UNCUT - The Storyteller (DS9 S1E14) | Star Trek Journey 265
Comments (76)
DS9 sex scoreboard catch up version No scores just like soccer but this is baseblueballs The sex score board Chief 1 almost hit a double but faithful chief let someone pinch hit Keiko 1 Quark 1 Jake 0 strike out Nog -1 a pop up foul ball out. I do mean FOUL Details: No game Jake and rain out Nog show what NOT to do to lick up Da’ ladies. But it seemed to almost work on Bajorans girls so I guess they don’t have baseball, they softballs (or more like cricket). The Jake and Nog scores do not count
I never really minded this one, just kinda bland. And I found the Bajorans really tedious at this point I remember
This episode exemplified why I hate Bajorans. So much. Also, was that old guy getting young women prostituted to him, because he conned the village into thinking he was the only one who could defend the village from an evil cloud? Pretty ethically shady.
Dr. Bashir realized how uncomfortable O'Brien was with calling him Julian, so he relented.
Bland soup...yeah that's a good description for s1. Don't worry it will soon be a bubbling pot of spicy soondubu!
It’s a real shame the Dalrock didn’t destroy the village, wipe out all of Bajor, and then move on to the station!
Somehow my husband was basically Nog as a kid, but grew up to be straight up Odo. I've noticed that kids who act like Nog, like Nog, usually grew up with some form of childhood trauma. Same thing with "class clowns."
I think the real lesson with the Bajoran girl isn't just "compromise is good." It's more nuanced than that. Her main problem it that she's so concerned with not appearing weak because she's a kid, that she's not seeing any other alternative other than to double down and threaten war. This is a problem with real leaders too. A lot of times, the REASON why people won't compromise is because they can't get past their own ego, and they feel like they have to save face in order to be taken seriously. A lot of wars are started over posturing. So the Bajoran has two lessons that she learned here. One is it's ok to still act like a kid and goof off with Jake and Nog. She can accept that she is both a kid AND a leader, and the other is that compromise doesn't necessarily make you look weak if you are wise about it. But even then, I would say that the lesson is less about making "compromises" and more about learning how to see war and territorial desputes through the eyes of a Ferengi, which again, is something that a lot of leaders can learn from. The answer isn't "how can we compromise." It's "how can I turn this dispute into an economic opportunity?" In this case, it's "why fight over this piece of land when we can trade for it, and be better off?" There are many ways to benefit your country besides going to war over everything. Sometimes the best solution is an unconventional one, or economic one. And I know you guys laughed about the "just let us drill the oil" thing, but that can actually be a valid solution in some cases. Believe it or not, the world would probably be a lot less bloody if more leaders thought like the Ferengi in this way; how can we avoid war by approaching this economically instead? I do agree though that the bajoran character, actor, and execution of this story wasn't good, and was pretty cringe. I just appreciate what it's trying to say more than it failing in saying it.
Now this, my friends, is quintessential 90’s sci-fi. The plot makes no sense, there are two completely unrelated A & B plots, and there’s no repercussions about anything at the end. It feels like it could have been an episode of stargate
I feel like Bashir is coded as somewhat neuroatypical before that was a term.
Because of his religion, he did see that O"brien was sent by the prophets as the means to test his protege. Recall these orbs can actually show non-linear things from the future, past, potential futures, etc. So it makes sense his process would be some kind of test his protege has to pass. This isn't a tos or even TNG "This is all a bad fake" It works for the village, it's like there micro-religion, which is an important factor.
the episode isn't making the point you want it to make. Its not treating the sirrah thing as absolutely bad, It does create unity and will for the village which helps them survive.
supposed to be a visual religious metaphor
He chose O'brien because he knew he would fail and the real sirrac would be forced to come to this rescue. Its some zen master iniation logic
I liked the cloud
Its about Julian actually showing some respect fo O'briens comfort level and boundaries versus forcing a familarity
I don't think you were getting the dalrock thing. It was a religion of the village. And an actual orb fragment from their gods the wormhole aliens is involved. Its an interesting exploration of what religion does for community, constructing here an external monster opposesed to the village's unity and will. It's not their place to tell them its fake- and its not really. This is a good example where DS9 plays with spiritual themes you are not used to from trek or sci fi.
This episode is dumb.
It's pretty striking how much different Nog is between his first appearence or two and this one. It's like he is a different character. His initial few appearances I really thought he was somewhere between boring and awful, but here he is very enjoyable to watch. Similarly his father is very different between the first time we see him and the way he is in The Nagus. It's one clear example of how they were still finding their footing over the first season.
I don't hate this episode as much as everyone else. Yes, I agree some of it is cringe, but it's the first time we get to see Bashir and O'Brien's relationship, and to a lesser extent, we also get to see Jake and Nog actually having a believable friendship. I think this episode is important when you look back at it in terms of some early character development. For that, I can't fully discount it. It certainly isnt the second worst episode of Season 1.
Love Chief and Bashir.
At the end Julian told the Chief that he didn't have to call him by his first name anymore because every time O'Brien said his name, he said it with complete snarkiness and disdain.
Like this episode a lot. It has such good "early trek" energy. Just fun and inconsequential.
Clearly I like this episode a lot more than most. I thought it was a fun one!
Yeah this is another first season mehpisode...fortunately still some good ones in the last bit of the season.
In the beginning i wasn't fond of Nog. he had same good moments but was mostly just annoying. but as the series went on he ended up being my favourite character. he has the most growth and development. And has a few fantastic episodes focused on him.
Spoiler
Ugh this is a shit run of episodes. Nearly over. 🖖
One thing that proves to myself that I hadn’t rewatched this since it aired in ‘93(not even when I bought the dvd in 2003), is I only just realized today I recognized the actor playing the Sirah. 🤦♂️ Last time we saw him in Star Trek he was making Barclay a genius and pulling the Enterprise to come visit him and his giant floating head…wherever it was they traveled to after folding subspace. 😏🖖
I know Alex has watched Game of Thrones. Does he recognize Bashir? Also, dude, Josh. You have awesome dad vibes! lol And Alex 100% has awesome uncle vibes. Kid's first Star Trek convention. What do you dress them up as? Do you put anything on their nose? lol
We are in the dull phase of DS9. TNG was kind of embarrassingly bad at points early on. Early DS9 would occasionally be great but when it wasn’t , it was dull. There were a couple of good early episodes but then…. Meh. There were behind the scenes reasons, but suffice to say once the suits stopped interfering (due to focusing on other trek stuff) and let an amazingly talented team just go where they would, it got a lot stronger. But right now we are moving slowly. I do like how the grumpy side of Chief is developing, but other than the chief, this was lame
Que Sirah, Sirah.
Yeah, not much to say about this one. It's just not a very good episode with not a whole lot going on. Some character building between Julian and the Chief, but that's about it.
One thing I really appreciate about DS9 is the way characters change over time, not (just) because something was wrong with them or needed improvement, but because they evolve and change due to the events they experience like real life. While my feelings about the plots haven’t changed since first watch, I’m appreciating the character building, setup, and growth more than I’d expected to upon rewatch(I’m thinking I might have even skipped some of these season 1 episodes on dvd when it released in 2003, because I don’t think I’ve seen this episode since it first aired in ‘93). A couple first season gems still to come and raise the season a bit(keeping vague to avoid expectations for specific episodes), but I can’t wait for the end of dull stretches soon. 😁
Yet another episode of DS9 Season 1 that earns its reputation as the worst season, yet once again it's not terrible just.... flat.
I believe Nog is the same age as Jake (14), but Aron Eisenberg, who plays him, was 24 when this episode was filmed.
I believe the reason for that is that because of the much stricter limits of allowed time working both on camera and off for actors under 18, having an adult who could pass for a teen acting meant they didn’t have to use up 90% of allowed time just getting him into his Ferengi prosthetic make up. Worf’s son’s Klingon prosthetic makeup wasn’t nearly as complicated/time consuming as a Ferengi’s and it still was a HUGE limiting factor in how much they could use Alexander in stories because of that(I wouldn’t be surprised if those time constraints using Alexander in episodes because of that added difficulty was THE main reason they cast an adult for Nog’s part on DS9).
I say! Stealing Odo's bucket must constitute a hate crime!
I figured that I’d rewatch all of Star Trek along with Alex and Josh so I have to get through episodes like this that I only saw once when it came out and remember like one thing from if that.
Hey now, about 75% of TOS enemies were bad special effect generic clouds! This was a PERFECT throwback to the original series!
This one just isn't my kind of episode, so ranks pretty low in the Season for me personally, it's probably one of my least 5 favourite episodes of this show. I'm glad you guys finally get to see more of the Chief, and Julian. They are both in my top 5 DS9 favourite characters, i have a feeling that over time you'll grow to love Julian (Josh remember how you felt about Picard and Deanna in Season one). Me and my ex girlfriend always giggled at Nog's practical joke with Odo's bucket and the oatmeal.
Another episode that I appreciated more after watching the entire series, as the relationship building is important...
Even though this is not an episode i like, i love in particular the Chief's clear hatred of Julian in episodes such as this.
"C for Cringe" is a valid rating I will say though, while I wouldn't have personally gone with "cloud entity", it couldn't just be some animal made up to look alien. This is a world with phasers that can vaporise people easily. If it were just some beast, they could just shoot it. Even something like the krayt dragon from Mandalorian(which they absolutely didn't have the budget for) wouldn't really work, because you'd just use the runabout's weapons to kill it, and if there was one, there would have to be more on Bajor. I get why the thing was created and remains a thing to keep the village united, but still it was a bullshit effect. The girl in the B plot got a lot better by the end, but damn was she annoying at the start. This is why you don't put kids in political office. Almost started a war because she had a massive chip on her shoulder. Oh wait, adult politicians do that too. Fuck. It was nice to see Odo being a bit less of hardass for a change though. Finally, I like the Bashir and O'Brien pairing. O'Brien kind of comes off like the older brother who has to babysit his annoying, prodigy younger brother who has no street smarts. Also they need to figure out at this point what they're even doing with Bashir, so pairing him up with the most developed character on the show works I guess. This episode for me marks the end of the mid season slump. Fingers crossed you end up agreeing.
I mean since it’s summoned by this orb thing you could say 1 line of dialogue like “the villagers tried using phasers but it’s immune” and then it’s not a problem.
I think DS9 first season mid at best and boring. And that was reason why did it take me so long to watch this series. It was painful to start but nowadays I can watch first season and enjoy :D
I do in fact believe that shows are easy to re-start DESPITE their lukewarm beginnings when you actively know (or believe) that the program as a whole is superb. It's exactly how I'm able to withstand the first 12ish episode of M*A*S*H upon a ritualistic re-watch.
I think that cloud was practical, it reminds me of the cloud at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Might have made the episode more interesting if it melted a few bajorans
Pretty much spot on for this one. It had some good tidbits in there. The Chief, Doctor chemistry and Jake and Nog is fine. But this is a typical skip episode for me now onward to good things!
I completely understand your point of view, but you haven't said a word about why the Jirah introduced the Darmok in the first place. That was explained. - A brief reminder: The people in the village were on the verge of killing each other because they are not sufficiently reasonable (apparently), and the Jirah feared that it would happen again if he couldn't find a way to keep them together (again and again). - That certainly wouldn't be my way of doing things – but it is one way.
it's a metaphor for the potentially positive effect religion can have in building community. This is much more "DS9" whereas Alex and Josh went to the "this is fake so exposing it is the right thing" TOS attitude, which wasn't what the episode was going for. I feel its tricky to rate an episode when you don't quite get what it's trying to do. Genuinely, a lot of things can seem much better when you understand what its trying to accomplish versus what you think it is. This is why bad advertising for movies can often sink reputations, like when people come in expecting a horror movie or action movie and its something else. People are partially rating it best on their expectations, not just looking it as its own thing. Like if you misread a movie as being straight up when its supposed to be a satire of what it is on the surface conveying, it can seem bad to you. Obviously execution and stuff still matters, but I do feel DS9 does things and go directions that are very different from previous trek, especially in the way they deal with religion and spiritually versus the TNG attitude. I do worry that Alex and Josh may miss some of those thematic levels as they develop which is a huge lens that shapes the entire show starting from the premise with the story starting with Sisko's arriving as the Bajoran emissary and having a job to do.
So the reason this seems like a Season 1 TNG episode... Is because that's exactly what it is - This is a script that was originally written and pitched for TNG season 1, but it got rejected. It hung around and was eventually repurposed into a DS9 episode. This is one of three episodes that form the 'unholy trinity' of bad season 1 DS9 episodes, and since the earliest days of DS9 fans have debated whether this or move along home was the worst episode of DS9.
This explains why the Bajorans act rather different than what we're used to, this village reads better as strange alien world that the Enterprise randomonly encounters rather than the Bajorans awkwardly shoehorned into it.
well, that was a long boring 3 and a half hours of nothing interesting happening
I rather liked the building of the relationship between Miles and Julian, myself...
Its not that bad. C seems an accurate description.
I guess the subtext of "you don't have to call me Julian" is "okay, we're not friends and that's fine." These two are good together because they have so little in common.
Geez I don't even know if I can watch this again much less watch you watch it. This is kind of a slog and difficult and tedious. Just feels like a different show. I think this is what happens when writers phone something in.
Actually it's what happens when you take a script that was written for TNG season 1, but got rejected, and hastily convert it into a DS9 episode.
"I like Bajor. I like Bajorans. Some of my best friends are Bajoran." -Josh probably ^_^
"Dukat did nothing wrong"- Josh in five years. (kidding)
A meh episode where I totally forgot the B plot till I saw it again today.
I thought Ro grew up in a Cardassian internment camp, so that was her experience with them, but I take it not all Bajorans were held in camps; most were allowed to just carry on their lives without interference from the Cardassians unless they did something to provoke the Cardassians.
It’s a bit of a retcon.. Ro made it sound like they were all forcibly relocated. But with a big enough population there’s maybe no way to move them all.
Alex is right three different jumpsuits, And in the tradition of Wesley crusher, they are all bad
Star Trek has a bizarre fixation on onesies. The writers imagine a future where people have to basically get naked in order to take a leak.
Part of DS9’s s1 problems are comparing it to the stellar 6th season TNG is having. Overall it’s fine - just nothing great.
Exactly right, and one of the many reasons DS9 had trouble gaining traction in 1993. People had spent over five seasons with the TNG crew at that point, were enjoying a strong sixth season, and just had trouble connecting with these new characters. Many of Season One's episodes are fine ... not amazing and not terrible ... but couple that with just getting to know the characters, and Josh described the resulting feeling very well: bland.
This is a definitely an episode that exists! The Character work is all fine tho :)
Yeah, another lame season 1 episode. I know, I know - it gets better.
It's with this episode that I begin to perceive the Bajorans represent the native Americans in our time: the land and the people are one.
I don't know. The Bajorans would have had at least technological parity with the Cardassians. Maybe it's more like East Germany getting absorbed by the Soviet Union. More of a straight-up power differential as opposed to a technological one. More parallels maybe if 90% of the Bajorans were wiped out by Cardassian diseases...
Hehe i love how you guys call DS9 TNG in the opening.
Lol this is a crazy run of episodes they are going to start to worry
This is an episode. I did not like the first time I saw it, but it has grown on me every time I’ve watched it since.