"What you call genocide, I call a day's work!"

[khaosworks]

The Deep Space Nine Season 1 DVD Boxed Set arrived in the mail a couple of days ago and I've been rewatching the first season. When DS9 was first announced I was one of the nay-sayers - "to boldly sit where no man had sat before", we jeered - but once I saw that they were willing to take chances with the characters, and the darker storylines, and dealing with consequences (as much as a Star Trek series was going to deal with such things) that stretched beyond an hour-long episode, I became a fan. And when the Jem'Hadar appeared at the end of Season Two, the series soared and never quite came back down again.

Like Babylon 5's 1st season, the first season of DS9 is uneven, but holds up a lot better once you have the perspective of the whole saga in mind - there's so many bits in the pilot, "Emissary" that get to me once you realize how different the characters were at the start of the series and how their charcaters and situations changed at the end of those seven years.

And "Duet" is still one of the most powerful hours of television viewing, SF or not, I've ever seen.

Comments

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Duet. I amalgamated some of Moritza's (sp?) speeches into a piece for one of my acting exams (the LAMDA diploma). It went down better than any of the more "traditionally sourced" pieces. I even worked in some mime, leaning against the non-existent force field to look Kira in the eye. It was fun. And a nice range of moods for a little 4 minute piece. Bored... Sardonically amused... Irritated... Coldly angry and intimidating... Irritated again... Really angry... Ranting... That crack in the voice... Cowering in a corner, blubbing... and finally, a humble, desperate pleading...

I didn't pass the exam (largely due to my appalling high-voiced American voice in a very unwisely chosen dialect piece, and possibly my rather unimaginitive and under-rehearsed interpretation of Iago)... but they all loved my Moritza! =:o>
I remember when I was sorting out my props before going on for the first piece, hearing the judges shuffling their copies of the script and someone saying "Ooh! Star Trek. I don't think we've had a Star Trek before, have we?". I *think* the voice was that of Lorna Heilbron, who'd appeared in Blake's Seven a few years earlier as Anna Grant (Avon's long-lost sweetheart), so I had this carefully rehearsed comment that I never *did* pluck up the courage to slip into the post-mortem conversation at the end of the exam: "Well, I did some Doctor Who for the last exam, and some Star Trek this time, but I've never done any Blake's Seven yet, so you're one up on me there, Lorna." =:o} I should've said it, I'm sure she would've been tickled.

And since I know you'll be curious: The Doctor Who piece I did the previous year was Ambril, from Snakedance - The scene (again, three scenes in the original which I edited together) where the Doctor comes to his office and tells him to stop the ceremony. The big challenge there was to not just mimic the original actor's performance. Having transcribed the lines from audio tape, I had to lock the tape away for six months and recreate the character from inside out... And I think I still ended up with a corbon-copy of his voice! =:o}

OK, enough of my luvvie-ish meanderings, you can have your LJ back now. =;o}

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Ooooh yeah. :) And that's all I'm gonna say.

A.
whose favorite Star Trek incarnation is DS9.

[sdelmonte]

Mine too, and given how much I like TOS and TNG, and given how much some episodes of DS9 really stunk, that's saying something. When it was good, it was grand.

Duet

[osj.livejournal.com]

Still waiting for my copy to arrive, but 'Duet' is going to be the first thing I watch...love that episode...it's in my list of top ten Treks ever...