Deep Space Nine: The Adversary

Full disclosure: Deep Space Nine is probably my favourite TV series; while TNG might be the Trek I grew up on, DS9 has always been my favourite.  It's a shame that I never watched it during the original run (until the later seasons) and had to watch it as re-runs.  It's also a shame that no network carries them in syndication that I know of - they instead prefer to show TOS, TNG, and Voyager.  Weird.  I think DS9 is very underrated.  I'm currently re-watching DS9 with Vanessa, mainly as an excuse to watch my favourite TV series.

Episode: The Adversary (Season 3, Episode 26 - S3 finale)

Written by Ira Steven Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe

Directed by Alexander Singer

The season 2 finale of DS9 really kicked off the whole Dominion plot line, which continued into the third season; season 3 was still rather episodic when compared to the latter episodes though.  The Adversary really kicked the Dominion plot into high gear.  The short version of the episode is that a Changeling (one of Odo's species, if you don't know) infiltrates the Defiant and attempts to start a war with an alien species in order to take the Federation out of the picture to ease an Alpha Quadrant invasion.  Surprise!  It doesn't work, but Odo learns of a very important fact: it's too late, the Changelings (also called The Founders) are everywhere.

As an episode, it was fantastic: the writing was on, all the character notes were great - but I wanted to highlight the technical aspects of this one, because I thought they were above and beyond the rest of season three.

Very often in Star Trek (and especially DS9), we're presented with a giant ship (or station), where the characters have tons of room to move around.  The Defiant, though, is a tiny ship in contrast.  It's designed to be highly maneuverable, and highly efficient.  The bridge is nice and big, and by necessity so is the engine room, but the rest of the ship is small.  It's basically a submarine in space.

The Adversary does an excellent job in depicting the size of the ship.  Camera angles were very tight and close, and the characters were put in some claustrophobic situations.  Unfortunately I don't think many other episodes featuring the Defiant use these techniques as well as The Adversary; ironically I feel that these tight shots really showcased the Defiant more than wide shots otherwise would have.

The other thing that was really neat were the lack of cuts from the camera.  I think this is directly related to the director (Singer) choosing to film the characters up close, so that when the camera needed to move to another area in the scene, it pulled back in a fluid motion - as if the viewer is the camera, and has to back up ever-so-slightly in order to survey more of the scene.  It was really neat.  But this also helped to simulate the effect of the Changeling watching the crew and being careful not to be noticed.

I don't normally notice these things, but I thought I needed to highlight these sneaky-but-awesome camera tricks in a well-written episode.  If you haven't seen this one, track it down - you won't be disappointed.

Deep Space Nine Re-Watch: Early Observations

Project 52: 6/52

I've been re-watching Deep Space Nine with Vanessa lately - partly because I really love the show and wanted to watch it again, and partly because I really love the show and want to introduce Vanessa to its greatness.  To be honest, as much as I love the show, I'm almost positive that there are episodes I either haven't seen at all, or just haven't seen very much.

So far, we've made our way through season 1 and the first four episodes of season 2.  I am legitimately impressed at the quality of season 1; my misconception has always been "Season 1 is terrible".  While that is the case with some episodes (ugh...I'm looking at you, "Move Along Home"), the first season is very solid and only slightly relies on previous series for stories (The Duras sisters, Q).  You can really see the seeds of what would grow and develop over seven seasons.

Season 2 is drastically different in tone.  For starters, it is more action-oriented.  It kicked off with a three-parter, which is a really strange decision, but the result was a great three-hour episode.  The writing is right up there as well, with the highlight being Kira's goodbye scene in "The Circle".  The dialogue is snappy and quick-witted and is actually funny.

I'm looking forward to more of season 2, which is already laying way more groundwork for seasons to come (and yes, I know, it ends with introducing The Dominion.  After seeing the first four episodes, I have to figure they were planning this from the start of S2).

My All-Time Movies List

For some reason, I found myself thinking about the movies I watched over and over as a kid; the movies that, no matter how many times I'd seen them, I could always pop in when I was bored.  These are the movies that I watched when I was sick; when I was home all summer; on weekends.  These are the movies that I want my kids (when I have them) to watch as they grow up.

The movies aren't in any particular order - I just listed them as they came to mind.  Most of these movies were recorded from TV, and were watched complete with glorious '80s commercials.

Back to the Future
What can I say about this movie?  What can I say about any of them?  As kids, we watched this from a VHS tape, recorded from some TV channel I can't remember.  I should point out that I'm referring primarily to the first movie, not the entire trilogy.  We never had Part II or III on tape, but we watched the hell out of the first one.  It's an easy plot for a kid to wrap his head around.

The Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983)
The unfortunate thing about this trilogy is that I'm unlikely to ever find copies of the original, unedited versions (without going on eBay finding the DVD copies that were released a few years ago with the original theatrical versions) in high definition, because this is how I grew up watching them.  I think that I would definitely want to show my kids these versions, and I'll do my best to make sure that happens.  I think there's a lot to be said for using physical special effects instead of computer generated crap.

The Karate Kid Part I and II
This one's a funny one for me; I remember watching both of these movies quite a bit - mostly the first one - but I really prefer the second one.  The problem is, our copy of the second one got messed up in the recording.  Oh well!

Bigfoot
This is an obscure one, and I've never seen it available in any media ever, anywhere, except our one VHS tape that we recorded from TV.  There are probably a dozen movies by the same name, but in this case I'm talking about the 1987 made-for-TV film starring Candice Cameron Bure.  Yes, starring DJ from Full House.  I think the only other bigger stars in that movie were Colleen Dewhurst and Joseph Maher.  Have you even heard of them?  Yeah, exactly.  Okay, actually, the father, James Sloyan, appeared in a few Star Trek episodes (TNG, DS9, Voyager), so there's at least one "famous" character actor in it too.  Look, it's a great movie, and you should watch it.

The Great Muppet Caper + A Muppet Family Christmas
I think my favourite of these two is The Great Muppet Caper, but both are excellent films (the latter is made-for-TV I think) that showcase The Muppets at the height of their amazing-ness.  While last year's The Muppets was great, I don't think it can ever top The Great Muppet Caper - even though it may have matched  it in tone at least.

Ghostbusters
Another of the great '80s films, I probably watched this one just as much as the Star Wars movies.

I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting, and likely will come to mind after I hit "Publish".  But if I only remember these movies, that's still one pretty great list to show my kids.  There's only one modern movie I can think of that I would add to this list - and it's Moneyball.  It seems like a strange choice, but I just finished watching it for the umpteenth time, and I'll likely watch it again and again.  It's become one of those movies, like those listed above.

I didn't really have much of a point to this post, just stuff I wanted to share.  Got any movies that you watched over and over in your childhood?  I'd be interested to see what any '90s kids watched too.