Episode #01-#2: Emissary
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Episode #01-#2: Emissary
"ON STARDATE 43997, CAPTAIN JEAN LUC PICARD OF THE FEDERATION STARSHIP ENTERPRISE WAS KIDNAPPED FOR SIX DAYS BY AN INVADING FORCE KNOWN AS THE BORG. SURGICALLY ALTERED, HE WAS FORCED TO LEAD AN ASSAULT ON STARFLEET AT WOLF 359" - that sounds like the beginning of a TNG episode, eh? But, no, it's the start of the DS9 pilot...
EMISSARY (pilot/episode #1-#2; first season) Directed by David Carson
written by Rick Berman and Michael Piller
The first shot in this pilot is of Picard as the Borg Locutus, actually footage from an old TNG episode. The 2nd shot, the first new footage, is a close-up of Sisko, listening to Locutus speak. It looks like an immobile, expressionless face at first glance, Sisko's, but the shot holds for several moments and I could suddenly see trepidation, alarm, wariness, anticipation, perhaps even outright fear - this is the face of war. ALL That - in a few moments; these Star Trek series have such moments sprinkled throughout the many episodes and this is why the franchise is not just another sci-fi series.EMISSARY (pilot/episode #1-#2; first season) Directed by David Carson
written by Rick Berman and Michael Piller
I remember well when I first viewed this pilot show. It wasn't during the initial broadcast. No, it was about a week earlier. A friend of a friend worked for the local TV station and had the initial episode on a VHS cassette. About 5 of us gathered in my apartment back in early '93 (before I bought my house) and watched it. It was kind of an event. The first impression? A bit on the slow side, despite some impressive FX for that time.
The scene that actually elicited some "whoas" and "Aahhs" - it was when the burly alien hurls a mace at Odo and Odo's head partially liquifies, allowing the weapon to pass through him. This was only a couple of years after Terminator 2 and just pre-Jurassic Park; this kind of stuff was still startling on screen. In fact, I now note that the couple of other scenes involving Odo morphing are direct steals from scenes in Terminator 2 - the ones with the T-1000 villain.
Then we're at the Deep Space Nine station (after a short preamble on a holodeck with Sisko & son), orbiting the planet Bajor. Sisko has just been assigned as the station's new commander but has a strangely negative attitude for a new commander - he is looking into possible civilian service on Earth (his son; oh, shades of Wesley - spare me!). All the other regular characters are introduced, (or re-introduced in O'Brien's case) with Odo and Major Kira the early standouts, but the scene that really stands out in this first half-hour is Sisko's meeting with Picard (Patrick Stewart in a cameo guest role). Picard, the rookie captain only 6 years earlier in the TNG pilot, is now the veteran star player of the Trek universe (circa 1993), with Stewart bringing imposing gravitas to the role; the scene crackles with tension, even if Brooks' Sisko is rough & even awkward at this early stage. That's to be expected - all the new characters (with the notable exception of O'Brien) are roughly drawn at this point.
In other words, it's a pretty realistic reflection of real world events, more so now, I would venture. What is a bit strange is that I am now reminded of one real event which happened about the time that this series ended at the end of the century; I refer to the reported incident of how the Clinton staff purposely left a mess for the new Bush administration at the White House. It's an odd parallel to draw, I admit, but I remembered that incident well, as an insult from one government to another, even if it all involved the same government. I found the whole thing to be particularly insulting - to America as a whole. Of course, the easier parallel to draw is the withdrawal one fighting force makes in retreat from another during a war - this happened a lot in our past wars - the retreating army ruins an area, killing livestock and so on, so that the approaching army can't benefit from their new occupation.
All these examples place the Cardassians in a particularly unpleasant light for me; yes, they are a singularly distasteful Star Trek race at this point. On the DS9 series, they were virtually the only villains (the Dominion came up later, but that's for another time). The Cardassian Gul Dukat (former prefect of the station, played by Marc Alaimo) appears in this very first episode and would continue as the main antagonist to the very end of the series.
As a kind of counterpoint to all this political/social realism, the pilot also presented the religious, mystical side of the Bajorans. This is mostly represented by a mysterious orb and by the Bajoran religious leader, Kai Opaka. It seems that the Cardassians are still hanging around the area due to these orbs (there are 9 in all, I think), which have potential power. Thanks to the only orb left on Bajor, Sisko hallucinates his first meeting with his wife on a beach. There are a lot more hallucinatory experiences in the last half of the episode, when Sisko communicates with strange non-linear beings in a newly-discovered stable wormhole. This is all part of some prophecy in which Sisko is the expected emissary.
There were a couple of ways to go with this pilot - it could have stuck to strict scientific principles and the strategic importance to the Federation of a nearby wormhole. The 2nd way, the way it did go, was to include all these hazy mystical elements. It all could be intriguing but when we have scenes of Opaka speaking about a pagh (Bajoran soul/life-force) while grabbing Sisko's ear (causing him to wince), it becomes unintentionally comical and simply derivative of the old Vulcan mysticism we'd known for nearly 30 years - just not that subtle. Further, the lengthy meeting between Sisko and the 'Prophets' in the wormhole becomes quite repetitive ("what is this?" they keep asking) and, again, unintentionally funny, despite some dynamic, impressively numerous and very involved scenes drawn from all aspects of Sisko's life (this was a huge TV budget for essentially one episode, at about $12 million, and took about a month to film).
These climactic scenes with the strange aliens do draw a neat connection to Sisko's personal tragedy - his preoccupation with and fatalism regarding the last time he saw his wife on the doomed starship Saratoga. And, it makes his final scene with Picard all the more effective. But, I can't help but think this all could have been done more smoothly - the long scenes sort of beat the audience over the head with the concepts, over & over. All the spiritual stuff - the heavy emphasis of this in the 2nd half - was off-putting to me back then, almost as if it was lazy writing. Still, this was very early in the show, and I am unfamiliar with the last 4 seasons of the series at this point. That familiarity might help... later.
BoG's Score: 7 out of 10
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