"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" Emissary (1993)

Director:

David Carson

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator: "Star Trek")
Rick Berman (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993)

Original Air Date:

3 January 1993 (Season 1, Episode 1)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The Original Feature Length Pilot Episode

Plot:

When the troubled Commander Sisko takes command of a surrendered space station, he learns that it borders a unique stable wormhole.

Plot Keywords:

Space Station | Wormhole | Religious Leader | Memory | Emissary

Awards:

Won Primetime Emmy. Another 3 nominations

Cast

Avery Brooks	...	Commander Sisko
Rene Auberjonois	...	Odo
Alexander Siddig	...	Doctor Bashir (as Siddig El Fadil)
Terry Farrell	...	Lt. Jadzia Dax
Cirroc Lofton	...	Jake Sisko
Colm Meaney	...	Chief O'Brien
Armin Shimerman	...	Quark
Nana Visitor	...	Major Kira
Patrick Stewart	...	Captain Jean-Luc Picard / Locutus of Borg
Camille Saviola	...	Kai Opaka
Felecia M. Bell	...	Jennifer Sisko
Marc Alaimo	...	Gul Dukat
Joel Swetow	...	Gul Jasad
Aron Eisenberg	...	Nog
Stephen Davies	...	Tactical Officer

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Filming Locations:

Golden Oak Ranch - 19802 Placerita Canyon Road, Newhall, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Network Television Productions

Trivia:

The wormhole effect contains water dripping in a pan.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): During the attack on the USS Saratoga, we see the Borg cube fire a phaser at the ventral (bottom) side of the ship, yet when Sisko asks for a damage report, the Bolian officer says "Damage to Decks 1-4". Decks 1-4 would be on the dorsal (top) side of the ship, which was not where the Borg phaser was shown to strike at.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Locutus of Borg: Resistance is futile. You will disarm your weapons and escort us to sector 0-0-1. If you attempt to intervene, we will destroy you.
Vulcan Captain: Red alert. Load all torpedo bays, ready phasers.

Movie Connections:

References "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987)

Not the best start for a series.

Rating: * 1/2 out of ****

My enjoyment and appreciation of Star Trek has the tendency to wax and wane. While I enjoyed most of the movies and am a huge fan of TNG, the rest is more or less up for grabs. I have only seen two season's worth of the most recent incarnation, Enterprise, and I find it a very underrated series, thanks in particular to the knockout season 3 Xindi story arc. Voyager did little for me, with its subpar cast and bland storytelling hindering its otherwise enticing premise. But it's Deep Space Nine that baffles me the most.

For the past several weeks, I've been trying to catch up on DS9 so that I could follow the Dominion War arc, and I started from season 3's The Die is Cast, which proved to be a pretty exciting episode so I decided to give the series a shot. And from there on out, it's been up and down for me. I wasn't able to catch all the episodes, but I tried my best to see those that pushed the Dominion story forward. The end result was an often frustrating mix of engrossing episodes (The Way of the Warrior, Broken Link, Apocalypse Rising, Tears of the Prophets, The Siege of AR-558) mixed with plenty that I found rather overrated (In the Pale Moonlight, season 6's Dominion-occupied DS9 arc).

But I'm pretty glad to see that the series on ended on a high note thanks to the Final Chapter arc, which concluded with the terrific two-hour What You Leave Behind, which proved to be one of the Star Trek franchise's most exciting and moving episodes (other solid episodes in this arc include The Changing Face of Evil, When it Rains, Tackling the Wind, and The Dogs of War). Consequently, I was pretty curious to revisit the first episode and see how it all began, and while watching Emissary worked as a curiosity for a while, it wasn't long before boredom set in.

Not that Emissary doesn't get off to a decent start. The opening sequence depicting the Battle of Wolf 359 is a fast-paced way to get the series going, even if the battle itself appears way too small in scale. The actual introduction of the station and its crew is handled fairly well, and it was nice to compare and see how the characters progressed over the years, the most obvious instances being Major Kira (Nana Visitor) and the Ferengi Nog. Kira is actually one of my favorite characters on the show, so it's particularly interesting to see the hostility she displays towards the Federation in this episode, especially compared to how she handles being in charge of the station by the final episode.

Most of this premiere suffers because it has to establish a none-too-exciting set-up. In this case, it's watching Sisko deal with the prophets while coming to terms with his own emotional pain. Undoubtedly, it's the emissary/prophets storyline that I like least about DS9 (well, maybe it's a bit better than those annoying Ferengi episodes), as I don't think the series ever did a particularly good job of making the prophets or their motives intriguing. Their presence has also been ripe for some deus ex machina moments (Sacrifice of Angels comes to mind).

It doesn't help that some the acting comes across rather amateurish, particularly Terry Farrell as Jadzia Dax and the actress that plays Sisko's wife. Even the typically solid Avery Brooks slips in quality on occasion here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best performance is delivered by Patrick Stewart, who makes an enjoyable cameo appearance as everyone's favorite French British starship captain. So maybe this wasn't such a good start, but it's nice to know the series would improve and I am looking forward to seeing how the Dominion are introduced.