrote themselves into a corner. First, they address this with a time-shifting episode. A future Kes is eight at her birthday party, married to Tom Paris. Harry Kim is their son-in-law, and already, their daughter has a six-month-old child who appears to be a five-year-old. The episode is more of an acknowledgment Kes’s time is limited than a possible way forward. Behind-the-scenes issues would contribute to Jennifer Lien’s firing, but it also became clear: Kes had to go.
Enter Seven of Nine. On Picard, she is the most watchable character. The band over her eye marks her as an XB (ex-Borg), and her heightened emotionalism and “cowboy” approach broadcast her journey to anyone not familiar with Voyager. But the woman we meet in the Season 4 opener, “Scorpion, Part 2,” begins as an angry, confused person ripped from what essentially is her family. Drones all have that chorus of voices in their head. Ideas and dissent are processed rapidly in the Borg Collective. Now she has to talk to these individuals, inefficient with their sense of awe and differing opinions and their hierarchical social structure. Humor is a concept she doesn’t get early on, something Data could grasp before the emotion chip and moving into Inigo Soong’s golem, but could never quite master without killing the joke. Vulcans, we have come to learn, not only have a sense of humor, they are masters of sarcasm.
So Kes transcends (best term for it) to a higher plane, giving Voyager a nice shove toward home. Seven has to learn to integrate with a new collective. Once Seven is deborged, she falls into one of the one of Trek’s worst tropes: The girl in the bunny suit. Troi’s in TNG was obvious but not obviously uncomfortable. Deep Space Nine avoided the trope altogether, for which Nana Visitor, Terry Farrell, and Nicole de Boer are most likely grateful. The trope peaked with T’Pol’s illogical uniforms on Enterprise. Thankfully, Nu Trek has buried that trope for good.
But Seven’s journey is fascinating right out of the gate. Until “Scorpion,” the Borg were a huge, faceless hoard devoid of any reason or soul. We gained some insight into them via Hugh, but Seven is the first one we watch on a weekly basis transition from Borg back to human. She doesn’t get being an individual. Following orders seems an alien concept to her, where as some of the former Maquis aboard didn’t want to, a situation cured by Tuvok’s boot camp and, in one case, a right cross from Chakotay. Seven requires a bit more finesse. But she also finds her niche, building the the ship’s astrometrics lab. Seven’s story is open-ended, a point made by her addition to Picard. The behind-the-scenes friction between Jeri Ryan and Kate Mulgrew nonetheless made for great chemistry on-screen. Janeway is the ideal mentor to guiding her toward individuality, and she finds a ready fellow traveler in the now-mobile Doctor, so obviously more than just a holographic program.