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What You Leave Behind Series Finale Review by Steve Perry Airdate: Week of May 31, 1999 "Written" by: Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler Directed by: Allan Kroeker Short Take: The script didn't grow on me. This episode is an embarassing mess. Brief Summary: The Federation wins the war because the writers say so; meanwhile, the red contact lens specter is back Review: Many of you are going to hate me for this review. I can only say one thing: I love DS9. This and Homicide were the only two shows I CARED about. So when I get mad at the show, I get mad because I realize what it could have been. What it could have been is the greatest TV show in American history. This finale is a good example of why it isn't. I did a review of the script weeks back, and was mildly optimistic. I had serious problems with the episode and knew that it would not be destined for greatness. I only hoped that how it would look on screen would change things - that the fire caves wouldn't look as cheesy as they sounded (alas, they did), and that we would get a real battle, with a real sense of loss. Instead we got reused footage. The USS Majestic must have nine lives. Alas, more importantly, as the episode lingered in my mind these weeks, I realized how bad it was. I think I can speak with some authority here because of that. I've had weeks to think about it and look back. I cannot bask in the afterglow like some might be tempted to do. This episode is an idiotic mess. I can drag up quibbles with almost every point in this episode, but it's the large, painfully obvious flaws that bother me. These are professional writers who make quite a good bit of money writing it. So pardon me if I seem offended by how bad What You Leave Behind was. I just can't comprehend how, with so much potential, they just threw it all a way in an episode that can even get the basic tenets of storytelling right. Quite frankly, a lot of this episode was just plain boring. The beginning felt surprisingly drained of purpose. The scene with Bashir and Ezri mostly worked, but the scene with the Chief fell flat, an appropriate end to a criminally underused character. The banter on the bridge made up for it, but it also emphasised how little tension their was. These people were talking up a good time when the final battle to decide it all was supposedly about to happen. It did happen, out of the blue, and it felt like they could care less. The episode, in other words, was wildly erratic. Instead of building up disaster Behr and Beimler were busy setting up every character to be moved off the stage, something that should have been done two episodes ago. Worf, for example, should have been offered the post back in "Tacking," not here. Alas, we got it here, and it felt like filler. Maybe I shouldn't complain about Worf - it did, after all, serve a point. Some of the stuff didn't: Quark's scene with Vic, which presumably was meant to make him look worried about his friends but left me with a bad taste about him in my mouth, was the best example, but other little examples, like Bashir treating everyone in sick bay, exist also. I think the first scene between Dukat and Winn should have been presented in Dogs of War, not here, as well. The episode is simply clumsily paced. There are no smart scene transitions, just chess pieces being moved toward a finish. The worst example of dead air was the clip fest, in the large twenty minute bloc following Sisko's demise, not just because it ate up time, but also because it was a hackneyed and stale rabbit to pull out of the hat in the final episode. (Anyone catch how it had Worf from Our Man Bashir? Alas, Worf couldn't remember that, could he?) Only Dennis McCarthy's creative use of old theme music made it worthwhile. You might argue that, as a finale episode, the writers are entitled to a little self-indulgence and a little reminiscing. I say that's a total crock. The finale is the show's last word. It's the last we will see of DS9. I don't want to see cheesy and obvious scenes - I want to see real issues being dealt with, as this is the last chance we will see of these issues. Sentinmentality can be there, but we need meat too. But more on this later. Ira Behr has to take the blame for this, because many of the problems evident in the final are part of a series of problems that began when he took over as Executive Producer. This is the man, after all, who lamost screwed up Far Beyond the Stars with his cheeky Prophet side plot. The war existed only under his control, but I can't help but think that creative minds like Wolfe and Fields, who helped to create the Dominion, could have done more with it, and presented it better. Behr can't write, can he? Really, how many times do we have to have a space battle that simply happens? This was a terrible weakness to this episode, and pretty much every big episode he's had control over. One positive was that, every once and awhile, we saw someone on a bridge somewhere getting hurt. That's a start. But this isn't a video game. We should feel real pain here, real sacrifice. Instead we get more Martok blather about it being a day that songs will be written about. Just as important, the battle should have some sort of strategic feel. It is hard to do such a thing on TV, but saying the weakness is the "center" or that the Federation will attack the platforms (the whole fleet?) is simply lazy. He should aspire to give us a real feel for the battle. I realized, while watching that, that after seven years of battles, we haven't gotten any that have been credible except for the one in "The Die Is Cast." The rest, mostly under Behr's tenure, have been bad jokes. Maybe I could forgive him, if, as a bad writer, he simply had trouble expressing good ideas. But he has no ideas. Quite simply, he may be in charge of DS9, but HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IT. Aside from challenging Federation ideas with Section 31 and In the Pale Moonlight, he's brought nothing else to the table. Remember what the show was about? It was about admitting Bajor to the Federation! The very fact the show didn't do it is a slap in the face to not only Michael Piller, but we fans who were a part of DS9 before Behr himself was there! I have often vehemently disagreed with the argument that the Prophets were upheld as something more than simply aliens. And that has remained true. They have never shown them to be actual "gods." But they haven't shown them lately to be just aliens. Part of the problem is that to the writers they've become nothing more than a plot device. It began back in Sacrifice of Angels, where, instead of using Sisko's sense of cunning to involve the Prophets, he involved them because it was a nice deus ex machina. It continued in The Reckoning, which could have been part of a larger story foreshadowing an apocalyptic doom that culminates in the finale, but instead was the mostly bizarre story of some sort of bad thing that would happen to Bajor but didn't. Then there was Tears of the Prophets, which had the audacity to make the Prophets disappear for ALL OF TWO EPISODES. Given these things, I can't help but think that Behr simply had no clue as to what to do with the Prophets - they were simply a story he inherited and couldn't wrap his seemingly small mind around. We got this same sloppy treatment here - the silly vision Sisko got before the battle started, compounded by the sudden ability of the Prophets to leave their wormhole and go into a fire pit to save his life. Please. This angers me so because it's such a wasted opportunity to explore real issues. Such an OBVIOUS opportunity that his failure to do so reeks of incompetence. After all, the whole idea of bringing Bajor into the Federation was to tell the story of a land learning to heal its wounds and adopt those ever encroaching Federation values that Quark warned about. To turn it into a bunch of mumbo jumbo and forget the people of Bajor blows my mind; this is nothing short of bizarre from a man like Behr who doesn't strike me as religious and claims to be a fan of classic Trek. It would have been so easy to do. The Kai's story, up until this point, has been well done. A large component of it was her desire to be loved by the Bajoran people. Why not do the obvious thing and build on it? Why not have here, with Dukat under her thumb, to bring Dukat before the Bajoran people, as a sacrifice to kick off her pagh wraith campaign, with her assuming that they share her bloodlust about the Occupation? Have the pagh wraith cult work behind the scenes for this purpose; also have them kidnap Kasidy, making the Prophets' warning come true, and giving Sisko an immediate sense of what happeneed - namely, Dukat is up to no good - instead of having him feel "a great disturbance in the Force." The Bajoran people would be presented with a choice: do we go her way, the way of hate based on dealing with past tragedies, or do we move on? What better way to see if the Bajorans are really ready for Federation membership? Then, have them reject her, revealing to her that all is lost. THEN the wraiths turn against her, seeing her as useless, and go back to Dukat. Play up the real sense of apocalypse in the Bajorans' minds, then follow it up in the aftermath with the Bajorans questioning their religion, for the good reason that their leader made a pact with Satan! Give the Bajoran First Minister a brief scene where he apologizes to the Federation, after Sisko's death, and Ross on the spot, in a bit of a post war swagger, allows them into the Federation specifically because they went against the Kai. It would actually give us closure on the Occupation, while dealing with questions of religion and the Federation way. This would have been difficult to set up, since so many of these aspects weren't part of the episode coming in, like the pagh wraith cult. Part of this comes from their utter pointlessness of the beginning of the season, where it turns out only one episode, "Treachery," had any relevance to the show's end. Tell me, which would you rather see, Ezri solve *two* pathetic murder mysteries this year, or Bajoran politics a la In The Hands of the Prophets? Part of the problem was also within the war arc itself; Winn and Dukat disappeared for a couple of months, apparently, making their abrupt return a little frustrating to watch. The secret is that What You Leave Behind is about lowest common denominator storytelling. The Prophet subplot wasn't about religion; it was a low-rate cribbing of old stories about alien beings giving the human outsider a new consciousness. I got this feeling of Dave Bowman all during the end Sisko bit. The mumbo-jumbo isn't an endorsement of religion; it's just a half-ass way of having "good" versus "evil" in some battle for all of the marbles. It's completely uncreative. What Behr forgets is that we have no reason to care. Bajor's alien gods have always been treated as sort of second rate. That was the point - they weren't real gods. During his tyranny they became a side show that I could care less about since there wasn't the story of a Winn or Bareil or Shakaar attached to them. Without any relevance to the story of Bajor they too became irrelevant. This episode desperately needed to give us a reason to care. Want a real apocalypse? Go back to The Rapture. Have the locusts, AKA the Dominion, attack Bajor. Establish earlier, back in the Tears of the Prophets, that Weyoun and Co. was working with Dukat and the cult to get the Prophets out of the way, to reopen the wormhole and thus reconnecting the Dominion's empire back together. Thus bringing back the pagh-wraiths has an actual point. I already explored this in my earlier reviews. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it gives tension. Imagine the Female ShapeMistress, having just talked with Odo, turning to Kira and company and telling them not to be smug, since there was a fleet coming through and nothing she could do to stop it before Bajor and maybe more was destroyed. It would have shut up the victory party real fast and created a real sense of urgency, since what we got didn't have it. It would radically alter the episode. To begin with, it would provide a cleaner breaking point for commercials. As it was, it was a mix of good and bad moments; there was no point where I could say, "See, here - if I wanted to split the episode in two, I could do it at this point!" I think, given what's on the page, the moment that they arrive at Cardassia and Kira apprehends the Founder would do this. She could promise doom, knowing that the wormhole was about to reopen. Then cut back to the fire caves, with Winn with a big grin on her face. Flash, To Be Continued... Instead, the Prophet story became a mere B-plot. In terms of pure storytelling it was idiotic; after the war ended, eveything suddenly screeched in an opposite direction to pursue a story focusing on one major character with an ending we could see coming. Imagine if Sisko and company rushed back, on the heels of victory, to stop another disaster. This would prevent the episode from suddenly lagging after the war ended, going to Vic's and such. End the ENTIRE plot, then worry about the denouement. Plus, it was so badly done. It's amazing - DS9 in about a year has already established for itself a series of cliches about how to do these things, with red contact lenses and such. We had a cheesy battle, that ended, in all things, with Sisko pushing Dukat in to get rid of a BOOK. Sisko, set up to be the Emissary, to stop a book? Sisko, the outsider brought in to throw a book over a cliff! You mean to tell me, that, after the Emissary talk, that's IT??? HOW STUPID!!! This wasn't the only example of lowest common denominator storytelling that we got. The end of the Dominion War felt much of the same way. I've already mentioned how much of the space battle felt nothing more than obligatory. So did the entire end of the war. Why, pray tell, did the Dominion withdraw just in time for the finale? If they knew the wormhole was about to reopen, it would have a real reason to do it: to lure the allies into Cardassia as part of a trap. As it was, it just happened. Likewise, the Founder's surrender just happened. Why did she quit? Oh, Odo linked with her! How completely wasted this opportunity was. Imagine Odo, walking next to the Changeling, discussing the real problems with the Federation, but also the real sense of hope. Discuss how he, an outsider, fell in love with a solid. Give us a real conversation. Then give us Bashir, with Sisko's endorsement, expousing everything good about the Federation, offering the cure because he WANTS to. As it was, good didn't triumph. Odo, it looks like, sorta hijacked the cure and gave it to her! It was one blown example after another. Damar's death was an utter waste. At least make it symbolic - he's not a real person, he's part of a story, so use his death to mean something! I did like the irony of the Founder being caught because she developed such a bloodlust that she left her base undefended, including leaving the door open as Jem'Hadar shot seemingly loyal Cardassians. I also liked how, as the situation neared, the Founder became more angry, nearly choking Broca, yet also more caring for Weyoun. Many of you are going to be mad because I did not appreciate the simple sentimentality of the episode. That's not true. I would have enjoyed the Vic scene, had it only come toward the real end, not the faux end. I'm not here to nitpick; the choice of the song "The Way You Look Tonight" was completely inappropriate as a farewell song and seemingly only done for the line "the wrinkle in your nose" for Kira, but I don't dislike the scene because of that. I can be a sentimental guy. The Odo farewell scenes, first with Quark and then with Kira, were dead on the mark. The final shot was simply breathtaking. It seems it was only these things that Behr and Beimler could take seriously. This episode had sentimentality, but no weight, a sense of closure but not a sense of thematic closure. Sisko's "death" was nothing short of cheeky, not only because of its cliched nature, but because it wasn't a death at all! What a cheat! He'll be back! Imagine a return to the themes of The Visitor, which Sisko still remembered. Sisko is in the wormhole. He can't return, because quite frankly he is dead and has no body to return to. He knows he can't come back. Sarah asks if he wants to return momentarily, to say farewell. He doesn't want to, because he remembers what Jake did the last time he got stuck in the wormhole. So, we have Sisko making a real decision, a controversial one, as his last act, instead of some silly speech to Kasidy (why not Jake?). That's the meatiness this episode needed. The episode needed more of that. We got that with Odo, sacrificing love to preach to his people. But,all in all, the sheer sloppiness of What You Leave Behind makes me wonder why it went through so many drafts. It's a raw, unformed, and lazy idea. It simply ends the war because it is the last episode, and ends the Emissary plot because it is the last episode. There are no ideas behind. That's the fundamental problem. All Good Things was a mess with its time travel, but at least it asked what humans must do to think beyond ourselves. This... what did this do? I'm not asking for some grand statement on human nature, but I am asking that the themes of the show be analyzed and treated. Let's look on the bright side: it's nowhere near as bad as The Phantom Menace. Some short takes: -About the only scene that I could tell WASN't reused was the scene of ships around Cardassia. I suspect a lot of those men getting blown up were taken from Star Trek 6. -Vic cheats at cards! -Behr was very noticeable in the lounge scene - he's the guy with sunglasses. - The matte of the fire cave was nice, as was the matte of a destroyed Cardassia. - Perhaps the episode's two highlights were Sisko and Ross pouring out their bloodwine and Garak lamenting the fate - and the uncertain future - of his people. - I'm a little disappointed that Kira did not remain in Starfleet, though seeing her toss the baseball was great - Mila's death, tossed down the stairs, was surprisingly effective. - OK, don't think of Return of the Jedi when Kira took off the mask, capiche? - I realize that Morn need not talk, but we needed a scene where he ALMOST does. It was there, but cut... Rating: C That does it for my Deep Space Nine reviews. Perhaps the best part about it ending means you won't have to listen to me talk about it. :) Thanks for your readership; let's hope Voyager's relatively strong season improves upon itself even more next year. | |
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