Star Trek Deep Space Nine - The Complete Seventh Season Review
About the only complaint that one could make about Season Seven is that they perhaps had too much story for the number of episodes. There were a few standalone episodes, but the majority of episodes in Season Seven were, in the terminology of THE X-FILE, "mythology." The events of the last few episodes felt a tad compressed, but the show did an adequate job of wrapping up the major story arcs. All in all, I consider it one of the more satisfying wrap ups of a series in the past decade or so. From first to last the show was done the way a show should be done.
The season reached a crescendo with all of the varied plotlines that had dominated the show for the previous six years reaching resolution. With the Dominion pushing deeper and deeper into Federation space and bringing in the Breen as allies (and thereby eventually alienating the Cardassians), they did a great job bringing everything to a clash.
One of the more controversial changes in Season Seven was the replacement of Terry Ferrel (Jadzia Dax) with Nicole de Boer (Ezri Dax). You hear various versions of precisely what happened to end Terry Ferrell's involvement with the series, but there is little debate that it involved money. She had signed a six-year contract and upon discussion of renewal my guess is that when the powers that be tried to low ball her, her agent put out feelers for new gigs, which led to her moving to the show BECKER. I did not want to see Ferrell leave the show, but I loved the changes that Ezri Dax brought to the show. In contrast with the supremely confident and assertive Jadzia, Ezri is more introspective, less self-confident, and far less prepared to be a symbiote host. She quickly became one of my favorite characters on the show. Now, this is what gets me. You hear that Nicole de Boer's joining the show was unpopular, but everyone I have talked to loved her. Obviously there must be Ezri Dax haters, but I think it is OK to love both Daxes. I loved the complicated nature of her relations with people who had previously known her as Jadzia.
One of my favorite additions in Season Seven, although he was introduced briefly in Season Six, was James Darren's Vic Fontaine, a Rat Pack style casino singer. Darren was absolutely brilliant in the role and every episode in which he appears is a highpoint in the season. And in a way the series itself ended in Vic's lounge. Although there were scenes that came after it, the final shot involving all of the cast was in the lounge with Vic singing "Just the Way You Look Tonight," with all of the writers and producers sitting as patrons in the tables at the front. It was just a great way to say goodbye to all of the characters.
This was easily my favorite STAR TREK series, in fact the only one I can honestly say that I love. I regret that they didn't take it to Season Eight. I think that there was plenty of gas left in the tank and that they could easily have managed an additional year. But perhaps it is better to go out on top when you haven't run out of ideas, but that is more of a solace to me rather a real conviction. Luckily, this is the STAR TREK series that for me stands up best to reviewings. And the one STAR TREK series that I believe can be considered among the best TV SF series of all time.
Note: In watching the special features, make sure you are thorough in looking about for hidden features. There are lots and lots and lots of short features, so make sure you hit the right and left and up and down arrows on your remote. Just about every important recurring character on DS9 has a small feature, from Gul Dukat to Nog to Rom to Kai Winn Jeffrey Combs many characters, so if you feel like you have missed someone, keep looking. Episodes: Image in the Sand, Shadows and Symbols, Afterimage, Take Me Out to the Holosuite, Chrysalis, Treachery Faith and the Great River, Once More Unto the Breach, The Siege of AR-558, Covenant, It's Only a Paper Moon, Prodigal Daughter, The Emperor's New Cloak, Field of Fire, Chimera, Badda-Bing Badda-Bang, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, Penumbra, 'Til Death Do Us Part, Strange Bedfellows, The Changing Face of Evil, When It Rains..., Tacking Into the Wind, Extreme Measures, The Dogs of War, What You Leave Behind Parts I and II.
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The More Things Change The More Things Stay The Same - Andre S. Grindle - Brewer Maine
Yet again Deep Space Nine has dealt with an abrupt change as a key character Jadzia Dax dies at the conclusion of the previous season and again changed the dynamic of a series that was finally getting it's legs on straight. Well the good news is there is a new Dax in Ezri,played by Nicole DeBoer. Of course she has almost nothing in common with Jadzia. She's a very young woman with no training in Trill joining so is extremely insecure. This all comes to play after the mini story arc (a lot broader than the overlong one introducing the previous season by the way) these issues with the newly christened Ezri Dax take hold in an episode called "Afterimage" where Ezri,a councelor tries to assist a hostile Garak with his claustrophobia. Aside from that this always complex and intertwining series became.....even more complex and intertwining. Rather than take on the moody approch of the fifth season of the show to produce conflict this season could be called "the Dominion War season" because episode after episode of this season deals with armed conflict,conspiricies and character difficulties of all sorts. While this season has some excellent shows this season over all lacks a lot of the humor and wacky moments that the other seasons had to temper it's serious nature. Even the two episodes that did focus largely on humor,the baseball send up of "Take Me Out To The Holosuit" and the Vegas style hijinxs of "Badda-Bing-Badda-Bang" all find that light heartedness out of conflict. On the serious side two episodes emerge as highly significant with "Chimera" focusing on Odo encounter another changling who,while not a founder is philosophically closer to their paranoid way of thinking and almost forces Odo into rethinking his burgeoning romance with Kira Nerys. In "Covenant" Kira again confronts Dukat who has gathered many Bajorans into a corruptible suicide cult while she does what she can to avert his evil deeds even as one of misguided mentors has to die in the process. Causualties of war style episodes such as "It's Only A Paper Moon" and "Treachery,Faith & The Great River Aside" the season ends with a complex and long story arc,covering the entirety of the final three DVD's. Basically you can boil it down to this: Dukat disguises himself as a Bajoran to win favor with Kai Winn and turn her against the prophets,the Dominion's alliegence with the Caradassians begins to fall apart,the founders wind up with an illness infecting all of them passed onto them by an unsuspecting Odo after being implanted with the virus at Starfleet medical and it all comes to a head in the finale "What You Leave Behind" where the war ends at a terrible cost,Deep Space Nine's crew begin to move on and in the end.......the loss is Sisko to the wormhole alien/prophets where he's "completed his task" and must learn from them. He leaves behind a pregnant wife and a grown son in Jake seeking solace after the long war and spiritual tract he's endured the last few years. The series got resolved much in the way the 1990's decade itself did: with an event of exasperation (in real life Y2K) that put a new spin on things with no genuine closure but more a sense of perspective.
Deep Space Nine the Final 7th season. - William P. Carter -
I am on my third disk of seven and this baby is packed full of surprise. In one episode it's about a Vulcan Captain who Benjamin Sisco does not like and this Vulcan end up challenging the entire crew of Deep Space nine to of all things to a baseball game. Now there is a lot more to this episode that what I have stated above but remember there is a war going on with the Dominion as well so this provide a nice little break from the war. This is and example of the great writing that the Star Trek series Usually has. I am one happy customer. Peace
Jul 08, 2010 13:24:17
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