UNCUT - Sanctuary (DS9 S2E10) | Star Trek Journey 297
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DS9 sex scoreboard catch up version No scores that I saw (remember I am only catching up with the short versions) The sex score board Quark 3 Chief 1 Keiko 1 Odo 1 Kira 1 Bashir 1 Jadzia 1 GUEST: Haneek 2 +2 DETAILS: Haneek doing the double and that is all we have to say about this ep
Anyone else think they would have made that province grow ao much food and help bajor? At the start of the episode Maj Kira mentions to Sisko that she just got off a 3 hour zoom call with a bunxh of politicians about how every project to improve that peninsula keeps failing?
I don't mind this episode. I get the sense that the politics of immigration playing out in the US right now (and maybe some anxiety about the previous episode showing a decline in quality from a great start to the season) may have framed your viewing of it. Basically, I don't think it was supposed to be a lecture even a little bit. I don't think the point of this episode was to say "refugees/immigrants good", or "borders bad", or anything of the sort. I think it was literally just an awkward first contact, and exploring the emotions of the characters involved. I don't think it was even trying to suggest that Kira had, or should have had, any regrets or change of mind at the end. Indeed, even when this show does proclaim morals, usually it's someone in the Federation doing it, not just some new species being judgemental, and none of the Federation characters were all that bothered by Bajor rejecting the proposal. Basically, I think the whole point of this episode was the day-to-day grind and the grey at the edge of the wormhole. Just like how we have to deal with Kira being a lovable murderer/former terrorist, or, as in this episode, Nog being a goofball idiot bigot, sometimes new species and cultures, even when not clearly offensive to the Federation/Bajor (like the Tosk people), are just uncomfortably awkward and annoying. (I think this was also shown in the Move Along Home episode, which I appreciated, in part, for the same reason.) Obviously it misses the mark for some, and even I would say it's not one of the great episodes. Though, I do also like the translator evolution scene.
The Dominion again 😏
This does not in any way redeem the episode or any part of it, but I am surprised that nobody in the Patron Takes pointed out that Tumak is a bit of Star Trek royalty. He was played by Andrew Koenig, Walter Koenig's son. He also played the character Boner on Growing Pains. And he sadly took his own life in 2010
So how could the Skreeans have all been farmers, when their entire planet had been living under occupation for 800 years? Also they all look like they are in pretty good shape for only just recently becoming refugees. Did their occupation just consist of their oppressors letting them all farm in peace? Also their culture was maintained the entire time under this occupation? They were allowed to continue being a matriarchal society with clear leaders, multiple male partners, and males who act like spoiled violent angry overgrown children? This must have been a pretty lax occupation. Did they just have to send a portion of their crops off to some random planet, and that was bad enough for them to leave the entire planet once they didn't have to pay tribute? Where's their resistance movement? Something doesn't add up here.
Season two is not sending its best - the Skrreeans, the boring disappearing lady... and some episodes I assume, are good episodes. But we're building a subspace tachyon net, because these mediocre episodes have got to go back (to season 1) where they belong.
I think the episode would have been boring with the guest species being kind and relatable with the ending making you 'wonder' if it was a mistake to not take them in; that would just be so formulaic. It was a very bold decision to try and explore a situation where the guest species is irredeemably insufferable. The problem is, what do you do with that? I don't know, but having explored that as a concept it seems the answer is nothing. You do nothing with that. So what was the point??
🥱 D-
You know I wonder if the whole point of the music guy was to provide commentary on mixed reception to the DS9 theme song? The song he was playing actually seemed pretty similar to the DS9 theme. Some parts were obviously based on it. People like me hear the DS9 theme and are mesmerized like the people in Quarks bar. But People like TA hear the theme and go "where's the bounce? Where's the drop? Spice it up a little!" Maybe they were getting similar feedback back in the 90s and this was how they decided to address it? Probably not. But it's fun to think about.
The DS9 theme is a lone horn playing at an outpost on the frontier. It seems pretty on the nose to me. To each their own.
subtle as the Warpspeed Limit Episode... *yawn*
I just realized... why didn't the Skrians just decide to come back to Bajor when the time was right?
When Quark is talking about taking his profits for the last day, he says '26 hours', because a Bajoran day is 26 hours long.
A 26 hour day doesn't make sense though. Our 24 hour day is most likely a result of early civilizations using base 12 math, dividing a day into 24 equal parts and calling them hours and it stuck because it just makes sense, you can easily divide it into 2 12 hour parts, 3 8 hour parts, 4 6 hour parts etc., it is easy to work with, allows for easy scheduling etc. A 26 hour day is completely impractical, why would the ancient bajorans divide their day into 26 parts, that's not very intuitive, 24, 20 or even 18 would have made more sense. Maybe if they had given it a religious reason like 13 orbs having appeared in the sky making that number significant to the bajorans but that's not the case.
I remember little about this episode so I watched it again, and... i could already hear the roasting the guys would give it. So, I have to watch it tonight to see how right I was.
Agree this is a bad episode, disagree that it's bad in the way season 1 episodes are. The problem with most bad season 1 episodes is that they play like generic, reheated Star Trek leftovers, whereas this is bad in a way that's very specific to DS9 - the writers are focused on arriving at a morally ambiguous, downbeat ending, but the story never earns that ending. It's a black & white situation that the writers attempt to treat as gray just because that's DS9's default setting.
You have to understand that at the time... this episode still sucked lol
"There's still....Draylon II" he said being done with their shit Yeah, this one is bad. Going into this season it was my least favourite. I think Second Sight is worse on reflection, because at least most of the performances here weren't phoned in. Still, probably the most annoying aliens on DS9 thus far. So here's the thing, the Bajorans had a completely sensible and pragmatic reason for refusing their request, but even then it didn't have to be a yes or no situation. Dumping 3 million people on devastated farmland and expecting they could make it work in short order is just asking for trouble. It's a huge gamble. If there weren't the risk of the already impoverished Bajorans suddenly having to take care of 3 million refugees I'm sure they would be willing to share their planet with another people who understand having been oppressed. With Draylon 2 being an option, the Skreeans could have settled there, established a self sufficient colony(I'm sure the federation would help them set up power generation, hospitals, housing, manufacturing, etc...), and put themselves in a position where they can take care of themselves. At that point, Bajor would be much more open to allowing 50-100k of them to try their hand at restoring the farmland on Bajor. If it works, they have a proof of concept, and the rest could immigrate in waves. But if it doesn't, they have a thriving colony to return to, or at least to send supplies to support the settlement on Bajor until they can make the land productive again. Haneek's entitlement at the end just pissed me off. Also even if Nog was being a little shit, getting violent about it was going way too far. Good on Quark for being so quick to defend his nephew. For my money, this and Second Sight are the worst of the season. There are maybe 3 or 4 more that are a bit on the dull/forgettable side, but none that are this irritating. YMMV.
There's actually one more this season I can think of where the guest species of the week severely pisses me off to the point where I can barely watch it. Other than that though, I agree with everything you said completely.
Good Star trek has a way of taking an aspect of a real world issue and exploring it in a way that's detached enough to not make your eyes roll. When I first saw this episode in 1990someting, it was closer to that. Today it's not as good.
The boys need to get a bit more tolerance and empathy things arent always black&White
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I think the DS9 theme is kinda majestic
For me, DS9 Season 2 is split into thirds. There is a strong opening third. A weak middle third. And then the strongest third is at the end. I also think this middle third is the last lengthy weak streak that DS9 has. This episode is just meh for me. I do actually like that the Bajorans refuse to allow these people on their planet. I like that the writers are following up on the xenophobia we've seen percolating in the background with the Bajorans. This also feels real since we've seen this happen with many governments around the world as far back as anyone remembers. I also think the episode starts out strongly, but fizzles when the aliens become so demanding based on a religious prophecy that no one over here believes in, and then act offended that people didn't immediately bow to their religious belief. And how they act like no one is helping them when the Federation has found a perfectly suitable planet for them. This feels overly hostile for no good reason. I also don't really see the point of the teenage alien stealing the ship and dying. This all felt like manufactured drama with no purpose.
I'm not 100% certain this is about immigration so much as it's about Israel/Palestine. I think it's kind of a combination of both, and as a result, it fails to be an effective allegory for either.
See my post about how this aired 3 weeks after the Israel/PLO talks under Bill Clinton
This was a terrible, terrible episode, worse than Move Along Home IMO, a C was very generous. First off, what were the make up and costume department thinking? The weird haircuts, the grandma's curtain outfits and the latex / dirt combination skin. What was the point of the music guy? Why was he initially playing a song that sounded very much like the DS9 theme? Why did the director make us watch the lady's family all eat a sausage? I get the point of it being about immigration and showing the terrible reasons why people emigrate (though this was condensed to one tiny scene), but the Skreean's logic for wanting to settle on Bajor made no sense. In the real world, immigrants have no option to find a random uninhabited country and take massive risks going somewhere else, but here Sisko literally found them an entire planet. The lady's argument about them 'being farmers' is stupid - she knows nothing about Bajor, the climate, the flora etc. Literally a few weeks back we had a story about the Circle, who are so Xenophobic they tried to take over DS9. Now were expected to believe these refugees would take the risk of forcibly settling on a planet who are wary about outsiders and can't even support themselves?
Man...I love you guys but I made it 10 minutes into this one and had to skip to the end for the discussion. This was possibly the worst opening 10 minutes of any Trek episode I've ever seen. edit: to be clear I mean all the stuff with the language barrier was just completely unwatchable and needed to be left out completely. PAINFUL.
I bet when she got to the new planet, she fell in love with her psychiatrist.
They could have made the episode so much better if you want to make the choice difficult is to not have the 2nd planet. With the 2nd planet it makes the Skreans really have no real reason to be so pushy besides their fable. It makes their entire arguement seem more unreasonable than anything.
I always skip this one. Could have been way better, including alien design.
Yeah still hate it, maybe even more than the first time I saw it years ago. The one thing I would argue, that would possibly give some understanding to the woman's reaction in the last scene, is that she just lost her son, so she would be more bitter and negative than usual. But that being said, it still doesn't make much sense to them being oblivious to reason, and not appreciating their efforts to finding them a whole planet. Overall, it's not an E (maybe those hairs are) but I really don't care for this one.
I'm going solely on memory (having not re-watched this in a long time), but I thought the basis for the Skrreea's attitude was that Bajor was interpreted as their version of the Old Testament's Promised Land. Once they made that association, then it was about the fulfillment of rightful destiny. Perhaps a reflection on various peoples' sense of historical/divine/ideological right to inhabit areas of our own planet over the last few hundred years.
Unlikeable people may be real life, but a story about unlikeable, unsympathetic people is rarely a good story. This was on one level dull, and on another more than dull…I have no desire to ever rewatch it. Another reject from stories pitched for TNG? Another case of an interesting idea that didn’t come together?
It's not English. And although I thought it was German when I watched Trek for the first time, it wasn't neither. It's Federation Standard. You know such things from Star Wars. There the common language is Galactic Basic.
Unlikeable people can also be unlikeable refugees. Seems pretty real to me. This episode just suffers from being boring and the prophecy thing being a little bit too much of a plot convenience. As you guys often say execution is the most important thing. This episode almost get there but misses the mark.
You would think that in the 2300s the AI underlying the Universal Translator would be able to learn that new language faster...
My issue with that scene is I can understand the universal translator not knowing what to do with the Darmok language. But the language we hear the Skreeans use doesn't sound that foreign. It may as well have been German or something. I can understand if we're trying to communicate with an insect race or something where the language is completely alien, but this language didn't seem like it should have given the universal translator any problems. I like the idea of that scene, and it makes sense that their language would be very foreign if they are from the gamma quadant. I just wish it actually sounded alien to fully sell that idea.
Bill Clinton hosted Israel and the PLO at the White House in Sep 1993 for the signing of the first Oslo Accord where the PLA was recognized - that was one month prior to the air date so the obvious real world source of the plot
The actor playing Tumak is the son of the actor who played Chekov (Walter Koenig) in TOS
they mention that in the discussion at the end.
We are in the mid-season slump unfortunately. I'll be here through it all. Can't wait for the good shit to come back
I was about to post the same thing.
I remembered enjoying this one but boy howdy does it not hold up. You guys are absolutely right that the alternate planet torpedos the plot by removing sympathy for the Skrreeans. Not only that but maybe putting two cultures with deeply held faith in prophecies on the same planet isn't the best idea? What could go wrong!?
Lucille Ballbuster
I saw the thumbnail and audibly groaned, hate this episode
As a teenager watching this for the first time I found it incredibly boring. As someone in their 40's, with everything going on in the world, I have a much better appreciation of it.
I like this episode, but: Its not done very well due to the 45 minutes time limitation of a single episode. It would work better as 3 or 4 episodes arc. Have them start with landing on the planet and try out to farm. Let months pass and show that "farming" is not that easy. Have the Bajorans struggle with supply them equipment etc. Use the episodes to introduce different political fractions of the provisional government and show the debates and have Sisko try to help while the Federation itself tries to find an other planet as backup plan. All of this takes a lot of time but could be really interesting. Other ways that may have improved it: Have them be genetically related to Bajorans, have them have their own religion based on the celestial temple, and have them have own versions of the 'orbs of the prophets' and approach the episode more on the religios/prophecy side. The refugee topic is an interesting and really complex one. It always happend and it will happen again. As I said, difficult to have Star Trek discuss it in 45 minutes.
The episode was uncomfortable, and I think that was the point. My immediate dislike for the Skreeans (even their name is intentionally like fingernails on a chalkboard) left me questioning myself... what kind of person am I, that I found their one persistent, defining trait to be that they're "inconvenient"? They don't comfortably fit into the receptacle we want them to go into. Like real life, they don't give us a satisfied resolution. For that reason, I respect the episode. It did what it set out to do: made me reflect on my own gut reactions. Did I enjoy the episode? No. But I don't think we were meant to.
I think it was this episode's original intention to have the Skreeans feel umcomfortable to both the crew and the audience for that reason, and to get people to question why we were feeling that way. The episode could have been better for instance if the Skreeans actually were what Bajor really needed, but Bajor was too blinded by their own prejudice to let them try. I think that's was what they were TRYING to go for in this episode, but they dropped the ball once they started making the Skreeans straight up entitled. Even if you took the better planet plot point completely out of the equation, this episode showed us that their men really are as they were described. They go around looking for reasons to start fights with people. That alone might not be so bad. But what really damns them is they refuse to let people repair the damage they caused. When a kid like Jake approaches them, tries to be as friendly as possible even in spite of their continued jabs, apologizes for his and nog's actions, and tries his best to extend the peace, the Skreeans basically spit in their face and threaten them with more violence. Absolutely no respect for them after that. People who do that are not innocent victims. They bring their pain and suffering on themselves, and blame others for it, and expect others to solve their problems for them. Then mix that in with the guest character blaming and guilting Kira for something she didn't even have any control over, and ending a potential friendship because it was no longer serving HER expectations or giving her what she wanted, and you get the impression that the women from this planet are just as immature and violent as their men underneath their presented demeanor. These people are far more than "inconvenient." They're actually nefarious. And even when the guy blew himself up in the shuttlecraft, it was because he refused to listen to those who were trying to help him, and he was avoiding his own responsibility. Hoenstly this entire race, and all others on Earth who are just like them, who farm for other people's sympathy and resources, all while spitting on the help that's offered to them, and getting violent and manipulative when things don't go exactly their way, deserve exactly what they bring upon themselves. No wonder their planet got taken over. The Gamma quadrant was probably sick of them.
I hate this episode sooo bad, give me Move along Home instead any day
Haha! I agree! At least move along home had some laughs
Huh I totally forgot they made a callback to the dominion in this episode. And neither episode is a very good one.
I feel like current politics make this episode seem different than it originally did. I get it. But it's kinda the reverse of the usual.
Anyone else see a parallel between Josh and Alex commenting on the calming, sleepy nature of the opening theme and Quark's complaints about Varani's music? They're not wrong, though.
I suppose, if you have to have percussion to be happy with a piece of music. The DS9 theme is probably my 2nd favorite.
TREK TROPES 1. God like being tests humans, is unfamiliar with them despite galaxy being full of humanoids. 2. Mediation between factions 3. Deal with incident with Klingons/Romulans/Carddassians/Ferengi/Gorn while avoiding a war 4. Planet of the hats, bumpy forehead aliens stand in for relevant social issue. 5. Twilight Trek, something weird is going, anomaly, crew turned into pandas, etc. 6. Virus/telepathy/something is affecting the crew 7. Something creepy going on, turns out it’s aliens 8. Whirlwind romance where main character falls madly In love with person they will never see again after the episode 9. Crew member stranded, ship has a deadline they cant stay past to look for them 10.Relative/lover/mentor/rival/friend from the past shows up, brings baggage 11. Starfleet Admirals are consulted, give clueless orders 12. Temporal anomaly- see also spatial anomaly 13. Time travel back to “current” Earth 14. Character deals with the same personality issue again and again and again 15. Something’s wrong with the ship! 16. Holodeck malfunctions yet again, putting crew in danger with no way to get them out sans them finishing the program 17. super famous scientist, diplomat, etc. who is never heard from again 18. Intruder Alert! 19. 50 percent of problem would have been irrelevant if they just had internal sensors keep track of everyone at all times. Wouldn’t even need to be a privacy issue, in quarters logs would have to be justified afterwards and a big deal to unseal for no reason. But then there wouldn’t be much of a show. 20. On that note, biometric identification on bridge controls would do wonders. Guessing every major civ can just bypass this with the universal translator. 21. We’re carrying civilians and clearly going into danger so we’re going to separate the saucer section… oh wait. 22. “Outsider” character learns what it means to be human. 23. Doesn’t matter how much damage your ship has taken, the gravitational system will never fail.
Gosh, someof these would make a great list for a teen writing class. Each student picks a number from a hat, takes the line that corresponds, and has and has 40 minutes to write a reasonably interesting story. Could also be a party game. For Trekkies. For Trekkies that don’t completely understand the word “party”
A few bland episodes in S2 and god is this one of them. Hang in there boys, it’s going to be a little bumpy.
reading memory alpha, apparently the original solution was they were allowed to settle because their farming skills would help the area that was having difficulties, but they felt a downbeat ending would be more realistic and resonant.
The female Bajoran minister who was explaining the government's decision was actually played by Armin Shimmerman's (Quark's) real wife.
Indeed William Scharlert, the Bajoran musician, should be familiar. Not only from TOS "The Trouble with Tribbles" but from the 1950s through the 1990s he probably appeared on most TV series that lasted at least a season, in addition to the occasional movie role in films like In the Heat of the Night.
at warp 6 earth is about 2 weeks from bajor
Extreme nerd alert: Not at Warp 6 -- that'd be closer to a full seven weeks. Warp 9.5 is 10 days. Bajor is 52 light years from Earth according to the DS9 technical manual (which I know isn't quite canon, but it's damn close). It's really not all that far in Trek distance but still quite a haul at Alex's favorite Warp Speed Limit!
The guy on Odo's views screen is a Romulan war criminal according to the caption who appears there frequently as a "most wanted." T'Liss or something like that. Played by a guy whose done many alien guest appearances on Star Trek They did indeed reference something called "The Dominion" in Rules of Acquistion. Zek's actual plan was to demand more tulaberry wine then the Dosi could provide. One of the more ambitious Dosi offered to put Quark in touch with the Karemma, described as "an important member of the Dominion" This was what Zek actually wanted, having heard rumors that the Dominion was the real power in the Gamma Quadrant and wanting to get in touch with whatever it is on behalf of the Ferengi Alliance.
The episode is rather bland, so I'm going to point out some triva no one mentioned yet. The Bajoran musician is played by William Scharlert he played Nilz Baris in the TOS episode The Touble With Tribbles. I belive one of you said he looked familiar.
Also, I didn’t realise until this watch that the kid who dies after stealing the ship is the son of Walter Koenig - or rather was. Turns out he sadly committed suicide back in 2010.
Hmm. Bizarre when you think how prescient that episode appears to be now, given how far back it aired. Refugees facing backlash upon their arrival is nothing new though, so overall this was just a bit too on the nose.
How was it prescient? It was only made 30 years ago, these issues existed then.
The only things I like about the episode are the tiny bit of Gamma Quadrant lore and Odo reveling in the idea of Quark going out of business. Neither of those tasty toppings makes this shit sandwich enjoyable, though.
This story had potential. IF there was no Katana 3 option. IF the Screean youth had been a more sympathetic character that we felt something for. IF her impassioned plea, along side Kira's aid, about helping Bajor heal was the catalyst for getting the Bajoran government to relent and let them settle. The bones for an interesting story were there, they just dropped the ball.
Yeah I agree there’s a lot here that could have worked given another draft or three.
Always a joy to see Nog tho. Criminally underused this season so far :)
File it under “it’s fine” definitely not the worse episode but far from the best, and the second weakest this season so far. Think C tier is about right for this one.
A whole planet of Brigitte Marcons is hilarious 😂
like the last episode, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've rewatched this since I first bought a box set of DS9 20 odd years ago. It's definitely not as bad as the last episode, but I really have no interest in watching it again. I'm fairly comfortable calling this the second worst episode of the season, after Second Sight last week. I think a C rating is fair though.
Iiiii . . . don't HATE this episode, but I pretty much agree with everything you guys said. The Skrreea (which sounds like "screech," which just ADDS to this problem) are arguably THE most ANNOYING @#$%s to come onboard DS9 so far. (And last season introduced the WADI, so that's really saying something!) They're self-righteous, self-absorbed, entitled, stubborn, guilt-trippy, ignorant, impulsive, and just generally unremarkable from a broad over-all perspective, and irredeemable from a specific characterization/likeability perspective. Like . . . yeah, I'm VERY pro-immigration IRL, but in this scenario, I'd STILL be telling them to get over themselves. The OBVIOUS answer to "do you want to live there?" is "My home is here. Is yours? No? Okay, can you go back to yours? Also no? Then welcome to our space, we're not going to kick you out or imprison or enslave you, but you need to STFU and give the nice planet that is available a chance!" **sigh** That said, this episode IS building out the lore of the still-largely-unknown power structure of the Gamma Quadrant, so boring as it is, it is still at least SOMEWHAT necessary.
You guys could’ve probably skipped disk 3
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Dumb Bajorians, they would have had that land growing amazing.
Oh ouch. Not exactly looking forward to this episode. lol. However your reaction will be worth it!